Floatyshit(tm)

* See also Derp_Transportation_in_Columbia
* See also Zeppelin_on_the_Brain
* See also Quantum Hokem
* See also Real Physics
* See also Quantum_Particles_Can_Do_Anything
* See also How_To_Do_Quantumz
* See also The_Quantum_Revolution - some real world with this stuff
The Thing Which Made Columbia Float -- the "Lutece Field" 
Rosalind Lutece : "I had trapped the atom in mid-air. Colleagues called my Lutece Field 'Quantum Levitation', but in fact, it was nothing of the sort. Magicians levitate. My atom simply failed to fall. If an atom could be suspended indefinitely, well - why not an apple ? If an apple, why not a city ?"
Flying Whatzits ... SO MUCH POTENTIAL -- LOST
Simply fails to fall
add pix of balloony things
and a zeppelinny thing
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Consider :
 Imagine the Other major countries of the World using STOLEN ( Yes, it certainly would be ) 'Quantum' technology after 1893. And with their 100 X the resources and 1000 X the brilliant minds, AND MONEY, they ALL would soon making Cult-Benighted 'Columbia' a technological backwater -- Destined to eventually become a marginalized racist-infested Freak Show. 
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Why not have Columbia's buildings moving on Floating Rails - Your House orbits about, and you can step off anywhere you need to get to ... Oops too many things moving for the game programmers to manage. 
It was Simpler to have the typical '3D' static Terrain and '2D' player movement. So many promising things, so little innovation ...
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Skyline - Such interesting game imagery was shown before release -- BUT A FRAUD DONE TO SELL THE GAME
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The High-Tech Thingees You See Here and There ( This one on the Mechanical Horse Anachro-Fail ) :
Of course if you break that blue glowing Orb thingy on top of it ( some kind of Quantumz whatzits ) the Universe will end ( or Columbia will crumple up like the house in "Poltergeist 1" Not the movie with the Indian Graveyard that's reserved for the Columbia game sequel. ). But I might ask - Why roll when you can fly ? We coulda had flying-horse-combat like that old computer game 'Joust' ... Or ditch the stupid/obsolete Skyline crap and have Personal Flying Belts and Wings for everyone - Imagine how much better the battles would be.
OOPS - How much harder writing the NPC Combat Logic would be to make the enemies work properly in REAL '3D' Terrain - The NPCs' 2D Actions ALREADY were hardly inspiring ... SO maybe we should not have any expectation with that set of game developers. I remember "Unreal Tournament 2000" ( *20+* years ago !!! ) where you could turn down the gravity so that you basically flew around when you jumped - More and more of these recent games are so 'dumbed-down', and not really better than those quite-old games.
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Chicago was originally built low near the Lake Michigan water level ( the whole location was relatively flat ) which prevented the sewers from functioning properly, leading to a severe sanitation problem. The solution was to raise the entire city over a dozen feet so that the sewers had an adequate downhill flow.https://insh.world/tech/building-chicagos-sewage-system-meant-raising-the-entire-city/
In January 1858, the first brick building in Chicago was raised -- a four story, 70 foot wide, 750 ton masonry structure, located at the north-east corner of 'Dearborn Street' and 'Randolph Street', was lifted.
Large numbers of screw jacks placed under the building and worked manually by hundreds of men were used to simultaneously raise the intact buildings as much as 14 feet, and new foundations/cellars were built underneath to hold up the raised structures. Street levels were raised with earth fill to match the new elevations.
Fortunately, that was the days of few utilities (or regulations/lawyers) to complicate the operation.
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A problem with floaty shit in Infinite's Columbia : What powered all the Fantasy Quantum whatzits and doodads ? WE Didn't see any smokestack/powerplants for every separately floating building/city block, so there must've been some additional thingamabobs and fandangles to perform that needed function. So why did so much of the rest of the city still have UTTER technological throwbacks still in use ? They only had 2 decades to make use of all the magical stuff stolen through Tears. SO MANY plainly WERE NEEDED. Such things (mechanisms) would also make perfect targets for those Vox Anarchist bomb-throwers - Just have to cut a few wires (or whatever) and huge sections of Columbia go hurling towards the ground, or out of control into collision, resulting with appropriately impressive destruction and loss of life. 
MORE Great story potential completely lost.
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Columbia - The Open & Airy Skyline was Contrary and Mal-conceived :
Floatyshit(tm) still doesn't explain THAT bizarre fustercluck transport system -- Just that it hangs in the air by Magic ( and it exists while there are several other conventional transport systems besides ). The Skyline seems used for Freight, but not by Passengers ( apart from ad hoc use by criminals, anarchists and pursuing cops ). An Extensive connected track system MIGHT have worked as a more useful City transport system ( but definitely NOT as those local loops or those asinine rollercoaster-like curves ).
If you have Floatyshit(tm), then you might as well have/use 'floaty' vehicles to do city transport ( after all you now still have to cart the cargo/people somewhere to/from the stations/dropoffs from that track ... ). 'Go Anywhere' Automobile-like Vehicles are more convenient ( and were the modern rage in that period ).
BUT : Flying Vehicles would allow too much Player freedom for a linear-maze Shooter Game ( It is too hard to limit the Players movements WITHOUT it being blatantly obvious that THAT was being done ). So such a more interesting movement element had to be tossed/was never considered.
That stupidity of 'hanging by your arm' was a really weak story contrivance (( The games writers should be sentenced to the punishment of having their arms pulled out of their sockets over and over by a gorilla as an apropos penalty for such a bizarrely stupid idea/concept. )) Oh, it makes wonderful leaping and falling/catching choreographed scenes, no matter what that kind of thing would do to a human body, or the impossible acrobatic moves what is shown done in-game requires (( BTW, when did Booker have his career as a Circus Acrobat ??? Learned it in the US Calvary I guess, or maybe it was standard Pinkerton Training ? And Elizabeth, who does it too, musta 'read it in books.' )).
As transport for the 1893 Exposition, such a 'Skyline' system might HAVE MADE sense to take Fairgoers touring around Show City 'Columbia' on a fixed tour path in small passenger cars ( Note - that we did not see a single passenger carrying car on the Skyline in-game, despite the 'stations' ).
The whole thing was poorly done in the delivered game. IT was supposed to initially be free movement on a HUGE eye-popping citywide track system and Player experience ( WHICH MIGHT HAVE EXCUSED ITS FANTASY ). But they backtracked on that idea, and it degenerated into a few strange circular tracks, and blocked paths, with little other reason to exist in the game ( Oh yeah and to facilitate a local Arena Battle fight scene ).
(( LETS BRING THAT ORIGINAL IDEA BACK WHEN WE REDO IT PROPERLY USING THE MMORPG STUFF ))
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The Floating City 'Bespin' in Star Wars ?? 
Might have given Levine/other the Idea for Columbia ???
https://www.starwars.com/databank/bespin/ 
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I suppose the 'quantum' thing for the Vita-Chamber Save-Restore mechanisms in BS1/BS2 may have spawned all the Quantum_Hokem ideas they created in Infinite BS. And plenty of people have seen the Laboratory trick of the Floaty Superconductor in documentaries.
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