SPECIAL BAS2 ANALYSIS

* See also BaSx_Audio_Diary_Analysis
* See also Burial_At_Sea_Illogic
* See also Burial at Sea(DLC)
--- --- --- --- --- ---
BaS2 Plot ( It Would be Hard to Cram more coincidences and bizarre illogical scenes together than this ... ) THE STORY SO FAR :
.
Elizabeth basks in Paris at the turn of the 20th century.
- Strange Disneyesque scene with idealized visions of 'Paris' - the City of Lights (except in Disneyland they actually bother to clean the public toilets and there aren't whores on every other corner).
.
However, she unexpectedly spots Sally and gives chase.
- O M G !!! Trans-Orbital Lobotomies (the sign) !!!! (Yes, thugs employ this threat chronically in that period - haven't you seen any of the old movies ?)
.
As she pursues Sally, Elizabeth's idealized vision of the French city turns nightmarish.
- This always happens in that city, its really not all it is cracked up to be...
.
Her memories of Columbia, Comstock, and Sally continue to haunt her.
- As they might : "Revenge is a dish best served cold". Her murdering of Booker was like that, with her simply ASSUMING he was gonna be the cause of all the evil, and that he had no possible Free Will to change ... (AND it turned out to have NO effect whatsoever ...) "Absolute power corrupts Absolutely" ... (similar thing can be said about STUPIDITY)
.
Elizabeth wakes up in the Toys section of Fontaine's Housewares Department shortly after the events of Episode One.
Elizabeth : Ooh lookie ... Pretty Princess and her Pony !!!! ... Even a girl who had nothing to read but boring books can have fantasies. (Ack -- My Little Pony Paris !!!)
Hmmm, why couldn't it be in Ruined Rapture just as that homicidal maniac from the Surface was slaughtering his way through the city ?? -- You know, the result of Elizabeth's soon to be made actions enabling Fontaine/Atlas. Even more poetic if he suddenly appears and kills her !!! Those Quantums and Quarks go round and round, round and round ...
.
Atlas and his men search the corpse of Booker-Comstock for valuables.
- Mmmm, Hot Dog. Yummy, a Pineapple. Ewwww, snotty hanky, and some mummified human ears ...
.
Before they can shoot Elizabeth and riffle her pockets, a vision of Booker DeWitt appears and coaches her to claim she can help Atlas escape the sunken department store.
- Elizabeth is hearing voices and seeing dead people... Explains alot, except : why we should never hear her agonize over her own evil and selfish actions.
.
She gives Atlas information about Dr. Yi Suchong to convince him, and promises freedom in exchange for returning Sally.
- More lies, a definite pattern developing here.
.
Left alone, Elizabeth begins to explore the store, and finds her own dead body amongst some rubble.
- Shouldn't her head explode at this time - coexisting with her dead self ??? Weird head vibrating/waving special effect ? Consistency is a good thing, even in Fantasy...
.
She realizes that her former self was killed by the same Bouncer that impaled Comstock; and as a result, her quantum-superposition collapsed into one last Elizabeth, mortal, without omniscience or the ability to open Tears, and is cut off from the Elizabeths of the alternative universes.
- Yeah, Quantumz shit is like that... Anyway - Very convenient for the plot, but SOORY there is definitely STILL NOTHING like this to do with real Quantum Theory - FAILZ (regurgitated FAILZ...).
.
The Lutece twins had advised her not to venture back into Rapture, but she was determined to return to Rapture and rescue Sally whom she had previously exploited.
- Exploited ? Maybe SHE should be drowning HERSELF to get rid of this whole interdimensional tragedy. (and drowning the Luteces probably would have been "cutting out the middleman", if you think about it).
.
The voice of Booker, who states he is simply a facet of Elizabeth's subconscious, helps to guide her through the Splicers who still inhabit the store.
- Its called schizophrenia - mental illness. Might that be quite telling that her alternate self was such an evil person (we really needed more Smeagol/Gollum arguing with herself scenes).
.
Tracking down Suchong, Elizabeth discovers the doctor knew about Columbia, and built a Lutece Device connecting back to the flying city, based on the Luteces' technology.
- So Suchong is a Quantum Scientist and Engineer too ? Amazing that it is all so simple to master.
.
Elizabeth rationalizes that she can use the Lutece Particle that kept Columbia afloat to lift the department store back to Rapture.
- Of course - THOSE things can do anything. She COULD have used it to go to 'Paris' too at this point, but that would ruin this cockamamie DLC plot. SO Elizabeth suddenly is a Quantumz engineer too. Imagine what Sinclair will do with it when he finds this Particle later.
.
She collects equipment needed to repair the vandalized device with the reluctant help of Atlas and Suchong.
- Joker Voice "Soooooo Reluctant!!!" Might've been more fun to have Elizabeth wearing Joker makeup by this time (Weirder things happen in these Alternate Universes...)
.
Elizabeth then travels through a Tear back to Columbia.
- Which Columbia is this? The one that Teddy Roosevelt has captured ? Or the one the Power Armored Hello Kitty troops have taken over ??? Trans-Orbital Lobotomy much ? The one with the Tear to 14th Century Europe which allowed the Black Death to kill everyone (Columbia is now a Floaty Mausoleum...)
.
She finds herself aboard The First Lady during the time when Booker and Elizabeth had stormed Jeremiah Fink's factory with the Vox Populi.
- Isn't there a problem with her coexisting in the same uninverse (for like the 8th time) - usually that kind of thing leads to the universe imploding, doesn't it ? (At least lets see her head explode... and Quantum confetti spray out)
.
She recovers the Lutece Particle easily enough, but before she can return through the Tear, Suchong forces her to collect a lock of hair from one of Fink's hidden laboratories or else be trapped. - "Bring me the Hair Sample and Save The Girl !!!!"
.
During this, Elizabeth learns that Daisy Fitzroy was instructed by the Luteces to take Fink's child hostage to push Elizabeth into making the innocence-ending decision to kill the rebel and thus pass into a mature mindset.
- Only a retarded dustbunny could believe this plot bit, and so Elizabeth immedietely shoots the bloodthirsty anarchist through the head and turns the gun on the meddling Luteces (who's fault ALL of it is), but too late, as they suddenly decide to be elsewhere. (Note this is one of the Stupidest wishy-washy things seen yet out of Levine&Co - trying to make a poor murderous anarchist to be 'just misunderstood' ... Well, as Samuel Clemens said : "Hack writers will be hack writers.")
.
She also learns that Fink and Suchong collaborated through the rift on many technological projects: the use and processing of ADAM to make both Plasmids and Vigors, the creation and conditioning of Songbird based on the Big Daddy technology, and the development of the Vita-Chamber.
- Universal Geniuses. In Mere weeks... Fink the Amazing Caveman and Dr Suchong the one who previously names Quantum-whatever as 'Bullshit". But but but ... Social Relevancy !!! American History !!!! Quantumz Science !!!! (Lets just say the Elves did it in the night, and be done with it, so that we can get back to the semi-interesting shooting/slaughtering stuff ...)
.
Unlike the Little Sisters, who were bonded through science, Elizabeth was bonded to her protector through an act of kindness.
- Right. (wasn't that scene so cute...) SO Little Sisters are now ADAM Hoes for Pimp Big Daddies -- Yes, thats a great idea.
.
She retrieves the lock of hair (stool sample ?), which turns out to be her own, and escapes some scavenging Vox agents to return to the Tear and get back to Rapture.
- And suddenly begins to age rapidly and grows a beard. (OMG - She is both her own Mother AND Father !!! ) All we need now is for someone to say "Its Chinatown" ...
.
Once back, she transports the hair(stool) sample to Suchong, but, through a video monitor, comes face to face with Andrew Ryan.
- Well this IS supposed to be Rapture, and they couldn't pretend it was without Elizabeth coming face to face with 'the evil one'. Shouldn't she run into McDonagh fixing a leak too ? Peach Wilkins with a lethal boathook ? Derision from Sinclair... Whinings from Sofia Lamb ?? Her causing Prentice Mill to suicide ??
.
He secures the room and sends her an ultimatum, to either join up with him or die at the hands of his men who are moving through the facility finishing off Atlas' followers.
- Join him WHY ? How about just she should surrender and not face a charge of conspiring with Terrorists ? (So how exactly does Ryan even know who this person is ? If he knows all about whats going on ... cameras watching/listening, then shouldn't Ryan also know Atlas is Fontaine ??? )
.
Elizabeth escapes and, after fighting her way through the Manta Ray Lounge, brings the Lutece Particle to the top of the sunken structure where the load-bearing columns meet.
- Load-Bearing Columns.. Lunette Hook... Yeaaah... Sorry NO. Why didn't we hear about these things in Columbia's Construction ? No doubt Elizabeth had a book to read about all this stuff. Except Fontaines floated from its own buoyancy, and wasnt designed like a birdcage.
BTW how exactly is this (Fontaines - the floating building) all to be guided to 'join up'/connect to the rest of Rapture, instead of shooting to 15,000 feet above the water, which was the previous altitude setting for this 'Particle' ?? 
.
As she releases the "Particle" and causes the building to start rising, Atlas' men capture her, believing her to be more valuable than Sally.
- Ohh Nooooos OUT OF CONTROL !!!! No one steering !!! Everyone there dies, and Rapture is Saved --- Yaaaayyyyy !!! Ryan and Rapture begin a new Golden Age. 
.
Elizabeth is overdosed with a truth serum in an attempt to discover the whereabouts of the "Ace in the Hole," and wakes up two weeks later, with the Rapture Civil War in full swing.
- And they had intravenous feeding for her to keep her fed, and more important kept hydrated for all that time. Amazing how versatile Atlas's thugs are -- full Intensive Care medical capacity and training.
BTW 'overdose' of a 'truth serum' == brain damage/coma/death - so Elizabeth if still alive would be a vegetable to plant in Lamb's Garden in Dionysus Park.
.
Atlas then tortures her by beginning and threatening to fully perform a Transorbital Lobotomy unless she tells him where the Ace in the Hole lies.
- TRANS ORBITAL LOBOTOMY !!!! OMG, you'd think beatings, electric shocks, and cigarette burns should be more than enough. (Levine seems to have a strange obsession with this)
.
Elizabeth is unmoved by this until Atlas threatens to perform the act on Sally.
- Who is a Little Sister that is self repairing ... Booker chimes in with this fact and we get to see Atlas's thugs ACTUALLY perform the procedure (no green mist) -- NOW THATS EDGY !!!!
.
In a moment of intolerable panic, Elizabeth recalls one future that she previously witnessed, and tells Atlas that the Ace is in Dr Suchong's lab.
-(OR She claims that she is really Bug Bunny and she can make them all rich if they let her go, or at least begs NOT TO BE thrown into the Briar Patch).
Quite Convenient. Too bad she didn't foresee all the rest of this tragedy first to save herself from the "intolerable panic", and being killed, and then tortured and then dying horribly, yet again.
.
Holding Sally hostage, Atlas sends Elizabeth to retrieve 'the Ace'.
- Why Atlas/Fontaine didn't obtain it from Suchong from the first makes the previously clever and intelligent Fontaine into a complete Moron. Shouldn't Fontaine have threatened Suchong with some TransOrbital Lobotomy BEFORE this to get it from him ?? Funny would have been Elizabeth giving him the WRONG phrase and us watching Atlas over and over (in BS1) trying to get *WTF* to later work to control Jack.
.
While exploring, Elizabeth indirectly causes the death of Suchong at the hands of a Big Daddy, one who Elizabeth recently made protection-bonded with two Little Sisters.
- Or its a Suchong's body double -- Suchong foresaw his own death through a Tear and made preparations -- THAT would explain why he is seen doing all the work for Ryan for long afterwards at Point Prometheus Labs (BS2), and does alot of development work with Big Daddies (who are THEN (corpse piled Civil War times) justified to be needed for Little Sister protection). Cleaning up Canon discrepancies -- THAT might have been good, instead of creating a RAFT of new contradictions.
.
She retrieves "the Ace" -- a simple piece of paper with a coded message from Suchong -- from the doctor's corpse and returns it to Atlas, knowing full well Atlas plans to kill her.
- Yes, he has this on him in his lab smock -- oops, went through the laundry and now its unreadable (or it just turns out to be his grocery/laundry list -- Subsequent SCENE : from Elizabeth's point of view, while the Lobotomy Knife is shoved through above her eye by Fontaine himself, and he works it back and forth tearing the Grey Matter between the two hemispheres of her brain, and then things get all fuzzy and calm and peaceful in Elizabeth's dwindling mind).
.
Atlas is furious at the contents, but in one last flash of memory, Elizabeth finds herself aboard the plane that carried Jack to Rapture, and recognizes the coded message as Jack's trigger phrase, "Would You Kindly."
- Amazing clarity of these here visions (you can read the menu for the in-flight meal too). Too bad this convenient prescience didn't work BEFORE this whole mess started, and thousands upon thousands of people wouldn't have died because of Elizabeth's selfish actions.
.
Secure in the knowledge of what Atlas' future holds, she translates the code.
- Sorry, Quantumz stuff DOESNT allow predicting the Future (the opposite actually).
.
Atlas begins to plan to arrange for Jack to come to Rapture to kill Ryan, and then fatally strikes Elizabeth again, leaving her alone with Sally "honoring" his part of the deal.
- Its Amazing that Fontaine forgot all about this important bit (instructions to control Jack) AFTER doing all the work/expense/risk for this whole longshot backup plan. (Makes it so much more plausible that Ryan thwarted the 'Jack' assassination attempt later).
.
Sally begins to sing "La Vie en Rose" to comfort Elizabeth.
- How touching - too bad some Splicer will kill Sally in the future (or maybe Jack will Harvest her ? or Delta kills her, if Sally survives long enough to become a Big Sister which Sigma kills ...)
.
As Elizabeth succumbs to her wounds, she realizes that Jack will be the one to end the cycle of violence in Rapture and save Sally and the other Little Sisters.
- End the Cycle -- yeeeaaaahh riiiight. It didn't exactly work in Infinite BS, DID IT ????? (I Guess her "visions" didn't show her Sofia Lamb, Murder and mayhem of the Civil War, etc... It didn't quite work with Booker either - NOW did it ?) Excrementally runny logic here.
.
She dies happily, content that the matters will be resolved.
- Delusions are Legion. But it always is nice to die 'happy'. Unfortunately Bioshock 1 had TWO endings (is the cat dead or alive ....), and sorry, NONE of the Quantumz Theory turns people into all-seeing gods. Its all OK in the end though, after a rejuvenated Ryan (faked death...) comes back in 1970 and Rapture is rebuilt and the Parasites have been burned out of its population, Rapture goes on to be greater than even Ryan had forseen ...)
.
A post-credits scene shows a view of Rapture and the tail of the Apollo Air Flight DF-0301 sinking in the city -- indicating Jack's arrival in Rapture.
- Too bad it didn't show a picture of the mass of corpses caused by Elizabeth unleashing Fontaine/Atlas upon Rapture. SO Elizabeth can feel good ... thats the really important thing. What a load of Crap.
.
UNDERSTAND THAT THIS ANALYSIS IS ALL IN HINDSIGHT, AND I WASN'T SUBJECT TO HAVING TO PRODUCE A CONTRACTUALLY REQUIRED DLC AND OF BEING IN A COMPLETE PANIC OVER PRODUCING IT -- FEARING THAT THE REMAINING EMPLOYEES WOULD ALL LEAVE EN MASSE AFTER LEARNING THAT THE COMPANY WAS FOLDING.
"JUST GET IT DONE WITH IT ANY WAY YOU CAN" WAS THE SIMPLE PRIORITY.
--- --- --- --- ---
The Whole BaS Version of the Protector Bond (Conflicted Mess) :
This DLC revised the original Daddy's Parental Concern motive into a Mercenary Quid Quo Pro ("something for something" in Latin) relation - with the Big Daddies merely using the Little Sisters as their source of ADAM (no mention that this was probably a continual requirement anyway - so why suddenly). Why exactly would EVERY healthy/topped-off Big Daddy wait outside a vent banging IF acting solely for this reason.
Question : Did anyone actually conclude that 'LS will bribe BDs into protecting them' ? Or on the horrifying sight of Suchong (or whomever the corpse really was) was that little scene missed or never really registered with anyone important ??
It is likely that this new motive would prove disruptive (Daddy wants his 'fix' NOW !!! or his 'Pusher' to be out of sight and Daddy has the shakes...), and so the originally (BS1) shown Empathy conditioning was subsequently substituted as more effective in protecting Little Sisters.
The whole incident NOW modified by BaS (shown to happen immediately at the start of Rapture's 'civil war') and evidenced in BS2 (no date implied, but apparently while the BD Bond conditioning system was still being researched) itself is problematic. The extensive (time consuming) work Suchong did in the Protector project at Point Prometheus (Armored Escorts) is also shown in BS2. Similar conflicts with the Gil Alexander involvement with Alpha's, and the Lamb-Delta incident maybe (?) happening New Years 1958-59 (BEFORE any need/reason for Protectors).
BTW - so the LS allegedly injected the BD (into its body) with some 'ADAM' (rather : it is some burped up bloody organic goop they suck out of corpses and normally swill down for the Sea Slug to consume) to 'save' the BD. Are the LS smart enough to even make the connection, or rather are well conditioned to be jealous of surrendering ANY of their ADAM to anyone but whom they are conditioned ??? Anyway, massive blood poisoning would be the most likely result of intravenous such introduction - delayed a little maybe, undoubtable fatal. Probably a good reason for that particular 'bond' interchange type between LS and BD to be quickly discarded.
--- --- ---
Customers Still in Fontaine's Put There To Up the Game Corpse Count ?? :
Very strange that there would be all these apparent 'customers' laying all about Fontaines Dept Store. If this place was to be used as 'a prison', any normal logic would have all 'civilians' thoroughly evacuated, and even have most of the possessions/tools/store-stock removed/stripped from the place. This IS before the "civil war" even starts - a state of normalcy, and Ryan can't have such unneeded complication/issues with Rapture's Citizens (when he is previously in the game shown catching so much flack for ONLY having a criminal's assets 'seized' by the city, when such processes were actually normal to anyone living at that time). That of course, was meant by the original writers to fabricate the previous game's CONTRIVED outrage at "Ryan The Tyrant", "Ryan The Hypocrite", and the rest of the 'evil Ryan' crap pushed at the Player.
But Oh, we must generate empathy for the poor citizens placed in unfortunate death poses (who REALLY shouldn't exist there). That instead showing alot more of Criminals off'ing themselves, or shown as having killed each other violently and brutally. But see, THAT interferes with 'Atlas', the supposed leader, who in such chaos really WOULD have been killed/menaced (with no reason needed) by any one of the hundred crazies roaming about -- even MORESO when HE tried to give them orders.
Too many rats all put in one cage will kill each other til there's very few left, and perhaps THAT was Ryan's idea -- to let them execute themselves in the lawless world they had chosen.
--- --- ---
Infinitistic Bloating of Rapture (BaSx's Weird Huge Volumes) :
'Big is better', when it is easy to make things pretty at a distance (something that is hard/more work close up).
In BaSx, things in Rapture are made oversized, unwarranted for the population size the original story implied (which logically was limited by The 'Vanishing' circumstances, and the basic 'build money' available). The level designers did this throughout (having already done so in Infinite BS). Perhaps it was to allow fight/gun battle locations eliminating cover for the mobs of Splicers advancing on the Player (which otherwise would have it be too deadly).
For Columbia, at least, much could be made out of open space, while in Rapture you need a massive thickly built roof/walls structure to keep the megatons of water from crushing the interiors, NOW made worse/impractical when you are to have Huge/Big-ified areas being spanned unsupported. Columbia was merely ordinary buildings, but you have that faux/pseudo-science 'floaty' everything excuse, where brick and cement and thick chunks of earth could be floating about. (Note that in Columbia, conventional building physics are reversed, as everything is hanging, instead of being piled up.) Still the forces involved are ordinary.
-
That Overblown Business size - Who-all would shop at the huge Fontaines Dep Store when Rapture's population was only 20-40 thousand (who were served ALREADY by all the other businesses which existed elsewhere) ?? AND so few people could not economically support much more than a typical mini-mall ?? Limited customers limits any possible expenditures to create/maintain this huge establishment, and especially to repay the cost of building such a monstrosity. Elsewhere I've explained that ADAM profits (sales minus ITS production costs) would be insufficient, and same for the limited income from Fontaine's Smuggling operation (heavy expense overhead on low volume/high prices, which made it largely a limited luxury market). The money from those just would NOT be any windfall to afford such overly grandiose ventures.
There also wasn't time for Fontaine to build up an 'empire' to have such profits available. Fontaine CANNOT be like the Prohibition-Era Gangster Booze Kings with their 20,000,000+ customers. No, Fontaine couldn't have driven everyone else from those other general businesses without someone killing him. No, Fontaine couldn't coerce ridiculously cheap construction without the same thing happening. Such a business venture that takes decades in the real world to create just couldn't be built by a petty thug within a few years with insufficient money flow.
A separate simple reason : Fontaine's "empire" is largely built on Secrets, something EXTREMELY hard to maintain in such a small place as Rapture. Let any of Fontaine's unforgivable criminal activities be made public and it would all collapse, and HE would quickly find himself a 'test subject' in Persephone.
We have been shown that Ryan would see to that.
With Fontaine's supposed goal of taking over Rapture, he is largely wasting his effort on building ordinary businesses which he could simply take later (or he would no longer care about when he heads to the Surface). A rather big divergence from the original plotline (forcing takeover of some existing businesses to see his name on products is one thing, a new grand/massive, very expensive, venture duplicating existing business is quite another).
--- --- ---
BaS "Message Received, Ryan !" (Need To Know 'Film") (Atlas's Stupidity While in Ryan's Prison Bottle) :
He should have wanted to be quieter/covert UNTIL he made good his escape AND after fully establishing his 'rebel' resources/associates/minions/safe-places. There is only little more than 3 months between Atlas being created (the Shootout) and when his name is associated with the Terrorist bombs going off in the city (New Years). How quickly he was apprehended then could shorten that 'organization' time further.
It was not the brightest thing for (BaSx) Atlas to do -- to immediately give himself away as a trouble maker, instead of hiding behind some quieter "I am not a Liberator" persona, as could be assumed from his portrayal in the previous games. SO instead, he shows himself to be a ringleader. Was this even while he was locked IN Fontaine's Mall, where Ryan might easily observe and then have little problem getting ahold of him ? (That IS so much stupider to do.) DO that and Fontaine might soon find himself singled-out and on his way to Persephone for Solitary Confinement and 'special' therapy. The writers seem to have ignored the previous understanding that Fontaine was crafty and smart.
This 'message' when found by Ryan's men would also make a perfect propaganda item for Ryan to show the ordinary citizens of Rapture about "Atlas the anarchist/terrorist", who declares that HE speaks for the "People" of Rapture. Unfortunately in the game, they never quite seem to bother to show what most ordinary people DID think about this dangerous 'civil war'/rebellion/terrorist-uprising Atlas. Atlas could be easily labeled a destructive agitator, which many Rapturites had had to live through on The Surface, and had come to Rapture hoping to get away from such problems. A large majority would be strongly supporting Ryan. So it just wouldn't match the writer's "Occupier" mentality plot/backstory, IF the majority of the citizens were ready to 'shout Atlas down' and finger him to the authorities and demand the jailing/elimination of his criminal supporters.
-
The above brings up the plot detail of Fontaine getting the surgery to change his face. For an interim during and after that process, would 'Fontaine' (via his double which had similar surgery to now look like Fontaine) still be able to effectively run Fontaine's affairs ??? We aren't told when Fontaine changed himself (and thus had more time to setup his Atlas identity), but there also complications would develop eventually if it was too long a date before he "died". Fontain was 'master of disguises', but was his impersonator ??? How long had Fontaine been planning and preparing for this gambit ? With the old clever Fontaine, it would have been for quite some time. But for the new BaSx ** imbecile Fontaine/Atlas, perhaps not very long - the character is now shown doing many very stupid things.
(** Fontaine having not LONG previously (finally) obtaining the WYK code from Suchong (when he really should have possessed it when Jack was sent out of Rapture -- THAT situation is only the first indicator BaSx presents a far stupider/inept Fontaine ...)
--- --- ---
Trans-Orbital Lobotomy For Dummies by Walter Freeman :
Book to be found in Fontaines Mall (yes, you WILL be able to visit it in the MMORPG - whats left of it, of course it was never used as a real 'prison', that is too absurd for reality - was only a deranged notion by someone needing a Lobotomy). That "Mall" would be alot smaller too to reflect economic realities limiting such things. More a warehouse with shops installed - now something like THAT Ryan might grab (poetically being Fontaine's own property) and convert to a temporary prison (with none of the unsecure stupidity shown in BaSx) - just cleared space where the detained felons were chained up while Persephone was expanded and the investigations/trials were carried out. Eventually, it probably would go as restitution to some of Fontaine's victims (or their surviving relatives).
Another fix :
That Sea Horse Tram thing that went between buildings was (is NOW) INSIDE a tube. Too inconvenient to have it use an airlock to cycle, when Viaducts were perfectly ordinary all over Rapture. Otherwise it just had not enough throughput of passengers, as would be NEEDED in any REAL (even smaller) Mall setup. Chokepoint like that are something which REAL store designers seek to AVOID.
--- --- ---
DLC Gold Bars :
The ones seen in the BaS DLC allegedly worth 100 Rapture Dollars as seen, would weigh about 40 lb (16 oz x 40 lb x $35/oz = ~ $22000) (Gold is more than 19 times denser than water). And valuable enough that a $20 gold piece was a ounce or less. But then alot of stuff is out of proportion/unrealistically sized in this kind of Careless Fantasy game.
Even better (as in far stupider) is : Apparently the Vending machines now (like in Infinite BS) can take Jewelry and Bullion in payment as 'money' (not really the Pawn Shop Machines mentioned in BioShock concepts ...) BS pollution ...
Shouldn't little cards holding fragments of the Prophet's toenail clippings be good enough to buy anything in Columbia ??? Oh that's right, 'Relics' are too "Pope-ish" .
Also shouldn't money in Columbia be called "Mammon" ? Oh that's right, despite the writer's implications, Columbia has NOTHING whatsoever to do with Christianity. Hmmm, Money in Eden or Heaven is a very funny idea.
--- --- ---
Utter Rubbish in BaS - Daisy Fitzroy : Gullible Idiot of the Century :
The thing with the Luteces convincing Daisy_Fitzroy that she should sacrifice her life so that Elizabeth will grow up to become a better person. RetCon making a murderous terrorist just 'misunderstood' and 'noble' is just so much soft-headed tripe of the worst kind.
This is just so offensive - first that the Players are supposed to be stupid enough to buy into that BS-addled idea, and second that the writers think that any human in that situation would be shown to be stupid enough to fall for a ploy like this : Two 'Crackas' talk to the black Ex-convict, Ex-housemaid serf turned bloody revolutionary, who NOW tell Daisy that some magic fairy dust says that She needs to let Elizabeth kill her for "the good of all" (so NOW she can just be pretending that she is going to murder Fink's son, and wait to be slaughtered ... It really being the best thing to do) . This all being some dim retraction/revision/degeneration of the original plot, where the murderous revolutionary is shown to be JUST as evil as Comstock ( as is BTW the old age Elizabeth, and her revenge-driven later activities ).
It is one of the *STUPIDEST* story ideas I've ever seen written ANYWHERE ( but doesn't really surprise me with all the other ignorance and claptrap shown previously throughout Infinite BS by the same writer team ). If the DLC writers were out of their minds on drugs, that might at least give them an excuse, but this story was OK'd all the way up the command chain.
Lemme Repeat That : "STUPIDEST IDEA I'VE EVER SEEN" . 
--- ---
Lobotomy, Oh My Lobotomy ... :
Thought : was Levine threatened with being sent to the 'Crazy House' by his parents when he was a bad child to make such an impression/fixation that he repeatedly dredges up such ancient horrific treatment images as this Lobotomy thing ( family stories about insane relatives maybe ??? ), as seen repeatedly in these absurd game scenes ? 
Its rather convenient that Elizabeth has lost her powers as a 'god' to allow her to be put in this situation. Ah !!! So the plot/story/franchise was lobotomized ...
--- --- ---
Hacked Together RetCon Rubbish :
BaSx just makes the BS1/BS2 Suchong+Bonding+Gatherer conflicting plot/story worse.
BS1 has that Artemis Suites Clinic shown hidden away from Ryan in an unsafe (Fontaine charity) area of Rapture -- assume it was used when Suchong was working for Fontaine (before Sep 1958/ Shootout).
BS1 You have that big facility at Point Prometheus, where SUCHONG IS SHOWN to have done the Big Daddy production and the Little Sister modification work (its included in all those Audio Diaries of Suchong working extensively in THAT facility, and having the huge BD production line - and his talk about weapon upgrading them). The Little Wonders section there likewise showing LS "Gatherer" development and 'conditioning' work - THERE with the "Gatherer" project fully under way. The whole project cannot be (it being too early) under Fontaine, and IS when Suchong is working for Ryan after Fontaine is dead.
It really doesn't make sense to organize/construct all that if the 'Bonding'/whatever system isn't even proven yet -- AND REMEMBER Ryan is a Cheap Son of a @#$%% AND WOULDN'T have paid for that huge installation UNTIL it was fully proven and prototyped. That all ONLY AFTER there is even a proper NEED for "Gatherers" in Rapture ('Civil War' Shortages, etc ...).
BS2 with Delta and little Eleanor (not horrible to explain that scene), and with Gil Alexander supposedly saying Suchong dead while he succeeded in getting the 'Bonding' thing working is problematic enough (but at least the date is nebulous). Problematic in being contradictory, but vaguaries can be employed to make it compatible with BS1 version of events.
The BaSx Big Daddies 'bonding' (pimping) just to get their ADAM fix is asinine (BTW nobody was there IF it happened while Suchong was killed -- to be able to pass it (that particular 'bonding' mechanism) on for implementation -- as if it would work anyway - we saw the proper conditioning program in both BS1 and BS2. (Also its a single incident of whats not necessarily conditionable, or generally applicable to work for ANY Little Sister - same as the Alpha Bond problem ...)
-
Suchong in BS1 apparently WAS doing something there in the Free Clinic, and at some point with Little Sisters with a Big Daddy present, where he apparently gets killed by accident (a vague non-labeled corpse - with no definite date). In BaSx unfortunately it is now shoe-horned into their congested plot timeline. (Besides the point that It is far to early to NEED any such research - no tons of corpses, so no Gatherers yet, and thus no Protectors either way too early for Big Daddies).
The BS1 Point Prometheus evidence shows Suchongs work went way past that initial BD conditioning thing, and that he died much-much later (so that also conflicts with it being the BS2 'bonding' thing)
If you can claim BS2 isn't Canon, then bye-bye to Sofia Lamb too ? (I reject that, but there definitely are these conflicts that will need to be straightened out for the MMORPG).
Now we have in BaSx a specifically spelled out date (and it is amongst many obviously wrong dates - very worrying how sloppy they were). It is specified as being near the time of the Kashmir incident (again, way too early for Big Daddies ), and NOW they warp that old BS1 situation by backstitching Elizabeth/Sally into it.
This new BaSx date timeline 'precision' runs in opposition to the previous games' vagueness, all those Audio Diaries with no dates (and often being hard to tell when the recording was made or for when it was talking about - a handy thing to avoid being pinned down in minor details).
So which is it to be now (of the 3 versions of events) ? We can start to solve it by making that BD Drill impaled Corpse there NOT BEING Suchong (??? He, being shown as 'the great survivor', made his escape while some flunky assistant tried to hold off the Big Daddy ... maybe.) That allows him to work on the Gatherer project later at Point Prometheus (with its added 'Protector' being something created WELL into the 'Civil War' when it would make sense to exist.)
Simplest of all : To eliminate every stupid conflict they created when they wrote BaSx --- IT JUST ISN'T OUR Rapture Dimension HERE IN THIS INFINITIZED BULLSHIT" --- THAT would be the simplest solution. Don't know why Levine poisoned that whole idea, which fits so well into the whole fricken Columbia multiverse weirdness Levine has brought to Rapture - He apparently can't even be consistent with the way his Fantasy works. Was it just alot of quick-n-dirty/sloppy/careless DLC work before the studio shut down ??? I guess so.
--- --- ---
Endemic Big-ification (Business Division) :
The disease spread from Infinite BS's Columbia Vapourous Glomboidal Monstrosity back to our poor unfortunate Rapture in BaSx. Big spaces with VERY LITTLE in them.
Fontaine Mall has a Bookstore selling books from where ? With about 20000(?) people, how many (different) books do you think would get written and published in Rapture and be sold in a upscale district ? A decent sized 'Used Book' store (tapping into all the books the Citizens brought with them from the Surface) makes much more sense, except likewise it WOULDN'T be in an expensive 'mall' venue). We see that HUGE airy bookstore with big space, but few books -- Yes, ARE real stores like that ??? NOT!!! In all these separate stores (Market/High Street), being Chock-full-of-product would be the sign of success (remember that it is Rapture's Golden Age still). Instead, we get sparsely sprinkled products in huge vacant spaces. Space costs money, there is SO (TOO) MUCH empty space there for specialty stores that have to meet their upscale rent - its unrealistic ... its Fantasy. And we don't need bloated battle spaces in places no combat takes place in. Hey Ken & Co, Size doesn't replace detail or story or gameplay.
And sorry, no, if Fontaine's was 'seized' to turn into this Stupid Faux-Prison, it WOULD BE empty shelves piles of goods once had been on (in a real store) -- emptied out like a supermarket in a town a hurricane was heading towards - a familiar image to most people -- stripped clean). Too much merchandise is still perfectly in place (in ALL THE STORES) for it to have been realistically ransacked by Splicers (or shaken up when 'sunk'). It coulda been a really shocking scene - a chaotic mess strewn about (to be in contrast to pristine High/Market Street), and thus alot more like BS1/BS2 Rapture - a prelude scene to Rapture's ruination, BUT they totally MISSED that opportunity (so sad ...).
--- --- ---
Suchong's Free Clinic 'Big-ification' :
Another previously seen place a little overdone with its new extensiveness. Originally (in BS1) tucked away in a corner of an apartment flat in a tenement area, it is now turned into The Salk Institute (with piles of Big Daddies, etc...) It is the usual (Infantizinited BS ) 'Big-ification' treatment now being given to all the terrain shown in this DLC game.
It is all there for more revised story RETCON about Big Daddy Bond testing ... Applied/intertwined as a NEW tie-in with Elizabeth, WYK, Sally and such. More conflicts now with the previous games.
This scene seriously breaks the original idea of being Suchong's small covert research operation, which he probably had at that location under Fontaine, making use of poor/destitute people as his guinea pigs for various experimentation (evidently including some testing of his ideas for the 'Bond' conditioning).
He works for Ryan now. Is it (Bonding) not an unauthorized project ? Shouldn't Suchong already have enough work to do coddling Little Sisters to stave off an ADAM shortage after the disruptions of Fontaine Futuristics being 'Seized' ??? Suchong doing so many things is yet ANOTHER flavor of 'Big-ification".
--- --- ---
Another Absurd Big-ification (and Overblown Ideas About Rapture) :
Rapture On Ice Sponsored by Old Man Winter -- Seriously, how much of that Plasmid could they sell, for there to be enough gross profits to pay expenses for this delusional entertainment monstrosity ?? This situation ISN'T (and can't be) like a regional Pepsi advertising campaign (aimed at 20,000,000 potential customers in a big city) to have such a grand setting. (Hint - it also Helps if you know what real Ice Rinks look like too).
Seriously, I don't think these 'writers' know much at all about the realities of business in the 'Real World', and how absurd this whole thing is. Like I've said before, these writers seem to plan this game around 'neat scenes' they think up, and then don't bother to try to match/fit to any Real World logic or consistency. It is not JUST because it is DLC, they did the same in the whole Infinite BS game.
They took OUR Rapture, polluted it with Infinite BS, and carelessly turned it into Big-ified Clown Rapture.
"Big" substitutes very poorly for better detail (which takes more work and ingenuity and imagination). And AGAIN : It is not just DLC-itus, as it WAS the same type of enormously 'Big' content you saw throughout Infinite BS.
--- --- ---
Fontaine's BaSx Escape ( Screw in the Lightbulb by Turning the World ) :
Wouldn't it be much much simpler to make One Bathysphere (trip), maybe with only a few of Atlas's minions escaping with him (assuming the minefield prevented the escape previously, though Booker/Elizabeth seem (for some reason) to have had no trouble arriving ... Exactly how Sander Cohen has Safe access is not particularly explained). Fontaine/Atlas may not have cared all that much for the (crazy) minions/pawns he left behind, just getting his own ass out of the trap might've been HIS only priority.
(I wont even go into the issue of 'reattaching' Fontaines Department Store building back to its old city connections to just 'walk out'.))
-
Wasn't that there a 'quantum particle' from Columbia, WITH a (constant) height fixed at 25000 feet above sea level ? Then shouldn't it have suddenly ascended to a spot like that of Columbia's altitude (and probably then drifting away to who knows where ??? (This for the sake of argument : in assuming one of these 'particles' is enough to do this wondrous feat, and that Elizabeth has somehow become a Quantum Engineer - by reading some book, no doubt.)
These "particles" seem to have a convenient/magical height/altitude fixation, rather than being fixed XYZ in space - Maybe anchored/entangled to all the other particles across all the universes ????). Oops, not really "Fixed in Space" after all if you recognize/understand the rotations of the Earth, and Earth's movement in its orbit, and that of the Sun within the Milkyway Galaxy, and even that galaxy's trajectory, etc.. etc... etc... Quantums Can Do Anything 
Also assuming this Fantasy Pseudo-Physics property of Lutece-type Quantumz particles (supposedly there being ONE 'particle' and having it fastened to suspend a trillion times its weight somehow ...) As I said : Fantasy and hardly consistent, even as they are being described in-story.
Somewhere one of the developers (interview) mentions gobbledeegook about the 'particles' getting trapped/fixed in Time, and thus stuck in place. Of course the whole Columbia moving thing conflicts with that (pieces of it move at least - and the various flying thingees we assume use 'particles' also ... Don't They ??).
--- --- ---
Amusing scene :
Elizabeth is 'raising' Fontaines Dept Store (that particle BS), and the Building strikes one or more of those 'mines' -- Catastrophically Bursting the pressure containment - INSTANTLY flooding the whole place and killing everyone within. Last scene is of the Luteces dog-paddling by in 1900 bathing dress (they ARE dead after all) and seeing Elizabeth's corpse floating within her new cold watery tomb, and them making some dispassionate comment about adding another tally mark to the 'Failed-Revenge-Elizabeths' column. OOOOH the fans wouldn't like that !!! By that time did any care any more ???
--- --- ---
Floatyness is Next to Stupidness :
How exactly does this quantum "float" really work, when other objects like 'zeppelins' and Barges have to fly around while changing altitude (thus changing their altitude with QUITE fine control) ??? Should each of those have some complex Lutece machine to manipulate 'the particle', as would have to be done for all the floaty bits of Columbia ??? A ND those all in concert with constant precise adjustments to prevent the parts of the city from independently lurching up and down - mangling where they connected (or yanking the bridges and such into complete ruin, real quick) ?? Is that all controlled centrally by clever pneumatics, or some fancy telegraph controls? And being exactly coordinated by some fancy Babbage Analytical Engine system ? (Or maybe some brains in big jars full of bubbling liquid ???? )
Is it more like anti-gravity ? Only lifting a certain amount of 'weight' which gets trimmed - somehow quite accurately to balance it all, and eliminate the shimmy and shake and wobble that would have the inhabitants in a constant state of nauseum, and things rattling and tipping over) ?? If that control mechnism fails, Columbia would sail up away from the Earth and out of the atmosphere - wouldn't it ???. ISN'T a simple Magic Levitate Spell ALOT simpler than all the complex and bothersome 1900ish technology they would need -- all for how (using this Faux-Science) they (the writers) SAY it all supposedly works ???????
Amazing that this game's stated FLOAT "physics" somehow was based on the lab 'trick' [pix] that has been done (Real World) with superconductor magnets PIX, making them float (BTW floating mere inches above another VERY powerful magnet, and generally done at a cryogenic temperature, and using power provided from the nearest industrial sized powerplant.) It is beyond 'extrapolation' -- This is simply 'Cuz We Say So' pseudo-science, which they really should NEVER have attempted to explain (and instead simply got on with the story's human element AS SMART SCI-FI WRITERS DO).
--- --- ---
Ho Ho Ho (But There's no Christmas in Secular Rapture - Is There ??) :
Shouldn't there have been Hookers/Ladies of Negotiable Virtue on High and Market streets ??? Its not illegal and the area doesn't appear to be private property, etc ... Maybe THAT'S why that 'Hotel' is there, and that they seem to 'know' Booker ... TWIST - Elizabeth was a Prostitute after she arrived in Rapture. Just more 'business', when you look at it.
--- --- ---
Tequila Mockingbird :
Cocktail invented in commemoration of Harper Lee (Book got 1960 Pulitzer Prize)
Didn't Elizabeth find the Lunette Hook and the "load bearing columns" in the Atticus of Fontaines??? (NOW THEY ARE DETAILING ENGINEERING IDEAS !!!! AFTER ALL THE PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE STUPIDITY IN THE REST OF THE INFINITY MULTIVERSE ... Don't worry - Fontaine's Department Store gets shot up to the ocean surface and kept going til it reached 15000+ feet and is fired at by a US Navy Interceptor with a nuclear tipped Air-to-Air missile. "Another fine mess you've got us into !!!" ( But then THAT was the 'FAKE' Fontaine, as he was so unclever as compared to the REAL one seen in BS1. )
"Blueskies Over Fontaines" (another little known Philip K. Dick sci-fi novel).
--- --- ---
BaS Pneumo 'Line' Claptrap :
Sorry, this isn't Columbia, with its magic particles to suspend stuff without physically workable support. How exactly is this new form of 'Pneumo' (which it can't really be - "Pneumatic") supposed to work ?? The rotary whatzit (a need to have something like that weird chainsaw glove weapons from Infinite BS - this whole Rapture Pneumo 'Line' mechanism claptrap will thus justify) is supposed to lock onto these 'Lines' to move you along. And the thingamabobs (TV sets with lil T-rex armlets) supposedly carry stuff around the store and elsewhere in Rapture (and you get to 'ride' in-game these floaty rail things, recreating a (very) little of the Skyhook/Skyline activity done in Columbia).
BTW - Why doesn't anyone else have these Hand Chainsaws to use on Booker (or on Elizabeth -- boy that woulda made an interesting 'Scene', no ? "GAME OVER !!! - ELIZABETH HAS BEEN DISEMBOWELED ".)
Now that woulda been a (more) memorable fight : Mano-a-Mano against a Splicer with the Accu-jack or whatever its called (Heh, vacuum parts, can you get any more dimly retarded than that ??) -- Sparks flyin' as they clash, and the sick crunching and ripping sounds as your Gear is torn apart ... Finally the spray of blood and flying jibblets and the crunch of bone shredding ('doing in' either YOU or the Splicer).
Not really sure why those tiny normal 'Pneumo' tubes should ONLY be going to (as labeled) "Kashmir" and "Little Wonders" and "Fontaines", and not the hundreds of other likely destinations (If you had tubes go from everywhere to everywhere, then the combination of all those tubes would soon mass more than all the rest of Rapture put together - a SNL "Johnny Canal"https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/johnny-canal/2723537 situation). SO again, they didn't bother to read the book "How Things Actually Work : For Imbeciles (and Game Developers)".
-
A simpler regurgitation is those 'new' lighting 'sconces', which now that silly vacuum-chainsaw-widget magically pulls the player to (strange, never heard that Quantumz anything was employed/deployed in Rapture and this kind of 'magic magnet' if that's what its supposed to be would do VERY bad things whenever used in a place filled with metal). This is how lazy they got in the DLC - wanting to recycle that largely wasted Fantasy mechanism from Bizarroland Columbia (Infinitely Unreal), but not willing to put any real effort into thinking up something that would be plausible/appropriate in the previously Sci-Fi Rapture.
--- --- --- --- --- --- ---
.
.