Alas Dystopia

* See also BioShock Games
* See also BioShock_Game_Elements
* See also Fail-topia
* See also Slaughterfest_Game_Element
* See also Glossary#Dystopia
 "Alas, alas, that great citie Babylon, that mighty citie: for in one house is thy Judgement come." - King James Bible The City known as Babylon - mentioned here in the Bible, had ALREADY previously had Calamity befall it, and had in an earlier incarnation ( on the same site ) been laid waste, and did not rise again for near a THOUSAND YEARS. This was the Babylon before the great empire mentioned in the Bible ( Book of Daniel, etc ... )
 "Dystopia" : an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic. Compare with "Utopia". 
"BioShock" Rapture was "Bio" "Shocked" into ruins and populated with deranged people who attack the Player on sight.
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Infinite BS's Columbia Dystopia was a Bit Different :
Yes, it is a Crapsack World for the 'untermenschen', but it is never quite explained WHY the 'oppressed' haven't left Columbia to go to the 'rest of America' -- Which IS NOT a Totalitarian Oppressor, and which offers so many opportunities that millions of immigrants had come to it. Why the cliche 'Oppressed' all are even THERE is NOT really explained. For what reason would those poor Americans/Immigrants be putting up with that Religious Oppression ?? Just the Catholic American Irish alone by themselves could have disabled/grounded Columbia so to leave, and when blocked would cut all the Founders throats or burned them in their beds ( There was no place to run for Columbia's tyrants ). So some implausible equilibrium seems to have been in effect ( Or the gamewriters were too careless/oblivious to Real World effects for their proposed 'historic' game setting.
The 'Fall' happens while YOU are there. Or rather, happens as you skip (conveniently) to new realities through 'Tears' - Where you join it , and where the fall continues. You cannot really see (you're not shown) WHEN in those NEW dimensions the previous events that caused THE New Ambient situation ( or any which YOUR Avatar's Counterpart caused/took part in ). 
YOU ( as far as you know in the game ) are apparently the Agent of Destruction ( ie- Those Firefights across Columbia disrupting the whole place, the mass death YOU unleash, and the final major destruction YOU cause, the murder of Comstock ). Up to that point in Columbia, the impressive Police State looks to have been pretty much 'handling' those Vox Anarchists ( and any other enemies of the The Founder's Regime ).
But then 'all hell breaks loose'. YOUR Stirring up the 'Revolution' (in certain dimensions) gets lots of the 'poor'/'downtrodden'/'oppressed' killed. Far more will subsequently die from starvation -- If not by plummeting to their deaths when damaged city sections failed, or their lives are extinguished by all those fires the 'rebels' set, fire which WOULD turn those shoddy ( chickenwire/plaster/lathing ) faux-buildings into raging infernos. (( Its hard to PLAY charred Vox-o-phones of Screams found amongst the corpses in the wreckage. ))
Consider : You really don't have anywhere to 'run' in Floaty Columbia.
Too bad we didn't jump into the 'Stepford'"Stepford Wives" Movie (1975) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073747/ Columbia where all inhabitants are happy, and the 'Police' only carry flowers. Drug mind-control made possible by Fink Manufacturing, of course ( Post-BaSx, where Fink coulda STOLE the Pheromone Control thing ... ).
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