@kevinwalsh: It's not completelycrazy to assume that Booker is now the father of Andrew, in the post-credits scene. If every dimension/universe needs the constants of the man, the lighthouse and the city, and Elizabeth just cut the loop/destroyed the fork that created Columbia, something else has to materialize.

Remember this is someone's fiction. The only parallel universes theory that's survived much scrutiny -- and it's hardly universally accepted -- is Hugh Everett's Many-World Interpretation and all it does is deny wavefunction collapse. Everett doesn't theorize anything so wild as the possibility of moving between branching universes. Only that they exist.

So there's a Booker and a Comstock because there's a Booker and a Comstock. Merely because Ken Levine want it that way so he wrote it that way. It only has to make enough sense it doesn't cause people to dislike his game. The logic doesn't have to work it out. It just has to seem sensible enough, in the limited context of speculative fiction video game, thinking about doesn't complete shatter your suspension of disbelief.

It is indeed a great story, yet complicated. I really praise Irrational for being able to make the story make sense in the end, as I would imagine that would be a hard thing to do.

Booker is a great character. I felt the game reminded me alot about Bioshock, and included the elements that makes this one of my favorite series of all time.

5/5

So, I finished Infinite last night and I think the game is mostly a bummer... the combat is a drag against enemies with too little variety, and the plot feels unfocused. The game does not seem to have a clear take home message, and I hate how parallel universe stories always seem to have to come to a close with a big info dump scene to clear things up. As baby Anna's severed pinkey slow flew across the screen, all I could think was 'Are you fucking kidding me?'...

That's neither here nor there. I had an idea this morning while mulling over bits of the game I haven't decided on, and one area I keep coming back to as potentially really interesting is the stealth bit in Comstock House. I am specifically interested in the Boys of Silence and the Blanks. My thought was, what if all the Blanks being held prisoner there are really the previous 121 Bookers that failed to rescue Elizabeth? They flicker like tears and we never see their faces...

@golguin: The musical notes C A G E used for the Songbird are not the same as in the opening sequence of the game. There are only 3 bells on the lighthouse but four notes in CAGE. The bells tones are high, low, low, mid, mid. In CAGE it would be mid-low, low, high, mid-high (if you are looking at a piano keyboard).

Hope this clears it up unless there is another music sequence in the game you are referencing. My mind is still playing catch up.

On a different note (pardon the pun), after I played the bells, it felt like something straight out of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

I'm not sure if this has been discussed yet, but i may be missing something with the plot. In the reality where the player starts, Booker and Elizabeth escape from her tower and songbird damages it pretty good. The game goes on and then at Finkton we start opening tears, and after a few 'jumps' end up in a reality where Booker is a martyr for the Vox and there's a huge rebellion going on. It seems like this is the same reality that we're in up until the end of the game (with the exception of when old elizabeth kind of summons you to the future) and when you get into the Booker martyr reality there's an recording from Booker saying that Elizabeth was evacuated from the tower before he could even meet her, which in turn led him to join up with Slate and the Vox.

But then later, when you've re-rescued Elizabeth and are aboard Comstock's Flagship, and are about to destroy the Tower/Siphon, it's damaged in the same way that it was when you rescued Elizabeth from the first reality that the game starts in, but in the Vox Revolution reality, that never happened. I guess perhaps at some point along the way we left the Vox reality and returned to one where booker rescued elizabeth?

Also I was wondering what happened the version of Elizabeth from the Vox reality, the one who was spirited off to Comstock house, did she vanish out of thin air and merge with our Elizabeth?

One thing that I haven't seen explained, and haven't been able to explain to myself is: If Comstock got all old and cancered-up because of repeated, prolonged exposure to the tears, why didn't the same thing happen to the Luteces? One would think that, prior to Comstock's failed assasination attempt that turned them into the Super Time Twins, they would have been doing exhaustive studying and experimentation with the tears and would have also been affected in a similar way.

My first thought, which didn't pan out, was that Comstock tried to have them killed very soon after they secured Anna/Elizabeth from Booker's dimension, and so they didn't have enough time to soak up too much tear juice. This theory doesn't work, though, because Rosalind mentions the effects the tears are having on Comstock in one of her voxophone recordings, so she would have had to be around long enough to observe it.

My other thought was that, being scientists, they knew enough to take precautions (lead aprons and whatnot) that would limit their exposure to the harmful effects of the tears.

Was this explained somewhere in a voxophone that I missed, or does anyone else have a better explanation?

@the8man:

I think that these audiologs represent the only direct info about Comstock's condition in the game;

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

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

It seems likely that Comstock spent a lot of time observing other dimensions through the tears, based on his knowledge of events, but we can only speculate.

@rebgav: Thanks for the links. I remember getting both of those in my playthrough, but it's helpful to see them again.

She seems to imply that the tears can be more harmful to some people than they are to others, and what happened to "her" Comstock could just be some fluke, since it isn't happening to Comstocks from other dimensions.

I'm not sure I like that explanation. Seems a bit of a cop-out to me. Not that it's really a major plot point, or anything. Just think they could have done better than that.

I thought killing Booker broke the chain of Comstocks. Like, that Booker won't become a Comstock, who then won't go to another reality and steal an Anna, allowing that Booker to not become Comstock, meaning no Comstock will mess with the next reality, thus breaking the chain. Now you guys have made it all way more complicated for me!

Finally finished the game last night. Turns out its pretty good.

I love a good time travel/multi-dimensional story (coincidentally I just watched Primer too) mainly because they stick with you and get you to pick apart the narrative in a satisfying manner. Weirdly I was listening to the radio this morning, and an oddly precient song came on. It's by Biffy Clyro, I don't think they're that well known overseas but they're fairly big over here in Blighty. Anyway song and lyrics below.

I have hit one stumbling block when I look back over the narrative, and naturally it's one of those cases where I may have missed a voxophone/dialogue piece or it may have been answered previously in this thread but anyway:

From what I can tell, when you move through tears to different dimensions, you don't replace the alternate version of yourself, you coexist, which allows Booker and Comstock to be in the same universe. My problem lies with Booker and Elizabeth going through a tear and coming out in a dimension where the Vox are fighting back and overthrowing Comstock.

In this reality, Booker never reaches Elizabeth because she is taken away to Comstock house, and instead he dies a martyr. Fine, but what happens to the other Elizabeth? I assume this is the Elizabeth that goes on to become OldElizabeth at the end of the game, but where is she during the second half of the game? Surely she'd still be locked up in Comstock house, and if thats the case, why would Songbird/Comstock still be after your version of Elizabeth?

Indeed, I think you fit on one of the few snags that cannot be explained away by the multi-verse theory. I have seen a few people discussing the issue you have raised and the only solution they have offered that is that because Elizabeth already exists across more than one universe she is able to merge together with her alternate self. The Luteces seem to do something similar-there are no alternative versions of them running around just the same versions over and over again. However the slight problem with this of course is that at the end of the game we see many Elizabeth's from across different universes therefore-she is not as disconnected from reality as the Luteces.

@paradox121: @theadipose: A possible rationalization, based off of nothing but theoretical plausibility, is that the Elizabeth from that universe either died or escaped on her own through other means during the chaos of the Vox revolution. For example, I don't know if there's any way to know the status of Monument Island in the revolution dimension, but if it also destroyed only this time by the Vox instead of Songbird, it is highly likely that the Elizabeth from that dimension died in that moment. Comstock may or not be aware that our Elizabeth is not his Elizabeth, but because he is already somewhat aware of multiple dimensions, that distinction becomes irrelevant.

Not saying that's necessarily the case, but it's an explanation that is consistent within the logic of the fiction.

@starvinggamer: ....of course the subject will invent memories where none exist :D I've been doing a lets play of bioshock 'explained' discussing all these theories like the one you suggest (which is an entirely plausable one!) - when one of my subscribers pointed that that perhaps WE are the subject inventing memories to make the game make sense to ourselves.

@starvinggamer: Yeah its pretty handwave-able. It just seems like an odd oversight for a game that prides itself on everything being tied up nicely. Even if they'd just thrown in a voxophone from Alt-Booker saying how there were rumours Alt-Elizabeth had escaped/died whatever.

I think the whole tear thing in the game in general never really sits right with me. Like I said, Ive just come off the back of watching Primer which has a very strict logic and set of rules, but here tears kinda just appear and Booker and Elizabeth just randomly decide to jump through them on a whim. It feels like one of those cases where the idea of alternate realities/infinite possibilities came first and then the reasoning and details came later. But meh. Rant over.

This is a good game. Confusing, dark, bright, happy, racist, and overall a good game.

It's not a great game. I like Bioshock more. Infinite however is still good. It took a bit too much to really grasp what happened at the end though, which is why I think the original is better.

The whereabouts of World B-Elizabeth is irrelevant to the core story. Although a fluff piece of detail and may offer up some tantilizing possibilities, it would make no difference to where Booker and Elizabeth end up. No hand-waving is necessary because it isn't important to know.

In stories structured like this, it is key to keep fringe elements to a minimum. People are irritated at how they thought the story was going to be about Founds vs Vox Populli where expanding and dwelling upon other details would just serve to point out more details the story isn't going to explore.

The game does mention that Alt-Elizabeth was taken away in the Martyr dimension. Martyr Booker himself mentions something to the effect that Elizabeth had already been taken away.

The implication being she was taken away to Comstock House. Thats the issue- if she's meant to have been taken to Comstock House, where is she by the end of the game? But yeah, I guess its not that big a thing to get hung up on, its just something that bugged me at the time.

Ah, that's the thing though. They aren't in the Martyr Booker dimension at the end of the game. The last confirmed moment that "Our Elizabeth" and Booker are in the Martyr Dimension is right when Songbird takes her. Booker goes through a tear to arrive at the Dark Elizabeth Universe. He does his thing there and Elizabeth sends Booker back to an unspecified dimension where an Unknown Elizabeth has been held and experimented on for some time. We know Dark Elizabeth has done this countless times and all those times a different Elizabeth grew up to become another Dark Elizabeth. It was Dark Elizabeth's intention to break the cycle and create at least one Elizabeth that can stop the Comstock variable in their multiverse.

But then why would the Songbird even take Our Elizabeth in the first place? Surely a version of her is locked up away somewhere and no one is chasing after her. And also how would Our Elizabeth and Songbird go through to the end game dimension? I guess you could say Songbird is some kind of omnipotent dimension hopper too, but its just presented in the story as Elizabeth and Booker hop over to the Martyr dimension, find some weird stuff going on, and then end up just hunted by the same people all over again.

Finished the game last night... then proceeded to try and piece everything together of course!

I was a little iffy on the idea of Comstock being Booker, at least in the sense that they were trying to play off the fact that they were supposedly the same person. Especially with different voices and not really noticeable features. The Lutece's had noted he was prematurely aging but Rosalind specifically mentions noticing that, like traits changing from parents to a child, the same effect is taking place on Comstock. She couldn't tell if it was just exposure to the machine or if it was the process of entering another dimension.

Sort of as a side note I was surprised that during the spoilercast the crew didn't buy that Songbird and the Handymen were directly influenced by the Big Daddys as observed by Fink. There is a specific Voxaphone that has the title "Every Child Deserves a Protector" (or "Needs" or something) in which Fink describes seeing the melding of man and machine. The dialog itself would only suggest such a connection but I think the title of the log makes that connection pretty specific.

Well, I'd like to jump into the conversation and bring up the subject on Elizabeth's ability to open up the tears. I've noticed a lot of theories on it, some are interesting and some don't make any sense, and I have a question on one of them of why it would make sense. I've heard the one on the fact that she got her powers from getting her finger cut off, which I don't understand. Is it because she made contact with the tear? Or is it because the tear made contact with her flesh and that traveled through out her body in some way?

I apologize if that's a question that's already been asked here.

I can't look through all the posts so sorry if I am being redundant. Do we think there is a universe where Dewitt gets baptized and actually processes his war crimes and forgives himself and makes amends and doesn't turn into a racist jerk?

And if so does he meet Elizabeth's mother and have a good life? I hope some upcoming DLC goes into Elizabeth's mother.

Are all of these suggestions terrible for a FPS?

@xmatatatx: Yeah. The protector theme is common in Bioshock. It is always twisted. Like your helping the little sisters live this horrible harvesting life. But I think the Big Brothers, and Song Bird, do think they are doing the right thing. It would be nice to have an origin story on Song Bird.

@karl_kablisk said:

He does kill him. Just like you said, he kills him every time you die. Elizabeth says in 1984 that Booker always fails as Songbird always defeats him. At the beginning of the game the twins mention how they know it won't work because it never does. Everything happens the way the Prophet expects except for one thing. Elizabeth changes the timeline when she brings Booker forward to 1984 and gives him the card. Since this is the lone timeline in which this event occurs, it is believable that Comstock missed this one key event. By writing it as a cipher she is able to assure that Comstock wouldn't be able to understand its importance since he would likely see it at some point in some dimension. But the key is that because there are infinite timelines, in some timeline Booker overcame every hurdle Comstock throws against him except for Songbird. Songbird is Comstock's final piece of security, a device designed specifically for the purpose of keeping Booker away from Elizabeth.

At the end when Comstock and Booker meet he doesn't try to kill Booker because he realizes this won't convert Elizabeth and will in fact turn her against him. So he tries to tell Elizabeth the truth instead but Booker kills him before he is able to do so.


Personally I didn't put all of the pieces of the ending together beforehand but I had a general idea that Booker was Comstock in another dimension and that Elizabeth was his daughter in some way. I didn't get the whole thing, but for people saying they didn't reveal it until the very end, I disagree. They made it painfully obvious by the end, but after the 1984 part I was able to figure most of it out by the time the whole thing was revealed. There was a ton of foreshadowing in this and honestly this sort of infinite loop ending is a sci-fi favorite so it wasn't entirely out of the question to solve the whole thing long before the ending.