Columbia's Doom

* See also The_Quantum_Revolution
* See also Flying_Battleship-Yeah_Right 
* See also Foes_Of_Columbia
* See also Heavily_Armed_Battleship ( I laugh when I still hear this )
* See also Columbia_Police_State
"Columbia's Existence Was Simply Enough To Change The Rest Of The World." - Albert Einstein
--- --- --- --- ---
Columbia, instead of being A Flying Battleship, was turned into Wreckage drowned in the SeaT. D. Roosevelt's Prey : Columbia's Fate in SO MANY Universes ...
Theodore Roosevelt (the first modern President) served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. HE would NOT have allowed a Charlatan like Comstock to STEAL American Property as the game story has happen. HE also would have pushed the Quantum Technologies - IF it had not already been embraced by the World back in 1893. ( The game doesn't mention Roosevelt - there is a loose application of Historical context the game exhibits. They at least did not say that Comstock, seeing that Roosevelt was going to personally shoot Comstock while invading Columbia, had this nemesis killed. )
--- --- ---
==MISSING RETRO FUTURE==
" IF YOU MAKE IT, THEY WILL COPY IT " - a mysterious voice 
A HUGE Idea they left out of the shoot-em-up Infinite BS game ( with its dim all-fakery game setting/concepts/story ) was a chance for some realistic Alternate World History. The Technical Age has ALWAYS been a progression of : Someone discovering ( or an improvement upon ), making that development work, and building something useful ( frequently based on someone else's ideasIdeas were 'a dime a dozen', and making something from them was the real challenge ).. 
Once it-works/is-proven, others 'smell the opportunity' and THEN they develop their own. AND then soon EVERYONE is also building it and IMPROVING IT ( and 'CA$Hing in' on it ). Patenting it doesn't help. Patents actually TELL everyone alot about 'How To do it.' Foreign Powers ignore any such legal restrictions for any such strategically important Technology. The 1890s US Government, paying for Columbia, would actually insure/assure that IT had the Technology 'In Its Hands'. 
SO THIS WOULD HAPPEN WITH THE QUANTUMZ FLOATYSHIT(tm) TOO 
Columbia was on Public Display with people crawling all over it. There would be NO keeping it secret. Spies of other countries ( and even US Industrialists ) would poke their noses in and bribe their way to obtaining the Technology.
It might take a while, but soon/eventually the Rest of the World would later ( with its own developments ) significantly surpass the Floating Cult Compound of Columbia of Comstock's. THEN EVERYONE would whizz-off into the vast changes Levine & Co's writers could NOT even comprehend ( and flubbed by not including ). 
The idea that Columbia would bombard into ruins 1980s New York : THAT I find extremely funny ( and shake my head at such utter lack of understanding and pure ignorance ). That is because : Even Without The Quantum Revolution in the WORLD taking place, OUR World (Timeline) STILL would be fully capable of exterminating those nasty Cult Hell Floaties LONG before that dimbulb writer/artist-produced that NYC Attack game-scene. 
(( Was Booker perhaps Spaced Out on his Pain Medication again to see such odd images ??????? }).
-
So HERE WE GO with some good ideas along this probable developments :
--- --- --- 
When They Came For Columbia :
John Browning https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/John_Browning began experimenting with his idea in 1889. Three years later, he received a patent for the first crude fully automatic weapon that captured the gases at the muzzle and used them to power a mechanism that automatically reloaded the next bullet.
Columbia would quickly learn to fear the sound of Mr Browning's guns before its end.
--- --- ---
Real World Threats :
Test Pilot who set the global altitude record in 1930 by flying a Curtiss "Hawk" biplane to an altitude of 43,166 feet. ( Probably had a supercharger, but why should Columbia be the only thing to advance early ? ) Threats would exist for Columbia in its proposed history ( Working forward to that very unlikely 1985 'destroying the world' destiny ).
That's A 'propeller' plane ( Curtiss "Hawk" ) ... Sorry Columbia, you are NOT out of reach.
OR, why not just have an Agent steal one of those 'Barges', and then pack it with enough TNT to blow Comstock's little pirate Police State to Kingdom Come. First use of a commando parachute too ....
Teddy Roosevelt will have Comstock's head (stuffed) on his Trophy Wall ( He will make an exception for that human head ... )
--- --- ---
Columbia's HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENT Is Enemy Enough :
A Somewhat More Realistic Reaction : Comstock Screaming "RUN AWAY!!!"Monty Python and the Holy Grail referenece:
Columbia, each time some World Power spotted it ( the US would have a Bounty on it, as well as would other countries for Columbia's crimes against humanity ), and started shooting at it with 1890s-tech cannon, it would have to try to climb above and away from the Ship(s)/Forts/Railwaygun(s) - So High the inhabitants would soon start dying/getting-brain-damage for lack of Oxygen ( eventually within a few years of World weapon improvements, it could NOT get away from aircraft armed with cannon/rockets ). Soon Columbia wouldn't dare go near anywhere civilized, and would have to 'prey' on various remote third world places. 
"Five-thousand feet, Ten-thousand feet, Fifteen-thousand feet, Hallelujah."
? Countdown Voice
Asphyxia at 3 miles up ... So many becoming dead (( Oh right ... They gots magic. My bad. )) 
--- --- ---
What a 14-inch railway artillery (1,400 lb) shell could do to a piece of Columbia. A sledgehammer hitting a rat. Kinda hard for Columbia to hide IF it was staying within the borders of the US, even at 15000 feet up. ( 'Big' means Visible ) Having that 'Map' in the Lighthouse showing 'the route' was probably (should have been) more 'A Ploy' ( Maybe it should have been the Game Plot's Timeline diagram to scare Booker 'the False Shepherd' away ).
--- --- ---
International Ramifications ( Problem in the Columbia Story ) :
I would think that Columbia would need permission to cross other country's borders ( when it was under US control, that would be done properly ). After Comstock's seizing of Columbia ( and subsequent criminal behaviors ), he would soon fear being fired upon. ( AND NO, many governments had FAR LARGER Guns than any that Columbia might have had or could afford ).
With Columbia becoming a Pirate Menace ( How else do they get all the stuff they need to live on ? ), They will have alot of people/countries mad at them ( even when they attack/loot third-world countries - at THAT time most of THOSE were somebody's colonies. )
So lets expect various foreign spies to already be Onboard trying to figure out Columbia's vulnerabilities, and how their country might earn the prestige of capturing or destroying or SEIZING the Pirate City. Various mercenaries/adventurers might seek the Offered Bounty, as well as whatever loot goodies they might obtain.
Comstock thought that by staying away from Tesla's laboratory ( Shoreham, New York ) that Columbia would be safe, but Tesla put his Death Ray on a set of railroad cars, and soon ended it all.
-
Nikola Tesla 'came up with' something he named 'Quanticide, which then was sprayed on Columbia, which then dissolved into a mass of writhing disorder ( Its structure made unstable with 'Merge' sickness and Decoherent-state matter ), and finally resulting in it raining down as inert dust upon the ground. 
People should Realize that : Countering/destroying something is often Far Easier than Creating the thing, and Tesla had great Genius to make doing such destruction to Columbia even easier.
--- --- ---
WE COULDA HAD TESLA !!!! - That Stupid 'Infinite' Quantumz Faux-Science was such a pathetic story crutch ( the 'writers' trying to 'explain it' became more and more absurd and contradictory ).
With what was seen in 1893, the World realized Quantum Science and Developed its own with 1000 times the genius/money. Tesla, being an actual Engineering Genius, could build things Rosalind could only dream of. The World had almost 20 years til the game time to 'blast past' anything Columbia could achieve. This Portable Tesla Death Ray thing would probably instantly turn Columbia into an incandescent mass and incinerate it in seconds. Perhaps, The World simply laughed at poor anachronistically-backward cultist Columbia - now being just a flying Lunatic Asylum. 
( This thing really ?? Looks like a arc-lamp type spotlight used in studio work. )
--- --- ---
Comstock, You'd Better Hide Yo Ass :
Naval Guns of Columbia's time ( ie- 12-inch Cannon on 1906 Era Dreadnoughts ) could fire to altitudes in excess of 25000 feet ( An altitude well above the height where Columbia's population would die of Hypoxemia Oxygen Starvation within 15 minutes ). Such guns fired 850 lb shells containing high explosives, which could blow apart whole segments of Columbia. Trying to cross the Rocky Mountains ( as the 'schedule' map shows ) would bring Comstock into range of much smaller artillery guns ( like guns placed at 10-12000 foot level in the mountains ).
The USA would not stand by idly, and would take back the Floating Cult Pirate City, or destroy it in the attempt, and realistically would be fully capable of doing it.
Perhaps that's what the Burial At Sea Booker was REALLY running from (Columbia's Demise), in whichever dimension HE came from.
-
So you think then that all Fink has to do is keep opening 'Tears' and Stealing Ideas ( most of which he couldn't use actually, let alone understand, but 'for the sake of argument' lets here allow that Fantasy ... ) and find shit to overcome anything the USA or rest of the World can throw at him ?? Except THEN which Tear will he eventually open that will bring something horrendous to Columbia which will quickly spell its Doom ? 
: Black Plague from a time-slipped 14th century Earth ? 
 
: A Tear to the interior of the Sun ( million degree plasma spewing which will incinerate all of Columbia in a few seconds ... )?
: Some pissed-off killer robots ? 
 
: Sinclair and his army of Big Daddies with laser canon ? 
 
: Rap Music ? 
 
: Daleks ? 
So many of the alternate Columbia's ended this way. So it is just dumb luck(?) 2^39th power probability of Luteces lil Coin-game-odds that THIS Columbia was still around ... UP TIL THEN.
Columbia the 'Flying Charnel House' might've been a much better plot.
--- --- ---
--- --- ---
It really did not matter what whizzbang BS  Comstock and Fink could 'come up with', because as soon as Columbia went 'rogue', Comstock's Flying Cult Compound would be up against the US Military (and People). Consider that 'Columbia' HAD to be supplied from the ground, a simple weak-point/vulnerability which quickly would lead to its demise ( or its non-viability from the start ). Remember that Teddy Roosevelt was President then, and HE WOULD HAVE made a Quick END to the traitors -- maybe by shooting them himself.
It is very likely that Comstock would have been captured and facing hanging for Treason within 3 months time in 1905.
If Columbia tried to 'fly off' and escape to somewhere else, the European Powers had similar military assets capable of attacking and destroying the flying cult-compound ( All around the World ).
ColumbiasDoom.jpg|Railway Artillery which could be moved anywhere on America's Railroads
28cmRailwayGun.jpg
12inchRailwayHowitzerWW1.jpg
12inchmortar_2.jpg
USSConnecticut.jpg|Naval ships of the time had guns easily capable of blowing Columbia out of the sky
Realbattleshippp.jpg
Gunnything.jpg|Imagine shells from this smashing parts of Comstock's Columbia
BigGun779.jpg|By Columbia's time, Forts with large Guns existed around city seaports in the US
----
1893 forward, The REST OF THE WORLD would have created much greater miracles using the Quantum Technologies THEY WOULD HAVE INSISTED ON GETTING when US Taxpayer money was spent on the Exposition Project. And even if THAT had been privately funded, then the Industrialists who paid to fund it WOULD even MORESO make sure they got the technology. And certainly, every significant Power on EARTH would have had its Spies STEAL that Technology that would have been on public display in the Exposition.
Seriously - a better story would have been of a bunch of racist religious nuts flying off in their stolen obsolete anachronism ( in a world completely changed in the almost 20 years by that original technological development ).
--- --- ---
Destruction of Columbia :
It is Just Like Booker's bad luck to be aboard Columbia when the USA had 'had enough of' its pirating ways ...
* Shot down by US railwayguns(land-based artillery) or Large Warships possessed by various nations
* Airplanes with cannon sent it crashing to the ground
* US Marines landed on it and took Columbia (back)
* Secret Agents destroy the Floating Pirate City ( Sabatoogee as Curly Howard would say ... )
* Plague or Worse ( creepy shit comes through those uncontrolled 'Tear' things ) 
* Altitude control malfunction, leading to either a catastrophic ground crash or high altitude asphyxiation of the entire population.
* Columbia consigned to be a prison-museum after the rest of the World made use of 'quantum tech stuff' making great advancements ( by several more magnitudes ).
* Tesla's genius (and death ray) made short work of those traitors.
* Damned Wicked Witch of the West and Her Flying Monkey Myrmidons ( the 'Oz' Invasion).
Archives in Rapture - Early B&W Silent motion picture showing Columbia's demise ... ( a fictional cautionary tale ).
--- --- ---
The US Government MEANT to 'GET' COLUMBIA - one way or another. But first they had to know what they were up against ...
--- --- ---
President Taft sent agent "Jack Hammer" to Columbia to kill the miscreant Comstock, and to burn "That Flying Band of Murderers and Thieves' Floating Hideout, Once and For All".
The story would play out much like the later James Bond Movie big destruction scenes.
--- --- ---
Even during the Great War, airplanes existed that could destroy Columbia with little effort. How much easier planes/weapons from WW2 or later ( No fricken way Columbia could face that - Think more : Nazi agents taking control of it and using Columbia in THEIR war effort ... )?? 
The idea that Columbia and Old Elizabeth could attack American cities without being quickly incinerated ( by nuclear-tipped Anti-Aircraft missiles which had existed for decades ) was only some stupid game writer's ignorant-delusion/carelessness.
----
----
Samuel Clemens denounced the barbarity of the pirate City of Columbia, and Nikola Tesla built the "Destructor Beam" that destroyed 'that abomination', as Clemens applauded and cracked witty comments.
----
This Guy was 'comin after' Columbia. He didn't take no shit from nobody like Comstock.
--- --- ---
"Fireproof" Signs on Building Post-1900 :
One of the big worries of people within the bigger multi-storied buildings, was that they could become death traps during a Fire ( Did you see any fire escape in Comstock's city ? ). In Columbia, you don't exactly have very much room to run, even when you make it to the 'street'. And with all that disjoint transportation we see, the firefighters can hardly get anywhere very quick ( or that they would have much in the way of water supplies ... proper city water mains can't really exist when divided into 'city bits' floating about separately. )
So 'Vox' arsonists need only burn down the 'White' people's floaty sections, no ? ( Daisy Fitzroy chanting "BURN WHITEY BURN", while women and children are dying horribly ... flaming corpses leaping off the side of the City )
"Warning Fire Spreads" ( from !Incinerate tutorial in Rapture ) - and so by the time that 'rebellion' alternate universe in the game shows alot of Columbia on fire. It probably would spread and result in much of Columbia with burnt-up Floatyshit(tm) and control/power systems failing, and then have it all hurling to the ground, taking the Vox with it. (( An epic lost CutScene opportunity )).
 "WHAT CIVILIZATION BUILDS OVER CENTURIES, BARBARIANS CAN DESTROY IN A DAY" - Livy 
--- --- ---
Faux-Economics would Doom Columbia :
The Cultist Loons who stole Columbia ( driving out the Government people who actually knew how to operate it/repair it ) would just drift off aimlessly, and they all soon would Starve to Death. Even if they managed to control it, where does their food come from ?? How many people allegedly live on it ?? Where did they get everything needed to sustain ALL of them -- and don't just say "Fink makes it".
Oh they JUST were supplied ? After they stole this Flying Monstrosity, they wouldn't be welcome too many places ( and Supplying them would be an Accessory to the Crime ). It would be tracked everywhere they went. 
Oh they just got handed stuff by their supporters on the ground ? ( becoming Accessories to Committing Treason ... ) And assuming even this, where does the money come from to purchase everything required to simply FEED Columbia's population, constantly, for years and years ... 
The writers just skip such details. No one ever asks "Who slaves away to support the occupants of the Emerald City in the Land of Oz". Sorry Levine, Americans historically have paid for their groceries. What bizarro-land 1900 'America' were YOU thinking of ?
--- --- ---
Self Afflicted Stupidity - 'You Think Rapture's Transit was Bad ... : 
( We saw Weird-assed Trolleys that go only 300 feet, ridiculously scheduled Bathyspheres, Bicycles but with all those stair steps everywhere ... )
Columbia set new records for Terrible Transportation.
In Columbia you have circulating floating buildings that only come around a few times a day, and step lively or you'll get you feet crushed by the docking plates, or fall over its unprotected edge. Oh, you could still take a barge or a gondola thingee ?? Why not JUST use those ALL the time then, and avoid the ridiculous wait, and alot of floaty air and motion sickness ( and how exactly did the utilities work ( connect to) on those independently floating blocks anyway ? What kept them from crashing into each other, or the Vox hijacking one and menacing the city with it ? ) Oh, yeah, it looked 'neat' and was a 'wondrous' concept -- but then so do alot of bizarre dreams of insane people. Fantasy in, fantasy out.
--- --- ---
Inclement Weather In The Real World :
Never gets mentioned : What Happens to Columbia in the Winter or during a Storm ?
'Above the Weather' ? It is fricken cold at that height already ( besides the lack of oxygen ). Wind chill drives effective temperatures even lower.
'Plays hell' with floaty shit - magical glowey widgets short when it is wet out, or seize up in the cold. Skyline rails get slippery, snow and ice clogs everything.
All those non-sturdy looking statues will topple over in the gale force winds. Floaty vehicles ( particularly the 'Zeppelins' ) will careen about the sky and crash into things in the gusts ( If not deadly collisions between those separate floaty chunks of Columbia ). Banners and flags can be torn to shreds.
Does Columbia head South for the winter ???
--- --- ---
Columbian Cholera Epidemic :
Columbia's water system probably was rather problematic ( They never explain where their water comes from, how it gets there, etc ... ) and a REAL city uses large amounts of it. This is likewise unexplained/unelaborated for the 'industry'/manufacturing part of Columbia, which would use even MORE water than the population ( whatever THAT actually was supposed to be itself ).
Having the water supply get contaminated, when there was no redundant systems (or escape), would make Columbia ripe for catastrophe. ( The shoddy work done for the plaster and chickenwire exposition 'Show City' would soon start to deteriorate, and you would expect 'Shantytown' to be sub par anyway, and thus the epicenter ).
Maybe it ALSO would be no problem for an epidemic to be 'Helped Along' ( on Comstock's orders) to "Thin Out" the population of Untermenschen in the city's 'lower orders', when they were growing too numerous ( usually these diseases have the greatest fatality amongst the weak/young/old/poor ).
--- --- ---
Patent Fights Over Floatyshit(tm) :
Comstock overwhelmed by the legal machinations decides to Secede from the US.
( Real History shows countless examples of such legal battles )
And PLANELOADS OF Lawyers and Bailiffs SERVING WARRANTS start to show up in Columbia. 
 
--- --- ---
A 37mm multi-barrel (rapid fire) cannon WHICH WAS ACTUALLY USED AT THE BATTLE OF WOUNDED KNEE. With Explosive shells !!!
Columbia could not manufacture such things. The countries which 'came after' Columbia could ...
--- --- ---
Columbia was forced to the ground and the people there were rescued from Comstock's Treason. Tesla also built the special Electric Chair in which the Traitors were Executed.
--- --- ---
Primitive Rockets soon had no problem reaching Columbia's Altitude.
Later in that strange scene attacking New York City - It would be Columbia being incinerated by a Nuclear Missile well before it got close.
-- --- ---
A nuclear warhead with an airburst would vaporize Columbia. American cities were defended with hundreds of these by the 1950s. Sorry fanbois, this was beyond whatever bad fantasy tech we never saw in the game. No, Giant Q-Blimps with ridiculous Cannon wouldn't be enough.
--- --- --- --- ---
.
.