[Megathread] Bioshock Infinite

[Last Attempt]

@Charecters Yes booker is Comstock just from a different universe

Ok thanks one more question, Elizabeth is Bookers daughter in on universe and Comstocks daughter in another? I didn't really understand that either.

[Zatheyll]

Ok thanks one more question, Elizabeth is Bookers daughter in on universe and Comstocks daughter in another? I didn't really understand that either.

Elizabeth/Anna is Bookers daughter. Booker is also Comstock. Booker lost/sold Elizabeth before he got baptized in that scene near the end of the game (this is the one thing I'm iffy on, he may have sold Elizabeth after becoming Booker, but that wouldn't explain to me how Comstock didn't have his daughter in the other). In one universe he accepts being baptized and becomes Comstock, creating Colombia. In a different universe he doesn't accept being baptized and becomes Booker and falls into debt. Either way he had already lost Anna. If he became Comstock he stole Anna from Booker in a different timeline and if he became Booker he went to rescue Anna from Comstock who stole his daughter.

I hope that makes sense, and if I got anything off/wrong someone else correct me.

I'll quote a comment from quite a few pages ago that better explains the entire story. Even then there are still a lot of parts that are hard to wrap your head around.

Okay, to start, I'm guessing you understand the multiple universe/tear part.

To clarify, tears can be seen by anyone .There is an infomercial (or w/e the short videos are ) where people of columbia are terrified by these. People can look through them and that is how Fink is able to see Rapture's Plasmid tech (Vigor) and possibly copied Big Daddy tech to make Songbird.

Booker has a child named Anna, mother assumed dead from childbearth. He had gambling problems and ends up resorting to EXTREME measures to clear his debt (selling Anna to a powerful figure who wanted her).
The guilt eats away at him, and turns to religion for salvation.


The event where the first 'split' happens is Booker's baptism. he either A)accepts it and becomes comstock. Or B) denies it at the last second, realizing his guilt will never go away and remains as Booker.

Here are the first two universes, A and B. (We go through other 'minor' universes during gameplay, and where we end up is not the original universe... at least the way I see it.)


In A-verse, Booker(now comstock) becomes a powerful and charismatic religious figure, teams up with the Regina Lutece and builds up Columbia. He is the prophet of his own city/Noah'a Arc and considers everyone else in the real, ground world as anarchists who caused his initial suffering(what initially caused him to get baptized). He uses propaganda to achieve this.


During the development of Columbia, Lutece and Comstock finds a method of time travel(in reality it is universe-hopping). Regina Lutece finds a male counterpart of herself in a different universe, Robert Lutece. She brings him to her universe (because she likes the intellectual banter) but they realize it has side effects, causing Robert to rebuild memories to fit in with the current universe that he is in. Later on, they seem to solve this problem.


Working closely with time travel has caused Comstock to age quickly and sterile. He realizes that his goal (Purging of the anarchists) will not become a possibility in his time and wants to leave an offspring, but he is sterile. He thinks that if he can go back in time to steal/buy his earlier child (Anna, before the universe split) then he is able to have a child that will lead his 'army' in his cause.

Now this is my theory, but because Anna/Elizabeth's finger was cut off and because she now 'exists' in two different universes, she has the ability to freely traverse between universes. Comstock builds a tower/syphon in an attempt to contain such power for fear of losing her. He builds the Songbird to guard her.

Realizing that the Booker from the different universe (B verse where he lost his child and didn't get baptized) could in theory come to his universe in an attempt to get his child (Anna) Comstock uses propoganda once again to warn people of the False Shepard (AD hand)

The 2 Luteces's attempt at redemption for tearing a child away from her father is to bring Booker to the Comstock universe. (This is the start of the game. You are already in a different universe, and his memory has been adjusted as such)

Out of many different possibilities (Eli destroying NY and such) our Booker succeeds in destroying the syphon giving Anna/Elizabeth her full power back, allowing her to understand the full map of the different universes.

In the ending, Booker is enraged by Comstock's purchase of his daughter, and wants to undo it. But as Elizabeth said, the only way to do it is to remove Comstock completely from the different universes/timelines.

Thats why at the end, we are back to the baptism where comstock is 'born' and Booker is drowned before he makes the choice. In the end we see multiple Elizabeth's dissapearing, the assumption is that she is the Elizabeth of the different Comstock universes. There is one Elizabeth left before the screen fades out. I am assuming that Anna is left. (She is never sold) which means that Booker never has the guilt that leads him to the baptism, removing Comstock.

In the end, there are 3 constants. A man, a Lighthouse, and a city. Others are variables, similar, but different. Girl(Elizabeth/little sisters), jailor(Big daddy/songbird), tyrant(ryan/comstock)

These are my interpretations, and any more questions I'd be happy to answer. (I have a few questions too lol)

EDIT1: The choices you make in game (especially the head/tail one) is a good foreshadowing of the ending of the game. No matter what choices you make, the ending is the same (tail). It is seen on Robert's panel that there are only tails.

[Berethos08]

Elizabeth/Anna is Bookers daughter. Booker is also Comstock. Booker lost/sold Elizabeth before he got baptized in that scene near the end of the game (this is the one thing I'm iffy on, he may have sold Elizabeth after becoming Booker, but that wouldn't explain to me how Comstock didn't have his daughter in the other). In one universe he accepts being baptized and becomes Comstock, creating Colombia. In a different universe he doesn't accept being baptized and becomes Booker and falls into debt. Either way he had already lost Anna. If he became Comstock he stole Anna from Booker in a different timeline and if he became Booker he went to rescue Anna from Comstock who stole his daughter.

I hope that makes sense, and if I got anything off/wrong someone else correct me.

I'll quote a comment from quite a few pages ago that better explains the entire story. Even then there are still a lot of parts that are hard to wrap your head around.

Part of the comment you quoted has two events flipped in order of when they happen.

The Baptism choices occurs shortly after Wounded Knee and the events there - Booker fathering Anna, and then subsequently selling her to settle debts is solely part of the Booker realities, as that event occurs afterward (1890 or early 1891 is when the Baptism happens, Anna is born in 1893). The Comstock version has never had children - we can assume that, as a now high "religious" fellow that the Comstock version would not end up in a relationship that produced a child out of wedlock and was unfortunately made sterile before he had the chance to father any children.

That's how he ends up without his daughter in the Comstock realities - he never actually had children there, and chose to resort to stealing the child from a different version of himself.

[SirRobin]

Yes, Comstock is who DeWitt becomes if he accepts baptism at the river. If he refuses then he remains DeWitt. From what I recall, that baptism occurs shortly after Wounded Knee, which occurs in late 1890. That is twenty-two years before BioWare Infinite starts. Considering Elizabeth's age in the game? It seemed clear to me that DeWitt meets Anna's mother, and Anna is born, after the baptism. Not before.

So every Comstock doesn't have a kid before he becomes sterile, and every DeWitt never became sterile.

[Zatheyll]

Part of the comment you quoted has two events flipped in order of when they happen.

The Baptism choices occurs shortly after Wounded Knee and the events there - Booker fathering Anna, and then subsequently selling her to settle debts is solely part of the Booker realities, as that event occurs afterward (1890 is when the Baptism happens, Anna is born in 1893). The Comstock version has never had children - we can assume that, as a now high "religious" fellow that the Comstock version would not end up in a relationship that produced a child out of wedlock and was unfortunately made sterile before he had the chance to father any children.

That's how he ends up without his daughter in the Comstock realities - he never actually had children there, and chose to resort to stealing the child from a different version of himself.

Ah, that makes much more sense.

Essentially, what we can learn from the whole ordeal is that baptisms make you sterile.

That's obviously the entire point of the game even.

[Hitei]

ptwonline,

I took the #77 warning as an indication that the Luteces exist outside of normal timelines, and similar to Elizabeth, are able to see how various things will turn up, they know he's already chosen the 77, rather than it being a sign that they've done this multiple times. I do agree that it's the Luteces' attempt to slowly show you what is going on. That's really their entire role, is to show Booker what is going on a little bit at a time, and I think it's more that they know exactly when they are supposed to interfere and how much (because they can see how the timeline is supposed to progress) rather than they've been through it many times before.


Were you taking the multiple times from the various worlds and visions of Booker/Elizabeth you see at the end? I saw that more as thousands of diverging timeways based on small choices like helping Fitzroy lead the rebellion, etc, than it being evidence of the same situation occurring over and over but not ending quite right.

In this way, the heads/tails board represents them shifting across worlds of Booker arriving at the raffle, rather than different iterations of the same situation. But then again, I suppose that's basically the same thing, and is roughly the Lutece's "the question is when" argument. Worlds can be taken as multiple universes occurring simultaneously, or as a set of looping events occurring over and over.

I do agree that it that it's probably more likely that the Luteces killed the man in the Lighthouse.

[Berethos08]

I just rewatched the ending section on youtube to see if I had missed any lines, and I wish I had been recording my own play through at the end to verify/compare...


The ending I saw had the priest/pastor there for the baptism, the one Elizabeth that had been with me through the game...then Booker was dunked underwater, started to drown, and it cut to black and went to the credits.

The version on youtube showed the multiple Elizabeths showing up, Booker going underwater, and then each of them fading.

Glitch? Or conditions that lead to slightly different scenes at the end?

[Sargerus]

Booker's name suggests duality.

Booker Dewitt = Book or Do It


Book (Leave)

or

Do It (Accept The Baptism)

MIND FUCKING BLOWN

[Deleted]

Probably would have been easier to have just put a spoiler warning in the thread title :P

I finished this up couple of days after release, ending blew my mind. Gonna wait a while and play through at again.

[Deleted]

This game is fucking amazing and the story is on a level of its own , but the combat was very weak compared to the first game in my opinion .

I cant really enjoy playing it , the combat seems so repetitive , traps were also pretty much useless throughout a lot of the game because combat was primarily offensive rather than defensive , sometimes I would attempt to lure enemies back through a door to run into the traps but they would just wait for me ? the story is the sole reason I would replay it . Decisions you make aren't as important as they where in Bioshock either. I hate the way alot of the enemies would just attack from a distance , you can just go round and round the sky rails to avoid them . I'd much rather them be actively seeking you out . The combat in the game makes it feel like you are reinacting a script or something , in Bioshock you made your own film .

I prefer splicers to the police enemies in this game , splicers where much more varied and exciting whereas enemies in this game are simply autonomous numbers that you take down . Perhaps the idea that each splicer used to be a person with their own history was something I enjoyed , some of them would even have Voxophones (forgot the name of the original audiotapes xD) explaining their dire situations.

Loot was also very linear , lock picks were pretty much useless because all you would get was a few hundred dollars for scrounging around for a few picks. Gear was probably the only thing in the game which made it repayable , some of the unique things you could get were game changing. In Bioshock I would scrounge every last enemy because loot was so important , it meant the difference between life and death , having awesome ammo types etc . In Infinite I literally run around corpses bashing x on the xbox controller because the loot is incredibly basic and predetermined. What was with all the closed shops and houses you would get when running around towns ? it made exploration incredibly limited when only 1/4 houses was open etc . Surely they ought to be giving incentives for exploring rather than limiting exploration full stop ? Bioshock made almost everything you could see accessible one way or another .

Weapon upgrades must have taken the team about a few minutes out of the 5+ years they spent developing the game . Increased clip magazine , Increased damage ..... Really 2k ? Really ? Sure they make you down enemies easier but apart from that what a useless feature , would it have been that hard to add in extra ammo types also ? The fact that they are all accessible exemplifies the reckless decision choosing you can do in this game , as ultimately your decisions are of little consequence. In Bioshock 1 on the other hand , everything was about choice , plasmids , weapons , crucial in game decisions ... They all had game changing effects , whether you play as offensive , defensive , stealth , weapon focused , plasmid focused , evil , good , "grey" as in balanced etc .. They made reply value so damn high . It was a proper RPG . Bioshock Infinite feels like any darn Shooter where enemies are simply bots who you loot for ammo and health , wtf man ... Vigors are simply overpowered means of killing enemies . It was so disappointing.

As ive said , the sole reason I would replay is for the epic storyline , even the little arrow pointing direction thing broke the immersion abit , even though I know its optional it just breaks the whole visage of a story unfolding itself before you , you make the decisions and discoveries etc . In Bioshock infinite you simply play out a series of events that are going to happen .

That being said , it will definitely have a place up in my best games of all time list . Perhaps the forthcoming DLCs will redeem the lack luster combat system.

[BLSTMASTER]

Part of the comment you quoted has two events flipped in order of when they happen.

The Baptism choices occurs shortly after Wounded Knee and the events there - Booker fathering Anna, and then subsequently selling her to settle debts is solely part of the Booker realities, as that event occurs afterward (1890 or early 1891 is when the Baptism happens, Anna is born in 1893). The Comstock version has never had children - we can assume that, as a now high "religious" fellow that the Comstock version would not end up in a relationship that produced a child out of wedlock and was unfortunately made sterile before he had the chance to father any children.

That's how he ends up without his daughter in the Comstock realities - he never actually had children there, and chose to resort to stealing the child from a different version of himself.

Yeah I noticed I missed the date on the second playthrough. 1999 with achieve is pretty tough haha


My impression of the second playthrough: foreshadowing everywhere :O

[Mechazod]

So I finally got a chance to play this the other day, started in the morning and finished it later that night, and I gotta say while I was expecting a great continuation to the Bioshock series I was NOT expecting to play the spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger/Cross.


Now where to begin on what I liked and didn't like about Infinite...

What I liked:
-The story, obviously. The Bioshock series I can honestly say is one of the few FPS series with a strong narrative and world that makes me want to play non-stop alongside series like TimeSplitters and Half-Life.

-Columbia. While unlike Rapture's underwater setting you did sometimes forget you were in a city in the sky, but the actual design of it, the Sky-Hook riding, the air-ships and the decor were all amazing. I do wish there had been more exploration into the actual factory floors of the Fink-factories.

-wasn't expecting the disasters to happen during the course of the game: I had completely shut myself out of all information regarding Infinite after I had seen the first video for it. I was expecting Columbia to be a city already in shambles like Rapture was and Dewitt just going to it to rescue Elizabeth from it. I was not expecting to arrive in the start of the game to a fairly "sane" and well-off flying-utopia and to see the actual fall of it occur during the course of it with your main character being the real cause of it to go to hell.

-including non-enemy characters/NPCs through out the game. I enjoyed the parts of the game where we got to go to places like Battleship Bay and wander around in them. I would have preferred however if there was more interaction with stuff later in the game like you could in the fair at the start.

-gear to wear: while kind of pointless on lower settings I am sure this will really benefit greatly when I go back to do 1999 mode.



What I disliked/would have liked added
-Didn't really feel like Bioshock. I dont really know if this is a true complaint actually. The story, the trans-dimensional elements, the more interaction with characters, environmental traps and kills didn't seem that great or had a large lack of them, weapon and vigor combination attacks felt kind of unnecessary, the not-as-threatening/still mostly inhabited setting and a couple other minor things didn't really feel like a true successor to the first two games, and yes I know the creators said it wasn't meant to be directly connected to the first two games and that there are some connections to Rapture and a lot of the game play is based off of the previous two games, but at the same time to me it just felt like the game could have almost been released with a different name entirely. More a minor kind of complaint, but it was still something I had on my mind for the majority of the game.

-lack of the Songbird for most of the game: For a character that was heavily shown in per-release videos and content and even had a statue made of it for the Collectors Edition version of the game, I really felt the Songbird didn't get enough time in the game, I was expecting the bird to be following you for the entire play through of the game, almost like Nemesis from Resident Evil 3. Instead to me it almost felt like the designers forgot he was in the game until near the end, I would have really liked more areas where you need to escape from it and include at least one true boss battle against it. I did however love the ending with it and it joining your side, however it would have had a bigger impact to me if the Songbird has been a constant threat to you during the entire game.

-preferred Dewitt's old voice: correct me if I am wrong, but in the earliest videos for the game Dewitt had a more unique/early 1900s sounding voice to him, if that makes any sense. The voice for him in the game I felt was kind of generic for a FPS/video game character.

-lack of interaction with tears and not a huge variety of tears: This is one of my bigger disappointments. First of all the tears that Elizabeth can summon were rather bland and uninspired, stuff that exists in Columbia, but just in a different reality. However through out the game we also see her opening tears to things like tornadoes, trains and parades, so its not like she couldn't also have created things like that. That right there is something major I felt the creators could of had fun with, instead of creating hooks and gun turrets and barriers, how about doing stuff like creating a tear with a tank from World War 2, open up tears to volcano's, summon a fucking dinosaur, hell how about creating a tear that makes a Big Daddy from the Rapture universe come out, that would of been awesome! Likewise I was also expecting early on pre-release that we would actually get to explore the worlds beyond the tears through out the game. I would of loved it if to escape the Songbird or a powerful enemy or the destruction of an area that we would be able to jump through tears and have small portions of game play in areas like the 1980s versions of Paris and New York and who knows what else. That to me would of created a lot of variety to the game.

-to linear: Now I know Bioshock 2 was sort of the same way, but Infinite felt to me much more hall-way style then the first two games. There was no real reason to set traps, your mind control vigor wasn't really as useful as it was in previous games and there was no real re spawning enemies that would wander around and less emphasis on the ability to be rather stealthy like you could in the first two games.

-lack of a true final boss fight: Now I know Bio 2 was the same way with its many enemy encounter, but I would have much preferred a true end game battle against the Songbird instead of just drowning it in Rapture (which however was freaking awesome/unexpected). I really liked the final fight against Atlas in the first Bio 1 and to me a final boss battle always feels like a proper ending to a great game.

-no hacking: I'm sure some people found hacking in the first two games to be unnecessary fluff, but I actually enjoyed it, especially considering it could directly effect the game depending if you failed/succeed at it.

-Vigor's felt a little bit underwhelming: maybe its just me, but I rarely found myself using my vigor abilities that often, once again this will probably change in 1999 mode. I barely ever remember setting any traps, never even bothered doing any Vigor combos, and the one vigor I did end up using the most felt broken. The fact that your non-machine mind control targets will just kill themselves after the effect wears off feels really cheap, but probably will be a useful tactic in the hardest mode.

-weapons didn't feel that unique: As simple as that. A lot of the weapons felt the same just more powerful. Only "unique" weapons was the Sky-Hook if you could consider it a true weapon.

-dieing with no real consequence: Now I am sure this isn't going to be a factor in 1999 mode, but I felt that when you die in the game it really didn't feel like a penalty, you just run back and enemies still have the majority of the damage dealt to them. I much prefer a system where you restart at the beginning of a room with everything reset and with you trying out a new tactic. (this is for all FPS/video games and not just Infinite)

-enemies were not as interesting/didn't get enough screen time: Now I actually did like how we got to battle just non-demented humans as enemies from different factions, however for the majority of the game that's all we really battled besides the occasional Mecha-Washington and gun turret. The Handy-Men didn't feel like the true successor to the Big Daddy's which I was expecting them to be, the sirens(Lady Comstock) and the alarm-boy thing from Comstock House were originally going to be enemy types instead of just 1 time encounters, and there just felt like a lack of variety when compared to all the Splicer and Big Daddy types of the previous two games and the times we did fight something unique was on rare occasions. [I][/I]

I am sure I am forgetting some things.

However with all that said I am not sure how I would rank Infinite when compared to the last two games, in fact its one of the few series where I dont have a definite preference game. All three of the games are kind of all on the same level to me, they all have their own fair share of strengths and weaknesses and things I like more in one, but dislike the lack of in another.

One more minor thing I kind of like is the fact that there is no multiplayer mode so I can focus on getting all of the trophies/achievements without wasting time in versus like I did with 2.


One question for those who have tried 1999 mode: Does it play like the no-chamber mode from the first Bioshock, overly brutal like Dead Space 2's 3 save for entire game mode or is it like if you enter a new room/area and die you need to start the entire encounter over again with all the enemies back to full health? (would prefer if its the last one)

[destia]

Ahahaha! My god, if someone plays through this again, please stay awhile on the beach, and listen to the tune. "Girls just wanna have fun" Same as the easter egg later

[Jamber]

One question for those who have tried 1999 mode: Does it play like the no-chamber mode from the first Bioshock, overly brutal like Dead Space 2's 3 save for entire game mode or is it like if you enter a new room/area and die you need to start the entire encounter over again with all the enemies back to full health? (would prefer if its the last one)

In 1999 mode, enemies hit harder (shields break so fast), they have more health. When you die, you start at a pre-defined location in the fight area, and all enemies alive before you died fully regenerate health. Dying loses you 100 coins, and if you don't have enough, you have to start back at the last auto-save.

Tip: Make sure you're ready for the first Lady Comstock fight. Brutal. If you want to play the game in the "most difficult mode", play 1999 and not use the Dollar Store vending machine for anything. It's still not as brutal as other games out there (I'm looking at you Dark Souls), but it makes it more fun.

[Mechazod]

In 1999 mode, enemies hit harder (shields break so fast), they have more health. When you die, you start at a pre-defined location in the fight area, and all enemies alive before you died fully regenerate health. Dying loses you 100 coins, and if you don't have enough, you have to start back at the last auto-save.

Tip: Make sure you're ready for the first Lady Comstock fight. Brutal. If you want to play the game in the "most difficult mode", play 1999 and not use the Dollar Store vending machine for anything. It's still not as brutal as other games out there (I'm looking at you Dark Souls), but it makes it more fun.

Ok good, that's not to bad then, its almost how I imagined it would be with coins almost acting like a lives system sort of which makes it more interesting. Was kind of fearing it would be stupid like Dead Space 2's 3-save/pretty much gotta beat the game on hardest setting in one sitting mode. And yeah I was thinking to myself during the first fight in the graveyard that its gonna be a bitch on 1999 mode.

Ahahaha! My god, if someone plays through this again, please stay awhile on the beach, and listen to the tune. "Girls just wanna have fun" Same as the easter egg later

I actually really liked how they explained that song in Columbia later in the game with the tears to the 1980s allowing the music composer to steal the tune.

[shokter]

Loot was also very linear , lock picks were pretty much useless because all you would get was a few hundred dollars for scrounging around for a few picks.
...

Weapon upgrades must have taken the team about a few minutes out of the 5+ years they spent developing the game . Increased clip magazine , Increased damage ..... Really 2k ? Really ?

I feel you are being disingenuous here...only listing the two most boring Gear in the game (which I have a feeling will be actually incredibly useful once I am near endgame on 1999 mode). There was gear that caused some Vigors to chain, gear that made you invulnerable upon leaving a skyline, gear that caused explosions upon leaving a skyline, gear that increases speed upon shield break, some that increase shield regen, some that stun enemies upon melee...I could go on, but there is a LOT more gear (around 40 or so).

As for lockpicks...in addition to money there was often gear in the locked rooms, not to mention effusions. If you played on norm or easy I could see not needing any of this stuff, but on hard I found them useful, and when I play 1999 I'm guessing they are invaluable. Oh...and all that useless gold in locked rooms...could be spent to upgrade your vigors or weapons. I scrounged like a mofo (so much that I had found enough effusions to max my Salt and Shield and nearly half full my Health), bought literally no ammo or anything else from the vending machine that was not a vigor or weapon upgrade...and still was unable to afford many upgrades. There is a customization system in the game, just not one done in a menu.

The rest of your criticism is fair, but I think if you replayed Bioshock you would realize it is pretty much just as linear, if not moreso.

Oh and Bioshock had the little immersion breaking Nav arrow as well. Also optional, but on by default.

[Mothhive]

I actually really liked how they explained that song in Columbia later in the game with the tears to the 1980s allowing the music composer to steal the tune.

Yeah, loved that too. At first I thought they were just cool little easter eggs, but as soon as it was explained it became so much more awesome. :P

[Mechazod]

Another kind of interesting connection I noticed that I am sure other people have/commented on was that besides the "always a man, always a city" parallel connection there is also always a child-parent relationship imbedded somewhere in the three games plots. Jack and Andrew Ryan in Bio 1, Subject Delta, Sofia Lamb and Eleanor in Bio 2, DeWitt/Comstock and Elizabeth in Infinite.


So what kind of setting/plot do you guys want to see for the next Bioshock? I kind of would like to see one last trip back to Rapture in the 1970s with Eleanor leading a group of investigators to the city that are interested in its technology. Other then that I want to see some completely new settings for future games. I really cant see a sequel to Infinite since it kind of wraps up all the loose ends pretty well, but I wouldn't mind more parallel-dimension stuff, even if it made Infinite feel kind of separate from the first two games.

[Simulacrum]

Eh, retroactive time travel never really makes sense. The source of the whole dimension-hopping, time-travel nonsense wasn't Booker, it was Lutece. They can take infinite's plot as long as they want, because there's ultimately no logic or reason to any of it. Why didn't Booker stab Lutece in the throat instead of handing him the baby? Because "eventually he would"? Much in the same that "eventually he would" choose to not let himself drown during the baptism? Why can we change the baptism's outcome, but not any of the infinite (heh) number of other things that would've prevented the main plot's horrible outcome? Because it's convenient for the story, which is also the only justification they'd need to keep the plot going for as long as they felt like.

[jishdefish]

So, here's a real question: What is the Colombia like from the worlds that Booker is from? The one where he chooses not to take the baptism, and never becomes Comstock? Does it simply not exist in those worlds?

Also, I've seen a lot of people saying "Why doesn't he just refuse to give Lutece the baby and punch him in the throat?" Well, I think that's mostly because that was the only way it could have played out for this particular Booker (because that particular sequence and the one where he chased after them were simply memories). I also think there were dire consequences for not handing the baby over, maybe even a way-early cross-world invasion of New York to get her (I saw Booker's dream sequence showing New York being invaded as a memory from another incarnation of himself, rather than foreshadowing an event he would never see from his door).

I also didn't get the drowning ending. What did drowning him before he became Comstock solve under multiverse theory (there are still worlds where he didn't get drowned, etc.) Did she delete herself from existence by drowning him (making it so he was never alive to father her) and having the universe resolve the grandfather paradox by eliminating her?