Land of Pictures

== Picture Commentaries == 
----
This is what Trolleys from the 1940s looked like. Pacific Electric Trolley (Los Angeles) from LA Noire a computer game set in 1940s LA which had the players do police officers cases.. 1930's era trolley system equipment. The PE lasted until the very early 1960s.
So whatever the hell they thought a 'trolley'/'tram' should look like ( in Apollo Square/Olympus Heights ), they really have no excuse for those ridiculous things.
Columbia, allegedly built for a Worlds Fair, would have transportation for fairgoers, with period styled vehicles taking them around to see the Showcase City In The Sky. Unfortunately, Infinite BS finally only needed the Skyline as a game combat situation mechanism, something severely modified and curtailed into a shadow of what it should have been ( and of what HAD been shown in Promotional TrailersPromotional Trailer with Traversed Cityscape Skyline -- I consider a disgusting 'Bait And Switch' fraud. ).
Back in the early days when Computers used Vacuum Tubes and early Transistors were extremely expensive ( originally like $50 - $100 each in THAT times money - paid by the military ), computer Memory capacity was a significant problem. The Selectron was a type of memory that stored its "bits" using Electro Stimulated Phosphor Fluorescence as its storage method. This type of vacuum tube could hold 256 'bits', and a long row of these tubes ( along with a pile of vacuum tube electronics the size of a small automobile ) gave the computer its Central Processing Registers, and with enough tubes have some Random Access Memory (RAMRAM - Random Access Memory - any memory cell can be accessed immediately - memory which is not accesses serially) used to hold programs and working data. 
Within a few years this was superseded by much cheaper/more-compact Magnetic Core Memory, which lasted into the 1970s until the manufacturing of 'IC' (Integrated Circuit) memory took over. 
This kind of technology would likely be on the earliest (late 1940s) computers in Rapture ( Before Rapture's Bio-Electronics advancements ).
A Selectron memory tube with the capacity of 4096 bits (4 Kb), which wasn't produced successfully ( This was the late 1940s, early 1950's ). William's Tubes worked similarly ( much larger and shaped more like a display CRT ).
A Passenger cabin section from the Zeppelin "Hindenburg".
Columbia might have been built minus the Quantum Bullshit ( Sorry Quantum Mechanics has liitle to do with] real Levitation -- You might as well have said Pixie Dust ). But Lighter-Than-Air technologies might be plausible, as long as the 'brick' is false decorative tinplate, and much of the solid building mass is the equivalent of Styrofoam. There would be a stadium-sized Helium balloon above each City Block. Columbia would be orbiting the World pushed by an atmospheric Jet Stream - Giant sails allowing 'tacking' to steer it a bit and some kind of ground anchoring mechanism. Let them develop some Solar Power early to give them something to work with to power the city. Leave out all that bad Magic_Fantasy pseudo-science crap and concentrate on the circa 1900 social issues (real ones) for the Dystopic plot.
Fairly complicated looking control display ( looks like a Mercury Rocket Capsule control set ), if you compare it to even a modern-day hi-tech railroad engine's controls. I can see some ignorant game company Manager telling the Asset Artist : "It Needs more lights and things" ...
Yes, Bioshock's Iconic image wasn't original.
Artists' idea of what a 'Trolley car' is. Too small, too narrow, no seats inside, track length is virtually useless/pointless. A caricature for which the word 'dim' does not even begin to spell out its pathetic-ness. The Metro Trolleys would have been the backbone component of Rapture's Transit system, carrying the bulk of its passengers ( Versus the more expensive Bathysphere component ).
Truly a very bizarre Trolley car. It may have been ( in desperate justification ) an older 'Freight' type car, which had to be reactivated/used to carry passengers after Atlas's terrorists had wrecked more recent passenger-type Trolleys.
Even then, the design is just plain wrong in every way.
This was Photoshopped a bit to show what the (game) Trolleys could have looked like. Cleaned up, but is really still the wrong design - with a general lack of space inside for passengers. The Orange Trolley Car way above (from "LA Noir") is more like what should have been used by the consolidated (RTA) Rapture Transit Authority.
=====Those oversized wheeled 'trucks' look like they were stolen from a 'Trainz'Trainz - A PC Computer Train Simulator program/game mod'ing freightcar model.=====
The utterly useless short RTA ( Rapture Transit Authority ) Trolley tracks seen were a caricature in BS1. They ( the game developers ) didn't want to put any real effort into it, I guess ... But at the Olympus Heights end of Apollo Square's 'branch' of Trolley tracks, it looks as if they had the idea of the track continuing on to someplace else ( looks intentionally blocked up - due to Ryan's attempt to isolate Atlas's Terrorists ). Now the other branches don't have these, so are still in a state of 'uselessness' - are pathetically incomplete.
A real (as in useful) Trolley system would have continuous lines crossing the city, often crisscrossing it to offer a multitude of connections between all the groups/clusters of buildings. Trolleys ( rather than the inefficient/expensive taxicab-like Bathyspheres and the Subway-like AE system) would be the primary transit method, carrying the majority of the city's travelers/commuters. 
===== Note that a Trolley Viaduct also can serve as a way to get from place to place by walking (or bicycling) -- while the Trolley is not working. =====
Created by starting with the Austin Transit Map (from BS1), and incorporating the (partial) AE Map diagram (from BS2), and filling in a few details and added various building clusters and other features. 
The solid black lines are 'Streets' which the Trolleys go through.
The red 'dots' are symbolic (generalized). The actual sprawling building clusters spread out to cover much larger irregular areas.
==More==
Cardpunch machine. I actually long ago had to use one of these. You type a letter wrong and you start over on a new blank card. They seem to be used in place of a computer 'terminal' in Minervas Den, when it really isn't one. You punch a bunch of cards ( one line of code per card, or a 'record' of one or more data items ), then take your stack of cards ( sometimes a very large stack ) and put it into a card reader machine. That 'batch' submits your program, it runs, and your output is printed out on a large Line Printer machine ( that's it -- NO interactive display ).
This one appears to have a label 'Ryan', which could indicate that Ryan owned a computer equipment company. Card Punches were used by many businesses to generate cards for accounting, billing, inventory control, as well as programming. Many of the early computers were little more than semi-programmable tabulating machines that were fed their data via Punchcards.
"Who needs Quantum Bullshit when you have Clockwork goodness to drive you through the Aether ?" - Fink, commenting on his Clockwork Rocket Engine.
The Tear opened up, and Fink gave the man 30 cases of Scotch as the other detailed how a thing called 'Warp Drive' worked.
Home Com-pu-tor. It probably can be used to keep 'recipes' and to write letters. Unfortunately, the Rapture 'civil war' interfered with McClendon's Spread Sheet program Project, which would have made the thing actually useful.
A text adventure game called "The Colossal AnthillEarly complex computer game "Colossal Cave" run on mini-computers BEFORE there was such a thing as a "PC"" ( which satire'd the parasitic Surface World ) was rumored to be in development.
A Mechanism which might have been used as a more realistic Diving Hard Suits needed for Rapture's significant depth ( Sorry, canvas diving apparatus wouldn't have worked until MUCH later when ADAM enhancement would have allowed routine work at pressures many times as much as divers in the old diving gear could handle ), which would be used for the majority of Rapture's original construction.
Hydraulic actuators eliminated complicated/difficult wrist and finger joints, and the extra seals which are problematic at the pressures Rapture existed at.
This Sinclair Solutions Bathysphere model, which could roll and raise itself from the water (via a ramp), would have been the real 'Automobile of Rapture', greatly simplifying the facilities required to maintain/operate these vehicles. The thing still weighed 15 tons ( equaling the volume of water it displaced ), but would have been far more practical for Rapture's growing suburbs. Its teardrop shape ( the epitome of streamlining ) allowed the models built to win several Bathysphere Racing Competitions just before Rapture's 'civil war' started.
Sinclair would have employed his 'think tank' of prison inmates for some of its development, as well as salvaged metals from his other business venture. A more flexible alternative to the fixed Bathysphere/Train/Trolley routes, and lowered expenses would make Sinclair's simplified submersibles a success.
Emergency Access Map Diagram modified to make better sense. Corrected to reflect the BS2 partial AE RR map added to the Austin Bathysphere Map positions. This map reflected restricted routes used by city security and emergency personnel.
Self-Cleaning Toilet created by Fink that Suchong wanted to steal the design for ...
How many Players would do a "good" ending now, if the 'Gatherers' looked like this ?
Even moreso, if they all sounded/behaved like the zombies in World War Z ...
1940s era "Super-Power" (advanced steam technology) RR locomotive, which existed alongside military Jet planes and the 'V2' Rocket. Yet for mundane things, older proven technology is always leveraged.
The old canvas suits (on right) did not hold out the Water Pressure ( were pumped up to the water pressure of the depth they operated in ), and thus subjected the diver to side-effects like 'The Bends' and Nitrogen Narcosis. A Hard Suit holds out the pressure ( it is at sea level pressure inside ), but at cost of being much more complicated and clumsy/limited ( the canvas suits were not that great to begin with ), but could operate at far greater depths. Imagine how tiring working for any real length of time in a suit like this would be.
Interesting use of Ring Joints/Seals to give appendage flexibility. Whatever depth Rapture was at, something of this sort had to be used, versus those canvas suits absurdly presented as used for building the City. Note- workers who did near-surface work ( pre-fabrication assembly close to the Ocean surface, who need not ever go to Rapture ) could use the old canvas diving suits to a depth of about 150 feet.
It is even the right shape for a building built to resist the immense pressure down there in the dark deep. Curves are your friend, especially for windows. Art Deco style has lots of curves which we rarely saw in Rapture.
=====The single pane 30 foot wide FLAT windows in Neptune's Bounty were ludicrous, not just because they had to hold upto the equivalent weight of a Saturn 5 Apollo rocket, pressing across its center, but also because at a real industrial site they wouldn't have/need anything so extravagantly expensive -- When the rest of the place is obviously so 'low-rent'. Smaller windows 'to look out in wonder' through seemed to work just fine in the rest of the game.=====
Evolution of the Columbia Skyhook which would have fit the original track mechanism -- That with a chain/cable drive running inside C-Rails. The large version - the teeth/hook fit between the moving chain's links to pull the User along - at a fixed speed, non-reversible ( you had to switch rails ?? ). Either way, dropping down to grab it wouldn't work mechanically ( lucky because doing that would pull one or more of your joints out of their sockets OR you would simply miss and plunge to your death 15000 feet below ).
===== Sorry, no chainsaw action to jazz up the game with gratuitous bloody tissue spewing violence - so THIS version was discarded. =====
==And More==
No huge/over-sized wheels/trucks jacking the thing needlessly off the ground ( and having fairings/skirting to help keep passengers out from under the wheels ). We Could still go with the Bathysphere-like brass decoration motif without looking so stupid/gangling. 
A little Game Design research goes a long way ( and since these systems have had a renaissance in the last few decades, there are PLENTY of real examples for the game artists to have seen to base the game Trolleys on ).
And Suddenly Sofia Lamb lurched out of a Tear, wild eyed and dressed in her insane asylum patient dress, just in time for the Luteces' first Building Float Test's failure to land on her, precipitating a choir troop of a midget minstrel singers ( auditioning for a gig on one of the Columbia Show City entertainment venues ) to sing "You Crush My Heart". ( Perhaps inspiring L Frank Baum's scene in his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, circa 1900 ).
It is hard to think that the Bathyspheres seen in Rapture could have inspired Prentice Mill to speak of a 'Bathysphere Craze' (said likely years earlier than the %27civil_war%27, allegedly precipitating the decline of his Atlantic Express). More personal submersible units might have resembled these ones, which have more of the 50s 'fin' style and streamlining, less volume/weight, and hopefully less expensive facility requirements to make them more like our automobiles.
=====Note- smaller passenger compartment (volume) means it could weigh alot less. And with wheels underneath, it could have a chance to roll out of the water by itself ( saving on expensive lift/crane equipment being needed at EVERY dock - very important to bring the costs down to make it possible as a consumer item ).=====
Operated more like an airplane, it is NOT like just fixing a car. Instead of falling to the ground to crash and burn (as planes do), you would sink to your cold watery grave ( and its considered lucky if you are crushed instantly instead of slowly asphyxiating in your new deep sea tomb ).
Real submarines need stuff to make them move. Imagine trying to fit stuff like this into the tiny Rapture 'Bathyspheres'. Unfortunately they chose that word 'Bathysphere' when a real world Bathysphere is not a self moving vehicle, and thus would be of far simpler construction. For the MMORPG these things are actually capsules moved by cables across Rapture - An actually SAFER system for a constantly used Public Transport mechanism.
This is almost funny if it weren't so pathetic. Don't the developers KNOW how blackboards even got used -- as working tools ? No clean perfect diagram with perfectly neat and spaced text filling the surface on any real one (in a reality universe). So cohesive/finished an idea layout would simply have been put directly on paper.
SO here they tie in the Infinite BS 'Tears' to justify the existence of the Vita-Chamber - now being Suchong's creation, and ready to go into full production - When Suchong has only had HOW LONG(?) after just seeing Tears himself, and having also expressed his disdain for the 'Bullshit' as he called the Quantum Entanglement technology in BS2. ( Well Fink apparently had this magic ability in Infinite BS too - Just look at something and 'Presto' he's producing it as a consumer product ).
Deployed with ONLY Ryan's genetic code ? Rather a poor writer's understanding of Rapture events, even just to assume a reasonable flow of time -- The way they compressed ALL these story elements - old and new ( having everything stuffed into it including the McClendon Auto-Kitchen Sink ) into their absurd DLC plot (( It IS much harder to create new things after all )).
=====REMIND me to not buy any consumer product from these Game Dev people, if they think such items are produced with such delusional Fantasyland simplicity.=====
Too many things wrong to do it justice here. Cute idea, but Sorry, BioShock wasn't supposed to be Magic_Fantasy (misshapen Drills just don't work as grappling hooks, shape is bad for projecting thru water, and not even as a 'drill' ). This seen through huge windows even more absurd than the ones in Neptune's Bounty. ( You'd also think that spending an INFINITE sum of money for such a marvelous huge impossible window, that they could have easily managed to have those large ugly pipes located elsewhere, so as to NOT spoil the intended 'impressive' view ??? )
"Carnegie" - the Steel industrialist's rival 'floating city'.
With the US Government building Columbia, and not wanting to foot the bill, there is one place the money would have come from. Of course those who invested expected/were-assured to get their hands on the technology which made Columbia possible.
==Yet More :==
Typical Public Safety Awareness. A 500 ton Train can't stop when you walk into its path ...
Something not shown in BioShock - was that some of the AE trains traversed tunnels that were NOT in the Ocean ( were air-filled ). Various terrain seabed ridges were burrowed through, instead of going up-and-over or around.
This is a Freight Train ( bthat AE blue print seen in game (BAS2) was a 'locomotive' unit like this ).
With all the comings-and-goings and to-and-fros between dimensions and the Time Travel BS, even Fink started to get worried after meeting himself for the third time.
Typical fast food restaurant minion, after Fontaine took ADAM to The_Surface World.
Saturnine Prophesy which foresaw the stupid story/plotline of Infinite BS (it is all gibberish).
If you use the Cheats ('fly' and 'ghost') to get behind the door when the (Fort Frolic) 'ghost' story' of Jasmine Jolene's murder is playing, you can see a pair of Sander Cohen's doing a pole dance ( used to create the weird shadows you see around the closed door ). It may hint that Cohen had more than a little to do with Jolene's death.
In Rapture, and especially Infinite's Columbia, this wouldn't be strange at all.
You have to face it, even Rapture with 20,000 - 40,000 people was small potatoes. THIS Picture is of a 1920s FIAT manufacturing plant which could have employed every working person in Rapture. Rapture simply couldn't have mass-produced more than a handful of items, and the rest would be small shop production (significantly more expensive). An awful lot would have had to be made and brought from The Surface, and those would eventually have to be repaired ( not replaced AND even then many things really couldn't be repaired - A limited skill base against the spectrum of technology in the modern world ). After a few decades, Rapture would be a city of 'used' goods.
Did Tonics like 'Perfect Pitch' and "Diva" or "Songbird" ever exist in Rapture ? Users of those might have left other artists 'in the dust', like Grace Holloway left playing in a slum. Did we really hear many of Sander Cohen's records enough to know that he didn't sing like Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra (or Ethel Merman) ??? Would most accomplished artists even bother to come to Rapture, with its limited audiences ( many probably picking showbiz fame versus escaping Nuclear Doomsday ) ?? With Rapture's Wonder Tonics though, a Surface 'hack' performer might get a substantial boost to their mediocre ability.
==More More :==
This is a 'Disk Drive' in 1956. Five whole MegaBytes !!! The technologists in Rapture probably still had outside-world channels to get information to continue to know about Surface world technical developments. With the Bio-Electronics made possible by ADAM, they might have found different solutions.
A Sea Mount (underwater volcano). Rapture is supposed to have been built on one. Apparently there are several thousand 1 to 2 kilometers high in the World's Oceans. Such a height would be needed to raise the seabed sufficiently close to the ocean surface upon the typical open/deep ocean depths ( 3000+ feet in the area Rapture is located ).
So did Elizabeth actually "save" baby Annabelle DeWitt ???
So Fink had to go get his own Sea Slugs ??? Well they're at a significant depth, so he would need his own Bathysphere like thingees - wouldn't he ?? (Cost overhead alone for just this - no wonder his 'Vigors' cost a normal persons yearly salary.)
Device detects "Bad Pseudo Science Crutches" used for computer game settings/plots. Something we all could have used for Infinite BS ( and might have saved us from that 'Quantum Entanglement tripe in the earlier games ). If Fink had one of these, it would have overloaded and exploded in his face, taking out Columbia with it (problem solved).
It is a recreation of an Audion Tube (vacuum tube 'valve') which was fundamental in bringing on the age of electronics. A bit fancier than the real ones way back when. Looks more like it was a Flea Circus with its own Ferris Wheel ( another 1893 innovation at the real Columbian Exposition ).
Amazing imagination some of these Steampunk artists/crafters have. Looks like something that would have fit into one of Columbia's 'arcades'. Steam, Hmmm ... Well early pinball machines were actually gambling devices - this one, if you lost, might spray a stream of scalding high pressure steam in your face - nearby would be the Fink MFG. Burn Ointment stand ( only 100 Silver Eagles ) ???
==And Even More==
The cute little arms remind me of T-Rex. And is that a TV screen on its front ??? 'Looked Good' is such a pathetic excuse.
=====So this thing is supposed to hold packages in front of itself ? ( no room under for anything of any size. ) In which case a poor design overbalancing the point the thing is hanging from the 'line'. If these new lines/tubes/tunnels/whatever go as far as High Street and are big enough for people to travel through, then how far else did they go ? If not to your home, then you have to transship them at whatever point the system ends. ( The Jet Postal packages couldn't be much bigger than a breadbox, so are little trouble to manhandle from the Postal Kiosks located all over the City ).=====
The Excuse is they wanted to reuse the Skyline game mechanic for the little crazy rollercoaster action. Funnier would have been Booker/Elizabeth packing themselves into a little cylindrical capsule ( a REAL Pneumo system ) and shooting off to some other area ( potentially including a chase scene through the tunnel network ).
It did not take long for The United States Government to vastly improve the technology used for Columbia and then put it to use. In her first mission, the USS Eagle tracked down Columbia and forced it to surrender. But only after Comstock was dead, and half of Columbia was a shattered wreck laying on the ground. The flying city was hardly 'heavily armed', and certainly not armored, making it an easy target for the USS Eagles 12-inch main guns.
The Skylines supposedly were an important transport system within Columbia, connecting the city with a web of tracks. The early Infinite trailers had this extensive system play a more significant role in the game. It was subsequently diminished to be little more than a joke, with the Player traversing a Rollercoaster loop within the level ( it really doesn't go anywhere ) and follow the usual restricted/blocked-in path maze on the ground. Apparently, the larger Skyline system just didn't work out for the real game, a great disappointment ( amongst other things ) to many Players. The final system version makes no real sense anymore, except as a contrived platform for Booker to shoot from and bounce around within the level.
With a proper Skyline system ( not that ridiculous final version ), The Founders could have kept their City safe(r) from the murderous Vox anarchists. If you are going to have a pretend Police State, then at least do it right. With a few of these trundling around, the Vox Populi wouldn't be sticking their heads up much, allowing the network of informants to dismantle/destroy them long before they had any chance to disrupt the serenity of the City.
This armored and heavily armed Skyline train looks like it could 'take out' the 'Hand of the Prophet' by itself, and certainly any mob of Vox.
Booker doped up on the Luteces "Lighthouse Coffee", is hoisted into Columbia ( previously known as the New Eden Amusement Park and Freakshow, located adjacent to the long abandoned Columbian Exposition fairgrounds ) raised up to the incredible 22 foot altitude ( it is on stilts ). Booker will soon meet with "Columbians" drugged out and deluded inhabitants, and have some very strange adventures indeed.
Atlantic Express advertisement sign, cleaned up to look like back in the old Pre-'civil war' days. Not really sure why there would still be so many of these still around ( in BS1 ), IF the AE system had been shutdown many years before. Good advertisement space is reused very quickly in the real world.
Nice shiny new Genetic Key used to access various secure control systems. Their being 'genetic' might have been more figurative than literal - more that their security coding wasn't breakable.
One advantage of a 'Nostalgia' game is that the Assets are much easier to create when it doesn't require much imagination to come up with the styles to remake/copy into plausible game things. Real talented artists did most of the inspiration and work for these Real World trains long ago.
Proposed Heavy Hitter - Ferris Wheel of Death ( to commemorate George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.'s Invention, built at the 1893 Exposition ). It attacks by turning into a huge fiery pinwheel and flying at the player, with massive concussive and fire damage. Was abandoned after Ken Levine allegedly said "That's just plain impossible and really stupid." ( or Not - when you consider what's in the REST of the game. )
McClendon's idea (never finalized) after the failure of the Robotic Little Sisters to bond with the Big Daddies. The Solution was to make the Little Sisters less vulnerable to Splicers. Not shown is the armament(s) the GLS (Giant Little Sister) would carry to dissuade Splicers ( Lollipop Chainsaw ? Teddy Bombs ? Simply strangle/crush its enemies with its horrendously powerful hydraulic hands ? Shriek at them at 200 dB, while calling them poopy-heads ? )
Not quite as exciting if Booker had to get around on the Skylines like this. Maybe have lots of fun upgrades to mount as weapons on it ? But then the game makers would have to revamp the graphics and game mechanics in a major way to support 'vehicles'. Ever try to peddle a bike uphill ? - SO the Skyline tracks might have to be less rollercoaster-like as well.
Cozy little Hideout in Fontaine Futuristics. Possibly NOT a Splicer's place - is someone 'making due' hiding from Sofia Lamb ? Dead Cats are magnitudes easier to do than Live Cats ( as much work as doing Elizabeth actually ), though how hard could it have been to have a few different fur color textures ? ( Note - Lit candles indicate being quite recently occupied. The inhabitant probably vacated quickly - evidently how they had managed to survive for so long. )
This looks really familiar, doesn't it ? Note- ALL real pneumo (pneumatic mail) systems used capsules/canisters to carry the moved mail/objects, unlike BioShock 2's which incorrectly showed the items ( cans of food and bottles ) themselves whizzing along through the pipes ( just so you could play with your new Telekinesis Plasmid ). It simply doesn't/cannot work that way. See Pneumo_System
A central mail station of a real Pneumo mail system ( the first real world Pneumo systems were operational in the 1850s ). Many such systems had tubes only about 3 inches across ( for letter-sized transport, perhaps rolled magazines ). The problem with larger sizes was weight, and whichever size was chosen there still would be countless packages which would still not fit ( and could be subject to damage if not being only paper ). The systems were not operated by the public, but by employees. Some systems had people who would manually (by hand) sort and route incoming capsules/canisters into an array of outbound tubes at their workstation.
http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm
For more picture, just google images "pneumatic mail" ( apparently where the game company cloned theirs from ).
--- --- --- --- ---
.
.