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An Infinite BS REDO (A Seriously Major Project) - Not Just a Joke Game

"LET US DO THINGS PROPERLY" - Andrew Ryan

Thought : A City Floating *IN* Lake Michigan would have been as Amazing to 1893.

Using the MMORPG's capabilities, a REDO of Infinite BS to BE the Steampunk Dystopia it should have been ...

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Consider the FUN To be Had Embracing Infinite BS's Bad Science Fantasy to Present Numerous Amusing/Weird/Disturbing ALTERNATES.

The MMORPG's Player's Creation Mechanism and Asset Reuse system being used to create all manner of the different dimensions in all their infinite diversity.

Simultaneously : Let's 'Have It Done Properly' - Closing up all the bad-fantasy Zeppelin-sized holes in the history/logic/storytelling ... ( at least make the Fantasy consistent and not 'do what the plot needs' ...)

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"Splicer Town" :

For the Remake :

Columbia full of Creepy 'Merged' Mutants ( the way it was originally intended to be )

Tech Shit(tm) is Steampunked ( and a bit more functional ) -- AND FOR THE WEAPONS

Gas lighting is much neater looking ( and darker even with those early quite dim electric lights )

BALLOONS !! ( especially for the Big Open City as 'jump' targets ...)

Cannibalism ?? ( Rhymes with "Insanity" )

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Splicers For Columbia (Concept) - For REDO :

"The Merged" Caused by the Use of Quantum Technology in Columbia - An Idea of Something to parallel the "Shock" of the "Bio" in the earlier games.

All of Columbia Floated - presumably with "Particles" being 'stuck' connected/'entangled' with other cross-dimensional particles.

That would then start affecting the People in Columbia - 'messing them up' with their inter-dimensional counterparts - presumably driving many inhabitants insane (and violent).

Then you would, as the Player, have a reason to slaughter them, and Columbia itself having its Police to handle that problem as well ( and also be a Player's target ).

Whether it would be the 'shifting scenes' of more than just people as we saw in the earlier Trailers - possibly accentuated by Booker #122 and Elizabeth's odd dimension-crossing existence causing far more strangeness FOR THEM.

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Headline In 1890 "Territorial Blotter" :

Man Drowned at Baptism - Woman Charged for Murder - Hanging Judge to Sit Case

Strange Testimony - "There was a whole crowd of them, but they disappeared real quick once the murder was committed ..."

Local Preacher calls for additional charge of Blasphemy and Witchcraft - Locals Agree. Mob burns corpse after the Hanging.

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Speculative Fiction About What The REST Of The World Would Do With 'Quantumz' :

The Gibraltar Dam turning the Mediterranean Sea into a lake, lowered to have more land and watering the Sahara.

Tour cruises to Saturn, A Hotel on Titan

Time Cops ( like the ones who killed those criminal meddlers, the Luteces )

France Is First to Get To Jupiter

German Death Rays (and Tesla To The Rescue)

A Flying Dreadnought Arms Race

Etc ...

We can go all 'Space 1889'^[1] on History ...

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Plausibility in Response to Quantumz :

There should be an Assumption about 'the Rest of the World' the game is set in being the same as Our World.

Similar events and technology and people ( NOT some 'Wizard of Oz' alternate Universe/Fantasyland )

Otherwise any point about the Society the game is trying to make about it : the Fragility of Society, Human Nature, etc ... Its relevance to anything real - to the Player - can be quickly lost .

(( The writers of Infinite BS didn't much care about such things, and took BioShock into Lazy Hack Bad Fantasyland ))

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Lets Have The BioShock : Infinite The Players Never Got

Let's Correct the Bullshit, And Make An Infinite REDO More Of What It SHOULD Have Been :

Use the MMORPG Tools/Processes/People to REDO Infinite BS into what it should have been (AND BETTER). It still can be Fantasy, but not the half-arsed 'Explaining the Fake BS' done in the original game.

WHAT THEY DIDN'T DO ... It very well could have been a FAR Better game. It is actually sad to see Levine do all those interviews/promotional-spiels about ALL what he planned/wanted to do in Infinite BS ( so much shown was on early trailers and demos at Electronic Entertainment Expos ), but he never delivered. There are rumors that the WHOLE project quite late was in a mess, and the last year or so they had to largely Rewrite and Redesign the game, throwing previous work together into a disjoint smaller game ( and throwing out ALOT of good/interesting stuff ), RESULTING in that forgettable scatalogical plot and hokey Player experience.

Elizabeth ( in the earlier plots ) was going to manipulate the 'Quantumz' quite a bit more, with many Player choices which shaped the game situation -- more than JUST a linear game sequence with YOU choice-lessly Jumping-Through-Tears to forward the plot. They chopped Tears back to materializing canned/static helper things (repeatedly) in the big staged-gun-battles. Tears were reduced to mere props, when they should have been an important ACTIVE element of the game.

A game with Plot/Story shaped by the Player takes alot of development Skill/Talent/Effort to do -- So therefore such was eliminated/avoided in Infinite BS. That improvement CAN be added properly in the MMORPG -- by Players who have Skill, Talent and are willing to go to the Effort. A REDO of Infinite could be done using the MMORPG tools/methods.

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REDO INFINITE AS "QUANTUM SHOCK" :

Modify it with Quantum Crystals or something instead of some illogical ADAM-based explanation ( not actually even given in the Original Infinite BS Game )

Make the REDO all more logical, and explain the processes/events/personalities/society involved

Results could be largely the same storywise, but now NOT being the half-assed borrowing of stuff from previous games.

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Combat Improvements - that's obvious (Restore the combat goodness from the previous Rapture games).

In Infinite BS, The Players got alot of Fancy 'Pretty' Gianormous Terrain, which really mattered little to the gameplay. A huge potential was lost there ( which CAN BE reclaimed ).

A Bigger element could be made of the story/scenes of that Terrorist 'Vox' faction in Columbia. It appears they downplayed significantly ( It not being Politically Correct^[2] to show Anti-Establishment terrorists in a bad light ). An Anarchist element WAS part of that historic 'America' the writers claim the game was about. The Player was possibly going to 'take a side' ( Murderous Founder vs Murderous Terrorist ) which would have been rather controversial ( Too controversial it seems for Levine, who had claimed something about "Pushing the Envelope" ). It is rather hard to contrive a story about a "Bomb Throwing Anarchist With A Heart"^[3], and not set off 'red flags' in the current "sane-part of" our society.

Let's have more background, more backstory that makes sense, timelines that make sense, less Faux-Science/Faux-History/Faux-Religion/Faux-Americanism, more Player interaction, etc ... Even if it is still Fantasy, it can be vastly improved.

The interactive BIG cityscape level ( with a much more complex Skyline interaction ) got Big Wows at the trade shows and 'Trailer' promotions. But it turned out to be just a Bait-and-Switch tactic (( a Fraud really, which game companies seem to do alot these days )). That element could be added back as a significant part of the REDO game - AND THEN BE DONE RIGHT.

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NO PATHS BLOCKED and all "Staged Scenes" ( still with Linear nature as a game ) being Interactive Using the MMORPG mechanisms.

Players, if they 'Bit Off more than they could Chew' would have many 'GAMEOVER moments, and would learn what they could handle ( BUT it would be THEIR "CHOICE" ).

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Operation 'Reginald' - Comstock's Plan to exterminate the Vox and all their supporters.

" Columbia must be a Clean Place to be Worthy. " - Father Jeremiah Comstock

Later would be a plan to dispose of The Untermenschen who contaminate his Holy Ark.

(( Of course general incompetence is evident when the Columbia Police State was shown more than enough to have exterminated the Vox years before. ))

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The REDO will have those places The_Untermenschen

Look At ALL THAT "Under The Streets" Volume To Populate With the Slave Troglodytes

Add '''More''' which explains how Columbia actually Operated.

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Mentally ill people in Columbia Rapture ? ( Sorry, Libertarianism only goes so far - idiots 'acting out' impacting others is where sane people 'draw the line'. )

For Columbia ?

'Attic Denziens' ( mini vignette for Lizzie ?? ) Effectively, WASN'T THAT WHAT Comstock did to Lizzie ?

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LOTS OF NIFTY DETAILS WE COULD KEEP :

Interactivity MMORPG Style ...

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OTHERS WIULL BE GOING BYE BYE ... :

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That Reminds Me : Shouldn't Corpses in Columbia Have Floated Too ? :

Three dimensional fighting was talked about ( Levine jiving the customers in some interview ) -- WELL why not then '3D' movement in the MMORPG ??

Inhabitantys to have Angel Wings with a little blue glowey 'orb' thing ??? Mechanical bat wings ( but with white feathers glued on, and a few falling off as you fly ). Now "Fly Fuel" as a commodity you have to restore as a sub-mission ( called "Holy Oil", which is about as 'holy' as the Drill Fuel in BS2 was ). Yes, and Floaty Corpses(tm) ( because of those blue glowey belt things all the inhabitants wore ). THAT might've been a real game, no ?

Easy reason Infinite BS wasn't the 3 dimensional game it might have been : The limitations of the Game Engine they used, and the not quite innovative way they then used it ( Oh Yes Ken, it was something "We Never Saw Before" ... What Bull Shit ).

Columbia is open to the Sky, so what's to keep Players from flying out of the rather constricting level maps ? ( You'd need bigger maps too for the extended city ).

What is then to keep you from bypassing the usual lame Maze restrictions, which are there in their game to force your Linear Path through all the staged events ? The 'Skyhook' hopping and jumping was kept to only very limited locations ( and did NOT even offer consistent/versatile use within the existing terrain ).

Maybe YOU could fly-navigate, but the similarly flying NPCs you might fight would need some much more sophisticated '3D' navigation/tactics AI to be programmed into them ( something likely beyond those developers' abilities ). Add a need for lots of extra 'fly'/crash animations/interactions.

When did that 'Religion' fakery come into that written plot ??? - On the 2nd/3rd rewrite ?

Rewrites ... Wasting so much time/effort, there was NOT much time/money left with Ken & Co being so far behind in the schedule ? (( No, sorry, there was Not really any Valid excuse for that garbage. ))

Even the much-simpler citywide Skyhook/Skyline stuff was Nerfed - giving you those dim circular canned paths within the levels ( which were piss-poor compared to that Trailer Skyline had showed ). (( BTW, did they KNOW they could NOT deliver that stuff BEFORE they showed those promotional Trailers ???????????? Was is a case of BAIT AND SWITCH Fraud ?? ... BUT BUT BUT, All the companies DO It ... Yeah ... NO. )) It perhaps demonstrates how badly they misjudged what their capabilities were with the Game Engine they had chosen.

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Let There Be Creepy Evil Death :

H.H. Holmes ( of "Devil in the White City" fame ) comes to Rapture ( Escapes Columbia ^[4] ) - Apparently HE is another one of those god-like but bored Luteces' toys.

Elizabeth lodges in his 'Murder Hotel' in Rapture/Columbia - With ensuing Terror and Fatal results ( But see 'she' can come back to life - So can go through the horror over and over ... It is Character Building, you see ... )

A fun Romp through the Mind of a Mass Murderer ( not much different than Elizabeth's mind, or Bookers ... H H Holmes, in some twisted way, Thought HE was a 'god' too ... )

(( Yes, Real History - It can be even creepier and more terrible than anything some bunch of lame fantasy game writers can come up with . ))

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The Columbia That Never Was :

http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/BioShock_Infinite_Removed_Content

Alot of details shown about game design that were too hard to produce, with the 'turning away from' the more historic and logical setting ( Would showing more reality have been Politically Incorrect ?? -- Despite all that alleged 'edgy nature' Levine spieled about for the game. )

Instead : Resulted^[5] in a "lipservice" watered down portrayal of racism, strawman restrictive religion, virtually nonexistent antisemitism ( a popular thing in those days ), boutique nationalism, cartoonish laissez-faire-isms. Remember, that "Edgey" was just alot of sales jive.

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SKYLINE - THE GAME WE WANTED :

A whole separate 'Skyline' playing mode had great potential, but I think they quickly had to abandon it once they figured out that the Game Engine they were using could NOT do it, or work for many of their target customer's hardware ( ie- Consoles ) which they needed for sufficient game sales $$$ ( ie- the Consoles market ).

It does make me wonder how early they knew that, and IF they misleadingly presented it in the early Promotional Trailers KNOWING it wouldn't be in the Published game.

Imagine the combat 'arena' segments of Infinite BS instead being in a Huge cityscape, which after the combat the Player returns to the linear plot sequence ( almost a Puzzle itself for them to get back to ).

I found the Loop of Track they so often had in the Combat Arena level segments very very Dim, for something allegedly to be a primary transport system in Columbia. It shows how screwed up and desperate the game production had gotten to have to limit key game elements to that.

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Vox Not Professionals :

Infinite BS should have the Vox be OBCVIOUSLY completely incompetent and half-assed - thus being less predictable and klutzy - making them harder to hit (or predict their actions). Showing many of them wearing paramilitary gear was ludicrous, but took less effort making that game.

Them shooting each other by accident would have lessened the repetitiveness ...

Them being a different opponent ( their 'feel' ) from the Police/Soldiers : THAT might have been done far better.

They also could have had more interesting actions/tactics ( the original gamemakers would have to 'Choreographing every bit of it' ) - far more work for them ( to NOT be as repetitively similar to the games 'Cops' NPCs ) than the quiet limited combat scripting the game already used. Limited Animation game memory space was an issue. The MMORPG REDO would have much more capacity ( and far more talent and time to make improvements ) ...

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QuantumPunk ? ... Not Really ( "BSPunk" In Place of That - Which Fits Infinite BS Better ) :

PlantationPunk has alot going for it ( Cultist-Faux-Religion Punk ... ).

Infinite BS had some very strange ideas about being 'America 1900'. It leads me to question/notice how much real social ills they mostly dodged -- out of their simple Cowardice ( when Levine touts/pretends 'Controversy' ).

(( Milque-ToastPunk )). Infinite BS "Straw-manned" their way through using the game's adversarial setting : Cult Religion, an Antebellum Plantation mentality, Faux-Science strangeness, a Police State which the East German Commies would have vomited at as excessive and stupid ...

Making believe 'it means something', when it was 'lightly sugared pablum' - Sorry Fanbois, it is CRAP^[6].

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Alternate Plot Infinite - With 50 % Less Bullshit :

It might've been better if the game setting was to be a religious schism/faction fight, and no longer an over-tweaked class struggle issue being the source of friction ( and that poorly contrived blast-fest game scenario with that farcical 'rebellion' ).

Perhaps, due to Fink's amazing technological advancements ( Fantasy make it happen ), the Work and Services done by the 'lower orders' is to be done by new Automatons. With that, Comstock and his cronies just want to drop the ex-serfs/slaves 'over the side' to be rid of them ( or some strange cultist human sacrifice might be in order ... ) Some significant portion of the 'white' population doesn't like that inhuman idea, and the fighting and fun begins.

Police States have no problem oppressing people, and ruthlessly eliminating violent opponents. There is substantial firepower in evidence in Columbia -- Not what you would find with a police force found in any typical American city/town at that time (( But remember - "THIS is America !! Sayeth the writers" -- All in all, a whole LOT of BS was shoveled out )).

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Driving Miss Daisy To Mass Murder :

Daisy Fitzroy is Comstock's illegitimate daughter via an Indian from his Frontier past, and he rejects her out of Racism ( for not being White ), and an embarrassment for 'the Prophet' morally. Comstock bungles having Daisy_Fitzroy killed. Hatred grows and consumes them both.

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The Rewind ... :

So now that we've ( in the MMORPG ) disposed of all the mis-used Quantum crap ( fake/non-sensical/facade 'science' ) which Infinite BS WAS half-arsedly based upon, What is left to us ? :

Lighter-than-Air - Balloonistic technology - Helium/Hydrogen/Hot-air buoyancy ... Flotation ( lighter than air ) cells have to be distributed to minimize buoyancy force stresses - Including 'Ballast tanks' to adjust altitude and trim. Sorry, it WONT be with balloons weirdly put on the BOTTOM of the structure. Ignorance of the Basic Laws of Physics is no defense ( and is/was actually downright Lame-Assed(tm) shoddy effort. )

The Big Floating Buildings/City ? Maybe if they are built like real Zeppelins with lightweight EVERYTHING Pix. Buildings made out of the equivalent of Styrofoam ( if you want brickwork ), and light metals and screening (chicken) wire, and thin veneers.

Usual issues with large lightweight constructions is structural problems from Wind Shear, which historically destroyed more than one famous Airship and proved their limitations ( And a huge 'city' structure will be subjected to many times the forces those were. ) The whole thing (the Floaty city) needs to be super lightweight, so the structural support members have to be quite thin.

Surfaces catch the wind, and large surfaces generate huge forces which act upon the structure. Any kind of bending usually twists and deforms the structure, leading to collapse and destruction. The longer and more stringy/spread out the structure is, the far worse it gets ( leverage works against you ).

Materials line Carbon fiber/Nanotubes for tensile strength ??? ... would help ( though in real life those things HAVE TO BE encased in an epoxy matrix that greatly increases its weight, making the result only a few times stronger that the same amount of Steel/Aluminum/Magnesium alloys ). Somebody would have to have ( Fantasy 'science' again ) stolen this technology ( the materials and the tools to make/work it ) from some advanced parallel dimension, as even today we have barely begun to use them. Giant spider aliens might be a more realistic alternative for 1900.

Loooong THIN Compression struts ? The thing will have to be extensively guy-wired to keep the structural beams straight every which way (It will make the "Stockholm Telephone Tower" seem 'clean' by comparison ). Completely ready to collapse on only minor failure, with no way out of that ( except magical shit the game writers tried to pass off as 'science' ) ... Hmm, SO Everything will have to be "guy wired" to everything else - embedded/integral - so now the place is one big 'jungle gym'? ( and alot more 'spider' euphemisms ... ).

We never were told what drove Columbia - or what powered it ( They burned QUANTUMZ Bullshit(tm) for Fuel - They had INFINITE supplies of that ... ) It is a wonder Booker didn't complain the whole place smelt of burnt cow paddies. Less independent movement for it then ( Energy - it costs ) ...

The New Sci-Fi Balloonoid Columbia could have sails, and strategically use ground anchors when needed ( still largely at the mercy of the winds ... ).

None of this Scatalogical^[7] distribution of the city into irregular oddly-positioned chunks - one big mass would be better ( and possibly alot more impressive looking ). Controlling it in just one piece would be enough work. Being less spread out and more piled together would help to minimize the shear stresses and wind-affecting surface area ( and less likelihood of pieces eventually smashing together ).

The place will still shimmy and shake ( and rock ) and give people motion sickness ( no matter how well it is stabilized ). People surviving Columbia's alleged high altitude would still be the 'gotcha'. In any case, genius created Medications would be required, or they would have to keep the city to no more than 10000 feet most of the time ( within easy reach of even little balloons with stick of lit dynamite sent up to it by angered surface dwellers ).

Maybe make Columbia a mass of small independently floating sections all flexibly tied together ( If pushed together by random winds, their hard 'living' section will be buffered to withstand the impact forces ). The Big Balloons above will impact before the smaller things slung underneath - Those would have to be Blimp-like instead of rigid to have enough 'give' to cushion sufficiently ( Blimps^[8], largely without rigid internal structure, have lasted the test of time, and been used until the present day because they can be subjected to more severe wind forces and Survive ).

Are you sure you don't want this Columbia to be under the Arctic Ice or Underground ? It would be far simpler ... Assuming you don't want inconsistent magic or really poor fake-science as the basis for your game ( as WAS delivered for Infinite BS ). Maybe an artificial Island ( ... 'floating' ) ??? OR On top of a remote Mountain ? Would it really change that cockamamie plot all that much ???

A microcosm without explanation of how that microcosm can exist ( when they went to such pains to thoroughly explain the bullshit fake-science ). A Pirate City -- stealing what it needs, enslaving unfortunate people, technology and goods stolen through Tears ( now just all taken/stolen from the ground since the problematic Quantum Bullshit is GONE ). Police state, manipulative delusional people, plenty of wrongness to easily warrant the Player turning into a mass murderer, for 'the right reasons'.

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Rebuilding Columbia Properly :

Using the MMORPG Tools and their own Will and Creativity, Players will be able to 'Beat The Stupid' out of that Infinite BS game's lame Story/Props/Mis-Assumptions/Faux-Science/Subpar-Combat. A much better game being totally REDONE will result.

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Infinite Infinity (Infinite BS Redone Using the MMORPGs Mechanisms) :

Now that they would have the game scenery Assets, they can stage a few new things for 'parallel universes'.

All characters wear Clown outfits ( Clown Mode ). ( Lots of Customization of copurse )

A rival parallel Columbia ( all textures shifted to black/dark 'bad guy' motif ) has an Air-to-Air battle with this Columbia.

Skyline races (rebuild the Skyline to be what was shown in the old trailers which they then abandoned ( when they couldn't make it work for real ). MP Gladiatorial Combat on Skylines ...

Change all the dialogues ( and Vox-o-phones ) to be funny voices ( Helium is cheap and so is audio processing ) or change it to be all current teenage slang "Dude, it is that False Shepard !! Lets cap his ass !!!".

Big Daddies ( or Home Defense Program Testers ) pour through a Tear and take over Columbia - Basically a Turkey Shoot ( then Sinclair Salvages Columbia for his Scrap Business and gets numerous 'volunteers for Fontaine Futuristics or his OWN Splicer Army ).

Heck, they could probably wring 3 more games out of this content that would be more intriguing/interesting than that first 'Columbia' one. Booker goes Postal. Play as Songbird ( in BS2 you were a BD ), have actual 1900 social issues without the quantum pixie dust, etc...

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(Song) Downward Faux-Christian Soldier - Plunging To The Ground, A Heap of Pagan Bricks, Pounded to Dust By The Lord ..." :

'Hubris' ( Arrogant/Excessive Pride ) is the Worst of the Sins ...

Unfortunately, the Luteces couldn't make an 'Aether Perambulator', and their Quantumz Particles were unstable and began to implode, resulting in whole sections of Columbia plunging groundward one by one, their inhabitants Screaming in Terror all the way down ( Even German Zeppelin crews were given cyanide capsules for this contingency - TRUE FACT ).

"The Bigger the Floaty thing is, the Harder it Falls" ( Booker's comment ... )

Many 'Teaching Moments' can be created to illustrate similar examples of this Concept.

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EXAMPLE IDEAZ :

A scene of Comstock drinking the blood of Columbia's lower-class inhabitants ( How allegorical !!! )

(( Now we have a REAL reason why all those stereotyped Minorities and Immigrants are allowed to be present -- their Tasty Tastey Blood !!!! But no Italians ... too much Garlic ))

The corpses of the dead unfortunates being fed into Fink's Mfg Sausage making machines, and the expeditions done to continually obtain new 'livestock'.

Too Swiftian (google it) for the average computer game player ... Yeah probably.

Such Opportunities Were Lost ...

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IDEA : We could have : All kinds of Creepy Tears Peeking into Alternate Dimensions ( even have Player Contests creating new ones )

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Columbia Coulda Been 'Levitated' As A Giant Kite :

Makes more sense, is more plausible, than some fake 'sciencey' Quantumz BS.

As long as the wind kept blowing - maybe have it sitting up in the JetStream ?? 12 km up ... so that's not too bad ( just as likely as people living at 15000-25000 feet -- but why not one more reality like Asphyxia to ignore ? )

Oops need a 'string' to the ground !!!! STRING THEORY !!!! YAAAAAYYYYYY!!!! ( Why not ? )

Could even have "Columbia" act like a Glider ... Or all the vehicles not sliding along cables would be gliders ... Booker jumping about -- giant slingshots/catapults might work ...

Maybe Kite Columbia towed by a heavy giant train/boat on enormous tracks around the US ??? OR Circling The Earth ?

But Oops no trans-dimensional holes any more -- But that's a good thing, because it was alot of confusing made-up fantasy BS anyway. ( Speaking of Trans-whatever holes - Elizabeth CAN have her Lobotomy as part of the story - so we can have all the delusional crap - But it is now just in his/her mind -- Hehe - "Trans-Dementia". )

That's The Ticket !!! ( Ticket to 1893 Exposition )

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Better Analysis :

So what should WE conclude from Infinite BS ??? Elizabeth is her Father's (either one) Daughter ... Evil. Damaged. A murderer, Selfish, Deluded, Insane(?).

The Story could have been : Like Baron Frankenstein, the Luteces created a Monster when trying to play god, which would eventually destroy them. ( Another missed plot, with the illogical quantumz technicalities reduced to just story 'details' as they SHOULD have been ).

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Father Comstock's Tear Contact To Rapture - WAS He A Stooge for Sofia Lamb ?? :

Did he help organize 'punishment (we saw) for "Unbelievers" ?? ( Did 'Collectivist' Sofia even NEED assistance there ? )

They had LONG Heart-to-Heart talks about how difficult it was to handle people who "Just didn't get it", and who 'fought' against what was 'Best' for them ?

"The Comstock-Lamb Letters" - So that 'Church of the Lamb' thing was an emulation of what Comstock had first done ??? (( *** Actually interesting : THAT same (BS2) idea was basically recycled into Infinite BS -- Yet more simple regurgitation, when Kennyboi failed producing 'new' ideas for the Infinite BS game )).

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Quantum This Kennyboy :

One possible Idea for Infinite BS could have been having lots of story outcomes -- AFTER ALL, the whole ESSENCE of Quantum Theory is the in-determinant state and different outcomes upon being 'observed' ( as in replayed - something the game had little opportunity for ). And NOT just a few 'canned' endings like the previous BioShock games, but significantly different play throughout the WHOLE game. It is not something that is easy to do correctly, it is quite difficult to make happen even when it is designed for.

So maybe a (MMORPG Tool facilitated) REDO to make the game Infinitely-Less-BS, having all kinds of weird endings ( and Middles - them being their own 'state' resolutions too ). This, to *FINALLY* meet the whole 'quantum' concept's OBVIOUS POTENTIAL ( instead of a steaming pile ).

You can add lots of inconsequential variation Fluff throughout the game ( easy, but costs to do ).

There were hints of some fluff aspects being intended in Infinite BS ( that Flying vs Caged stuff ), but whatever it was to be it added up to nothing.

Find the talk about randomizing all kinds of game elements for replay

Levine & Co couldn't really have done this anyway for Infinite BS because they wasted so much resources on rewrites and various messups ( decoherence in the whole project ), so much that they couldn't deliver properly on a simple LINEAR plot. Anyway, You wouldn't get anywhere near as many result possibilities as you would NEED to do it right ( though with $200 million spent you'd think they might have done alot better -- BUT that ship has sailed and sank ).

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AN ANSWER :

Columbia (and all that) is (Rapture Citizen) Elizabeth Comstock's Splicer-hallucination - After partaking of so many of Sander Cohen's Plasmid "cocktails". How else do you explain all the weird fantasy stuff you saw there in that bizarro-land game ? Elizabeth was 'Flying High', and so saw a crazy flying city. SOOO SIMPLE.

"The Doubling" is : She dreams she is Booker who is having the Dream.

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Alternate Universe Elizabeths :

The "Many Elizabeths Hypothesis"^[9] ??

One with a hook in place of a hand ... a missing foot ... Pegleg - makes dancing at the Battleship Bay Beach a bit less frolicsome.

A Head in a Bell Jar ... ( Kept alive in a creepy B monster movie way. )

Booker ( now also a dimensional god ) with a hook for a hand ( or a Fink Mfg. Robotic hand - More likely a Robotic Little Sister hand stolen from McClendon Robotics ).

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Here's an Idea : Use this MMORPG Mechanism and Tools to do Columbia "The Way It Should Have Been" :

The MMORPGs system is modular, and many of the same game mechanics apply, many of the same Assets can be reused/shared/slightly-modified, for that period look.

For people who want to play in that Fantasy Floating City, they can do it exclusively ( We wont fake it as NOT being Fantasy or Pretending there is any real Science involved. ) Different periods of Columbia presented : Pre-Secession, Comstock-Run/Pre-Booker, Booker Mayhem/Vox Uprising, The Hello Kitty-Purple Unicorn-Harry Potty Continuum ( the 'stock' game plot ).

For Players who 'just want to visit', it could be a Splicer Delusion they can walk around in and encounter whatever mayhem is happening there ( and various extremely odd overlap/cross-overs ).

Scenarios ? Nice peaceful 'proper' part of the city, a downtrodden slum/slave pen, a Vox controlled area, Mistreating the Serfs the good ole American way, the wacky 1900 American olde-fashion religion ...

Tears can introduce all kinds of interesting weirdness ( the types you see in dreams/delusions ) - now no longer the 'generic' battle situation ones they degenerated into ( The Promo Trailers showed a Much Better game, which unfortunately they were unable to deliver ). Idea - to sandbox the whole place, have random spawns and scenes ( and decent Tears ), open paths for your own adventure ( You don't have to be led by a ring through your nose like the original ).

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Art_Deco COLUMBIA - YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT !!!!

You could twist it around and make it an Art_Deco floating cityscape. Have Comstock LOGICALLY 'look into the future' to select a style for Columbia that wasn't just EXACTLY THE SAME as the whole rest of the 1893 Exposition. That would make alot of sense.

MAYBE just for fun (I suppose) and substitute Sander Cohen for Comstock ( which would make Booker ... ). That ridiculously huge 'Angel' Statue could be a giant Big Daddy ( Nah, you know it would be Sander Cohen's face ... ). Much fun could be had by all.

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Better is Better :

Infinite BS demonstrated that "Bigger IS NOT Always Better".

A far better story would have been : of poor little 'Holy' Columbia, once the 'Quantum Whatever' was let loose on the World, floated off by itself, and really was a technological backwater in the happening Buck-Rogers-sort of 'Rest of the World'. THEN a weird cobbled together set of things there could be explained merely as 'castoffs' of that larger (more capable) technological World. AND then the weird mentally-ill plot could proceed -- still allowed to be within its delusional microcosm.

--- --- ---

Remake of Infinite:BS ( Using the MMORPG Engine ) = Now with INFINITE Improvements !!! :

Get rid of the "One path to lead them all, same-old obstacles to block and in one plot to bind them"

Have that old old E3 trailer's Columbia GOOD Skyline and Cityscape Flythrough action !!!! ( to massively improve the game ... ) Improved engine performance now allows the huge map they couldn't do in the original (2013).

Randomized/multiple plot Paths, Scenes, Weapons, Props, Opponent Mobs,

Put back in the 'special action' Big Tear Scenes ( and not those stupid generic 'battle arena' Tears ). Player Asset Creation can generate untold numbers of interesting/weird/disturbing/amusing shit to pull from elsewhere in the Universe

Add back that abandoned idea of having 'moral choices' that you can decide to make, and have 'doing the right thing' COST YOU. 50 ( that's right *FIFTY* ) different endings - Bad/Good/Stupid/GAMEOVER/Evil/Twisted/Freaky/Cute/Sad/Boring/Weird/Absurd/Etc...

Get rid of the stooopid Gearz - "I have my magic pants on, that makes machines give me more money". Replace with something a bit logical.

Less Manic_Magpie loot searching ( Why do many people in Columbia throw away money ? ) Lets have more interesting things to find, too. Half-eaten Foodstuffs in the trash probably shouldn't serve as 'loot'.

Proper AI - 'bystander' NPCs that run in terror from you, etc ... Better opponent tactics ( can use many of the modular logic from the main MMORPG ).

More variations between weapons ( carry more than 2 to facilitate specialized use ), and have some fricken Alternate Ammo!! Decent Chainsaw.

Crank Springy Leg devices^[10] to help you jump ( real gear and not that fantasy magnetic bullshit that was so dim ).

The Giant Pigeon itself could have been a mechanical Spring-Heeled Jack ( ineptly trundling after Booker and inevitably going over an ledge on a one way trip to the ground ). Sorry, big flapping wings do NOT work unless the 'bird' is absurdly light ( and thus no real unvanquishable 'menace', and only a fun/easy shooting target ).

Tesla Technology ( ditch that "Quantumz" buzzword-abuse/plot-crutch ) If you are going to have techno-babble, then at least have some logical creativity with it.

Show Elizabeth what a REAL Trans-orbital Lobotomy is ...

Theocratic Racist Fascism fine, but don't go making believe this is "evil ole America's" history. Lets have it be a proper police state - and none of this Booker's Endless Shooting Gallery lameness. You have to sneak around cuz sometime there too many of them, and they WILL kill you if you Rambo it. Informers amongst the lower classes ... Yup in this place it would be worse than East Germany.

Weird crap from all times and places pulled through Tears. And not that pathetic limited 'battle' Tear Choice thing - the Tear things are supposed to be EVERYWHERE, all the time. Have alot more use for them - have some Portal like puzzle (except not as hard) that you can figure multiple ways to solve.

Finally - it is all a Splicer's Fever Dream -- So all the Bullshit Fake-Science and weird nonsense history/religion crap has a REALZ explanation - IT IS FANTASY!!! ( "Oh, it was ALL a Dream!!! ... What the HELL did I inject into myself last night????, and WHERE did these Rabbit Ears come from ???" )

In other words NOW do Infinite : BS RIGHT.

--- --- ---

That Woulda Been a Nifty Idea : "Tear Terror" in Columbia :

Have all the people and flags and signs and props all suddenly in a flare of 'quantumz' disturbance ( like lightning-strike suddenness ) become ugly weird and monstrous ... ( exposing the seeping evil throughout Columbia ). Hinted at in one early Promotional Trailer ( and then *FLASH*, never seen again. )

Oops, confidence in the Prophet may wane when all these Hellspawned Weirdnesses keep appearing all over Columbia and frightening the citizens (and serfs) and that's just their bizarre appearance and sound emanations, and NOT all the weird things that would inevitably also come crawling out of Tears. Prophet is NOT IN CONTROL ??? MAYBE WE NEED A NEW LEADER TO PROTECT US !!!! (A new and better revolution - not that pathetic Vox crap that never would have happened in the Police State Columbia was shown to be.)

Oops -- then you also have to do all those game props twice. That's when the game was so measly short, and the 'worlds' levels so small/devoid already. All that floating "off in the distance" stuff didn't have to be detailed much at all - that is why there was so much of it to be seen (apparent quantity, not quality). Maybe that's the same reason for all the oversized signs/statues/etc -- Because you'd need ALOT more of properly (smaller) sized objects (costing $$$ to create) to fill all that now vacant space.

--- --- ---

Have An INFINITELY More Logical Columbia :

Somehow the idea of Columbia could be used in the MMORPG ( at least as an amusing Player Creation ). Columbia was originally to be a level (city section) in BioShock that was owned by an American Scientist - Professor Booker Dewitt ( and his two dogs Robert and Rosalind ) who all had gone quite crazy from over-indulging in ADAM brain boosting ( Booker would talk to the dogs and THEY would talk back !!! ). He imagined this Great Floating City, and had created designs and models of his "the City in the Clouds". He was killed by Ryan's Security men when he attempted to tear out with explosives a section of the city, with which he was planning to do his 'levitation' experiment.

Of course he rants about 'Quantum this' and 'Entanglement that', and 'Particles' and other scientific rubbish ( in a conversation Dr Suchong had called Booker "a F#$%^ng Idiot", and when Booker wouldn't leave, Suchong sent some mini-mutant after him, with an order : "Would You Kindly Snap that F#$%^ng Idiot's Neck !!" )

In this level, the Player plays as a Spider Splicer ( handy for all that '3D' movement and jumping about in Columbia's airy setting ). Some Player Asset Creators might create an 'Elizabeth' sidekick ( Spider Splicer in that dress ... ) with new-and-improved AI scripting to do even more 'clever' antics ( Here Catch Spidey, "DEAD CAT" !!! ). This level was obviously scrapped along with BioShock 3. The 'Columbia' level likely would have been left out anyway, for being too similar to Fort Frolic and its crazy plaster-loving boss Sander Cohen.

This scenario would have been presented in-game as being in Dewitt's ADAM-crazed dreamworld vision. The early trailers for Infinite BS recycles a few scenes showing Columbia's opening out of an undersea scene at Rapture - Unfortunately it is all unreachable until the MMORPG resuscitates its idea once again.

Any Assets created for a Player-remade Columbia could be used/mutated for this dream sequence. Likewise strange shifting realities can happen where the scenery suddenly varies between 1893 style Columbia ( Neo-Classic styles and Disneyland Mainstreet ) and Art_Deco Rapture ( and maybe throw in some Star-Trekish futuristic and various other themes someone is in interested in ). No doubt all kinds of bizarre scenes can be made to glimpse through the many 'Tears'.

--- --- ---

Coulda/Woulda/Shoulda (DLC) :

We coulda had our mass-murdering fun in a Recreation of 1900 Paris -- Think about it :

Not Idealized - Show Reality being not as Nice as Romanticists Imagine

Baguettes flying everywhere in explosions

You 'Beating the Crap' outa Mimes !!!

Frenchmen 'running for their lives' ...

Notre Dame in Ruins ( but alternate ones are pristine or Alternate Universe Weird )

Sniping from the Eiffel Tower

Looting the Louvre

Melting the place into an Impressionist/Daliesque Scene

Flying Barge Racing up the Seine

Napoleon emerges from a Tear

And if you are squeamish, they could have 'Modes' so all your opponents would be Clowns throwing confetti and Selzer water, as you splatter them with paint balloons ( and then there would be the Fartguns !!! ).

A LESS Revenge-Driven Elizabeth/contrary story logic, and more 'fun fun fun' !!!

Alternate Alternates all possible within the MMORPG System's Abilities.

--- --- ---

COLUMBIA THE PIRATE CITY - STEAL FROM THE RICH AND POOR ...

That's how you supply Columbia. Use Tears To Steal Too - Some care needed with that.

Avoid those First World Countries that have huge Artillery and might have their own Quantum Stuff.

--- --- ---

About Perceptions :

Halfway Imaginative Plot : Like "The Emerald City" in Oz ( which in L Frank Baum's original story had the occupants wearing Green-tinged glasses -- the city not really being emerald colored ), that Comstock would have 'Put Something in the Water' to have the Columbian inhabitants SEE his 'holy city/ark' be so grand -- When it was really a shithole. Booker starts commenting about it, but gets his dose/correction soon enough.

Of course, just like game magazine reviewers, there are those who 'Buy Into It' without any extra help ( except 'money changing hands' ).

Example : Police State Columbia, where even the upper classes live in fear of Comstock's Cultists ( 'forced smiles' incase one is 'being watched' by the 'Sin Police' ... )

--- --- ---

Bad Things Just Happen ? :

H G Wells published "War Of The Worlds" in 1898 when Columbia was supposedly floating about. So they ( the Infinite BS writers ) should have taken the opportunity to 'name dropped' this kind of stuff into their fantasy story ( they certainly tried to with everything else ). Oops, all that Quantumz BS activity tipped the Martians off that there was fresh meat on Earth, *OR* a Tear allowed them to access the one thing they needed to make possible their attempt at Planetary Conquest ... Thus The Luteces doomed the Human Race in yet another dimension ... ( Too bad that 'dimensional "god" Elizabeth isn't omniscient (all seeing ) enough to see the Luteces are the real cause of all these horrors, and seek revenge (or justice ?) on THEM ! )

---

The Big Burn - Columbia's Fault Too ? :

By "The Big Burn" ( 1910 Montana and westwards ) conflagration's end more than 3 million acres had burned. They (the game writers) liked trying to interweave events of Columbia with World history ( frequently quite absurdly done ), so why not the following :

Columbia's route path, that strange map in their 'Lighthouse' (Pilgrimage ?) rocket-whacha-ma-callit, crosses the Southern Rockies, but with Teddy Roosevelt coming after them, they probably would want to randomize their path a bit. So was it Burning Crap(tm) falling from Columbia ( had to be big stuff or otherwise it would burnout with that distance down to the ground ) causing this fire ? A mishap with the city dump ( literally dumping ... and smoldering rubbish ) perhaps ? Discarded cigarettes and cigars and the odd lost pipe causing long smoldering fires after mixing with the trash ??? Was is some Spent Vigor bottles landing and acting like magnifying glasses ?? Some confiscated bootlegger's 'Still' being disposed of ???

SO now Smokey The Bear^[11] was after Columbia. He would be their most terribly enemy yet ... ( He would shout "ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES !!!" as he swung his shovel and crushed Songbirds head. And that was only for starters ... ) One swipe of those paws can break a humans back. Exploding picnic baskets !! Such Mayhem as that would be unleashed.

--- --- ---

SteamPunk Science In Infinite Columbia

Tesla Coil Technology - You Would Think This Would Rather Have Been More in Ryan's Electrical Technological Area ... :

Has Potential ( Hehe, an EE^[12] joke... ) for certain things/uses and often absolutely useless/impractical for others ( Unfortunately WATER doesn't like Electromagnetic Waves ).

Applied to Columbia :

With the BS (excremental) way the later writers applied 'Quantum' everything in Infinite, it might better have been labeled "Tesla" or "Fortified Steam" ( a SteamPunk term ) with just as much story-wise 'reality' in it ( read as "Fantasy" pseudo-science ... crutch of the imagination-impaired/lazy gamemakers ). No need for jumping dimensions, just use old fashioned 'Take Action And Solve the Problem'.

In real Science Fiction the stories are actually about the effects of Technology Advances/Changes on Society and the Individual/People and their World, rather than technical details.

--- --- ---

So Lets FIX the Story a Bit :

Booker now Born 1864 ( so is 10 years older )

Now able to mix with them Injuns - Before they all got wiped out ( or were Reservation'd ) in The West

Now Booker is 26 at time of (1890) Wounded Knee :

MUCH more likely to be able to BE in the Army ( rather than that ridiculous age of 16 of Booker's )

Soon afterward married and able to support a wife and child ( the date required for a non-Lolita Elizabeth in 1912 ) -- Rather than gamestory Booker being an 18 year old ex-army (AWOL?) drifter.

Best to move Lutece's work YEARS earlier to have those 'Tears' ready for Comstock's 'prophesizing' ( to get Comstock his reputation/devise his scams to become a cult leader ), and to develop FloatyShit(tm) for it to be more than just writerz 'smokin somethin'.

Preacherman Comstock "The Prophet" is near 30 by 1893 - and fully Prophet'd up

1892 - To talk to US Congress ( Congress wasn't even in session til March 4, 1893, so this 'funding' has to get done in the PREVIOUS Session ). The original story kindof squeezes the time interval between Wounded Knee, DON'T IT ????? Mebbe, he was barbaric in a different EARLIER Indian Massacre ??? ( Plenty to choose from ), OR the 'baptism' thing happened earlier and the Comstock quantum split happened alot earlier, THUS eliminating the problematic timing .

In any case, the US Government is running the 'Columbia' show. ( The 'City' is also a fraction of the size of Comstock's later weird cult haven. )

Adjustments for Booker's time : More time allowed to build up 'Booker' with those thuggish abilities within time to work for the Pinkertons as a Strikebreaker ( basically work which is : Being-a-violent-thug ) :

That nice juicy Homestead Strike in 1892 for him to bring his thuggery to a new level.

Booker Universe - also had the Pullman Strike in 1894

Later also more time for Booker to develop those 'detective' skills ( having only been a Pinkerton 'Thug', he now would have to develop 'cleverness' and skills ).

1893 - Booker is rumored to be partnered with "H H Holmes", the famous^[13] mass murder ( Booker find tenants for Holmes's Murder Hotel' and Life Insurance Scams )

1893 - At the end of the Exposition, Columbia is fixed up a bit to be sent around the World to SHOW OFF American innovation. Comstock IS NOT ABOARD - there's no space for him to fit in with the crew and the 'actors'. He starts gathering various reactionaries ( preferably ones with money ) who adhere to his various Racist beliefs.

1902 - Comstock manages to get back on Columbia ( by now a worn out wreck awaiting the scrappers ) and to Seize It. In subsequent years, he employs his new 'Followers' to expand and repair it, so that they can fly about extolling their 'Philosophy' ( and acting so badly that they get run out of most places they visit ). Their strange Idolatry offends a great many Christian churches, whom "Father" Comstock tries to 'hit up' for donations. To support his creepy 'flock', Comstock turns to banditry.

By 1912 NOW Booker/Comstock would both be 48.

Oops - Booker, run down by his drinking, he MIGHT look like 'old' Comstock without any 'magic' aging being required ( Notice -- which strangely NO ONE else there seems to have been subjected to using the Tear Portal thingee ?? ).

Later, with Fink's ADAM-based Fountain ( Fontaine ? ) of Youth, Comstock (the Prophet) by 1912 could again look like a young "Booker" -- and we have the ole-switcheroo, with Elizabeth wandering about with an old man now (( at least with Elizabeth at 18, it is not as Pedo as that Daddy & Little Sister stuff in Rapture )).

A Gasping Booker : "Hold on there Missy. Don't run so far ahead. Ah, ain't as spry as I useta be" ...

ALL SO MUCH MORE PLAUSIBLE ...

--- --- ---

Some Better 'Story' (For Infinite BS) :

So Much Potential for (alleged American) Social Undercurrents in Columbia ( If you intend for some semi-realistic Social Commentary ) for the Failtopia :

Whispers about being TOO afraid to complain about things - and THAT by the 'White People' ...

Minorities, and other 'downtrodden', and being shown to be despairing and commit suicide rather to continue in this inhuman flying hell. ( You witness the suicides - a more poignant sign of the miserable Under Class than some of the dim stuff they came up with. )

Those 'so calm' NPC 'explainer' game mannequins saying that they fear the murderous Vox, who are worse than the brutal police ( Who merely keep the 'Underlings' in line and 'order' in this 'Holy Eden' ).

People hear of even 'White Folk' being tortured/threatened by the Police for uttering a minor negative comment about Comstock, who 'bless him', struggles to do such fine things for everyone. Minor problems are just not talked about ( by real believers, who know better ) ...

Strained Fake Smiles on everyone.

"You didn't pray loud enough, brother !!" - White Folk being coerced by the 'god police'. ( Tyrannical Theocracy is so 'American' according to Ken Levine ).

The 'servitor' class wishing to murder all their social 'betters'. ( What THEY talk about in the night, whisperings and muttering into their straw mattresses ).

Mental conditioning ( you don't think it was all maintained just by that Big Parakeet in a Gimp Suit, did you ? ) of the "lower Orders" to think of the 'White' People as 'gods', and to even be willing give their lives (and souls) for them. More than just 'rumors' of resistors being 'fixed' ( Kenny's Lobotomy Obsession 'thing' again ) in Fink's/Comstock's 'Sanatorium'.

Paganism and witchcraft, even if rumors, it is always good to have a little of those.

Poor White Folk forced to compete with 'Slave' Labor ( How the Rich People in the South kept the 'white trash' down ... )

Luddites, but as suppressed as any other 'Nay-Sayers' contrary to a tyrannical regime.

Religious Freedom suppressed systematically by the Ruler's control ( Example - Alot of 'Irish' are Catholics. DO you think THEY are allowed to worship as they would have been in 'America' ? So Stupid - them even coming to Columbia. )

--- --- ---

Infinite Coulda Been a Contender :

The Game COULD have had a few more 'edgy' disclosures about Columbia ( more Era-Real(istic) Thingees )

Implied Mass Sterilization of the lesser races and underclasses - since there are always more where those came from ( and they were obviously all kidnapped to be serfs, as they were otherwise unwanted in the "New Eden" ). Small children do no work and only absorb resources.

A proper Police State with informers and executions of the troublemakers to maintain an adequate level of Fear amongst The Untermenchen. ( Rebellion would be amongst the 'white' intelligentsia, instead of some 'serfs' who would be squashed like bugs ).

Fink stealing Technologies and most Apparatus, rather than illogically 'making' them (impossibly) himself, gets access to Robotic Servitors that would spell the extermination of the problematic Serfs ( precipitating Columbia's destabilization ).

With the caricature of an economy and that strangely imagined 'manufacturing' ( lack of sources of all raw materials, etc ... ) then the reality was that all the stuff was being stolen through Tears.

Maybe the people in Columbia are all under the affect of some hallucinogenic drugs ( an LSD Ergot extract ) to assist in their suspension of logic. And it would be interesting to see Booker falling under its sway ( first seeing what a ratbag place it really was and then it getting all fluffy cloud-like and shiny ... )

--- --- ---

Replayability IS Important (Solo Games) :

I recall that the first time I played the original BioShock I was mostly focused on the things trying to kill me ( and rather wary of everything/anything else ... all mysterious that first playthrough ) so that I really didn't look around at the scenery all that much. How many Players play the game just once, and doing the same as I did on their first playthrough, would not see much of what actually was all there ? Much of the odd things the Splicers said similarly was overlooked. You play it again to see what you missed.

With its more linear gameplay, Infinite BS suffered even more in this respect. Perhaps the gamemakers expected few players to replay so every 'message' had to be pushed into the Players face ( distant ones in particular ) to even get noticed.

So replayability is a game aspect that needs to be MAXIMIZED.

NOT JUST A SOLO GAME, BUT A MMORPG ?

"The Drowning" - A MMORPG REDO (Of Infinite BS) Will Have Lots Of Good Stuff :

All those Elizabeths standing there in that scene - One is missing a hand, another an arm, two have eyepatches, one has a pegleg, and another has half her face missing^[14]. They would not be there unless THEY TOO were dimension gods, no ?

After Elizabeth drowns Booker, Elizabeth is quickly seized by the other people around the 'Baptism' ( Sorry, can't escape through a Tear when tied up and laying on the ground ). And then the good Law Abiding people there in 1890, in Outrage at her Blasphemy and outright Murder, proceed to Lynch her before she is even dry.

Funny scene : of Elizabeth drowning Booker and then another different Booker walks up and she grabs him and drowns that one, and then another shows up ... Soon the water is filled - choked with floating dead Bookers.

The Andrew Dice Clay/Joe Pesci styled Elizabeth will test the skill of the game scripters to have the appropriate dirty words fit the situation ( When done with 'canned' situational 'scenes', that is not that hard ).

That's the problem with Quantumz - They are 'Like a Box of Chocolates', and you Never Know What You Are Going To Get^[15]. Whole sets of such interesting scenes/vignettes will be made into a big tree of possibilities ( REAL Branching Realities ), and be added-to constantly in the MMORPG system. Playing through the REDO won't be the endless bloodbath arena battles that bored so many Players of the original game.^[16]

-

Yet, those Infinite BS creators frequently botched things many times with really inappropriately jarring Elizabeth talking sequences ( ie- a Bloodbath of a fight just happened and there she is chattering away again ). This led a number of commentators to suggest those half-assed incidents likely were the product of a disorganized and rushed production, pieced/stitched together from a larger planned game story - cut up in an attempt to push out the already-behind-schedule game.

--- --- ---

A Sub-Project within the all encompassing Rapture Reborn MMORPG Project : To Redo Infinite BS properly (as solo or a MMORPG version).

Done as the Players wish to have it :

A Dream Delusion ( you can have FAKE all you want in a 'dream' )

Lame-comedy (satire, parody, burlesque)

Better more interesting Fantasy

Entertainment-improved

Better Combat Shootering

More realistic social commentary ( racist-language-and-violence-warning ).

Horror Dystopia

--- --- ---

Vast Improvements to 'Realize' the BioShock Columbia Game (as it should have been) :

What else might the MMORPG Infinite Redo game have Elizabeth do to make it more entertaining/challenging ??

Add back a whole lot of 'Tear' activities, which were cut out of the game ( were seen in the 'lying trailers' ) - Those are pretty much canned/scripted situations and significantly customized for locations ( versus all the generic battle arena props the idea degenerated into).

Avatar and NPC Emotions/Reactions designed to match the situation - Elizabeth Retching/Vomiting at all the blood and spewed intestines which YOU (Booker) causes.

The Originally Shown (good) SKYLINE system ( a whole separate sub-game is possible there ).

Difficulty - ELIZABETH DIED - (oops) "GAME OVER". And for amusing random fatal hazards, a quick QUANTUM FLIP to resume the game without Savegame Restore.

--- --- ---

[File:HAIRCUTZ.jpg|center|600px]]

Like in Red Dead Dementia 2, there would be MMORPG Player Customizations as your Avatar can now be Seen by other Players.

--- --- ---

Declare This Sucka !!! :

In a MMORPG REDO of Columbia ( Even with it now being some Splicers creepy 'Dream' ), Thomas Jefferson wouldn't be one of the Columbian Founding Fathers displayed because it was his words "All Men Are Created Equal" that would be so contrary to Comstock and his adherents beliefs, *AND* too well known to be ignored . Too, Jefferson didn't like cities, and unless you made Columbia some airborne Rural Plantation or such, it likewise jibes with his fundamental essence. Levine & Co sure had some pretty queer ideas about what historic America was ( to abuse it so badly ) in this game.

The "Jeffersonians" would be a secret group out to Kill Comstock and to free the denizens of Columbia from the tyrannical abomination it had turned into. "REVOLUTION BABY !!!" - The American Way, Levine !!!

--- --- ---

Old Time Story Backgrounds :

I have a problem with Gamemakers who, in an old time setting, ignorantly try to show use of modern conveniences ( and modern ways of thinking ) where they never existed. Ignorance is no excuse for sloppy work, and having those gamemakers not actually caring to follow through properly is just plain lazy.

The game's setting loses what is supposed to make it different ( As one Player commented about Infinite BS : "It all felt like a bunch of Prop Scenery to have gunbattles in" ).

--- --- ---

HOW TO DO AN Infinite-BS Styled 'Story' ? :

THINGS NOT TO HAVE/DO :

Characters (in-game) blathering on about some weird plot stuff that nobody will bother/care to figure

out -- when it doesn't make sense, and hurts your brain if you try.

Where there are no decisions (choices) to make about anything, nor puzzles that need to be solved - "tunnel shooter" - You are just a steer ( a Levine 'Cash Cow' ) led through the stockyards to the abattoir ).

Everything is pushed into your face -- to make sure you don't MISS anything. Such a low opinion the Infinite BS game makers must have had of the Players. They thought much too highly of themselves for making 'clever' content which MUST be seen.

There is some contrived 'Twist' for something that does not matter in the end.

Lack of logic and Common Sense for the 'Story' and setting - Nope, It is NOT a priority. Create Lots of costly details to reinforce the nonsense.

Everything done was to facilitate the wholesale slaughtering of things placed in the way of the Player, with a great deal of repetition and little variation.

Dumb Down the Combat - simplify/nullify the weapon choices, eliminate special use ammo.

--- --- ---

Infinite BS <<<< THIS IS WHAT HAS TO BE FIXED

Alternate Alternates <<<< ALSO SEE THIS

--- --- --- --- ---

Infinite BS Will be Redone Using the MMORPG Methods/Tools to be What it SHOULD Have Been :

A Chainsaw-wielding Redemption ( Booker was a murderous Thug, but a murderous 'Thug with a Heart' ... )

Screw the Samurai, we're gonna have M60 Machine-gun toting Raptors !!!

Randomized the props, spawns ( number and combinations ), map section connections (multiple paths), encounter variations, ADD BACK THE special Tear scenes seen in the Early Trailers (lots more), interactive stuff with screaming and running INTERACTIVE inhabitants ( They're all racists, so ALL valid targets !!! ).

Wow, Tactics, what an innovation for a FPS.

Add all kinds of fun shit like that multi-dimensional circus should have had from the start.

Lets have special ammo again.

Gearz that do FUN things.

Destroyable Terrain - yeah -- ain't gonna be all shiny for long !!!

--- --- ---

Something The Game's Writers Apparently Don't Understand :

If a single scientist using 1890 know-how and apparatus could figure out 'floaty quantums' then how about a World who now 'Knew It Was Possible', who had 100 X the Genius Brains, and 1000 X the Resources to recreate the same thing (or far better) ?? That's quite possible over the following decades to 1912 ( if it even took that long ).

Consider ALL the spies who would have been on Columbia AT the 1893 Columbian Exposition alone, and WHAT simply could have been stolen, if not examined, then in 1893 -- ignoring the US government who controlled Columbia up til 1902 and who had PAID for the thing (( No of course NOT !!! They would have NO information at all about how it worked, NO WAY, NO HOW ... How stupid of me. )). How things Really Happen in The Real World was apparently NOT a strength of these writers ( or their caring about such things, especially after 3 rewrites to churn it into muck ).

--- --- ---

That Secesh Showboat A Commin' :

Instead of those sad pathetic 'zeppelin' things, the odd reactionaries of Columbia coulda had steamboat-styled craft to reassure their 'Plantation-mentalitized' inhabitants with. Using the game's Fantasy FloatyShit(tm), you could make flying things any shape you wanted, and the steamboat archetype isn't any more wasteful/illogical a design than those Hummel Figurine dirigible mutations they made for the game. The paddle-wheeled/side-wheeled craft coulda even served as the city transport, shuttling in a circuit of the 'River of the Sky' between the various disjunctive city block sections.

If the writers were going to pretend their weird Holy Confederacy (risen again) was America, then they might as well go all the way.

The place mighta looked better with at least one proper plantation with cotton field with some minority neo-slaves toiling away. No more of this hypocritical pretending about racism. No Sir. Don't be so cowardly - SHOW IT PROPERLY

--- --- ---

People Spaced out on drugs can see just about anything you could think of. Such might be the story behind the real 'Columbia' - a cult run by some charlatan who keeps his 'family' drugged out of their minds.

See Columbia_Asylum

--- --- ---

Infinite REDO 'Splicer-like Types' :

"SteamHeads" (Steam Punk people ??)

"Quantoids" (Faux-Quantum physics stooges)

"Infinitards" (Mentally deranged babblers) who talk to/worship clouds and who stare at little boxes all day in a trance

"Living Tears" (mysterious and deadly)

"Mergers" (the merging dead !!!)

"Abominations" (Abolitionists from HELL !!!)

"Rebellators" (murderin foreigners and anarchists)

"Bronze-headed Killer Goon with a bloody drill"

--- --- ---

Creative Shuffling (The Game Deck) ? :

Idea for the project's "Fantasy" game element ( a REDO of Infinite BS ), where that Alternate Universe idea can be better applied. You have the plot (which you play within) CHANGE each time you play it -- preferably : being plausibly/cohesively varying in many of its elements, be fun, amusing, and surprising, AND DIFFERENT ( Tedious and repetitious didn't bode well for encouraging much repeat play-throughs of Infinite BS ).

The significant aspect here is to employ the MMORPG's Player Creation mechanisms/tools to make such a system possible - efficient production of modular alternates, instead of most of it being customized ( tediously hand scripted ) clunky game building blocks, wedged together higgledy-piggledy like Columbia's buildings.

Levine, post-Irrational (around 2015), had been talking about some new game project stuff, including something he referred to as story/plot "Legos", which I assume are to be 'simply' stuck together to automatically make up some varying game plots. This unfortunately falls well short of describing the complexity of what would ACTUALLY be involved in a 'good' implementation of such a mechanism.

( "Legos" - It is probably a good SIMPLE name to use to imply (sell) the general idea to "The People With the Money". But those people aren't stupid, and will likely want a thorough demonstration of that system working ).

"Ghost Story" is the current moniker for that project - probably an insight into what it will be when vague 'ghostly' shit allows 'wave of the hand' sloppy joints between the 'Legos' (( Kinda like my idea of having all the Canon-breaking stuff seen in BaSx simply be recycled as a dream or Splicer nightmare - where alot of things like Logic, Consistency, and Laws of Physics do NOT have to necessarily apply. ))

--- --- ---

NEW Audio Diary Analysis - "You Stupid Bastard" :

Fontaine, BaSx (in Fontaine's Secret Room) : " Suchong, I'm gonna make this clear as can be, so we don't have any miscommunications. Where -- the hell -- is the Ace -- in the Hole ? YOU think you can stiff Frank Fontaine ? I paid good money for state a' the art weaponry. I ain't losin' this war just because you found yourself a higher bidder. I can promise you -- I ain't never been one to lose with dignity. "

THIS Might be plausibly used to tie-in Fontaine/Atlas into Suchong's death (or a reason for a faked death).

Is Dated ref Faulty BaSx Audio Diary dates Days before the Shootout at Neptunes Bounty (Sept 15 ??). Can a face be changed and healed that quickly (bandaged face after surgery?)? Or was he hidden away while it was done later - which would conflict with accounts of Atlas's arrest immediately in BaSx ?? Also here we have Collusion with Steinman (Another weak link in Fontaine's Plans ??)

Reggie (a Fontaine minion) ALSO got the face-change (turned into Fontaine) obviously BEFORE Sep 15, (for his corpse to be identified as Fontaine).

All kinds of good problematic stuff this brings up (DLC writing is KNOWN to leak like a sieve, and this is Par or worse).

Also really smart to create and leave dangerous evidence (an Audio Diary) like this to be left lying about by Fontaine, who the DLC writers have converted into a fricken 'MORON' in BaSx.

If Fontaine (retroactively written) suspected Suchong of doublecrossing him or doing so in the Future then he was another 'loose end'. We can use this to fill in details about what really happened to Suchond ( including a twist of HIM faking HIS own death to avoid Fontaine murdering HIM ).

--- --- ---

Ghost Stuff in Columbia ( Since It All Devolved Into Meta-Physical Weirdness ... ) :

Well, we could have lots in the MMORPG remake. We ALSO can expand their scope using the MMORPG Tools to increase their varieties into much more complex dreamscapes.

All the people Fink killed working in unsafe conditions

The Wounded Knee Indians in full frozen-rot-mode haunting Comstock's waking moments

Elizabeth's mother being murdered ( in 20 different dimensional versions ).

The Flying City firing guns down on Peking, and all the mayhem that causes ( Comstock was really there to rob the Imperial Treasury for CASH )

The people killed by Songbird ( That creepy Gimp-Suited thing, used to keep the Helots down, had to be sufficiently menacing ).

All the other Elizabeths ( who didn't quite work out ) that Comstock stole before this one ( various cut in half pieces -- that 'pinky' one occasion being the least messy of them ).

Apparitions from some near-parallel Columbia's as they are destroyed in countless ways ( lots of screaming and falling ). Comstock was probably getting rather despondent over the way fate had stacked things against him ).

Infinite 'REVEALS' are possible ( NOW that we have 'Ghost Stories' from INFINITE other Universes ).

--- --- ---

Inner Workings of A Columbia Computer System :

What FANTASY flying city DOESN'T HAVE a Computer System ????

http://yereverluvinuncleber.deviantart.com/art/Steampunk-Weather-Gauge-281335851#/art/Steampunk-Gears-Parts -Pile-1-171234577?_sid=32d38058

http://yereverluvinuncleber.deviantart.com/art/Steampunk-Clock-Calendar-277413550

http://illustratorg.deviantart.com/art/Old-Machine-293497917#/art/Sacralia-machina-279372905

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Strange Twist - COMSTOCK IS A PUPPET CONTROLEED BY THE EVIL COMPUTER !!!!!!!! (A REAL Twist-o-rama Baby !!!! )

Ditch The Quantum Garbage

"De Debil be in Dah Whaat Citay" - A Comedy. The Minstrel show "is to die for" - The Columbia Standard :

Seen advertised in the local playhouse in Columbia. Racism ? Well you already know Columbia IS a Racialist Bigoted place ( despite it being mediocrite-ly so in the game ).

On the same wall as :

"Dr. H. H. Holmes Anatomical Supplies" and a "Boston Tea Chuckers Pub" advertising.

Murder Castle Beer ( "The Prophet's Favorite" ... )

Franklin's Best Laxative - "Really Gets You Going !!!"

"Mr Bones, he gonna dance !!!" The Minstrel House - NOW OPEN !!!!

Latest Recording - A Rousing Rendition of the Columbian Anthem !!! (Which you WILL buy !)

"Whiteness IS next to Godliness."

--- --- ---

Columbia's Economy apparently ran on Slavery/Serfdom - So how were they obtained ??? ( Tears of course - swoop down and steal people from all around the World, and even from different times -- or even different universes !!! ).

Seriously, all American-type Immigrants FIRST would NOT EVER go to a Racist Religious Cult Bizarro-land like Columbia, and would have killed Fink and Comstock and burned Columbia to ashes in their first 3 months after being kidnapped.

That leave's just the Slave-Labor taken from various Third World countries - hardly conducive to Fink Industries Specs for even semi-skilled 'Workers'.

It is AFTER ALL just some cockamamie delusional story-setting, for a rather mediocre shooter game, with a hacked together bizarre pseudo/Faux-Science plot ( And simply was playing-off the BioShock(tm) branding to SELL ($$$) it to Players expecting the previous two games' quality ).

--- --- ---

BIG MOVING CHUNKS :

Unfortunately the 'Zeppelins' were the only (barely) iconic things seen in the early Promotional 'Trailers', and SO had to be retained at all costs, with a few scenes of that idea passing the player. Most of the 'city' is like it is glued together somehow, even though they float long distances apart.

With what we've seen elsewhere in Columbia, why not just a whole lot of Large Blocks/Clusters of Buildings flying about freely??? MUCH More than that section little of road with the shop on it ( seen in the early Walkthru segment of the game ) that moves around on a daily schedule ( BUT wit h nary an operator visible to assure a safe and routine transit ? ), and docks ever so precisely to reconnect to the city streets ?? Having the city VISUALLY orbiting about itself ...

Oh, that's too hard/complex To Control ? Can't go fast enough ? -- You mean unlike the WHOLE of Columbia does, as it moves about the World -- the entire thing driven by who knows what guidance/power ?? ( Imagination - having it shown the City getting 'under way' for its 'route transit' - The warning alarms/horns, the sudden lurch, the surge of the 'engines', the external sky starting to move (ie- sun shifting), or pieces of the city starting to move independently and then following along ... Interesting things like that ? )

WE IN THE MMORPG DON'T HAVE TO GET STUCK IN THAT TRAP OR HAVE THAT LIMITATION OF IMAGINATION/CARE

--- --- ---

They missed out in representing (and condemning) one of those most wonderful aspects of modern life : Pollution ( when your part of Columbia was downwind of Fink Manufacturing ). After 20 years, the place shouldn't look all bright and shiny, more like a soot-encrusted industrial town.

As in Fantasy, the Wicked Witch of the West's Castle IS NOT covered with Flying Monkey poop.

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SEGREGATED Transport in Columbia :

If you are gonna have real racism portrayed then have real racism Levine - no PC-crap sugar coating ...

Untermenschen ('Unts') and Citizens ( 'Zens' for short ). I think the barges would be kept separate (segregated) , as they are small and require too much 'rubbing of elbows'.

The 'Zens' barges would be 'First Class' 'Gold' with fine quality polished/varnished wood work

The Other 'Unts' transport barges would be more like Ship Steerage ... Dirty, Simple benches, packed in seating/or just standing, definitely with possibly strap-hanging to maximize capacity - in a 'no-frills' utilitarian way.

Instead of the cliche "NO COLOREDS, NO IRISH, NO CHINAMEN, NO DOGS" signs ( "WHITES ONLY" don't work, is actually insufficient, as bigoted as these Columbianites are written to be - too milquetoast to represent realistic Racism ).

--- --- ---

Lets at least have Gearz which are not game Fantasy crap which they just cobbled together ( There were so many ones which had abilities and powers which made NO SENSE AT ALL coupled to 'clothing' ).

Some of the Concept artists ( many who presented plausible things which operated WITHIN the Laws Of Physics ) weren't told that the mighty god 'CUZ' was to rule the game's setting and props, and they could have whatever absurdity they thought up, and which 'looked/sounded good enuf', or was easiest to produce -- NO MATTER how stupid it was.

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Not sure why this should exist for anyone but 'riot police' ( and certainly not for any ordinary citizen ). AGAIN, A CASE OF THE WRITERS THINKING ABOUT THINGS FROM OUR WORLD (NOT *THE* WORLD), AND NOT FROM ANY RECOGNIZABLE "HISTORY".

In Columbia, 'rioters' simply would get buckshot (or worse) anyway -- If the situation deteriorated beyond what might require batons and the 'good strong arm'.

Note - Leather does NOT stop bullets, or damage from explosions.

--- --- ---

Definitely have to GET RID OF that awful Ceramic Figurine Company REJECT look from the city's buildings

--- --- ---

Columbia REDO Idea - The Crimes of Comstock :

"Seeing the Future, and then EXPLOITING it" - Comstock's own words

'Tears being used to perpetrate crimes (preferably being undetected) -- He has ALL of history to rob from (and multiple universes???)

Exactly how much crap can you bring through a Tear into another dimension ? Portable RR tracks laid down thru the Tear to efficiently haul out 'The Loot' ( or 'The Spoils' as Fink would call it ).

Example : Robbing the Titanic BEFORE the collision (1912) and it is sudden sinking ( Heh - towing the iceberg INTO the way of the infinite dimensions where the ship would have missed it ). Scenes of a squad of Heavily armed robbers Rampaging on the ship - slaughtering anyone in their way ( They'll be dead soon, so add 'The Damned' to the Politically Correct 'Valid' Targets for Murder ...)

Stealing Gold from Fort Knox in some other dimension ( This could have explained Columbia's excesses (except the writers were a bit 'slow', and missed the opportunity for this idea ... )

--- --- ---

Cliches - WE have to have MORE Cliches ( It is what those writers based just about everything in the game on ... ) :

The Chinatown Moment : "My Sister, My Mother, My Sister, My Mother, My Sister AND ..."

Elizabeth learns the truth "YOU ARE YOUR FATHER !!!! "

A Rapture Moment ... ( preferably WITHOUT Sofia Lamb being part of it )

THIS probably best used in the 'P.I. Roleplaying scenario(s) in the MMORPG

--- --- ---

Revolt of the Handymen ... :

( Oops Comstock allowed them too much 'Free' Thought ... The Lobotomies department must've had them as a low priority )

Mechanized Slavery - the idea the Infinite BS writers 'Walked Away From' ( instead took up that fake-quantum stupidity ).

Who needs an 'Automated Gentleman' when you can have 'bowing and scraping' 'Untermenschen' with a 'pain' device surgically implanted in their skulls ( very 'cliche' ... ) ?

Slaves within houses (show those convict 'servants'), who seeking their freedom itch to stab 'whitey' ... ( Little do they know that the indestructible white racist 'Handymen' will simply then be their new Masters ... )

You really don't even plausibly have 'Class Warfare' when you have magically existing HUGE Faux-Industry instead of something more resembling the reality of that time.

--- --- ---

Columbia Era Consideration :

Fact : In 1950, 50% of the Homes in England had NO indoor bathroom.

Statistic - Consider this is 'Homes' and may not count apartments in cities.

(Outdoor Privies in Rapture - not good idea, but inevitable as parts of Rapture fell apart during The Chaos. Areas in Paupers Drop must've been really really stenchified. Fortunately(?) there is no 'Smell' interface in computers yet.

--- --- ---

The "Flying Thieves Den" :

That's what Teddy Roosevelt called Columbia in 1902 before he had the US Military destroy the rogue flying city. Some new long-range artillery guns setup in a ambush in the Rockies made short work of it. Tourists were picking through the wreckage for years afterward.

It might(would) have been ALOT more interesting for Fink to simply steal things through Tears ( and actually have quite an industrious setup doing that - processing the stolen goods ). The 'ordinary folk' might not have even realized they were being sustained this way ( or the smarter ones didn't care ). Giant claws and dredging buckets to pull goodies through the Interdimensional Portals -- needed once it was 'figured-out' how long ( as in 'SHORT' time ) humans last/survive (even expendable Untermenschen serfs) going repeatedly through 'Tears' on a daily basis.

NOW, Fink realistically doesn't have to be presented as some impossible universal genius scientist/engineer/craftsman/industrialist. AND we might then get all kinds of anachronistic/odd/eclectic/mismatched stuff laying about Columbia, and being used by ordinary citizens ( learning how to use stuff is easier than making it ). It would also explain (finally) how/where all the raw materials come from, which are NEEDED/REQUIRED by the City.

But of course, that would ruin Kennyboi's whole Circa 1912 'Evil American' Culture scatology (( Right, as if all the techno-BS shown hadn't done that just as thoroughly for any Player with a highschool education ... )) With all we already saw of different Object Assets in the game, simply making them all look/act like stuff stolen from a later/modern world ( and maybe some neat futuristic stuff ) would NOT have been too hard.

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Lets Try To Make The Inhabitants MATCH What We Are Told They Are :

Infinite BS had All the Lame Scripted Scene Vox Populi Antics, and other NPCs even worse. Ordinary People (citizens) in Columbia would endorse their Gun Rights ... No People's Militia ?? ( Jefferson Davis would Vomit in his Grave. ) Yet we see none of the 'Vox' being surprised by any armed citizen and getting filled with bullets ( with a nice artful spray of blood effect and some various terrorist/anarchist dying words ). Columbia should be knee deep in guns, so why did so few 'Citizens' have them or use them ???? It is all typical 'modern thinking' badly applied in a lazy contrivance, allegedly representing that 1900 era ( and that further in a fanatical place the game allegedly portrays ) -- A quite different era, when so many people weren't as confused as now.

(( It takes (from the gamemakers) more than rote/pre-canned scripting ( better/more NPCs action is required ) to make it look properly period. ))

--- --- ---

Oh Columbia !!! :

We will need to write up what Columbia SHOULD have been to have a society with even a modest population ( instead of alot of sun-lit empty air ).

First it was an exposition 'Show City', and later then it is a 'Merged' monstrosity growth ( via the quantum weirdness - a plausible reason we see such a poorly glombed/kludged together mess ).

Pirating to support the population ( causing the animosities with the World towards it ).

Stealing tech and goodies/machines/materials through 'Tears' ( so much stuff could NOT possibly be manufactured there ), and many odd things that sometimes come thru, often traumatizing the citizens.

Columbia having a 'Merged' population (the Horrors !!) - Comstock himself being 'strange' ( Twisted - more 'Skeletor' now than the image of a kindly old/gravitas-laden prophet ). We would get the equivalent of 'Splicers' hiding in the shadows.

The Untermenschen serf population - 'Under the Streets' ( shock of the sight of them climbing up out of a manhole ) ... much 'subterranean' goodness in this flying 'city'. Columbia's Citizen's prosperity living off the toil of whet effectively are slaves.

Dark Secrets - well beyond the mediocrity the original game showed ( ie- Some 'Soylent Green' thing Fink came up with when relations with their ground supporters soured ).

Show alot more stuff/detail being required to SERVICE even a modest population ( unless everyone camps out in the Coney Island bits ) Food/water/power/fuel/supplies/control/etc ... so it can be seen to be a coherent/logical 'city'.

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Infinite BS Itself Demonstrates That Just Having Ideas is Not Enough :

A City is a WORKING place. It has to plausibly work for ordinary people who allegedly live there - day in and day out. Columbia was more like Coney Island - something pretty to look at, which you visit once in awhile to do amusing 'attractions'/'rides', as you hustle through to see the next section of it, on your day off. But THATS NOT a City.

Lots of intricately laid out story is given in the game, but at the same time basic questions like : "How does anyone get anything done in this Bothersome Disjoint Maze ?", and "Where does all the stuff comes from" are ignored/unanswered. (( Aren't details like that a bit more important to show than how much money Comstock weirdly/illogically/preposterously extorts 50% tithes from his bank customers ??? ... You see 'Tithe' is one of those "*evil*' religious ideas apparently ... to the game's writers - OR WHY ELSE exaggerate it for 'effect' in such a way ???? ))

Oh, but it (goods to sustain the population) all comes from Fink Mfg of course. But even slightly smart children can realize that's only where stuff is assembled ( FYI, that's what 'manufacturing' means ), but NOT where the stuff originally comes from ( and by floating up in the sky, it IS rather hard to see how stuff gets INTO Columbia, or somehow is grown/mined there ). Tons and Tons of Hundreds of different goods/materials have to continuously flow into Columbia daily to sustain it. Oh, there are Zeppelins and 'Barges' ( and whizzbang Rockets, HURRAHH ) !!!! So all this HUGE modern-city-quantity of stuff then is somehow transported from the ground ( from places outside of Columbia ), No ? It is stolen ? Or is it paid for ? ( Paid with what ??? ). We just get Silence and Avoidance about the issue from the 'clever' writers ...

The required transport is expensive (that's for EVERYTHING), No? Oh, but again, that's assuming it is a reality based game ... You know, like :

'American' social this-and-that

and 'Quantum Theory' this-and-that,

and Period Racism this-and-that ...

OOOPS : They say (over and over in those gamemaker interviews) that so much of it is like REAL ( It is a SOCIALLY SIGNIFICANT reflection/condemnation of those so, so, awful 'old days' ) ALLOWING this game to contain/show its SO-important meaningfulness ... '

EXCEPT' : the majority is UTTER ILLOGICAL FANTASY - It is like in Disney's "Snow White" having The Seven Dwarves On Strike for Better Working Conditions ... The game was illogically decomposed into disjoint and half-arsed claptrap of that type. IT IS Like Attempting to portray some kind of "edgy social relevancy" in an Evil Clown Movie --- actually NOT very clever at all.

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We coulda had ( and CAN in a NEW MMORPG system 'Redo' ) at least heard of SOME incidents of some Columbian 'supply party' being captured down on the ground by government agents, or just by normal folk ( with those nasty guns they all have in America - and most other places in the World ) -- and some of those 'good ole boys' then flying up to menace Columbia with all their guns and tins of gasoline and dynamite (( "THEY KILLED KENNY !!! LETS GO GET EM !!!!" )).

We don't hear of disgruntled ( immigrant/minorities ) Columbia inhabitants stealing those Floaty conveyances to try to escape ( with plenty of opportunities over and over through the many years ), them disappearing and never being heard from again ( or better yet, leading invaders/authorities BACK to rescue those unfortunates left behind in Columbia ). THAT might have justified Columbia being such a Police State ... a little ... Make the place Like the Berlin Wall, keeping the Proles/Serfs IN, while the Founder 'Lords' partied.

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So, Not even Half a story was told there in Infinite BS. It is amazing (or Not) how so many whore-like game reviewers 'got all wet' over Infinite BS's "THE STORY", when it is all really so pathetic. But then there isn't even that much mediocre "story" in most games coming from the Computer Game Industry these days, to compare it with. So it wasGraded on a Curve to award with those absurd 9/10, 10/10 ratings -- for a 'story' equivalent to a typical fourth-grader's "What I did for My Summer" public school writing assignment. That's the truth. Mediocre Combat didn't seem to lower the scores much, so THEY must have been overwhelmed by that 'exceptional' story (( Yes, it is a very Sad state of things for game Players these days, and the UNDERWHELMING products of today's Computer Game Industry. ))

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Columbia's Splicers Equivalents - The "Fireman" Should Instead Be SteamMan ??? :

Steam wont burn down the 'City' ( Great idea Levine, a fire spewer - With ideas like this, who needs the Vox )

200+ degree Steam works fairly well in a narrow stream at close range ( good for impressing/persuading a mob of "cattle' )

Doesn't the Fireman have a boiler on his back already ? That's what it is you know ( that's what one of those oldie fire engine things were - a steam powered water pump to work fire hoses ).

A SteamMan isn't likely to set himself on fire ( Try using a flamethrower in close terrain ... OR when the contraption gets hit by gunfire - a big fireball incinerating you ).

Maybe Steam isn't as impressive as Flames spewing forth ( and setting fire to things, which steam can't do ) -- But being Scalded will get you running as fast as being set on fire ( and the running target WONT go setting everything he passes on fire to burn down everything ).

Can act as an actual Fire Engine ( and as a plant 'waterer' when there aren't adversaries about )

Real Imagination would have had this character have a built-in Ladder system so he could climb about all those over-tall structures.

--- --- ---

Nostrum ?? (Tonic) : The Devils Suppository :

Finks product - Keeps those lazy workers awake and on the job. Worker 'Slows down' and the 'touch of fire' discomfort reminds them of their reason to exist. Idle hands are the Devil's kitchen utensils ... Untermenschen should not be allowed those "Idle hands" ... Effects of Caffeine and Chili Pepper.

--- --- ---

NPCs Using the Same Fighting Tools the Player Can Get ?

Shouldn't Fink's own security goons (at least) have the Shield and use all the Vigors ( After all, Fink made those products having all that Retro-ADAM ). His security budget could pay for them possessing those (in-game) so-expensive things. ( And add some expensive Gatling gun and sub-machine guns too and fancy GEARZ to their standard equipment ).

So now a REASON for (some of) your opponents to actually be the ridiculous Bullet Sponges they were, and NOT to leave you wondering why nobody else in the game seems to use any of these magical potion/equipment things.

Oh, and now you maybe DONT need to be always challenged by having to face 6 Enemies at a time in the Battle Arena settings ( And maybe the game could have more running battles instead of those obviously contrives 'arena' setups ).

But Oh My, then you need to actually create better AI scripting for those game enemies ( instead of simpleton set piece fights with more opponents ). Yes, I understand that would be alot of work/skill/effort, but isn't it what you expect when a game costs $100 million dollars to produce and they charge $60 for it ????????

--- --- ---

So Columbia "Flew South For The Winter" ??? :

With too much snow/ice accumulation, that chicken-wire and plaster would start caving in, as well as the various FloatyShit(tm) mechanisms freezing/icing up and shorting out and clogging, and balloony things not inflating properly. It is worse at high altitude than on the ground.

A snow scene in Columbia might make it into The MMORPG - Where the wreckage crashed in the Rockies after the US Army Artillery ( Under orders of President Teddy Roosevelt ) tore the disgraceful place apart, and sent it plummeting to its doom.

MMORPG representations of a still floating Columbia might have a whole spectrum of Weather Effects ( and even a nighttime when the Vampires come out ). The current state might reflect many repairs done to try to hold it all together for all those years.

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Real Kinetoscopes Were Called "Automatic Vaudville (1 Cent) in 1905 (Real World)

Need to add the Kinetoscope List : "The Doom of Thief-Stolen Columbia", as was shown in America. It Shows US Marines in a REAL flying battleship boarding and hanging Comstock/Fink and all the other Pirates ( and confiscating all the pillaged goods and freeing the kidnapped people ), before then turning the Battleship's advanced and powerful guns upon it, and sending the wreckage plunging into the Ocean.

--- --- ---

The Good Ole Standbye : Vampires

What are Little Sisters after all ? ( Though they don't do living humans - unless they were originally used to 'depower' captive Splicers ??? ). Big Sisters do suck the life out of Splicers to heal themselves ... Various Splicers, being insane, might get the idea of doing the same with varying degrees of success ( for many just an ineffective obsession ). Some technically savvy Splicers might actually find ways of simulating the Little Sisters/Big Sisters techniques.

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Telephone Wires EVERYWHERE :

Something missing from Columbia - There would be telephone wire strung everywhere - as was typical in cities in the USA of that time. Real Cities of that time were covered in masses of Phone Wires ( I've seen pictures of those early telephone poles with upto 200 wires strung on them ). Weirder might have been : where this tangle of wires spans the gaps between parts of the city ( and a scenario would be the Player having to climb along them precariously when the 'skyline' and normal transit was destroyed by Vox terrorism ).

Something similar would exist with power lines strung which would have to be avoided ( part of the 'Puzzle ) ...

With improved 'Skyhook/Skyline Play ( Restoring what was seen in the early Trailer ), your movement would be more versatile to have more targets to 'leap' off of things to. Add a 'hand over hand' wire traversal to get to a position to Leap at some other target ( You Might 'Die Alot' Falling To Your Death ... )

Of course botching it and striking wires wrong might have you sliced up like an egg that's gone through one of those Egg Slicers ^[17].

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Creepy Clown Columbia ( Introduced for the MMORPG 'Fun' Remake ) :

Infinite Universes ...

The usual equipment/skill ramps - new Grease Paint upgrades ... each larger Red Noses, the dreaded "Sqeeze-Horn of Perdition" - AND even HUGER Shoes.

Clowns - You still don't get it, do you ?! They'll find you ! That's what they do ! That's ALL they do ! You can't stop them! They'll wade through everything, reach down your throat, and pull your fucking heart out! ^[18]

And if you want to continue that 'dig' Levine has against religion, then you can make it have a ( Levine inspired authentic diversity consideration ) Hebrewic flavor to it ( OMG OMG, THAT WOULD BE RACIST !!!! - But it would be 'edgy' !!!!!!!!! -- 'Something not seen before' ...^[19] And you can still blame it all on the 'White' American people, the same way Levine & Co has before ... )

Comstock's Creepy Clown College ( or would that now be 'Goldstein's Clown College' ?? )

"Boys of Silence" actually have an excuse for exist NOW ... Giant Seltzer Men ... An other things to put the 'Freak' into Freakshow. Little Clown 'barge' - from which 201 Clowns emerge to attack you til you have no Ammo left.

Consider : None of this would be any worse than the fustercluck Infinite BS game - and possibly a great improvement if the Combat Mechanics were even just set back to the BS1/BS2 systems.

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Geo-Magnetic Activity Can Affect Columbia's FloatyShit(tm) :

Imagine what Sunspot Activity or Tesla's Death Ray would do to Columbia ( and did in so many Dimensions ) ...

Massive 'EMP^[20]' disrupts whatever bullshit nonsense the Luteces supposedly built to control the 'Particles'. Power Overloads -- assuming that the Laws Of Physics and engineering ( and everything else ) aren't completely missing from this Fantasy ( It is Fixable ).

So in many of Comstock's Prophesies he saw Columbia lying torn, burnt and twisted upon the ground, and his own corpse rotting in the ruins. Nice side story, No ? Actually Imaginative ??

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Dismal Sphere ??? :

"Yes, below him in the dismal Sphere of woe, the lower social Strata of the beastly kingdom, There breeds rancor, squalor, pride."

Poem of Columbia Below the Streets ? Spreading slowly to the "Sunlit" spaces ?

-

(Sorry Byron)

There Once Was A Man Named Comstock,

Who was in a game without 'Shock'.

He had aged into a grey beard,

when into the future he had peered,

and then tyranny he did build all ad hoc.

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Shocking Things from the Future the Prophet will Protect Columbia From :

Barney the Dinosaur Disco Dancing ( "Brothers, I HAVE SEEN THE ABOMINATION !!!!" )

Hippies

Godzilla

Modern Art

Fast Food

Rock Music/Rap Music

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VALLEY GIRL Elizabeth :

With Elizabeth annoying affectations which she picked up by long observation through a Tear to a certain place/time.

--- --- ---

Everyone In Columbia Was "High" ( A Plausible Explanation For The Bizarre Fantasy ) :

Strange case of this "Lost Town" which happened in 1912 :

A remote backwater where some very disturbing and puzzling events occurred

Theories abound about the mysterious mass suicide in that small remote town

Some writings found scrawled there referred to 'The False Shepherd' coming, some event which looks to have precipitated the death of all the inhabitants

The 'town' had in its center some very poorly built/strange "monuments", some just built-up out of dried mud and sticks.

Human heads were found impaled atop of over-sized wooden bodies.

There was plenty of evidence of the inhabitants killing each other, most apparently done with bare hands.
Some corpses were shot or exhibited horrendous tearing of flesh. Scalps were found nailed onto a wall.

Further investigations by authorities found massive hallucinogenic drug had been use by the inhabitants. The only known survivor was a girl who ranted about 'Lighthouses' and 'Flying', but who soon perished after being found.

A Movie of this tragedy was made for general distribution to serve as a warning to the public about use of such substances.

--- --- ---

Imagination - having a Tear with a view of the 1933 Chicago Worlds Fair as an echo of the 1893 Exposition.

If you are going to pervert science and allow magical Time Travel, then why not use it for some 'Wow' scenes ( kinda like Raptures Windows of the Cityscape ) ?

--- --- ---

Guns Guns Guns - The Soul Of America !!! :

Would you NOT think that with the 'Vox' more and more on the rampage, that the Citizens of Columbia would all be armed ??? -- White People unarmed ?? ( How 'Retarded' Can You Get ?? ) - With all that Patriotic "America Iz Bestus" stuff ? We should have seen some woman in a bustle blowing the head off one of the foul Vox Terrorists, No ? ( With a baby in her arms yet ... ? ) Isn't this supposed to be that '1900 White America', Kennyboi ? But then those 'Civilians' would then all be shooting at Booker, and he would have to shoot EVERY LAST ONE of them ( including the children ), AND also be required to be an even bigger "Bullet Sponge" than Booker was in the game. We can't have that - Or the game would have to admit that the Player is being forced to BE a psychotic mass-murderer, no ? ( Booker already is, but that's sorta covered up/ignored, otherwise the writers thin veneer of plot/story could no longer hold up. )

--- --- ---

'Enhanced' postcard of Los Angeles around 1912. A real 'city' laid out for use of a good-sized population.

Columbia looked more like a demented Coney Island^[21] . A more advanced game engine could AT LEAST provide proper crowds.

--- --- ---

That Lame Skyline - FIXED :

Myself, I'd have already flattened out Columbia's ridiculous Rollercoaster into a more logical/practical/competently-designed arrangement, to be a proper transport for the City. With EXACTLY the same (or better) potential for mayhem and gun-wielding slaughter ( AND even more ). To make that possible I ALSO would have had a *mode* (special level) for that huge cityscape seen in the early Trailers - specifically intended for that aspect of the game. Perhaps the MMORPG Player Contributers will make it what it SHOULD HAVE BEEN ((We Will Rebuild It, Make It Better Than It Was, Stronger, Faster ... The SIX Thousand Dollar Columbia Transit System !!! ))

A more continuous system throughout Columbia ( not that idiotic disjoint transportation system apparently created by cretins/know-nothings ) :

Huge cityscape ( so you can see the true extent of Columbia - a bit more tied together than the wafting fart shape the game showed )

Add switch tracks to shift paths ( a little timing to set the switch direction (a interface control action) as you traverse tracks )

Add obstacles ( trains .. including moving ones ) you need to avoid, but also to use as cover or as diversions.

Add Passenger Pods ( instead of only those freight 'boxcars ). These would have been there ORIGINALLY to transport people around Columbia during the Exposition. Seriously it is a lame transport system for people/anyone to allegedly be expected use those fatally flawed 'hook' things.

Add 'Splody' hazards like tank cars full of combustibles ( blow-upable usin' ur guns n shit )

Add Boxcars to loot for useful items/ammo etc... ( locks to pick, and watch out for homicidal hobos )

Add Skyline Stations with their own interesting dynamics ( gain control of their tracks/switch tower ) and hazards ( like police standing around in them - as they likely would )

Add controls for 'Trains' to set movements into action ( once you 'hacked' their system )

Morse code to send messages (why not?)

Battle the Guard Train pix and survive !!!

Sabotage and destroy shit ( but remember that track you blow up you can't use anymore either any longer )

Send those racist Citizens running in terror !!! ( From the Train Terminator !!! The Crusading Conductor !!! )

Get to important connecting places to continue the main game sequence ( unlock further segments of the Skyway system ).

Spectacular crashes and death and destruction ( burning shit falling thousands of feet to the ground below ).

Watch out for Damaged track sections that will thwart you movements

Opponents being the Police/Paramilitary AND the Vox at different locations. All the Conductors have guns, so watch out !!!

Tears being involved ( Cthulhu^[22] appears and swallows a train full of Police ... and lots of such strange scenes )

Add Memorial Plaques for (white) people who fell off the Skyline ( or not if people are stupid enough to use 'Skyhooks' ).

Signals that will indicate trains coming the opposite direction (red) or clear track (green) - gives you a chance to 'think ahead'.

CHASE SCENES !!!! ( Don't forget that Gimp-suited Giant Pigeon is after you - so know where the tunnels are to duck into )

Transit Central Control - learn the secret behind Columbia's Economic Survival ...

Tracks entering Tears - get ready for a REAL lightshow !!!!

"Tear" Tunnels to the Multiverse - wholly open-ended goodness is possible.

--- --- ---

A "Social Atrocity" They ( the Infinite BS Game Writers ) Missed :

1900s Reactionary Cult City ?? WTF is Rosalind Lutece there for or ALLOWED THERE ??? Logic Discontinuity MUCH ???

"Many advancement in Columbia were the product of the mind of Rosalind Lutece, a "Quantum Physicist" and one of the most prominent scientists of her time."

Madam Curie got her fame for really being this, around 1900 ( recognized for *Real Science* achievement, instead of in purely theoretical Quantum Physics, or the outright-fantasy QuantumZ 'physics' presented in the game ). She won a Nobel Prize for her work (two actually). Madam Curie later put together wagons with Medical X-Ray machines and sent them to field hospitals to help save French soldiers of the First World War ( over 5 million X-rays were done by them on battlefield hospitals ), and she was finally honorably entombed in recognition in The Panthéon, in Paris.

In a picture of prominent Scientists around 1900, Curie is the only Woman there.

So Sexism in Science, and society in general, was a whole missed-opportunity for the writer's generally faulty portrayal of evil/backward/defective American 'exceptionalism' content. (( How could they miss THIS button issue ?? )) Story was : Being dismissed by the 'Male' Science Establishment, Rosalind had to go to a charlatan like Comstock ( a dodgy 'religious' figure, one rather unlikely to cotton to satanic 'Science' ) for her funding, and showed him some whizzbang tricks he could pretend were HIS metaphysical powers ( which he seized upon to scam even more people for $$$ ).

They coulda even had Booker patronizing Elizabeth - calling her "Little Lady', and quips about her needing an interest in housework ( and all the other cultural sexist cliches ). Likewise, comments about that "Rosalind Chick" ( Oops, that is a 1920s slang thing ), and so forth ... The game's vaunted 'Social Relevancy' was really just so passe.

--- --- ---

Return to the vision from those early Trailers of the Skyline. The tracks going everywhere in a big cityscape. Multi-Playering in 3 dimensions. Rapture Reborn need not be the only game created with the Game production system I've described. Sharing Asset resources is the strength of that system as well as vastly improved methods of creating/modifying the Assets.

Where the game company and Levine failed, the Players could succeed.

--- --- ---

Comstock's Propaganda :

The question might be : What all of what you see ISN'T propaganda ( ex- every bit of Comstock's Official 'history' ... )

The whole Boxer Rebellion thing may have really been part some much more nefarious activity ( Opium Smuggling/Piracy/Slaving ). Much could go on away from the city ( Zeppelin/Barge missions ) to much the inhabitant ( outside of the inner circle and their minions ) may not be aware of ( we never really see how the City gets supplied, do we ? )

Certainly the whole 'Prophet' thing was flim-flam -- possibly the whole 'money to build Columbia' thing was really paid for by a large criminal operation ( Hey - if you can do Tears, can't you "get into any bank vault" you want ??? )

YOU never did get to the Undercity where the Slaves are ( and where the 'lucky' 'upper' Servitors fear to be sent to ).

The "Vox" turn out to be an artificial operation so the Comstock can "Save"/"Protect" the population and give reason for, and continuance to, the Police State that Columbia is. "The False Shepherd" is just another such manipulation.

How much the 'White' population 'plays along with' this situation, when it gives them what they want. They can pretend to be a 'genteel' civilized society ( like the historic 'Ante Bellum' Plantation mentality being updated to 1900 ), but also fear 'stepping out of line' - and are as trapped as the Slaves are.

It is Disneyland as Created by the KKK ( I think those few hooded characters alluded to that without being directly linked by the writers ).

The REDO can clarify so much, and set straight what doesn't make sense.

--- --- ---

Looking at Some of the Infinite BS Game Scenes' Hazification ... :

Helps hide the largely static nature of many of the distance backgrounds, and thus allow less detail being required ( harder to say "Why aren't there any people visible over there" ... When you can't see cuz it is too far ... )

But would there be that much Haze in so little a distance ?? ( It is used for 'way too short a distance' in many scenes. ) You're clear of ground accumulation effects (like fog). True Clouds obscure much faster, but also move more. Very strange for bright sunlight situations for 'clouds' too. Unless there's some huge amount of air pollution spewing from Fink's factories ( which should blow away in any case ). Any such sooty residues and corrosive gases would soon have the place looking like an American Steeltown - grungy and filthy and hazardous to your health and likewise affect the population. ( Strange the writers didn't include that real historic negative aspect ... )

Well, we already know that real physical laws don't apply in this game, so ... Whateverrrrr ...

--- --- ---

Couldn't Be Worse Than What They Did :

Thinking of (New) Topeka in "A Boy and His Dog", with the stylistic face-paint worn by the people of that closed/isolated post-apocalyptic society. The inhabitants of Columbia should have all worn big Mardi Gras heads ( containing a supply of oxygen which the high altitude denies them ). First, it is a simpler (face) animation for the game rendering, and allows fully racist caricatures or stylistic caricature monstrosities to be presented ( It is significant to the Social Relevancy of the game you know !!! ). HEY !! Even "Oxy-Gen" could be had as the alternate currency for the game mechanics.

Now there's a reason for people to 'float' ( at least it is as realistic as those "Physics" the game exhibited ).

-

REMEMBER - ONCE THE BAD TASTE OF INFINITE BS HAS BEEN DONE - IT CANNOT BE UNDONE

--- --- ---

A Proper Character History - Booker Dewitt :

Why not have Flashbacks scenes of Booker murdering and mutilating Indians ( and him as a Strikebreaker murdering/busting-heads ... ) - Doing such in the game would be much more 'telling' to Players about WHO their character really was ... Everytime you Press (Y) for Execution you get Flashback 'Flashes' of Booker's past Savagery. Now THATS Good Gamin' !!! ... (( Kindas Funny how they didn't do that in the Published game ???? Another 'Nasty Piece of Work' that Levine made YOU Play ... ( Jack Murdered a Planeload of People ... totally avoided by Gamewriters ...) ))

Other Things might trigger similar Flashbacks.

--- --- ---

Excerpt from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/BioshockInfinite

Columbia is Actually a Vivid Hallucination of Booker DeWitt :

The main character of BioShock Infinite is actually a Splicer who is imagining the entire "city in the sky" setting while actually still being in Rapture. It is possible that DeWitt was an American who grew up in the early 1900s, moved to Rapture only to grow disillusioned along with many others and managed to survive Rapture's 'civil war', but is a deranged splicer like most of the city's inhabitants. Yearning for both the "good old days", as well as escape from the underwater city, he crafted a personal delusion that mixed both his wishes: a place with the trappings of his childhood and as far away from the ocean floor as possible, which is why Columbia appears as oozing with Americana and is located in the sky. However, elements of reality still sink in, such as the Big Daddy figurine, the Big Daddy-esque mechanical creature, and the fact that DeWitt and Elizabeth apparently seem to possess Plasmid-like abilities.

-

I said long ago that Columbia "Is all a Dream" ( apparently, one by someone with serious problems ).

Possibly it is the other way around, and All Of It ( including Rapture ) is a fever dream that Booker has because of too much bad Patent Toothache Medicine he took.

-

Yet Another TVTROPES Excerpt:

Everyone is Booker :

Booker is not only Comstock. He's also Elizabeth. And Slate. And Fitzroy. And both Luteces. And that random Vox Populi gunner at the left. The events of the whole game are an extremely complicated Timey-Wimey Ballet^[23] he inflicted upon himself to teach himself ... uhhh ... something.

-

Heh. Endless speculation in that New_Words#TVTropesTVTropes article ( alot written before Infinite BS came out ) - Frequently making more sense than the actual "Pseudo-Science Do whatever Sounded Good Written on the Denny's Napkin Plot" ( employed in Infinite's design ).

--- --- ---

*Big* Truth About Columbia :

It is all a Madhouse Delusion. The ambient air is infused with the hallucinogenic substance, explaining why so much of Columbia looks ( to you and the inhabitants ) like it was made in the Hummel Figurine Factory, and the lighting is way too bright and unrealistic.

Some 'special' Indian Mushrooms ( which Booker/Comstock knew ALL about ) being grown in those big dark areas under the city blocks ( human excrement works well growing it ). Booker is already a drunk, so he is quickly overcome, so to suddenly go on his 'Rocket Ride' ...

The place has a warped perspective, seen with odd sizing ( most of those "huge" statues are really only 8 feet high ). The 'towns' signs all look weird and strange, and most of the people look all the same/generic, as they might in some creepy dream state. All that gold paint ... ( GPU magic can go wild ).

This Columbia isn't even "floating". It was only the people there in it who were "flying" ... It was originally a big party boat on Lake Michigan, which was later turned into an insane asylum.

Behind it all was a plot organized to 'dump' inconvenient individuals by a group of rich Chicagoans ( starting with all their "mental" relatives - rather than have to hide them in their attics ). Isn't it apparent that an awful lot of that place is meant to 'entertain' the inmates?? And there is all that uniformed security to keep order and prevent them from killing each other ( and from escaping of course ).

The other 'staff' would be various people who would be visualized by the Founders ( 'rich' mentals who's relatives own the asylum ) as social inferiors and unworthy of civilized treatment. Immigrants and minorities make for cheaper labor.

There's even an insane industrialist who 'thinks' he is manufacturing strange and wonderful things for the 'city'. HG-Welles-ian and Jules-Verne-ish ideas abound and consume the inmates delusions. None of it works, but the whole place is pretend anyway, No ?

Then some thug named Booker shows up and starts killing people and all hell breaks loose. Does the place sink in the lake taking all the crazies with it ???? You will have to play the game to find out.

--- --- ---

One Step Too Far :

Zippers were first manufactured during 1924 and it took some time before zippers were widely used. Fink stealing it ( via Tears, AND Then the Manufacturing process to make them - the actual HARD PART ), and his employing them on his next season's products backfired :

PROPHET DECLARES ZIPPERS AS UNHOLY - CLOTHING BURNING BONFIRES MANDATED TO BE ATTENDED NEXT SATURDAY

FINK TO BE EXECUTED AS TOOL OF SATAN ( Must Not Miss - It is Sunday! Sunday!! SUNDAY!!! Bring The Children !!! )

( Possibly, Comstock had looked into a Tear and saw the Columbia Jeremiah Fink had taken over after killing Comstock ).

--- --- ---

Lingo Be Mah Way :

Infinite BS should have had far more 'Carnie Speak'^[24] embedded in the Columbia people's vocabulary to reflect not just its 'Show City' origins, but also the 'flim-flam' act that Comstock would have had to do to get his little floaty project 'on the road'.

http://www.goodmagic.com/carny/car_a-c.htm

--- --- ---

Booker Slaughtering Pseudo Boy Scouts with Guns/Skyhook ... :

Comstock Cadets ( the Junior Flying Squad ) deployed to stop the Malignant Shepherd ( Booker D ).

OOPS ... Children ....

Now that would have been interesting having some of the 'Comstock Youth' ( Levine's Hitler Youth clones ... ) fumbling with weapons or running away. If not for the general prohibition in the game industry to not let Players shoot/kill ( or usually even interact with ) children NPCs. They would be smaller targets and might run about more during the turkey shoot. "Being Prepared" ^[25] ... Swarming over Booker like Ants ... Sending in the 'Dimwits' as decoys ... Maybe the most deadly opponent in Columbia ... ( Only thing more embarrassing to Booker's end would be if he was 'done in' by "The First Lady's" Girl Scouts ).

--- --- ---

Booker Takes Some Pictures to Sell after He Gets Out of Columbia :

A Kodak Brownie camera seems too laborious to be practically and realistically taken around, with so much movement involved. The protagonist is not allowed to carry more then two firearms. Then again, even if they are going for a more realistic approach, for plot convenience and canonical 'fanservice', these could be overlooked. Actually the Real World Brownie Camera was quite small/portable and rugged ( AND easy to use ) -- It was what made it popular and a consumer success. Yet another 'Achievement' for 'snapping' all the 'Kodak Moments' in the game.

--- --- ---

Such ImaginationLESS Gorp in That Game Allegedly For A 'Flying City' ??? DO BETTER :

Not possible for it NOT to be done better :

"Don't be a Wimp, Drive a Blimp" -- advert in Columbia ( some Balloon - Alternate universe )

"Beasly Blimps Let White Men Fly Like The Angels" - Beasly Airship Advertisement ( payment Plans Available )

"Angel Wings - Here in Eden You Get Your Wings" ( steam-powered personal wings - Citizens empowered ).

"Uplifted - Columbians Fly Free Over The Cesspit of the Evil World Below"

Personal Wings - Quantum Levitated with Personal Steam Propulsion - True Freedom for the Body as Well as the Soul ...

You could still use 'Skylines' as a game element - just that now you hang Upwards - as you are Guided towards your destination, and can be reading the daily paper while you are whisked along in convenience.

You can now do "Joust"-like tactics - swooping down on the hapless evil police with your 'flying buzzsaw' move, and knocking them off the side of Columbia without pulling your joints apart.

WE WILL have to have an IMPROVED Game Engine, which allows for free '3D' movement ( and the advanced programming of the NPCs to handle it ).

'Damned' Slaves toiling away beneath the streets to feed the furnaces powering the Holy Flying City - Fink - "Slaves die like flies, but we just swoop down in some benighted part of the World and take some more ... What better service might they render to the Almighty? We lift them out of the Mud and into the Clouds !!"

--- --- ---

Crawling up Walls is Something 'Foreigners' Do ... Not Upstanding Citizens :

It is Infinite BS's (and OUR) Loss : Not having better "flying" adversaries in Columbia ...

The mini-zeppelin would be really tiny - like the guys body is suspended from it like a mini parachute ( shoulder straps, not one handed Mary Poppins style ) - The balloon just over his head and the propeller on his back, weapons maybe on a tray in front of him. All using the same impossible physics as in the rest of the game - if it was all stolen alien/future technology then why does it have to look like Bad SteamPunk stuff.

Small enough to maneuver thru alot of scenery ( up in the air ), but slower pace than running.

Very distinctive sound...

Flag streaming behind would be a neat visual effect.

Pilot wearing flying helmet and goggles (and scarf ?).

Not just limited to those obvious 'Canned' battle situations ( ie- Random Encounters ... ).

More than one for a more complicated situation - forcing Player to Move to maintain their Cover.

Dropping bombs ( maybe the Player would have the fun of getting to fly them at certain points in the game )

--- --- ---

Instead of Booker The Psycho -- Booker The Weasel :

Booker is a loser who's life has been one of continuous irresponsibility. So the Story should be of him trying to avoid/steal/cheat his way out of his situation - To get out of whatever the Luteces have planned for him. Being a Drunk, with shaking hands, he might not be a great shot ( If he ever was - running around shooting Indians in the back is hardly any achievement ).

Have him be more weaselly like Stanley Poole ( now THAT would be a link -- for Booker to be Poole's grandfather... Nah, needs more weasel than that. )

Now there you would have more reason to have some game 'sneak' options, so that Booker could sneak around and shoot opponents in the back ( or just blackjack them if he is squeamish about blood ), and Elizabeth might have some more colorful conversations with him, and sayings like "Your Escape lies in marching ahead, instead of running away". It might be interesting to have Booker choose the best time to fully betray her - the Player's "immoral choice" ...

--- --- ---

Columbia's Flying Model Ts ( Here's Some Actual Imagination For You ) :

1908 Ford starts production of the Model T ( which ran upto 1927 ). So even just 'Looking into the Future' to use near-era technology - which might be manageable ( game's Fantasy gets whacked by a teeny bit of realism ).

Keep those wheels for moving on Columbia 'streets' where appropriate ( Columbia might then have a few less stairs which impede alot of transport anyway ).

Auto Fly between the 'islands' - eliminate the absurd bridges seen in some cutscenes ( Magic Fantasy Money would be needed to build all that horrendously expensive stuff - the Infinite BS Economy is as FAUX as most of the rest of the game's setting. )

Flying Mack trucks instead of that stupid horse contraption ( would have been nice for the gamemaker to make up their mind about being 'moderne' or 'reactionary' ).

Fink wanted to be an 'industrialist' ? Well here is something that at least would be 'manufacturing' in that scale.

--- --- ---

Queen Victoria on Hearing That Columbia 'Went Rogue' - "We Are NOT Amused ! " :

Of course she was already dead by 1902, but such things don't seem to matter much in the Columbia fantasy universe --- remember SHE would still be alive in INFINITE other multiverse "dimensions" so perhaps it was heard through a 'Tear'. Funny how none of those alternate dimensions that Fink looked in on did not have some Virulent Plague or Killer Robots ( or Jan Michael Vincent in "Airwolf" ) come through to wreak havoc upon Columbia ---

Please... Just a FEW Spider Splicers to liven things up a bit ... I mean 'Tears' were appearing all over Rapture - weren't they ?? And 'Infinite' supposedly means that even the Easter Bunny's Hell ( where a Sander Cohen goes ) has to exist !!!

--- -- ---

Smack Player in face with FACT : This is a place full of Fake Retarded Things

--- --- ---

All Roads (Tears) Lead to Columbia :

1912 (Convergence Time !!!) Spinosaurus is discovered in Egypt (a real event). Imagine a 'Tear' opening back to 92 million years previous, and one of those monsters coming through to terrorize Columbia.

Much more interesting for the game ( and no problem with copyrights/trademarks ... )

Maybe even it would be a REAL reason for the militarized look of Columbia - once those Tears started opening then there was no stopping them ( or what might come out of them !!! )

--- --- ---

Infinite BS Robot Terrors ( Instead of those stupid 'Boys of Silence' things ? ) :

The Stalking Gentlemen ( an Automatic Gentleman Servitors run amok ) to be a rampant robot" ( a guiltless slaughter-fest target ). Some 'hacked' robot, done by the Vox Populi ( it is not 'upstanding' enough to be a Founder unit ... ) A stalker for them (Founders) would probably be a human Big Game Hunter in safari hat and everything...

They could climb sufficiently with their arms/claws - No need for hands on feet ( or hooks of the Spider Splicers ).

"It will NOT stop, You can't Reason with it, It is only purpose is to KILL YOU ..." ( can even have the Terminators Red Eyes ... )

This follows the IMPROVED storyline that Fink has plans to eliminate all the 'sinners' ( immigrant/minority underclass ) from Columbia by having the work they currently do performed by automated servitors. The player can run into various models of these new devices.

--- --- ---

Comstock's Last Words "It is All Shit" :

And virtually noone wondered what those words meant^[26]

The Luteces were 'Con Artists' who did fancy tricks with Tesla Coils and Geissler Tubes - and Comstock got their assistance to bilk the investors of 'Columbia' ( and would have continued the charade with the gullible occupants IF the Luteces hadn't 'done a runner' with alot of the Cash ).

Comstock ( at least in THAT universe ) committed suicide after 'The Embezzlement' and 'Skeddaddle'

--- --- ---

A Kodak Brownie Camera for Booker (Which He Never Had) :

Booker should have a Kodak Brownie Box Camera to take some pictures with. No, not a Genetic Research Camera ( though his pix from the "Rogue Floating City" might sell well in that era's equivalent of the National Inquirer ).

Might've been nice to have the Player (Booker) take some 'snaps' when they (Luteces ?) want him to, and it produces some era-like Sepia-Tone pictures in the Player's game directory ( also viewable via the in-game interface ). Gives the Player something to do when not under a hail of bullets - Maybe have a point system for taking (good) picture of the more unusual things ( The Big Bird, various landmarks, etc ... )

Invented in 1900, but I don't think there is a Kodak shop in Columbia, so Booker probably had to bring it along with him ( standard 'Pinkerton'/P.I. tool ).

http://www.brownie-camera.com/

They were an easy-to-handle size, hand-held, simple. Would require a 'largish' pocket ... The box brownie was pretty revolutionary as a consumer item - you actually didn't change the film yourself, and instead mailed it back to the company, who processed it and sent a replacement back to you reloaded with a roll of film enough for something like 100 shots. They even sometimes gave the cameras away for Free - you paid for the film/processing to Kodak of course. The real Brownie Camera was quite small/portable and rugged ( and easy to use ) -- It was what made it photography popular and a consumer success.

-

Maybe you could make 'points' with the games factions by giving them evidence for their propaganda ( for some kind of useful remuneration of course ). (( Sorry the Infinite BS linear plot wasn't "Sandboxy" enuf for this )).

OR

Have a side score (Achievement) with part of the job Booker was hired for being to get pictures of Columbia as evidence for some official action to be taken ( US Government or whoever ) -- or somesuch. Maybe to be able to decide if they should hire the very expensive League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to handle this 'Columbia' problem ..... A side objective of documenting Columbia for the Government( /interested parties ), and the Perps onboard it.

Of course for Infinite BS - The MAGIC Brownie Camera - to fit with their turn towards fantasy and magic.

Perhaps ( to be equivalent to the Research Camera's game function ) a pair of ordinary binoculars that allow Booker to "spot the weakness" of his opponents ????

OR YOU ARE SENDING PICTURE TO YOUR PAST Self SO THAT YOU WILL KNOW THE FUTURE AND SUCCEED Fro the Luteces ...

Where there is imagination, there is a way. ( Except in a dumbed-down slipshod sequel ).

--- --- ---

Vigor Splicer ??? Vigor Junkie ??? :

So Vigors were really ADAM ???

Where would such be found in Columbia, as they couldn't just wander the streets scaring the women and children ?? Escapees from the Columbia Asylum ? Question then was how long had Vigors been 'on the market' or covertly available to have addicts to get into this bad a state ?

These kind of effects would have to be hidden, or the result of some odd circumstances OR 'Vigors' would have not been allowed to be sold ( and Fink wouldn't be making them any more ). This isn't 'Let the Buyer Beware' Rapture ( even with its overly-convenient plot holes ), but a place where the Founders/Comstock would NOT LIKE the city being imperiled by dangerous monstrosities and undermining their authority.

--- --- ---

Alternate Excuses for Phantasy Physics :

"Atlantean Knowledge" - Totally "open-ended". Fink just 'portals' using the 'Crystal Skull' to That Bar in Atlantis to get his stuff ( pays with the human babies the Atlanteans see as a culinary delicacy ) ...

Alien Cats ... "Lord Garfield, What should we do with these tedious apes ??" Comstock arrogantly ignored the annual delivery of the Tuna Tribute ... 'Hello Kitties' in Power Armor descended and wreaked havoc ... "Let Loose the Cats of War !!!"

If all else fails : Unicorn Tears !!! Dragon Pharts !!!

--- --- ---

Adjustments To The Faux-Religion Stupidity :

The Whole (new) Infinite (genre) game takes place in a Floating Cathedral ( then the angel statues make sense ).

OMG The Pope's Swiss Guards as Soldiers Coming for you !!!

Angel Wing Player (and Opponent) FLYING would be an interesting game component.

Ditch the Founding Fathers Idolatry. WAS Strange, I thought most Protestant religions were against icons ? Well, logic got in the way of ignorant-excused 'vision' again ...

Of course Comstock's Cult has NOTHING to do with Christianity (it is obvious), and it makes me wonder what gaseous hallucinogens constantly waft around the inhabitants to keep their tiny brains on track with the Prophets agenda ... ( ditto the game developers 'vision' ).

--- --- ---

A 1900 Era Gun That 'Fires' Music :

Hey, it is a better idea than what the Skyline thing degenerated into.

The very Fabric of Columbia is a multi-merge 'tuned' reality !!! Various effects based on what is Played !!!!

Also used for the games Audio Diary player device, using Edison Cylinder type recordings ( much more realistic/engineeringly sound than that ridiculous (huge) exposed disk player in Infinite BS ). Something strange like having it like a big revolver to have multiple Cylinders able to be 'loaded'.

Stun/hypno-sleep/password/whatever effects on some 'found' PLOT cylinder objects ( still all glowey, so you can't 'miss em' from 100 feet away ). No doubt some 'purchased in vending machines.

An alternate device alongside that wondrous multipurpose Skyhook ( reverted to a hook instead of that head/face cutting slaughter-device travesty they turned it into ).

Yes, my creative genius was wasted upon Real World computer systems ...

--- --- ---

Columbia's "Stuff" :

All these things MUST come through Tears because there is no source of raw materials visible ANYWHERE in Columbia ( except maybe some gravel from that 'convict' hard labor barge ). Tears might be used to 'obtain' various materials - some in great quantity. Tears can/would have all kinds of nasty/unpredictable things on their other side. Likewise, anyone going through them or being exposed to them constantly ( even more than Comstock was ) would likely die very quickly ( and you'd soon run out of even the slave workforce compelled to do that activity ).

SOME of the 'slaves' employed for this work might 'escape' through them.

Alternately, if Columbia is supplied from the ground, then something must be used to pay for that source, which after years WOULD run out. It also would be a vulnerability/liability allowing agents of the US Government ( or other foreign powers ) to get to Columbia and take it back, seize it or destroy it.

Funny would be : A 'side-show' game Theater demonstrating how THIS one Columbia was the sole survivor (simple chance) of all the mishaps the Tear-infested place would be subject to ( and the Player gets to watch all the FAILS - many being upon even the very first seconds of Luteces immolation by the uncontrolled "particle" or Tear vortex/whatever ). Interference from INFINITE other dimensions could be just about anything you could think of - many incredibly hilarious, and others would be wholly bizarre and creepy.

"Trust in OUR Comstock, He's the lucky one !!!!!!"

--- --- ---

Booker Dewitt, Time To "Phone Home" :

Having the Luteces technical achievement ACTUALLY coming from some Alien Being would have been more plausible, than the ridiculous idea that THEY ( and the rest of the Reactionaries later in Columbia ) supposedly understood/excelled-in the Science and Engineering to be able to create the thousands of difficult technologies 100 years too early. But 'realism' like that would invalidate the pretty magical Story and those 'scenes' and props the game makers had decided upon ( reality being inconsistent with the game's pure Fantasy content/context ).

But then "Pretty Slaughter-Fest Shooter Game" WAS the only real consideration involved ( and then STILL having quite poor Combat Mechanics ). Treating the Players like ignorant imbeciles is a minor consideration ( or would be if the Combat had been anything special ).

--- --- ---

Dreams Are Made Of ... :

Booker wakes up (in Rapture) from his alcohol soaked Dream, and comments about it being the stupidest one yet, some half-assed floating city too idiotic for even one of those retarded Flash Gordon shorts. Then there was that girl with the thing for Lobotomies, and that giant leather Pigeon, and some crap about Lighthouses.

He tosses his (cheap) Absinthe empty into the trash, and heads out for his job cleaning streets in Rapture, hoping that his hangover will go away soon - as the ADAM Tonic Anti-Headache stuff is a bit too expensive right now for him.

Here's a bright thought : As a laugh, he should quickly write most of that dream down, before he forgets, and try to sell it as a plot for a TV show -- Those clowns over there at Cohen TV are always desperate for material ... Yeah, that's a plan. Disappointment of course is fore-ordained for this perpetual loser ...

Creepy bit is : his future actions kidnapping and selling children to Fontaine or Sander Cohen, when his ADAM fix gets too powerful.

--- --- ---

Infinite BS 'Logic' :

As in : 'Make it up if it sounds good' type of 'logic'.

To supply the city, they 'mined' clouds and 'harvested' sunrays. It was all they needed to produce the wondrous Columbia. I need not mention the 'Unicorn Tears' which powered the place ...

--- --- ---

How Much Different Would It Have Been :

IF Booker had instead decided to rob and murder the Luteces ( to 'clear his debts' ) ? They even handed him a gun. Rich looking twits and a handy rowboat to use to dump their bodies in the sea. They (the writers) kinda downplayed the kind of person Booker was, which they made YOU (the Player) have to play.

Just takes one of the Infinite number of him to do so ... ( That is when it is before they became some weird quantumz-fantasy dimensional gods ). Come to think of it : With Infinite universes, there are lots of Luteces that never go our duo's meddling path - do THEY all implode in their own universes when the 2 game Luteces got fried by their own (sabotaged) machine ?????? Same for Elizabeth with all the likely interdimensional Entanglement BS ?

OR How much more probable then for Booker ( he also being an interdimensional god in many universes ) to sacrifice various Luteces to the Lord Cthulhu ( No interdimensional escape, Hehe ... ) in one or more alternate universes ? The universe where all white people are black and vice versa ? Intelligent Apes ? Nah, that's already on its Second Remake ... Sounds like a nice 'Twilight Zone' story contest for the MMORPG 'creators'. For Rapture Creative literature is often 'art', and NOT to be censored - so lots of creativity is possible WITHIN THE GAME ( sanctioned imagination ... ).

And nothing says unofficial stuff can't live located in totally separate/unconnected Internet places ( like all that often perverse BioShock fan-fiction does right now ). The MMORPG game client is really just 'a browser' that might be made to present the MMORPG '3D' renditions via these 'Fictionoids' (files), and who is to stop Players from unauthorized use of game Assets and Tools ( with that open-source/open-publishing model used ) ???? It is not likely a MMORPG Player will start up as a Plugin on Chrome/IE/whatever when you get emailed some embedded Fan Thingee, or see one on a web page. Any Illegal stuff will be kept off the official repository servers, and out of the Game World. What people do with other stuff in the privacy of their own computer isn't the game company's business.

--- --- ---

Building Pix ( Maybe You got to Fly To Have it Make Sense ??? ) :

Floating ...

Rollercoasters !!!

An awful lot of the Infinite BS game's disjoint Columbia was done to facilitate distance 'views' and 'scenes'(avoiding detail work/inhabitants), and to separate/restrict the Player's movement.

Improvements ( possible with a MMOPRG system REDO ) :

Make Columbia more a Monolithic '3D' Tower of Babel type plan ( a bit better engineering-wise as far as THAT goes even with anything like this Fantasy). Make a central mass a bit bigger (as in ALOT), and it could have been the whole city. ( where people don't constantly have to wait and take conveyances to get to separate floaty places instead of walking direct, and distances across the 'city' are somewhat shorter ). Still can be festooned with statues ( perhaps a general donut shape with an 'interior space/area to protect from winds, and have some surrounding true awesomeness, etc ...).

Interior levels, but locally more enclosed to avoid the rendering issues of those grand views of the Big-ification which really didn't add that much to that game. Interior dome space encrusted with all those eclectic buildings ( layers of holiness to attempt to follow the Faux-Biblical patterns ). No real need for too tall ceilings ( like 3 X what they would be even to represent 'normal' high ceilings. )

The horrendous cold of the altitude also could be negated. Just a lower altitude might help a bit too ( 10000-12000 ft at which many cities/towns exist at Real World ). And note to designers - small clouds ( across small distances ) DO NOT obscure as much as you show them to.

Spring Heeled Jack pix type 'Gear' ( something at least NOT quantumz-based Fantasy ). Now when you 'jump' you might have half a chance on a 'miss' of latching onto something instead of a fatal 10000 foot fall.

Populace embracing the new Columbia-isms, instead of simply dropping 1890s - 1910s archetypes into Columbia to behave ( if not strangely standing still ) like they were on an American Main Street still ( which itself is an atypical cliche ).

Have the 'white' populace show more enthusiasm for their 'The Elect' status, and being fortunate to live in such a 'holy' place'.

Alot more movement/interactions between levels by the NPCs ( ie- wearing their little Angel Wings or at least elevators/people-movers/bridges ), though '3D' game movement and behaviors are ( when non-pre-canned ) MUCH harder to do convincingly ( it takes skill and knowhow ), and the existing NPC intelligence was limited enough already ( pathetic to STILL have most of them stand around like mannequins, ridiculously nonreactive to the Player, or even having much varied ordinary behavior ).

Infinite BS players might not understand : that in 1900 electric ANYTHING was fairly exceptional and only slowly starting to come into common usage (rich city people first). Thus the technologies shown with an implied electric nature would mostly have to be Tear stolen, and then locally developed, which always being a massive effort in time/money/know-how, might be highly unlikely in such a microcosm ( a 'city' which is really a town ). Steam ( a better understood/prevalent period technology ) would likely still be in widespread normal/unmodified use, without any Quantumz widgets grafted on. Fuel burning powerplants would be needed with their pall of smoke ( assuming we get a way all that fuel gets delivered ).

Have the 'quantum' marvels ( including all the 'Tear' stolen goodies ) showcased to stand out more as worthy of the "New Eden", and not just as ordinary drudge uses ( "Oh WE have that fine Quantum Sewage Disposal System Now, Aren't WE Blessed !!!" )

Effluvium flows downhill, and with the pipes getting progressively less well-maintained as you get into the lower Untermenschen levels, there are the obvious results ( slippery sewage as a NEW hazard ). Lots of fine euphemisms now are possible. For a workable system, Piped-in Water similarly calls for Water Tanks located high in the local structure. A greater massing of Columbia makes for a more cohesive distribution system (of ALL utilities), which should be more obviously shown ( was a hallmark of those times ).

Balloon things are 'fliers' ( and/or there are Rhesus monkeys flying little biplanes/triplanes ??? ) No need for a 5 ton ( with all parts required - manipulator/power/control/structural ) 'Particle Control/Levitation Machine' for each individual aircraft/vehicle. There comes a point where fancy technology is too expensive for common uses when other mundane technologies are far cheaper. A flying human is an achievement, a flying advertisement is a mundane.

Those grey blocks ( 'land' which the city sections sit on ) contain the Sewer levels, where the lower orders toil ceaselessly to make the New Eden above so comfortable and clean. The Police State, which Columbia is shown to be ( every other inhabitant seems to be an armed security unit ), keeps them under The Founders collective 'Thumb', and grovelingly grateful for the crumbs their hard work is rewarded with. An extensive system of Informers keep the likes of the 'Vox' afraid to do anything.

Scaffolding hanging off the bottom - the untidy places where the nastiness must be done to keep the upper city more 'pure' and 'white'. Perpetual shadow is for 'the damned', who serve 'the righteous'. Such places are frequently named 'Hades' and 'Perdition'/'Purgatory' and 'Hell' ( allusions to 'brimstone' particularly in the sweltering main engine/boiler rooms that power Columbia ).

Remember it all hangs from the 'Lunette Hook' at the top ( and that hook thing in BaS2 would make a neat [3D[ printed Christmas Tree Ornament ... oops - "Comstockmas" is celebrated in Columbia, since there isn't mention/presence of any real Christianity ANYWHERE in the game ). Structure would have to reflect this 'hanging' as a basic structural necessity even when Balloons are employed ...

If the whole (one-piece) city thing rotated and there were propeller-like lifting airfoil surfaces extrusions (helicopter-like lift), then you might not need the Quantumz stuff that was such Poisonous Fantasy Crutchification (PFC). You apparently (as a Citizen) would get used to the spinning ( as you also would have to the fatally thin air ), and that could even have an interesting effect of everything being sloped to allow for the centrifugal forces ( sluicing the sewage off/out the edges, disposal of garbage, corpses, etc ... ).

The Potential Improvements are endless, and fully doable using the MMORPG engine and tools ( and imagination, and some actual thought about proper design and consideration for technology of the time period ).

--- --- ---

Columbia Telescope Views : Missed Opportunity :

The Telescopes just showed expanded distant views, with go greater detail. Maybe they figured most Players would ignore them, so "why do any work for that ?"

They could have offered views of vignette scenes : *clues* to a few 'better' goodies, of strange/weird occurrences you couldn't see otherwise ( looking into distant windows for example ), perhaps some extra subplot details.

AND lets have the 'Telescope Views' be for MORE THAN some lame 'Achievement' badge -- Maybe some better REWARD (in-game) for Doing all of them, to induce more Players into actually SEEING the interesting things the Telescopes point at. The mechanism would have to have 'items of interest' you would need to find (and target) in the view - not just simply 'using' the things. ( Similar things might also exist for any sniper rifle ).

A Significant Negative Aspect ( If you have any freedom aiming the Telescopes ) is that it would reveal how pitiful the Distant city detail is -- When your traversal covers a decent area seen with more magnification ( again requiring the game designers to do more and better work ).

The MMORPG, if it did a REDO of the Whole Infinite BS, could have major game improvements like this.

--- --- ---

Dream a Little Dream of Myself :

Since so many of the machines and behaviors you see in Columbia (Infinite BS) could NOT work as you see them, then the whole place must actually be in a Dream. ( In Dreams, logic and the Laws of Physics and mechanics and anything that works in a 'real way' don't mean anything for what can be seen in theme ).

Whose Dream it is, might not be so straight forward.

Perhaps it is Comstock's guilty conscience, and he dreams that another entity within himself comes to destroy the evil -- He himself and his works. And that 'self' is also a murderous thug willing to kill people with his own hands - which he sets out to do wholesale. The daughter he sold or killed ( mutilated/lobotomized or whatever ) haunts him as well. Some carrion bird (a symbol of death) comes to feed on him repeatedly. The violence and mass-slaughter is a reminder of earlier times when human life mattered little to him, and thuggery and murder was his craft.

The Dream is set in some fantastical Freakshow contorted place^[27], floating up in the clean sunlight in his dream, but representing the seedy earthbound Revival Tent scam/carnival he has been working his Lies in for the last few decades. The Zeppelins and weird flying things are reflections on the real things in the world by that time of 1917 - representing possible avenues of escape which he never quite achieved. In the end, fate catches him and sends him into the hell he didn't really believe in.

Twist and Double Twist. Heh - THAT'S Better than some tired pseudo-science TimeTravel house of mirrors storyline, like that which the Pulp Magazines had well exhausted over 50 years ago.

Better game mechanics and gameplay would be call for (of course) with that better plot.

--- --- ---

Alternates : "Silence of the Boys" :

The mental ward that the Boys of Silence inhabited, that may have been part of a bigger story of mental instability in Columbia where one of the Kinetoscopes had Tears randomly appearing.

But that was probably written out of the story after the Quantumz came in to confuse everything more than sufficiently. HUGE Mental Institutions were a thing of those times.

--- --- ---

Heck, We Coulda Had A "Walking" Columbia :

Lotsa Sci-Fi Stories about a Giant Walking City ...

But then they couldn't have attacked Peking during the Rebellion !! Well nothing says Walking Columbia couldn't also float (and dog paddle across the ocean), and then marched on to Peking ...

"It turned out to be a sorta well armed, rather large walking tank ..."

Stupid, but then -- Infinite BS ...

--- --- ---

#77

Have that #77 (just the number) somewhere in MMORPG Rapture as a typically lame 'Easter Egg' ( Have an even bigger one, and then one so huge that is literally pushed into the Players Face - that's the DLC way ). The MMORPG doesn't have to do it quite that way, but some Players no doubt, creating new Assets, will incorporate such things in new content.

BTW, there were NOT 77 people standing around in that Infinite BS 'public justice' scene. The whole way 'raffles' work is to pull ticket halves for people who ARE PRESENT. It would have been funny ( will be funny for the REDO ) to have them have to first randomly pull 8 numbers ( for the unused ball numbers ) BEFORE they even get to Booker. Details, details, details ... apparently unimportant when a contrived scene to make some point about Faux-Americans is to be made by some lazy/ignorant game writers.

--- --- ---

The Bad Dog Club ( Floats Around Columbia, Keeping One Step Ahead of the Authorities ... ) :

A clandestine entertainment club who's entertainment was 'not particularly' sanctioned by the Founders and the 'Holy Set' in Columbia. Supposedly 'ankle' could be seen sometimes seen there. Quite degenerate, Yessiree Bob. But them Holier-than-thou folk couldn't stop all the fun.

I hear the degenerates often hold actual Christian Meetings and sing Hymns there ... Those bad dogs !!!

Clever Camouflage is used to make it look 'all unassuming', and to fit in wherever it stops for business.

Bribes to the Police (who like a bit of fun and sanity themselves - once in awhile ... might 'Look The Other Direction').

Legend says that : 'One memorable party, they "Danced naked in Pope Hats" while recited limericks about the "Prophet's Beard".

--- --- ---

Take Us To Eden or The Bunny Gets It :

An Ultimate idea would have been to take all of the original 'Columbia' through a giant Tear to some pristine alternate 'Earth' -- But then why stay up in Floaty-ville - or the proles below farming while 'lorded over' by Comstock in his Flying Castle ? And the whole 'Destroy the Evil World' stuff would become pointless. A plan for such might at least have been hinted. BUT the writer's limited/defective fantasy-thinking had to remain for what the game was really all about : a Slaughter-fest shooting gallery for mainstream Players - Most of whom really didn't care a wit for any "story", as long as the pseudo-Nazis and freaky things were there to kill.

Empty World - Oops, no supplies for Columbia to be found there. So they would all soon starve to death within weeks ( no farmers onboard and little you can just scoop up - with cannibalism before the end ) - A decrepit lifeless Columbia drifting about, until it deteriorates and crashes - THEN It is wreckage to be found by some aliens in a million years ...

--- --- ---

Alternate Shooter Fest

Why not have 'Columbia be a 1893-tech Titanic sized Catamaran ( 'floating' on water ) ???

Plenty big enough for Shooting-Spree levels and have a built in 'below deck) Shantytown ... ( and have Pretty Sea-Scapes )

Jack-O-Rippers and Vampires and such ( and Raptors, if you must ... )

Slave Ship !!! - I'm sure some Wannabe SJW-type writers could work THAT into a story ( Oops, having Authentic Diversity would go against such simpleton narrative ).

--- --- ---

Ways that Fontaine could cheat his way into more money to Supplement those meager 'Smuggling' profits ...

--- --- ---

If You Are Going To Float Off Into Fantasy ANYWAY, Then WHY Shortchange The Players ?

It is easy for game writers to 'name drop', and this could be taken to much more useful extent for the Alternate_Alternates part of the REDO of Infinite BS.

What better smearing of 'American Everything' than for a bunch of 'edgy' gamewriters to "Godwin's Law" themselves ? With it being lame-assed bad fantasy, Why Not ?

Seriously, the alleged 'social relevancy' ( which the gamewriters made believe it was about ) was just so much 'pablum' and 5th-grade buzzwords.

--- --- ---

Riding about on Mechanical Horses when not on The Big Skyline ...

Adding Fun for the Player would be a good goal.

Of course there would have to be a system of roads 100 times more competent than the gamemakers put in their bizarre floating monstrosity.

--- --- ---

REDO - It Can BE Done Much More Interestingly :

Could the case be : It really is all Mass Mind Control ? And the opposing faction just lets people out of the delusion, and becoming THEIR pawns to gain power for themselves ??? Booker the drunk isn't exactly a prime candidate for sanity, and so much of the game is of delusional/farcical quality. See those 'Vox' Storm Troopers on the side opposite the Founders ? They sure do seem awfully well equipped for an army of 'poor people'/the-down-trodden freedom fighters.

Regular 'cullings' of any opposition by the tyrant's Paramilitaries - That is what happens in a real Police State. There really isn't much chance of hiding in Columbia, and paths of escape are limited and controlled. So again, the game plot's setting is faulty to the point of Nonsense. WE CAN FIX THAT IN A REDO

--- --- ---

EQUALTIME FOR EVILITY

"Levine" - The Floating Faux-Hebrew Hellhole

Absurd religious extremism with exaggerated Reactionary Fervor - Festering in Isolation ...

Zionist Flying Stronghold ( trying to bring back The Promised Land ...)

Faux-Communism !!!

Isn't it Funny how Levine didn't pick such a theme for the Infinite BS game ?? ( No, he knew the reaction and condemnation it would get ... )

BUT it could have had the excuse of "The Religion" in "Floating Levine" being as Fake as that in Columbia, so that the writers also can have deniability ...

Bukkermann can have as his catch-phrase "Shalom Mofos !!!" as he slaughters his way through the Hellhole

Further Deniability : In the End IT is all a Splicer Dream.

-

A Few Details Will Have To Be Redone, UNLESS IT IS REALLY REALLY FAUX

--- --- ---

We Can Do Far Better With the Automatons in the REDO

--- --- ---

REDO will have More Realism and Less Lazy/Bad Props :

Imagine the capabilities of the average game machine by the time of the MMORPH ...

( Most of these are from a game made in 2018 )

--- --- ---

The REDO would 'at any time' allow the Player to attack the "Lutece Twits" (as Booker would call them).

Really impressive and imaginitive "Execution Moves" would be facilitated (and expanded thru the Player Asset Creation System) to enhance this Player Activity.

Realistic reactions and results would happen.

All Props would be realistically usable.

Likewise, all 'pre-canned' scenarios ( as the NPC Twits doing their 'puppet-show' spiel and antics ) WON'T have the Players violent action disabled. And so, all kinds of 'fun' Havok can be implemented --- Thus giving the Player more Choice within the game to express themselves.

--- --- --- --- ---

↑ 'Space 1889' - A RolePlaying System Published Decades Ago
↑ "Politically Correct" is an ironic label given to a great deal of dysfunctional 'peer' judgement behavior and manipulative social engineering, which afflicts the Countries population and society.
↑ Story WAS contrived with : Booker Dewitt, who IS a thuggish druggy derelict miscreant with a heart'.
↑ There is a mystery story about how this mass-murderer escaped after his arrest, got to Columbia, found it incredibly stupid place, and crawled through a Tear into Rapture, and was drilled by a Big Daddy for threatening a Little Sister - and wound up in a museum exhibit in a big tank of formaldehyde
↑ The best laid plans of Mice and Men ( and game studios ) come to nought ...
↑ Outraged Fanbois can send their email rage comments about all this to EatShitIdiot@LobotomyLand.org
↑ The natural act of producing and throwing about shit/excrement/fecal-matter.
↑ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blimp
↑ a Play on the M-World Hypothesis which the writers of the game abused so much ...
↑ Spring-heeled Jack : https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Spring-Heeled-Jack/
↑ May have to substitute "Snarky the Boar" due to copyright issues...
↑ EE - Electrical Engineering. Columbia might not have been in the Electronic age yet (with stolen no-understood shit), BUT there was plenty of Electric devices already in use by Columbia's time.
↑ H H Holmes - "Devil in the White City" Book
↑ Seriously, they picked the 'pinky' because it is all but invisible in any animation view in the game
↑ Sorry this phrase is copyrighted and would have to be mangled so much to be hardly recognizable to be used in the MMORPG
↑ One might be a mass execution scene, where the Player is Challenged to see how many necks they can saw thru with one swipe of their 'Skyhook'
↑ https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=egg+slicer
↑ Dialogue in movie "Terminator" ...
↑ What Levine claimed about Infinite BS
↑ Electro Magnetic Pulse
↑ A famous/long-existing amusement park in New York City
↑ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cthulhu
↑ A thing I just made up
↑ 'Carnie Speak' : Lingo used at Traveling Carnivals to obscure caries talking in front of 'the Rubes'... https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/carny-slang
↑ The Boy Scout Motto - "Be Prepared"
↑ Some may have heard it as "Ladybird The Tray", but then they've been smokin real strong stuff in Columbia FOR A REAL LONG TIME ...
↑ Wasn't that what the games Columbia was - a illogical impossible dreamscape...

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[1] 'Space 1889' - A RolePlaying System Published Decades Ago

[2] "Politically Correct" is an ironic label given to a great deal of dysfunctional 'peer' judgement behavior and manipulative social engineering, which afflicts the Countries population and society.

[3] Story WAS contrived with : Booker Dewitt, who IS a thuggish druggy derelict miscreant with a heart'.

[4] There is a mystery story about how this mass-murderer escaped after his arrest, got to Columbia, found it incredibly stupid place, and crawled through a Tear into Rapture, and was drilled by a Big Daddy for threatening a Little Sister - and wound up in a museum exhibit in a big tank of formaldehyde

[5] The best laid plans of Mice and Men ( and game studios ) come to nought ...

[6] Outraged Fanbois can send their email rage comments about all this to EatShitIdiot@LobotomyLand.org

[7] The natural act of producing and throwing about shit/excrement/fecal-matter.

[8] ttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blimp

[9] Play on the M-World Hypothesis which the writers of the game abused so much ...

[10] Spring-heeled Jack : https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Spring-Heeled-Jack/

[11] May have to substitute "Snarky the Boar" due to copyright issues...

[12] EE - Electrical Engineering. Columbia might not have been in the Electronic age yet (with stolen no-understood shit), BUT there was plenty of Electric devices already in use by Columbia's time.

[13] H H Holmes - "Devil in the White City" Book

[14] Seriously, they picked the 'pinky' because it is all but invisible in any animation view in the game

[15] Sorry this phrase is copyrighted and would have to be mangled so much to be hardly recognizable to be used in the MMORPG

[16] One might be a mass execution scene, where the Player is Challenged to see how many necks they can saw thru with one swipe of their 'Skyhook'

[17] ttps://www.bing.com/images/search?q=egg+slicer

[18] Dialogue in movie "Terminator" ...

[19] What Levine claimed about Infinite BS

[20] Electro Magnetic Pulse

[21] A famous/long-existing amusement park in New York City

[22] ttps://www.britannica.com/topic/Cthulhu

[23] A thing I just made up

[24] 'Carnie Speak' : Lingo used at Traveling Carnivals to obscure caries talking in front of 'the Rubes'... https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/carny-slang

[25] The Boy Scout Motto - "Be Prepared"

[26] Some may have heard it as "Ladybird The Tray", but then they've been smokin real strong stuff in Columbia FOR A REAL LONG TIME ...

[27] Wasn't that what the games Columbia was - a illogical impossible dreamscape...

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

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INFINITE-BS REDO

Sitemap :

An Infinite BS REDO (A Seriously Major Project) - Not Just a Joke Game

Here's an Idea : Use this MMORPG Mechanism and Tools to do Columbia "The Way It Should Have Been" :

SteamPunk Science In Infinite Columbia

NOT JUST A SOLO GAME, BUT A MMORPG ?

Infinite BS <<<< THIS IS WHAT HAS TO BE FIXED

Alternate Alternates <<<< ALSO SEE THIS

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WHY DO I BOTHER ?

Because I WANT computer games to be better than what we typically get from the Game Industry, and perhaps by pointing out ClapTrap like BioShock Infinite, strong criticisms being voiced might serve to SHAME the makers of such substandard games, and MIGHT cause them to DO BETTER in Future.

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