Real World

* See also Real Physics (Common Sense should NOT be avoided)
* See also Wave_of_the_hand (When the god 'cuz' says so ...)
* See also True_Infinites (Numbers are not some gamewriter's friend)
* See also Depth
* See also Historic_Tech_Timeline
* See also Crash
* See also Quantum Hokem
* See also How_Things_Work
The Real World VS Infinite BS Columbia FANTASY
And to a lesser extent of Rapture ( for which at least an attempt was made )...
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== THE REAL WORLD ==
How things actually work : Common human existence tells the Player WHAT 'ought to be so'.
The Laws of Physics
Consistency - even if you have some system of magic or techno wizardry, AT LEAST MAKE IT CONSISTENT WITH ITSELF ACROSS THE STORY.
Normal People should behave like normal people - with likely real reactions and motivations ( SEE "SHAKESPEARE" ... ) 
The game artists seem to have got locked in to just a few patterns, when human driven reality is more diverse ( and for background Window scenes - as static texture pictures of the 'Skybox'). It is NOT a Asset Production and Rendering Limit issue.
Game artists can get stuck/locked into using just a few patterns ( was too obvious in the window cityscape views ), versus composing a better Real World irregularity. Skybox views ( being static texture pictures ) DON'T cost extra in Rendering Capacity. Simply RESEARCHING better, to draw the pictures more realistically -- could have been done instead of doing lazy repetitive building shapes.
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How Things Get Made In The Real World :
Today's Clueless people ( especially young ones ) haven't any idea how anything in their world is made these days
Tools to make 'the stuff' have to exist also ( and THOSE have to be made also ). 
Materials (for everything)
Know-how ( not just 'looking at something' ) for every aspect involved.
Once something is discovered ( and made to work under laboratory conditions ) it STILL has to be further developed to make it as a 'Product' ( often that is hundreds of times more effort to be able to mass produce the thing ).
More Complicated processes require Complex and extensive support chains ( and all the skilled people who run it all ).
OUR MODERN WORLD is dependent on all these things being done. Isolated Dystopias have a significant problem with such reality.At least with Rapture, the writers of those games made the attempt to explain. Magical Columbia the writers seemed to have seen no need, except that Oz-like Fink Manufacturing, which only brings a flotilla of more questionable issues.
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Electricity in Columbia's Era :
The first electric lamps also had their limitations, as might be indicated by their nickname, "glow worms".
What improvements when ?
About 1890, promising efforts to extend and promote domestic electrification were made in the Capital by the Victoria Electric Railway and Lighting Company and on the mainland by the Vancouver Electric Railway and Light Company. But unreliable lamps, poor wiring, and an inadequate power supply made the going difficult. 
Electric lights were new and expensive - an Exposition might show them, but that was with alot of special effort and expense in a temporary arrangement.
"Buntzen #2" still has its’ exciters, which are used to energize the main generators, and this enables the plant to do a 'black start', should there be a system wide failure as experienced in 1903.
In 1903, 95% of the electric energy was used for the streetcar and interurban lines (transit), with the remainder split between street lighting, industry, and a very small amount for lighting in homes. 
By the 1920’s, usage was nearly half-and-half.
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The (real) Chrysler Building's Thin Walls :
pix
Compare this to my My Diagrams of Rapture buildings (level interiors with exterior walls several yards thick concrete).
Looking at the NYC Chrysler building plans ( a typical skyscraper ) you notice how thin the walls really were ( less than a foot thick - usually brick ). The big difference of with Rapture buildings is that the Surface skyscraper building's have NON-load bearing external walls which need only support windows and to potentially hold up against hurricane-force winds. They do NOT have to hold out a massive water pressure which is pushing in on Rapture's buildings. 
That Chrysler skyscraper building (finished 1930) is held up by a network of riveted together Steel girders with vertical support (and stability) being its major structural application. The brick outer non-structural walls were filled-in afterwards - built up on the supports of each floor - which was of reinforced concrete cast between floor girders.
BioShock's game building designs look to have ignored the water pressure issue. Several of the game's concept artists did seem to have understood the problem, and had a their architecture reflect that issue ( but were ignored - as it did not look enough like Manhattan-style skyscraper buildings for Levine & co ).
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Real World - The Chrysler Building :
1046 Feet Tall , Building can have 11000 occupants. Cost $14 000 000 in 1930 dollars $229 million in current dollars approximately (according to https://www.usinflationcalculator.com ). The 12 story spire ( thin spike decoration ) weighed 27 tons. The metal sheathed sections (at the top) used stainless steel bolts, nuts, screws, rivets, nails - to prevent common corrosion of dissimilar materials. 
Rapture's tallest building would more-plausibly be 2/5ths of that height ( max ~400 ft to avoid sticking above the waves, and to have its lower floors NOT be too deep ( which would have required the structures withstanding an even greater water pressure ... My 600 foot base-depth for Rapture is sufficient ). 
Those tall thin buildings you see through the window shots of Rapture's skyline, several are obviously modeled on the Chrysler Building's shape.
IF those tall Rapture buildings are to be Shorter, then their shown proportions makes for TOO thin a building ( a matter of structural reality - The required thick walls shrinks the available interior volume ). If "As Tall", then the building's base would be too deep below the ocean surface ( a physical reality issue ). The MMORPG would 'correct' a few of those buildings details.
Note - in New York City today, there are STILL very few buildings of the Chrysler Building's height. Rapture views showed too many VERY tall-thin buildings (over and over). A vast majority of NYC Manhattan is actually 6 or less floors tall. 
"Artistic License" is one thing, but Purple-Unicorn Potteresque Fanstasy is not what Rapture is supposed to be. ( A consolation or curse was that BS1/BS2 Rapture looked positively rational compared to the BS Fantasy in Infinite BS ).
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Lets Kubrick-ize Rapture (MMORPG) a Bit More :
When Stanley Kubrick made the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey", he tried to make the portrayed Science and Engineering in the fictional story as REAL as possible - as to what it would/should be. Technologies which did not yet exist were extrapolated from those that did, and shaped for the same reasons and ways the existing things had been.
This MMORPG game would be attempting to be real Science Fiction, instead of anything as the weak Fantasy that Infinite BS ( and its BaS bastard children ) were composed as. That means : Logical consistency and things which operate following Physical Laws -- so to be Predictable with the Players' Life Experiences - to minimizing any Double-Thinking and the resulting confusion while playing ( as Players have to do anytime they deal with significant departures from Reality ).
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Lets Have MMORPG Player Created Content Grounded in Real World Things :
Rapture was far better storytelling because it had a relatible 'Real World' social environment, which was warped by the stories 'Bio' 'Shock'. We see it after that disruption has crippled the City, and we know how messed up it has become. 
NOT Columbia, where everything from its inception by racist cultists was done without even needing that magic/fantasy Faux-science 'city in the clouds' aspect. It was already distorted FAR away from 'normal' ( despite claims by Levine&Co ), and so the story had little the Player could relate to or have Empathy about. It was alot like having a protest about Racism in Oz.
The MMORPG can use those established generic themes ( Nostalgic 1940s-isms and Art Deco, etc ... ) based on specifications in the 2 games (and their DLC), and some additional interesting ideas/elaborations from the Novel). Add some of the useful/less-absurd bits from Infinite BS's Rapture. 
The Rapture BioShock doesn't have a locked-in/overly-defined context ( example - like the "Lord of the Rings" world does upon Tolkien's works ). Its vague preexisting Canon offers alot of flexibility, instead of precise details which needs to be slavishly adhered to. It can also be filtered by applying logical Real World knowledge, related to 1940s/1950s realities in technology/science/society/motivations.
With lots of research for various game ideas being possible, there can be reproduction of many Real World things -- A reason that BioShock was so popular : THAT Nostalgia, having REAL/recognizable things/themes ( which game artists can rarely CREATE well on their own ). That normality then is the 'foil' upon which the story's disastrous ADAM-effect plays its changes.
Even the various advanced devices and the genetic technology can be grounded in real 1940s/1950s principles ( and reined in a bit if they are too absurd ). Much of what you saw in the game can be Cleverly 'explained' (finally) to make them into less magical/fantasy, and the many vague contradictions can be worked out.
The game Setting should be a 'WHAT IF', not a 'Through the Looking Glass' environment. 
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Problem : When you make a Pile of Steal Girder Rivets, You Don't Suddenly Have a Skyscraper. :
Oh yes, Fink just 'saw' things through Tears, and Viola, lots of amazing things for Columbia ...
Magic wands aside, making things when you don't have all the missing parts usually isn't so easily done.
Leaving the Player Confused : With story Explanations left missing, when they can be provided through fairly cheap Assets ( ie - Audio Diary elaborations ... ) But this does that require effort to apply logic/reason/consistency/attention-to-detail - which lack was Infinite BS's problem.
Problem with Fantasy explanations : It might expose how little that imaginary World's "great" achievement(s) really were - Like Columbia supposedly taking only 6 months to build, Right After Comstock got into the Prophet business ( as per the badly chosen timeline dates ), and ignoring how much more MISSING work is required to really MAKE all those 'magic science' ( advanced/not-existing-yet ) things. Conveniently, the writers IGNORING how impossible it would be for the game setting to exist under that slipshod logic. 
GOOD WRITING Grounds the imagined game world in reality - Good when done for Sci-Fi, Bad for attempting it in Fantasy. When you have less systematic/less-understood/non-real-world elements, it can take ALOT of background explanations to justify the many 'seen things' existence -- To have the story make sense to the Player ( and not just toss some ill-used buzzwords at the Player to try to pretend to do so ).
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Things Take Time - Something the Writers Fail With - Realistic Timelines :
EXAMPLE : Time Frame Between Neptune's Bounty Shootout (Sep 12) to Kashmir Massacre (Dec 31) :
A long Investigation into who-all was involved in the large Smuggling operation, and the Violent 'Resisting' against civil authorities would take some time -- Many months ( Sullivan's extensive setup in the Wharf Masters Office in BS1 was visual proof of that ). Some of the wanted criminals may have managed to hide out before they were arrested, and these were being identified and hunted throughout the City ( hampered/slowed by Rapture not having all that many trained 'Police' and Detectives ). Sullivan also had to supervise the 'detention' of any/all caught criminals.
Having such things ignored, and then additional events being stuffed into that time interval willy-nilly by DLC writers is problematic for the BioShock Canon. 
need examples ??? or just general sets of things
Fontaine's 'great mogul' assets (hidden poison properties of ADAM)
Too Easily Hidden/Ignored Criminality (Fontaine's)
Technical developments and product manufacturing
Legal Process in Rapture (so NOT 'no laws')
The 'seizing and 'takeover' - Sorry no instant "Everything's Back to Normal" ( Rapture's Press, 
who would always be hungry for stories to publish, would follow all these things closely.) 
Gatherers and Protectors - an amazingly fast timeline ( and illogical BEFORE the Kashmir_Incident ). 
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Real World Complexity :
It takes just ONE THING to make something NOT WORK. Hence the problem with complex things. ( Computer games are utterly simple compared to most complex Real World things, and perhaps that is why Levine&Co so often missed that aspect of simulating a mostly Real World setting. )
Example : There are 300,000 parts in a (real) SM-65 Atlas Missile ( The one used by USA's first manned orbit of the Earth in 1962 ). The SM-65 Atlas was first launched in year 1958 ( after a cumulative decade of technological development in US, and based on another previous decade of rocket technological development in Germany/USA ).
For Columbia, nothing like this is even remotely possible. That ludicrous Rocket Lighthouse thing at the beginning of Infinite BS is just artist cutscene claptrap ( Trying to recreate the previous games 'Wow' moment of first seeing the undersea dystopia ). Having Booker be on a LSD trip would have been a million times more logical
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Note - 'Atlas' in Mythology was the Titan (god being) who held up the World - He was NOT instead some parasite criminal who was an evil greedy destroyer.
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 Assumptions by the writers that 'everything could be done in a small Dystopia X' reflects a huge ignorance of how complex the Real World is ( And such concepts could be illustrate even with a mere verbal comment )
'Scoobie-Doo' logic hardly creates a believable story world.
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Fontaine Couldn't be Capone (continued) :
Limitations, including that of Raptures size.
The ADAM Products production is limited largely by the supply of ADAM, which could only be expanded so much. Economy-of-Scale could only go so far to create the amounts of ADAM needed for an expanded/larger market. The 20-30 times ADAM production increase possible by Little Sisters host symbiosis would be offset by all the costs of operating that method -- including it having to be done covertly/secretly as it was something Citizens with ethics or not would unlikely allow.
With all the normal goods/services people had to buy to live, most could afford only so much ADAM, and the 'rich' people were only a fraction of the population ( and THEY could only use so much Premium Priced ADAM before poisoning themselves -- assuming many even had the inclination to do so ). 
Mass producing ADAM products would lower the profit on each 'unit' of the product as they would be sellable only to additional people who could afford lower prices.
The bigger the market got, the more and more the horrendous side-effects would have become apparent. Supposedly (conveniently) that didn't happen ( as in quite conveniently for the Blame-Ryan plot ) -- Perhaps simply because the usage did not get that large ( the full maximum consumption was caused by the story's %27civil_war%27, when Fontaine could no longer profit from it -- And even then, there were supposedly 'shortages' at that time when the higher demand could not be met by production ).
Fontaine's other diversified businesses were NOT all monopolies, and he had to compete with existing businesses - Including competing for limited resource supplies. Many such ventures would simply be unprofitable. If he tried unfairly to 'strong-arm' too many competitors ( and/or his workforce ) to gain unfair advantage, his evil would be made plain in the Free Press and the Citizenry ( or just some brave individuals ) would destroy him - one way or another. 
The bigger his operation got, the more likely its illegal activities would be 'found out' ( That would be true even just for his ADAM production method - the bigger the 'orphanage' system got, the more likely it would be exposed ). Enslaving/Abusing children is just one of those things allowed Unless Levine & Co were ready to distort Objectivism even more completely out of its definition...
"OMG, You are trying to infuse BioShock with REAL Economics ???" Yes, the BioShock games were supposed to have 'significance' by reflecting the Real World ( that is the thing the game company/employees said over and over ), rather than be some magical LaLa-Land Fantasy used as a pretty context for slaughtering things in a shooter game ( ie- what Infinite BS later turned into ).
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Lets Have A Truth In Details Thing For The MMORPG. 
Settling to have accuracy of details ( So easy these days with the Internet to look things up on ) is really so little work, and then the creation the game Assets was always the thing that took so much more effort ( even with Templates for the more 'detailed' things in the MMORPG game ).
Back before 'insulation', and with phones being a bit more 'exclusive' because of their price.
Many Early telephones used a 'ground return circuit' so only needed one wire point to point.
I've seen pictures of Telephone poles like this EXCEPT with 20 insulator/wires per 'cross arm', and 10 high cross arms stacked on the poles.
City in 1892 in the USA. Horses and horse carriages ( and if you were lucky, Cable Cars and early electric Trolleys ), and Telephone poles ( and some attempt at street lighting ).
Note the lack of humongus Signage, and a plethora of people ( not that crowded actually, compared to what it could be ). Note the general rectangular nature of the buildings and limited height.
You can google hundreds of such picture to show you what REAL cities and buildings were like in that era.
Look how 'crammed together' this is : Shops and Companies and Small Factories and Apartment Houses/Hotels, Utilities and TRANSPORTATION. You CANNOT have much of a Real City/Town without all the things a Real City/Town has.
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A real world train station had trains coming from hundreds and even thousands of miles away. Where could Columbia's 'trains' really come from ??? Delusions of grandeur by Comstock perhaps, but such delusions cost huge piles of cash, and mortgaging all of Columbia and selling all its inhabitants into Slavery could not be enough to pay for HALF of what the Player is shown in the game.
Magic Fantasy is not a great setting for 'ills of the age' 'evil America' storytelling.
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BIG MACHINES 
Big Machines used to manufacture on a mass scale. Example - Large things like the hull plates of Bathyspheres. Structural Girders and such take machines 'far larger' than this.
You can do the manufacturing on a smaller scale and more 'by hand', but it usually costs Dozens of times more - each unit.
Simple Realism : Most things in Rapture WERE MADE ON THE SURFACE
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Developing Technology by Looking Through Tears ? :
Really it is just that easy ? Shouldn't Levine & Co have just looked at "Call Of Duty" ( purchased a copy and played the game ) to LEARN how to make a good game ( if it was THAT easy ) ??? 
Suchong Collaborating with Fink on Each Others Products ??? : 
Spying on each other first through some crackling time-traveling portals, which just so happen to conveniently come into existence in their two respective labs. THEN they converse to 'collaborate' ( maybe Suchongasold Fink some 'good opium' too ??? ) 
Drinkable Plasmids (with oxidizing agent !!!) and Magic Power Genetic Mutation Potions - they just passed a few notes back and forth for a few days ... ( I assume Fink could read KOREAN ... ) But such Genius's can do such things. Yeah, Suchong even created his own portal machine.
Riiiight...... I kinda wonder if the writers of this game (DLC in particular) have any inkling about how (ANY) technology is developed, *OR* WHAT is first required to be understood for developing ANY modern technology ( in this case Genetic Manipulation Which we can hardly do today - 70 years later in Rapture's case, and 100+ in Finks case ). 
The writers make it seem like Fink was just (through a Tear) Seeing someone boiling Tea, took notes, and then came back and did it himself, and Voila Genetic Plasmids ( SORRY LEVINE Basic Reality : supposedly Fink was now producing complex "Genetic Plasmids", for which any Tool/Knowledge/Material/Understanding HE had available was the equivalent of 'A Chimp rubbing two Turds together thinking he was making Fire' ).
 That's an example of that old addage : "Writing is Easy, Writing WELL is Hard" ... 
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 "Make Believe" Technology Is So Easy To Write, But Not To Do :
Having the Columbians create something as complex as an Airship is like Ken Levine building a cellphone using a Toothbrush and paper from pad of Postit Notes and a piece of used gum. REALITY IS : Thousands of exactly technical blueprints are required for building such a vehicle, all using dozens of integrated mature technologies. To do this there is then many times MORE design/development for ALL of the machines/processes that made the required then-in-future materials and components used to build such a mechanism. *AND* THEN YOU WOULD HAVE TO ACTUALLY BUILD ALL THOSE MACHINES/PROCESSES TO BEFORE PROCEEDING ANY FURTHER. SO you would need all the well-capable technicians/workers who have the YEARS of experience with such processes/materials/mechanisms. Sorry to tell you, NONE existed in Columbia (nor the rest of the world YET, for that matter).
Airships were extreme high-tech even decades after 1905/1912, when semi-reliable ones were finally built. Most of the Worlds airship projects were disasters and rigid airships were pretty much extinct by the end of the 30s -- if not sooner most places).
FloatyShit(tm) is only one little bit of making such a thing exist/fly/operate-routinely-fly ( BTW, We never got much detail about how any of that 'quantums floating' was ever done ) Its all done by the power of the might HACK Writers god 'CUZ' where sticky problems like Laws of Physics, real engineering issues, plausibility, a world where the bits fit together and have reasons can be wholly ignored and stupid things shown that can't really work -- even with futuristic StarTrek technology being available.
SO The First Lady airship (or any of them) was make out of wicker, stucco and bricks ???
With the game writer's Fantasy magic, yes it could be. ( Again why not a flying Angel Statue INSTEAD ?? )
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ADAM Products were equivalent of building the V2 Rocket :
Both required creation of entire NEW sets of technologies (and even materials) that didn't yet exist and took alot of trial and error testing and incremental development. What the ADAM experiments did to 'test subjects' was equivalent to V2 test firings that constantly blew up from one technical problem after another. The end-product required complex mechanisms, very specific performance, and had so many ways to go wrong. In the end, when finally working, it was revolutionary ( Basically much of the same technology was what took Apollo 11 to the Moon ).
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A REAL SLUM ( For those who consider 'Paupers Drop' or 'Shantytown' one ) :
800 persons an acre in White Chapel ( slum, East End, London, England ) - of 'Jack the Ripper' fame - 1888. ... ( 640 acres are in a square mile ). 
How big was Infinite BS's "Shanty Town", which looks like a pristine gated community by comparison to a real one ... looks virtually empty ( Comstock, calling it 'Shanty Town' is rubbing the poor's faces into their predicament, ain't it ? To mock it properly, it should have some high-falutin name, but with the inhabitants/Vox scrawling "Shanty Town" or 'Comshitown' over signs in response ). 
BTW -- a 'shanty town' is a bunch of shanties - irregular/haphazard buildings put together from castoffs and scraps/refuse, by people too poor to even afford tenement rents, and usually built on unwanted ground.
"Tenement" a better word ??? "Company Town" ??? BTW, WHY would Comstock have unwanted people in his 'Eden' when it is so easy to dispose of them ?? The poor 'white' people barely had jobs ( the writers Class War anti-capitalist theme ), and minorities less and worse. WHO would even stay in Columbia under such conditions ? The writers obviously have little knowledge of the 'gumption' of actual 'Americans' of that era (( Maybe too much modern welfare/entitlement mentality in the brain for them ... Too 'used to' expecting freebies paid by someone else - clueless to what others paid for their 'ease' and safety ))
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Why Do Some Writers Create so Much Story Detail to Try to Justifying Something That is Pure Illogical Magic Fantasy ?? :
Building a Flawed House Of Cards ...
There was an unfortunate desire by this game's developers to be 'clever', and so are too 'explainey' about everything. All their explanations though are SO VERY flawed, and DO NOT actually justify the story's content. It is NOT clever to 'explain', in significant detail, something that goes against the Laws of Physics, or Simple Economics, or Common Sense. Then to further have what they shown be inconsistent in application across the games story (with itself), that is the WORST of all. 
Any BS Technology should be kept vague, and thus not test the Players 'Suspension of Belief', and not taint/distract-from the telling of the actual 'story'. Don't point it out. Don't elaborate. Don't waste time from the 'story'.
The writers of Infinite BS supplied/declared far too many 'facts', which don't actually make sense when all put together -- SEEN If the Player understands even a little about how the Real World works.
The "Its Only A Game" 'defense' ( which some fanbois employ ) then ALSO renders NULL any Social Issue Points the 'story' is supposed to be trying to contain. That is a very LAME excuse for a game alleged to be 'special' because it has 'Story' and to have some ersatz Historic-based Context.
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Example : Columbia somehow MAKING (manufacturing) all this fancy stuff ( ex- the ludicrous Fink Manufacturing Factory ) ? 
They show a monstrosity of a 'dim 6 year-olds' idea of a 'factory', and then the Poor Oppressed Workers ( 'Class Warfare' which wasn't even the game's main theme anymore ) being subjected to excruciatingly bad cliches.
A EASY Solution would have been to instead "JUST STEAL IT ALL" ( Infinite BS and Columbia have the perfect pretext with those 'Tear' things to TAKE the magical advanced things for their city from somewhere else ... )
INSTEAD, You (The Player) see somebody (Kink in the game story) allegedly making something of great complexity/ridiculously advanced for their era ( something that doesn't-exist-yet/is-unknown in their World ). SOMEHOW those somebodies can ( with little possible previous understanding of what engineering/science/special-knowledge/experience is actually involved ) suddenly MAKE ALL those many marvelous technological whatzits ?? That's retarded to think possible (or to write such). It takes a great ignoramus to NOT KNOW that you don't 'Just MAKE Stuff'.It is EQUIVALENT TO Kenny Levine making an Automobile with a rock, and a turd, and some 'good intentions'. 
Complex things are not made simply by wrench-wielding 1900s day laborers, just as sophisticated genetic (or whatever) potions are NOT brewed up like lemonade (either). Making complex modern things requires the right know-how, the right materials, the right tools ( and making/fixing/maintaining/replacing those specific advanced tools with other ALSO sophisticated tools ). Whole RAFTS of those things are how it is done in the Real World. SO Where possibly do ALL these things THEN come from when they don't yet exist ??? 
Its WORSE (and stupider) : You FIRST need other advanced machines to make the special materials involved, and tools to make the advanced tools to make the parts. The Piles of advanced tech goodies shown in the story will require large piles of these special things to get to Columbia (somehow) first - or worse somehow be created in their caveman-like technological vacuum.
The EASIEST plausible way this could happen : All those things would have to be stolen from whatever 'multi-verse' place they would already exist. You might as well also steal the skilled people who KNOW how 'making' the thing is done, and can OPERATE/MAINTAIN the tools, the machines, etc ... 
ACTUALLY, You might as well cut out the middleman and ONLY STEAL the Final Objects/Products directly ( to be plausible/logical/Not-Fantasy ). It SHOULD have been shown as an integral and interesting part of the story - 'Pirate Columbia'. ( Fink's factory might just be a FRONT for Fink's Stolen Goods Warehouse - with the Truth being hidden from the Populace < ------ << SEE THAT'S GOOD STORY WRITING . )
THIS is Fantasy still - but far more LOGICAL Fantasy.
Consider, for ALL of THAT STEALING, maybe the people on the other side of those 'Tears' don't want their STUFF stolen. Instead you might cause 300 Phaser-wielding enforcer droids pouring thru the Tear who then proceed to destroy all of Columbia -- It could happen on any one of the countless harvestings of goodies which Fink and his compatriots would have had to do to get just one new whizzbang item built/stolen. Each would be more like a Pirate Raid to ensure success in a likely resisting target.
Hey, Let's not even mention the disease pathogens they would bring back, which might wipe Columbia out in a day ... ( or kill half the people like historic Plagues did ).
But THIS Columbia might be the one in a million (infinity) which luckily avoided THOSE fates.
Unfortunately, The way Infinite BS was written, it seems just too much lazy contrivance in Levine&Co's story ... They (just) have all these quaint styled magic toys, but the writers ignorantly assume it was (just) done "the old way". They wanted a Nostalgia Element ( which was a key part of the original REAL BioShock games success ). They also wanted their contrived "Class Warfare" - so they had to have their gianourmous factories for the lower orders ( oppressed immigrants and minorities ) to toil and be abused in.
I understand the game was so loosely (re)written because it was kludged together in desperation as their schedule slipped and budgets soared. But that's a management problem - an excuse, NOT any justification for a sub-standard story and setting. 
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Note how small these REAL WORLD shops are in such a huge REAL city. They would have 50 X more potential customers than in Rapture (or Columbia). Businessmen don't waste money on space they don't use/cant afford and constantly have to pay the overhead for.
Economics does NOT work the way 'Artists' (and fantasy writers) might conceive/expect it too. FAKE IS FAKE and IGNORANCE IS IGNORANCE. ( AND HACK FANTASY TAKES LITTLE SKILL )
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Insurance map of a small bit of LA around 1905. Just a small portion of a real city. Blocks and blocks of businesses and houses and apartments, and roads connecting it all. Most mere towns were at least this large.
Columbia is mostly empty air and would have been frightful to try to get around in.
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==In Infinite BS==
Columbia - The place that looks like a 3 year old child glued it Together ...
REALITY - Lighting of Interiors Was Still Horrendously Expensive In 1893 :
1882 Thomas A Edison lights up a square mile of New York city, with 3000 Lightbulbs ( the first central power plant in the US began producing electricity Sep 4, 1882 ). This was a stunt, and at that point STILL only rich people could afford Electric Lighting - and Edison stuck to local DC powerplants as the real business opportunity.
The power conduit installation of that project alone cost $300,000 ( so at $100 each bulb, it would take a while to pay off ( with inflation, that $100 would be something near $2500 today )https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/relativevalue.php.
Rapture would have similar lighting issues, but at least the expense wouldn't much be a limiting factor for the majority of citizens.
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Building in the Real World in Columbia's Time
CityLiving1913.jpg
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1909City.jpg
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Con1911.jpg|Reinforced Concrete
Building23.jpg|Houses
1892USA.jpg|Note - People - Streets go places...
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GMRV1912.jpg|Americans were all racists (I guess) according to Ken Levine and his game writers
KansasCity1890.jpg|Actual Transportation Infrastructure a REAL CITY needed - bringing in resources from the outside.
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COLUMBIA : Murky ... Murky ... (The Thinking) :
I've mentioned effects of Deep Water on Light ( from the Sun, a quick absorption with depth - pretty complete in 600 feet distance ).
BUT, What about effects of altitude at Columbia's 15000 feet ?
* Ultra Violet -- With every 1000 meters increase in altitude, UV levels increase by 10% to 12%. ( That's like 5 X at 15000 ft ). Remember at that time, A 'Tan' was the sign of being amongst the lower classes. 
* Brightness (less atmospheric absorption) - did we see even ONE pair of sunglasses ?
* Temperatures ( Coooooold .... ) -- and don't forget the Wind Chill Factor.
 
* General lack of Oxygen (even at only 10000 feet) would be only ONE factor.
Umbrellas we hardly saw ( and lots of heavy/winter clothing should be in evidence too -- a beach scene - AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAAHHAH -- would be more like The Polar Bear Club there ... )
Keeping all the equipment from freezing would be Lutece's greatest achievement ( that and handling the Altitude and Motion Sickness --- being a quantum physics scientist DOESN'T make you a aeronautical engineer ).
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The Difference - Rapture vs Columbia ( and it's BaSx DLC ):
There are no Magic Beans when it comes to Rapture. The premise is that technology ( with innovation a bit ahead of the real world, and then that Genetic Technology breakthrough ) was what made it tick.
The developers went overboard on the Plasmids/ADAM-powers, but I could write that off as needing simple/splashy effects.
Infinite BS, on-the-other-hand, is off into Never-Never Land. ( We can fly!!! ) THEY Shoulda just said the place is like *this*, but then NOT try to actively explain it with fake delusional science ( and ditch the company wonk interviews endlessly pretending how "real science" it was - it was just absurd and insulting ). The metaphysical shit was just sad.
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Realism is Hard (Usually Too Hard to Be Fun) :
Serious Realism in games is too fatal for any interesting activities. In real life, you don't 'come back to life' to get 'Do Overs' ( also your arms/legs don't grow back, usually ). -- "Call of Duty" - YOU DIE - FAIL - GAME OVER !! With great frequency - and even their 'Hard'/hardest mode is trifle-ingly EASY compared to the Real World).
WE Need more weird/varied things/results to happen in the MMORPG game -- Less fatal, with more Contingencies for Players to learn/adapt to - and BE GIVEN the chance to react/compensate/learn without a fatal GAME OVER.
For this MMORPG, the Only Perma-Death is when the Player chooses to rebuild/restart their entire character ( They are allowed only One 'avatar' per paid account ). And there would be NO inheriting stuff directly ( It may be hard to stop indirect reuse/transfer via other Players ). Of course, the Game Playing Knowhow they learn can't be removed/taken.
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Clueless Writers ? :
Jeremiah Fink knows as much about complex technologies as a toddler which smears its feces on a wall does about constructing an automobile ( or making the Mona Lisa ). Apparently, many game writers are similarly limited in such ways.
Expecting Fink to master hundreds of the required technologies -- Which don't even exist in his world yet, or the tools they require, or the materials they are made from. Even just the very understandings of those things working and how they all have to tie together is missing. THAT isn't something you simply pick up by seeing a working object through a 'Tear' -- It is ludicrous and pathetic fiction. 
But after all, "It IS ONLY a Game" ($$$). Only. 
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 "By Manipulation of a Pair of Quantum-Entangled Atoms" :
And exactly how did Rosalind Lutece happen to find that one atom ?? Consider a ordinary loaf of bread has a ballpark figure of 2.5 x 10^25 atoms in it -- That's 25 ZEROS in that huge number ( and she probably wasn't even looking at her Hummus sandwich that lunchtime ).
But then, you have to understand a little about this multiverse stuff, and the REAL infinite of infinites involved.
It turns out that EVERY atom in the universe is somewhere in all that INFINITY being manipulated by one of the INFINITE number of Luteces ( and some INFINITE number of other characters as well - HEY there's a multiverse explanation for 'Brownian Motion' - Heh, they didn't think of THAT one ... ) SO in any one Universe somewhere, any 'Atom' Rosalind picked might connect her to some version of herself ( The 'Talking Dog Rosalind version' would have been a real surprise when she came/peered thru the Tear portal ). Rosalind 'in turn' would be ignored/unheard by the INFINITE number clones of herself who weren't signaling in Morse code at that moment ( The ones signaling in so many other INFINITE universe's Zippity-Do-Dah ( or whatever ) code SHE completely didn't recognize or detect ).
Good Thing she didn't signal and meet her Hannibal Lector 'self'How creepy psychodrama might the concept of eating oneself be ??? Well, we could find out with this Alternate Alternates idea., OR the one from the universe where people's blood is made up of what we call 'The Plague Virus' ... Or one of the infinite Anti-Matter universes. ( or any number of other totally possible mishaps ). Seriously, the probable odds of bad things happening far outnumber 'safe' Tear encounters in all this.
Lets not let the 'slight problem' of the theoretical 'quantum entanglement' across-interdimensional-multiverses-not-being-part-of-Quantum-Physics Fundamentally get in the way of the game story. (( Come to think of it, 'The Multiverse Theory' is not really part of Quantum Physics either, according to the majority of REAL Quantum Physicists, who say that theory breaks more things in Physics than the one thing it is supposed to resolve). ))
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Since there's no real restriction on this stuff in Fantasy ( particularly since they opened up the Pandora's Box of 'multiverse' infinites ), WHY not have enough multiple entangled atoms and grouped together cohesively to have an 'entangled' Dinner Gong, which might have been easier for whoever is on the other side to notice ??
Hmm, another Revelation : Any 'Ghosty' thing in the World ( ... pick a world, any world ) is actually some form of Lutece 'the other side' trying to use an 'atom' ( any and all of them ) to signal someone, wherever, whenever, whomever ... (( SO all those 'Ghost Story' things in BS1 were just some Lutece (crazy or weird) trying to signal 'The Other Side' ???? ))
The internet is getting very odd : This Yahoo query "atoms in a loaf of bread" turned up this :
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Timeframes :
Rapture is built within a few years, and Columbia built in even FAR LESS Time. 
Funny, if you Consider this Infinite BS game took 5 years to create.
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The Real Nature Of Light In Water :
The Sun's light hardly penetrates 200 feet of water. Fancy building stuff really isn't visible (if even at) 150 feet aways, and impossible lights 'brighter than the Sun' on top of a 200 foot building is only a very dim murky glow at that distance. 
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"Lightness Eaten By Darkness" :
Nearby areas in the Ocean could be well lit to be seen ( artificial lighting in the immediate area ), but light dwindles rapidly, leaving only a ghostly view of most of the cityscape.
That might be a saying which Ryan says (allegory) about 'the state of' the Surface World Above.
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