Hah, understandable!

I'm selfconfessedcynic on Steam (surprise!) so feel free to add me there if you wish.

So, Elizabeth can create tears to while she is in captivity; why doesn't she leave? I understand there's a siphon, but during the scene where she summons a 1980s Paris, the game seems to suggest that the only reason she couldn't pass through is because a truck is coming; could she not open a tear to somewhere that is not immediately dangerous and escape?

I enjoy this video because it's in cartoon form. It's fun how Bioshock Infinite comments are invading quantum videos.

MinutePhysics is a great Youtube channel I've been subscribed to for awhile now. For instance, I remembered their video on Quantum Mechanics after playing BI where I've specifically framed it as both Booker and Comstock exist where the act of opening that last door is the way they collapse and eliminate that reality.

@golguin: That video is great - it essentially boils down what quantum superposition is into 5 mins of wacky.

Fantastic information round up.

I never even took physics in school, but I've probably read and seen enough videos to have a basic grasp of the concepts without knowing the math. I have a similar thing as Brad where if I come across something I don't understand I head to wikipedia and then go down the rabbit hole.

I like minutephysics to a degree, but in some cases I don't agree with his method of presentation. Like in that one, I much prefer Scishow's explanation of the cat because they actually go on to state the more important element of that thought experiment - WHY Schrodinger made it and what it says about quantum mechanics' interaction with classical physics.

Specifically, Scishow explains that the cat isn't in fact both alive and dead at the same time.

She did it all the time as a kid, but always came back. Booker actually tells Elizabeth that there had to be a reason why she always came back to the tower. You are right that there was nothing keeping her from leaving aside from her own insecurity.

Ah, ok; so, more or less Stockholm Syndrome...

Part of it is that she seems she lacks the control to chose tears. If I remember correct, they found the tear into 1980s Paris which might have worked for a fast escape but not ideal because besides the time difference who knows what else is different over there. Hoping through a random tear you find may work well if they just wanted to put distance between them and Columbia but doing so is not exactly safe. But then again how safe was Columbia?

Great video! Clear and concise explaination that even a monkey could understand. This thread is shaping up pretty well. Good job @starvinggamer@ghostiet@golguin!

So what is the explanation for the Columbia community not chugging vigor and going completely bonkers the same way Rapture did with plasmids? Is this a variable?

Plasmids were let loose by Ryan to have better control of society. Vigors are only introduced during the raffle.

I really think that given the way the siphons look to be immense speakers and the design of the boys of silence that at some point the music was meant to be a much bigger part of the game's universe.

I don't know if anyone suggested it already but @marino should put this up in the community showcase.

@starvinggamer: Have you heard the secret music that is hidden in some locations in the game? I found out about it from Arthur Gies and Gamesradar. Apparently there are easter egg music tracks embedded in the ambient noise that can only be heard if you speed up the action 8x. Mind blown...

http://www.lazygamer.net/xbox-360/bioshock-infinites-secret-hidden-music-will-blow-your-mind/

http://inagist.com/all/320033189336850432/

Just about everything relies on Elizabeth losing her finger. With this in mind, I don't understand what first incentivized Robert Lutece and/or Comstock to want to capture Anna. How did one or both know she would have these powers?

Along with this, how does Comstock gain the ability to see tears?

Both are pretty critical questions, but I feel like, with the way I felt about the ending, I will only get unsatisfying answers.

Edit: Sorry, I got confused looking at the timeline. I was looking at two separate timelines with conflicting interpretations.

http://i.imgur.com/MaHNjLo.jpg -I found this via a comment from someone on the page linked by djou

http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Columbia_Timeline -This uses the information gathered by the Industrial Revolution pre-order web game (I wouldn't recommend playing the game)

I still don't understand where the idea came from to capture Anna in the first place. If, let's assume, Rosalind somehow saw it (the creation of Elizabeth's powers) happen before, how did it happen the first time, if that makes sense.

The more I speculate on it the more I feel like the ending was rushed and I will never understand time/space travel stories.

Also, there is this if you wanted to skip around to check some story beats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iZZg2qiBos

Is there really no explanation for the Boys of Silence beyond the info in this thread and the wiki link? I can accept most things in Infinite with no further explanation but "they were born blind so they were given giant metal helmets so they could keep guard with their creepy masked zombie minions" just doesn't cut it.

It is implied that Comstock came into some money and started for fund Rosalind Lucete's work and things snowballed from there. It is not clear which came first (the work or the visions) but once the two met it was only a matter of time before Comstock had the vision of "The Seed of the Profit" and devised the scheme to borrow one.

Where does the number 123 come from?

After the coin flips "heads", Rosalind Lutece makes a mark under the Heads column bringing the total number of flips to 13. However, when the Luteces move out of the way to let Booker pass, the back of the board shows an additional 110 marks under the Heads column. The implication is that the Luteces have brought a Booker to a Columbia at least 122 times before, and that every time he has flipped the coin, it has come up heads.

Interesting weird correlation... the number that you use at the beginning of the game to reach Columbia was 1 - 2 - 2. Not sure if has anything to do with this...but never know. :)

@djou: It's a fairly common sound design trick, I wouldn't read too much into it.

@lazyekans: It's unclear. Given the information available, the most logical chain of events is as follows: Comstock is baptized > Comstock sees a vision of Columbia and the "future" > Comstock seeks out Lutece to fund the creation of Columbia. It's true that him seeing tears prior to meeting Lutece seems out of place, but the baptism alone does not account for the dramatic changes in character from Booker > Comstock. He is not a man of science and the money to make Columbia came from the government, he had no reason to seek out Lutece unless he had the vision of Columbia first.

Keep in mind that the tears not only transcend space and dimension, but also "time" in a sense. Comstock believes the visions to be a form of prophecy, and that it his destiny to raise an heir to ensure the prosperity of Columbia. Unable to have children on his own, however, the only recourse he has is to acquire an "heir" from an alternate version of himself. I want to say that the idea to open the tear and capture Annabelle comes from Robert, but I'm not 100% on that. I really need to play the game again and get a few things straight in my head myself.

@evanerv: I don't think that's a coincidence, but also not really significant in the overall scheme of things.

You guys seem to be a lot more knowledge about quantum mechanics and MWI than me, so a quick question. Does MWI account for inter-dimension travel? Like, if I roll a die in Universe A, does MWI account not only for all six sides of the die coming up, thus creating Universe A1-A6, but also for the die disappearing from Universe A entirely (A7) and slipping into Universe B, thereby creating B1-6, ad infinitum?

Hm - by my understanding yes and no. To be clear, Quantum Mechanics is the set of laws physicists apply to the very very small - generally subatomic particles. What Irrational Games did with Bioshock Infinite (at least, how I choose to interpret it) is to apply the laws of quantum mechanics to the "real world" or, more precisely, classical systems such as people, objects, etc. YOU SHOULD NEVER DO THIS, but as they have, I tend to try and interpret the game from this viewpoint.

So let us consider your example of a single die - if there were a subatomic particle in quantum superposition (existing in all of its possible states, unobserved), and that consists of 6 possible states, once we observe the particle (read: see the die after rolling it), we see one possible outcome. In the Many Worlds Interpretation, that event of observation has spawned 5 other universes at a minimum in which the other probabilities are attained (or in Bioshock Infinite, other universes where the die would have landed on a different face assuming it isn't a constant in the originating universe).

The only point where the MWI would account for universes such as a universe where the die disappears entirely into another universe is if there exists a probability of this happening within the bounds of the experiment, and this is linked to the superposition state. So in general, the answer would be no.

BUT

In the world of Bioshock Infinite where moving between dimensions is possible for people, and instead of superposition states we're talking about decisions made by said people, then there is a possibility of Elizabeth deciding to move through a tear or not. So it Would account for her both not going through a tear and choosing to go through - again, assuming this isn't a constant.

To be specific - by MWI, we can generally say that if her choice to go through a tear or not is binary and of equal probability then this would spawn two universes. From there her choice of moving in a specific direction after exiting the tear (if not a constant) can spawn infinite universes accounting for the arc representing the directions human bio-mechanics would dictate she can decide to move after exiting the tear. What she sees after that movement, which would effect future decisions, would be based on a probability space created by the arc her eyes could move at depending on that initial movement.

In such a way, we create infinite possibilities after moving through a tear (and equivalently in the universes she didn't) - but in the moment of her deciding to move through the tear or not in the world of Bioshock Infinite, only two universes exist where that specific instance of her made that choice. It is because of this that a combined time travel and multidimensional travel theory makes so much sense to me.

@selfconfessedcynic: Thanks, that makes sense (in a nonsensical fiction sort of way).

There is an argument that can be made the lighthouse at the beginning isn't in any reality so the bell at the bell/mechanism at the top of the tower can be a counter for their purposes.

Now what is the thing between that and the city which is filled with water and features the "baptism" is still an open question in my view. Maybe that is a crazy memory Booker made up while his head was descrambling....

Once Elizabeth opens to the door to reveal and infinite number of lighthouses were are no longer in the traditional multiverse. Everything after that is being created for the benefit of Booker. Consider how opening the doors are leading to completely different scenes.

The key moment is when "our" Luteces and "our" Elizabeth are on the boat talking to each other about the multiverse situation. No other instance of the Lutuces is aware of Elizabeth's presence once we see all the lighthouses. Even the Luteces that are dragging Booker through the tear are not aware of Elizabeth's presence. The only "true" Luteces are present at the rowing scene with Elizabeth as they can perceive her presence despite her grown ass self never appearing in that original scene.

@starvinggamer: Aaaaaaaaaaand... you're on the front page!

That's an interesting take; I never thought of that one, and after watching the ending again, it does make sense. Although, why was there a dead man in the lighthouse within a non-reality?

The dead man? Once Elizabeth opens to the door to reveal the multiverse/lighthouses they don't go in to the actual lighthouse to see the dead man.

@marino: Hooray!

You are assuming that the pendant is a reality check rather than a dog tag. There is no in-fiction evidence for it being one or the other.

As I said, there is no strong logical through-line in the end-game thanks to the intervention of Old Elizabeth. It seems to me that given the lack of in-fiction evidence to inform a solid conclusion you are left to either speculate or form conclusions based on narrative logic rather than in-fiction logic.

Well, I mean at the start of the game, why is he there if it's an area which transcends reality?

I'll just post this here again. It's called "The Garden of Forking Paths," and is partially a short story about a book that contains all possible universes.

Another short story by the same writer (Borges) reminds me of the lighthouse scene too: "The Library of Babel."

It's about a library that's supposed to contain

Everything: the minutely detailed history of the future, the archangels' autobiographies, the faithful catalogues of the Library, thousands and thousands of false catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of those catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of the true catalogue, the Gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary on that gospel, the commentary on the commentary on that gospel, the true story of your death, the translation of every book in all languages, the interpolations of every book in all books.

He's one of my favorite writers. Even the cover of one of his collections should remind you of the end of the game.

No, the start of the game is reality. Everything after leaving the bathysphere is manufactured.

@starvinggamer: you should add the mechanics of death when Elizabeth isn't there to your post. The fact that the black and white office door represent the start of another atempt (124, 125, etc) where booker did the exact same thing you did in the game but didn't die at that moment. This interpretation also works with the fact that you can't die before the coin flip bit so it still makes the initial atempt number 123 and any subsequent deaths just add to that number even though it's not directly shown in the game.

Right. They are actually in the Universe of Rapture. I see the manufactured bit starting the moment Booker steps through that door. That's when they leave the Universe of Rapture and go to her pocket dimension/space outside her multiverse.

Keep in mind that the real 3rd meaning of "multiverse" in our world is that every possible combination of any quantum systems (or atoms to simplify) does exist. That means that if you can make a city fly or build it underwater without breaking the laws of physics, they're present in an infinite number of universes within our reallity. But this is not how bioshock works. The multiverse model in bioshock includes random constants other than the fundamental laws of physics that don't change in any universes(he doesn't row, a man, a city and a lighthouse, always on heads, etc.) That's the reason why you can retcon reallity and kill Comstock forever in Bioshock but you can't in the real world. So there is still an infinite number of universes in Bioshock but it's a smaller infinity than the infinte number of universes that the 3rd meaning of "multiverse" implies.

Hope that explanation wasn't too convoluted. Anyway, short version: multiverse in Bioshock isn't the 3rd meaning of "multiverse" but more a 4th meaning close to the third with several key distinctions.

Yup, and, of course, that Bioshock extrapolates quantum mechanics rules onto human choice - which one shouldn't do when dealing with the real physics.

He should of stole how to make an iPhone and stuff too.

There was mention of Elizabeth creating universes she desired throughout the game. Was this the reason why drowning Booker in the empty lake was successful as opposed to going to the exact universe where Booker was being baptized?

Also, she is drowning the Booker that was created after the variable took place (i.e. after he rejected the baptism) not during (or even before) the variable choice (i.e. just before the baptism took place). How would that make any sense based on how Elizabeth's powers work? Could it have been due to the convergence of the multiple "Elizabeth"s at the lake? Maybe that amplified her powers to such a point that she could insert variable and constants of her own without consequence.

the multiple universes stuff in this game was cool, seemed like a less complex version of Neal Stephenson's Anathem, or some of the concepts there.

It may have been asked in here but are all the answers from the FAQ found in the game (voxophones)? Specifically story things like Elizabeth's power origin and so on.

What I got from the ending was kinda tied to what she said in her quote that everyone uses out of context.

She says something like there will always be more, as long as there is a man a city and a lighthouse.
The thing with parallel universes is that there is one for EVERY choice you make. EVERY choice, even Elizabeths What if she didn't kill Booker, or what if Booker did not succeed.

DUDE!

Well done guys, this is excellent! Thanks!

Whoo! I love explanations! Very thorough; well done.
But when it comes time to talk about this whole thing with friends, I will always fall back on this explanation, if only for a cheap laugh:

Elizabeth's power is specifically addressed by Lutece in her voxophone when she talks about the origins of Elizabeth's power and says, “It would seem the universe does not like its peas mixed with its porridge.” She is of course referring to her finger being in another universe.

So maybe this is a quantum mechanics question more than a game specific question, but I understand that there are infinite realities all occurring in parallel with each other, but is there an explanation for why time seems to be at different points in these infinite realities? I get that by peeking through tears people could find popular music of other realities, steal them and reconfigure them for Rapture, but how is this not a form of time travel? Is time moving faster in those parallel realities? All theoretical, I understand, but still a bit inconsistent with the "It's not time travel" statements, when the only "twist" that really protects is the fact that Comstock and DeWitt are actually the same age. If it's possible to harness the energy to cause tears across potential realities, is it that much more of a leap of scientific logic to say it could also be tears across time as well?

On a more game narrative level, is the reason Comstock needs/wants Annabelle in the first place because he wants an heir, and who better than his own child from another universe where he wasn't sterile? It just feels weirdly coincidental that Anna/Elizabeth's powers are a total fluke of quantum paradoxes, rather than the designed purpose of drawing her into the Comstock reality in the first place. I understand that the Luteces have to be able to create tears to get Annabelle, so she can't be the source of the tears, but it also feels like there is to some extent that with the budding of Elizabeth's abilities that Columbia is that much more capable in regards to manipulating and pulling from tears.

I just realized something as I was watching the spoiler show. I think that the scene after the credits really is a universe where Booker and Anna continue with their lives. If you think about it, Booker/Comstock died in the baptism, so he never met Rosalind Lutece and Columbia never got build. So in the other universe, Robert Lutece never went to Booker's office with the offer from Comstock because he (Comstock) never existed and Lutece is off doing something else insted of working in Columbia. Therefore, Booker continues with his life full of regrets (and maybe drinking and gambling) and on to be a single parent as it was supposed to.