Columbia Era Machines

* See also Technology_In_Columbias_Era
* See also Finks experiments (Humor)
* See also NO_Autopilots_In_Columbia
* See also Medicine_In Columbias_Era
* See also Historic_Tech_Timeline
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Lots of interesting Real World old machinery can be found on the internet. Something which alot of younger people today don't realize existed : People often were far cleverer to make the things they did long ago - more than they are today ( The people today have all that previous work to make use of ).
THIS is the state of technology in the Real World for that game era used by Infinite BS. From many of the things seen in the game, Columbia is actually a throwback, reflecting its being stuck in 1893, when the Rest of the World was moving ahead rapidly ( and odd when the story's 'secession' took place in 1902 ).
FinksMindNextToRealGenius.jpg|Technology Jeremiah Fink MIGHT have been able to actually understand 
Finks_IPod.jpg
Verticalboiler.jpg
FinksPortableCattleShredder.jpg
Otiselevatorengine.jpg
Tofinkthiswouldbehightech.jpg
1893bicycle.jpg|[] Early Bicycle Chain Drive
Steamturbine.jpg|Early Steam Turbine mechanism.
Otiselevatorengine.jpg|[] Steam Powered Elevator mechanism
Cylindernoelectronsneeded.jpg|[] Cylinder type recorder
RealFinkRemoteControlPanel.jpg|Sorry, but THIS is what 'electronics' looked like in 1893. It doesn't matter how brilliant a theoretical 'Particle' Physicist either Lutece was, when the devices needed to investigate/experiment in that field don't exist yet, it would be impossible to get very far.
Edisonamberola1916.jpg|[] Pre-disk recordings and player
Powerplant1912.jpg|This is how power for whatevertheheck kept Columbia floating would be generated ( guts from a power plant circa 1912 ).
SmallSteamEngine_.jpg|For Stanley Steamer motor carriages (automobiles) staring 1896. If we ditch the Quantumz techno-Bullshit and bring back working balloons, then things like this would power alot of the floaty things.
Steam-generation.jpg|[]
Generator.jpg|Power has to come from somewhere no matter what fantasy hogwash game writers write.
MusicKeyboardFinkMunstersTheme.jpg|[]
Propercrane.jpg|[] What REAL Cranes look like
Finksfolley.jpg|Machinery contemporary ( Fink MIGHT have been able to figure out something like this )
ColumbiasBSMine.jpg|[] Raw Materials ARE Needed, Levine ...
1893transportation.jpg|1893 Transportation Exhibit at Columbian Exposition
Powerbox.jpg|Era electrical stuff looked like this
Usstexas1895.jpg| USS Texas (Dreadnought)
Wirefun.jpg|Telephone Wires in Columbia would have the place looking like this...
ColumbiaRadio.jpg|[]
1893auto.jpg|[] 1893 Automobile
StepperRelay.jpg|[] Stepper relay
JustAddFS.jpg|[] Old Steam Boat 
SafetyRailings.jpg|A conveyance system (track underwater) could teach Infinite BS about proper Railings[]
1918-Big_Radio.jpg|A LARGE radio mechanism (one powerful enough to transmit around the world) -1918
Barger.jpg|Substitute something like THIS for those ridiculous 'barges'
1887Porter.jpg|Locomotives were a big thing in transportation just a few years before Columbia ( before cars/trucks and decent roads )
ColumbStrang.jpg|Sorry, light bulbs don't work on 'Quantumz'
1892Typewriter.jpg| A 1892 Typewriter - Yes and Fink was allegedly manufacturing remote control circuitry, autopilots and Zeppelins - when THIS was the extent of the technology he might understand...
1912AustroDaimlerFiretruck.jpg|1912 FireTruck - Fink looked into the future ??? - THEN why weren't there things like THIS in Columbia???
Telephonewirez.jpg|Telephone/Telegraph Wire ( and power lines too ) -- MISSING in Columbia
Substation1913.jpg|Something modern city couldn't be without : 1893-1912
RiverBarges.jpg|Real Cities require massive transport infrastructure
Horses.jpg|Still and awful lot of horses still being used ...
Zep1908.jpg|Consider that the best of THESE things could carry very little cargo. SO WHY emulate them in Columbia???
Contemporary1893.jpg|Light Rail vehicles 
MechTech1887.jpg|Snowplow - mechanical device used to clear snow on RR tracks in areas of very high snowfall
CaseSteamTractor.jpg|Gamewriters just assume, and really dont know about such things
Monorail1913.jpg|Notice the detail of how REAL THINGS are built 
ColumbiaFloat.jpg
ProperTransit.jpg|Transit system - Steam was still IT
PowerHouse.jpg|Outside of Bad Fantasy, something had to drive Columbia through the Sky and Power the place, NO ?
1890telephone.jpg|Imagine desperate calls to the Police "There's a bloody Maniac Shooting up the place here !!! Come at once!!"
1913RealWorld.jpg|A REAL SKYLINE 
RealSkyline2.jpg|A REAL WORLD SKYLINE IN COLOR
FinkYeahRight.jpg|State of the Art electrical mechanisms 
VillarPerosaSMG.jpg|Early sub-machine-gun using an oscillating mechanism between two firing barrels to create the 'automatic' cycle of its firing
LA1904.jpg|Autos and Trucks were already starting to spread.
RealEngine.jpg|Power comes from Somewhere - Everything needs It.
Spc1.jpg|Big Gears, but I think we saw some really ridiculously large ones in Infinite BS
SF1895.jpg|Steam engines were the main long distance travel across America (the riverboats did not go everywhere and were slower)
Cable_Tramway.jpg|Real Skyline used to move ore from a mine to a mill or to a train to be taken to a mill
Gasengine.jpg|Small simple portable continuous-run internal combustion engines. Starting late 1890s.
ElectricTruck1910x.jpg|While the state of internal combustion technology was still primitive, the equally primitive electric motors and batteries could compete.
FinkEraTech.jpg|1897 Steam Powered Automobile
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Technology which Fink might plausibly have actually understood -- Instead of him suddenly being a great genius engineer within multitudes of technologies which he never saw before in his life ( and many not even have existing yet in his world yet ), and which Fink could hardly begin to understand by merely 'peering' at them through 'Tears'.
Sorry, NOT " a whole multitude of 'assistants' " could have done it all either. ( There was just too much of a 'Cuz'-factor on the writer's part in this BS game ).
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Real era Electrics ( these are rotary converters for a DC powered Trolley system in LA )
Dreams don't have to have logical details, so it is a shame they didn't do the Wizard of Oz 'twist' for Columbia --- "Oh, It was All A Dream !!!" , but instead having ludicrously pretended the place had some kind of semblance to the Real World. Something Like : that "Munchkins Protesting for Higher Wages !!!" scene in L Frank Baums 'The Wizard of Oz' ... ( SORRY, NOPE )
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Heh, Columbia Coulda Had a Pneumatic Mail System Too :
( WHY NOT ??? They copied just about every other idea from Rapture ... )
Pneumatic Mail System were actually IN USE at that point in time (That era in the Real World) in many a city that thought itself 'modern'.
So you can instantly be mailed all the latest racist/bigoted materials (and children books), and good proper Faux-Religion idolatry materials with absolutely no waiting required ??? -- Direct from 'The Desk of Zachary Hale Comstock'. Daily Tithing Convenience !!! Informer reports with Full Anonymity ... Whips for Serf Discipline can then be Insta-Rental'd to handle all contingencies !!! Fresh Bullshit delivered direct to your home from Levine & Co Ltd. All on just a puff of air Fart of the Prophet ???? -- and the Founders Smile upon you.
Disconnected Columbia Problematic for the 'Tubes' ?? But it doesn't seem to affect anything else which would suffer from the same issue. ( 'Cuz' is all the writers need say ).
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Contemporary technology to make it easy for Jeremiah Fink ( who is show with way "Too many things on his Plate" already ). Add wings or a 'hook' and might've actually been a logical mid-distance transport for Columbia citizens. A Dumbed-down/rather-pedestrian game precluded such innovative ideas. As it was, all the stairs and different levels and lack of a cohesive street system limits the utility of a bicycle.
First steam motorcycle 1869. No Quantumz required. American Exceptionalism - sorry, Infinite BS can't be counted as part of that.
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 'Primitive' is Reality in Those Days
1882 During the time of the Vulcan Street Plant ( first Hydro-Power central plant in the US ), voltage regulators did not yet exist. Operators had to look at the light itself to determine if it was at the proper brightness, and they adjusted the voltage according to their observations. Electricity meters did not exist at this time. 
Columbia By 1912 - Well, who paid for all the new-fangled gewgaws ? ( AND WHERE DID THEY COME FROM ??? )
It is pure simpleton storytelling that Fink & Co ( and other Columbia Boffins ) came up with such technology prematurely. The game's story was already stretched to absurdity in that respect.
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Reality is : Manual Labor did most of the work well into the later Age of Mass Production. And certainly for everything without that manufacturing scale, AND STILL DOES TODAY. Fink's monstrous factory is missing the masses of men who would make it look like it was crawling with ants.
Even in this gianourmously exaggerated Fantasy, the gamemakers MISSED-OUT on the very point they allegedly were supposed to be making. 'Labor' ( ie- a whole lot of mundane workers ) affected by predatory 'bosses' IS the epitome of 'Class Warfare' which WAS one great social issue the game supposedly portraying.
Infinite BS's Epitaph should be : "Too many ideas done too poorly"
 "Just because you think you are clever does not mean you are clever." - Vladamir Tepes
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A Tesla improvement for the commutator of an electric motor ( or maybe HIS Flux-Capacitor he used in the Death Ray he built to shoot down Columbia for President Roosevelt in 1905 ). Motors were still VERY new at the time of Columbia's construction. But in Fantasy, a 'wave of the hand' justifies all kinds of illogical things --- So the Players can just get back to Mass-Murdering people ( for a good cause of course ), as the Writers intend.
Note -- THIS is not something you 'find on a chalkboard' in any logical  universe.
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The Real World was GETTING RID OF HORSES ( and their feces and their urine and the expense and bother ).
SO WHY THE HELL ( if you can actually 'See the Future' ) would you want to mecha-simulate horses, as those dim Bad-Steampunk-on-the Brain writers of Infinite BS did ( WITHOUT them even being a 'Heavy Hitter' ... Spewing Acid or something ) ???????????
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1900 design -- Actually shown at the 1900 Paris Exposition ( Exposition Universelle ).
Note - Its sleek streamlining, its lack of freakish protruding bits, and its aesthetic -- as well as having a functional design.
Compare that to those obscene/absurd 'Zeppelin' things the Infinite BS 'artists' came up with.
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Columbia coulda/woulda/shoulda had proper vehicles, particularly with 'Looking into the Future' in the story. But they got stuck after two rewrites and time and budget running out with alot of not-too-well thought out stuff.
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Looks like the asset artist went to a museum or found pictures online.
Oops, Hand Operated (A Crank). Primitive.
Wood strangely not replaced with Metal as you might expect of people who can "look into the future".
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This would all change when the World Knew About Quantum Technologies back in 1893.
The World would grab that technology and Columbia would be left far behind.
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