Columbia is
the flying city in which the game
Bioshock
Infinite
takes place. The city was completed in 1893, where it then toured the
world, showcasing the American exceptionalism that made a city in the
sky a reality. The city was made possible by a discovery of a quantum
particle, the "Lutece Particle," which held atoms fixed in place, and
immense funding from an American politician known as Zachary Comstock.
During a rebellion in China in 1901 in which American
hostages
were taken, Columbia fired shots on the Chinese soldiers. It was then
revealed that Columbia was an aerial battleship, capable of causing
great devastation. The American government demanded that Columbia
return to native shores so that it may be decommissioned, but Comstock
didn't want to abandon his greatest work. Instead, he seceded from the
Union and rose into the clouds, disappearing from view, giving Comstock
sole control over the immense flying city.
Columbia had the worst of American exceptionalism, including the racist
mentality of pre-Civil War America, subjugating the minority races to
slavery or the lowly jobs. Comstock became a self-proclaimed Prophet,
through his use of "tears," which were holes in the fabric of space and
time. These tears allowed him to travel to the future to bring
back technology and knowledge of the future. Comstock deemed the rest
of the world as tainted, since he believed it fell out of the original
vision of the Founding Fathers. He referred to it as the "Sodom below"
and was planning an assault on the world with his offspring.
That is where the protagonist comes in. He is sent to Columbia to
return a young woman to New York, from Columbia. What begins as a low
key mission into Columbia becomes an all-out war, as the player is
discovered and the twisted world that Comstock as created becomes more
and more apparent. By setting
Bioshock
Infinite
in the sky, it created an interesting world for the designers, such as
how to have the player traverse the city. This was solved by including
a device that can hook onto the in-air railway systems that cover
Columbia. This also leads to interesting combat scenarios and new ways
to think about the world of Columbia.
For more information, please check out
Bioshock Infinite's
website,
provided by the publisher, 2K Games.
