Randomzx fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Sep 16, 2013

(23:28) BioShock Infinite - Part 06: The Boardwalk

Sundowner fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Oct 20, 2013

Spiritus Nox fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Sep 16, 2013

Revenant Threshold fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Sep 16, 2013

1. I looked over that strange, mutating crystal formation inside the Shock Jockey several times at the beginning of the video and I can't tell what the hell it is supposed to be (or for that matter what the purpose of the machine it's hooked up to is. Is it supposed to be some kind of dynamo? Would that make the apparatus some form of generator? What connection does that have with the "Siphon" that was being used to draw off Elizabeth's excess power? Perhaps this is some form of smaller version of the siphon, drawing power from an unknown substance that has a connection with Elizabeth. Perhaps this is how Columbia generates the fantastic amounts of power it must require to stay aloft.
   
   EDIT: Nevermind. Based on the ad from later on, Shock Jockey would appear to be some kind of portable (and unstable) generator. Booker calls it an "alternative" to electricity, but that seems off somehow. It looks to me like just another means of generating it. I still suspect a connection to Elizabeth and the siphon, though.
   
   
2. There was a discussion before that the artificial beach/ocean was some sort of infinite pool, wherein the water ran off and was reclaimed. Well and good, but the building ahead of us, whatever it is, features a waterfall that has to be five hundred feet high and stretches a mile from end to end. How the hell do you create an infinite pool the size of Niagara Falls? And why? You can't possibly reclaim all of that water, and what purpose would it serve even if you could?
   
   EDIT: Based on the map we later see of the immediate area, I assume that the waterfall is actually depositing the water directly into whatever feeds Battleship Bay, but then how is the water reclaimed and pumped back up to the original altitude? Quantum tunneling?
   
   You know, now that you mention it...
   
   
3. I know why they would do such things, but as I mentioned for the last video, and others have mentioned since, Booker was firing his automatic pistol awfully well for someone who just got his hand impaled. He didn't even have any blood on it while firing. I know that there are limits to what one can do, but given the prominence his injury was shown in during that ambush sequence, you'd think they'd do something other than bringing the injury back only during cinematic moments, while otherwise acting as though it didn't happen in combat. Especially since they seem perfectly willing to change his hand to the bandaged version after Elizabeth fixes him up.
   
   
4. Interesting how, when we caught the coin from Elizabeth, we actually gained $22. Since Columbia seems to run on the Silver standard, I decided to do a little checking. Between 1900 and 1920, the price of silver on the world market was remarkably consistent, at 0.65 American Dollars per troy ounce ($15.23 in today's dollars). Since this is 1912, and Columbia has only been independent for the last ten years or so, I think it's reasonable to assume that the Silver Eagle is probably comparable in size and silver content with the US Trade Dollar of 1873-1883, and the Morgan Dollar of 1878-1904. Both coins were approximately 27 grams (0.95 ounces) of a 90% silver/10% copper mix, with a consequent intrinsic value of 62 cents. If we assume a similar actual-value/intrinsic-value ratio to those coins, and we further assume that the coin Booker got from Elizabeth is indeed worth 22 Columbian Dollars, then one silver eagle must have 13.64 1912 dollars worth of silver in them, which amounts to 8.86 ounces of silver-copper alloy, or almost exactly eight ounces of silver per coin. That would mean that every Silver Eagle would weigh more than half a pound, which is flat impossible.
   
   However, if we further assume that the Columbian Dollar and the American one are not comparable, and that the exchange ratio between the two is 22:1 (thanks to the amount of "dollars" we picked up with one silver coin), then things become more manageable. This would render the Silver Eagle back down to the size and scale of the comparable American coins, but with higher purchasing power in Columbia (or perhaps simply higher prices). I recognize that this is somewhat circular logic (in that we have concluded that the Silver Eagle is comparable to the Morgan Dollar because we assumed initially that it was), but mechanically, it does make some sense. It also means that the Silver Eagle would be roughly a third of an ounce, or ten grams, of 90% pure silver. That's almost exactly twice the size of a modern American Quarter, or just slightly smaller than a US half-dollar. Big, but well in keeping with the standards of the day, which emphasized larger and more weighty coins, more readily acceptable to foreign merchants without a central bank.
   
   I'm sure someone with a better knowledge of matters metallurgical and numismatic will correct me on the above calculations.
   
   
5. Someone else mentioned this after the last video, but Columbia is supposedly at somewhere around 15,000 feet of altitude, right? So how is it that the weather is in any way condusive to relaxing outside at the beach in a bathing suit? Ignoring the prevailing winds at that altitude in most cases, shouldn't the temperature be too cold for such things? And while it's perfectly possible to acclimatize oneself to that altitude's air pressure (the Sherpas and Andean peoples have done so), shouldn't Booker, who is from the surface, be huffing and puffing after every step? Perhaps (as I believe was suggested), the temple he arrived in at the start of the game was pressurized, and the baptism process involves somehow altering one's lung capacity to account for the thinner air.
   
   
6. Soldier Field's entrance isn't exactly subtle isn't it? I had to listen to that song a couple times before I could figure out the lyrics, but there's references to 'rueing the day your race is intermixed', and that dimwit and duke poster is clearly meant to represent covetous Jews. Par for the course I suppose, but this is a more militaristic tone than we've previously seen. Earlier, Columbia seemed just to be a particularly racist society, albeit a normal one. This sounds more like something out of (forgive the obvious comparison) Nazi Germany, wherein other races are not merely inferior, but actively dangerous, waiting in the shadows to spring upon you and drown you in a tide of sub-humanity. The South got to this point at times, but usually only in local outbreaks of white panic. This isn't an inducement to keep minorities in their "place". It's an inducement to kill them before they kill you.
   
   
7. Ahh, this begins to make more sense now. Soldier's Field seems to be a Columbia Security recruitment center. The poster in the office there about "Protecting Prosperity and Racial Purity" would confirm it. This is probably why they have a voxophone from Daisy Fitzroy sitting in a locker. Also, we learn that Fitzroy was once Comstock's personal servant. Perhaps she learned things there that led her to start the Vox Populi? We'll no doubt find out.
   
   
8. That painting in the security office is interesting. It seems to represent the Teutonic Knights (that's a Teutonic cross on the shield), as well as what I think is a Prussian Dragoon or Cavalier. Both were images that the Nazis employed to cement the history of their 'racial struggles' against the 'inferior peoples' of the east. The Teutonic Knights in particular were instrumental in conquering what became Prussia out from under the Livonian and Slavic peoples that originally inhabited the area. A metaphor for the martyrs of old that sacrificed themselves to purify their Aryan race?
   
   
9. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." - Proverbs, 22:6. Obviously words that Comstock lives by, along with a host of other megalomaniacal dictators I could mention.
   
   
10. So Columbia's buildings fly based on Quantum Mechanics. That could mean drat near anything, but the line at the end there about Women's intuition could be taken in many ways. You could interpret it as meaning "crazy women and their crazy theories", or perhaps as meaning "things too complicated for us to understand we shall lump together as women's intuition". The former is deprecatory towards the achievements of Lutece. The latter acknowledges her superiority. It would not be out of place for both meanings to be current, at least in my mind. There's a case to be made that this would indicate that Columbia believes science itself to be "properly" a woman's domain.
    
    
11. I've asked this before, but what the hell does salt have to do with Vigors? I suppose that without knowing what Vigors actually are, it's hard to answer, but Plasmids from the old game ran on Eve, which was some kind of stem cell concoction? Do Vigors run on table salt? Vigors just seem to be a stapled-on mechanic so far, one that is there only because the original game had them. We'll see if that changes.
    
    
12. Everyone on the boardwalk is awful blase about Booker walking around with a drawn firearm. Incidentally, what happens if you try to steal from the cash register in the ice cream shop?
    
    
13. So Booker had never heard of Columbia when he was called for this job? Then why the hell was he called for it? And why were Lutece and her brother (people keep calling him that) rowing him to the dock? All the previous theories about Booker's role in this come to mind, but there's still no confirmation.
    
    
14. Anna died giving birth to a child, eh? Well so much for that theory...
    
    ... unless...
    
    Wildly Unsupported Theory #19: Elizabeth is Anna, Booker's daughter. She was taken from Booker somehow (probably without his knowledge), and brought to Columbia for reasons unknown. Whoever hired him knows about this, and intends to use this knowledge somehow to their advantage.
    
    Which leads to another possibility:
    
    Wildly Unsupported Theory #20: Booker hired himself to take this job, as part of some kind of causality chain to bring himself back together in the past with Anna and prevent her from becoming a cult leader who would lead Columbia to destroy the world. This entire sequence of events has happened many times before, which is why Lutece, an expert in quantum mechanics, knows where to find him at various points on his trip, and refers to him as though he wasn't even there. From her perspective, he's simply an automaton going through the causal motions, and every time she nudges him in a different direction to help direct him to victory (or perhaps to something else).
    
    
15. I'd comment on how creepy the stuffed Songbirds are, but I had stuffed animals as a little kid that were far creepier in retrospect.
    
    
16. Based on the graffiti and the comment from the black servant there about "time is coming", I would say that the Vox are getting ready for something huge. A revolution, perhaps? One instigated by Booker? Who can tell.
    
    This is the sort of thing that could well turn into a general race war though. We'll see how far Infinite is willing to take this...
    
    
17. So the tears are portals to other dimensions, not just through time and space. This explains why the Return of the Jedi's title was changed. It might also explain where Columbia got all this wonderful advanced technology of theirs, as well as many other things. I look forward to evaluating everything we find in the future in the light of this development, but for now, I'll leave it at this.