Bioshock Infinite SPOILERS (I don't GET it!)

[FeraIMuse]

Okay, I got the game on Tuesday, I sat there and worked through breakfast, lunch, and dinner at it, (played at it?) and I have to say that there are a few things towards the end that I simply don't understand.

THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE. THIS IS INVOLVING THE END OF THE GAME. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T BEATEN THE GAME. I don't know HOW MUCH MORE CLEARLY I can put it!

So, wait, Booker is Comstock?

When did that come about?

How did that come about?

It's mentioned in passing towards the end, but that's it!

How did that happen?

Couldn't Booker, as he is now, knowing what he does now, choose not to become Comstock, or is that set in stone? (Especially pointed, considering at one point, having been fed misinformation(?), Booker says "She is NOT your daughter!" which Comstock responds, "Perhaps not"... but wait. She IS Comstock's daughter, if Comstock is Booker! So dahell?!)

Where the flying frack did Songbird come from? What is Songbird?

I honestly expected Booker to turn out to be Songbird as a "later" version! Well, once they started getting into alternate realities. It's very protective of her, and seems to hold a particular animosity towards you/Booker, which you could, possibly, perceive as hating itself because of what it once was.

Who the hell was Booker in debt to, that he couldn't slaughter them wholesale?

You've spent HOURS of the game, depopulating their police-force, giant mechanical founding-fathers with gatling-guns, and cyborgs with hearts in jars, but his explanation is "I was in debt to people you don't want to be in debt to." Who? Terminators?!

At WHAT POINT did Booker think it was a good idea to PUT HIS CHILD UP FOR COLLATERAL? Like, how drunk was he, exactly? AND WHO WAS HE IN DEBT TO THAT DEMANDED HIS CHILD, THAT CHARITY WITH THE OLD BEARDED GUY THAT TALKS ABOUT "FOR FIVE DOLLARS A DAY"!?

If there are alternate versions of your daughter, why aren't there alternate versions of you? I mean, if Comstock is an alternate version of Booker, and he's existing at the same time and on the same realm, even having conversations with himself, why isn't there a Booker Army?

There's a point towards the end where Elizabeth is captured and tortured for years and years (and years) to the point where when you find her, she's old enough to be your mother... who was torturing her? Why? On whose orders? Was it Comstock? If so, he had to be PRETTY SPRY for being over a hundred at that point! (Consider Elizabeth was a young woman when you met her, say, early 20's, and Comstock was probably in his 60's, judging by appearances, and when you find her later, *she's* in her 60's, so add 40 years.)

Don't get me wrong, Bioshock Infinite is an AWESOME game, but I honestly took a step back and said literally, out loud, ".... waitaminute." Am I the only one? It seems like there are points where the game pointedly contradicts itself and its own fiction, and we go along with it because the game is PHENOMENAL.

Maybe I really do get it, but it's a me from an alternate reality that raised my not-daugther who it turns out was super-psychic....

Oh, that opens up a whole slew of questions about her abilities, where they came from, who her mother was, what happened to her mother, why, exactly, the two chrono-scientists wanted her, what made HER special--GAAAA! SONGBIRD!

 

[Averant]

There really needs to be a FAQ for this kind of thing.

Looking over your questions, WOW you did NOT get this game at all, did you? Can't say I blame you, but damn. Anyway, the easiest way to answer most of your questions is to go reading the threads that have already been made about the subject, primarily [a=href'http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.404389-Bioshock-Infinite-MAJOR-POSSIBLE-SPOILER-WARNING']This[/a], [a=href'http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.404512-spoiler-Bioshock-Infinites-ending-is']this[/a], and [a=href'http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.404370-Bioshock-Infinite-Spoilers-The-Ending-to-Bioshock-Infinite']this[/a].

If that for some reason doesn't clear up most of it, do a little reading on the [a=href'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse']Multiverse[/a].

To answer the questions which might not be answered by those threads or that you can answer yourself... A lot of the answers are in the voxophones. There's over 80 of them, and at least half of them have vital parts of the story, if you want to make sense of it.

Where the flying frack did Songbird come from? What is Songbird?

I honestly expected Booker to turn out to be Songbird as a "later" version! Well, once they started getting into alternate realities. It's very protective of her, and seems to hold a particular animosity towards you/Booker, which you could, possibly, perceive as hating itself because of what it once was.

Ooh, I like that theory. The songbird was based off of tech likely stolen from the big daddies of rapture. They were able to steal that tech because of natural tears in Comstock's universe.

Who the hell was Booker in debt to, that he couldn't slaughter them wholesale?

You've spent HOURS of the game, depopulating their police-force, giant mechanical founding-fathers with gatling-guns, and cyborgs with hearts in jars, but his explanation is "I was in debt to people you don't want to be in debt to." Who? Terminators?!

At WHAT POINT did Booker think it was a good idea to PUT HIS CHILD UP FOR COLLATERAL? Like, how drunk was he, exactly? AND WHO WAS HE IN DEBT TO THAT DEMANDED HIS CHILD, THAT CHARITY WITH THE OLD BEARDED GUY THAT TALKS ABOUT "FOR FIVE DOLLARS A DAY"!?

Eeeh. Booker was likely in debt to loansharks for betting money on horse races, and those sharks probably reported to the mob. Sure, he can beat off the entire police force of Columbia, but that's because he had Elizabeth's tears and Fink's vigors to help him. Not to mention if he tried that in his own universe, in New york, he'd likely get the bloody army dropped on him. And unlike Comstock, they have tanks. Assuming he didn't have a run in with the army, there's still the mob, who would be sending hitmen after him almost daily, if he killed enough of him. And hitmen are a bit harder to deal with.

Also, he didn't offer his kid as collateral. His kid WAS the payment, and he didn't pay it to any loan shark. He payed it to the Lutece of that universe, Robert, who was in contact with Rosalind Lutece, the physicist in Comstock's universe. Robert then likely took Booker's debt on himself and paid it off, and gave the child to Comstock.

If there are alternate versions of your daughter, why aren't there alternate versions of you? I mean, if Comstock is an alternate version of Booker, and he's existing at the same time and on the same realm, even having conversations with himself, why isn't there a Booker Army?

Likely because Booker doesn't KNOW he's Comstock. I imagine if there is more than one Booker in the same universe, and they know about each other, the resulting memory backlash would explode both of their heads. But that's just a guess. A better answer is, the Universe doesn't like have foreign objects stuffed into it. That's likely why there are natural tears in Comstock's universe.

There's a point towards the end where Elizabeth is captured and tortured for years and years (and years) to the point where when you find her, she's old enough to be your mother... who was torturing her? Why? On whose orders? Was it Comstock? If so, he had to be PRETTY SPRY for being over a hundred at that point! (Consider Elizabeth was a young woman when you met her, say, early 20's, and Comstock was probably in his 60's, judging by appearances, and when you find her later, *she's* in her 60's, so add 40 years.)

Oh, that opens up a whole slew of questions about her abilities, where they came from, who her mother was, what happened to her mother, why, exactly, the two chrono-scientists wanted her, what made HER special--GAAAA! SONGBIRD!

Comstock was already dead by that point. He had brain tumors, probably from the tear experiments he'd been performing with Rosalind Lutece. Comstock wasn't torturing her, per se, he was... training her. Molding her to his mindset. Conditioning her, that's the word. One of the voxophones likened it to Pavlov's dog. IIRC, it said "Pavlov made his dog salivate. We'll make this one weep." They were going to implant a "leash", some kind of device in her that would administer an electric shock if she disobeyed Comstock, or something.

As for Elizabeth's powers, you remember her pinky-thimble? How she had her finger cut off by the closing tear? That meant that she was in two separate universes at once. This destabilized the universe that she was in to a very high degree, and gave her the ability to destabilize it even further, opening tears wherever she went.

 

[Legendairy314]

Ok, Here goes. OUR Booker never received the baptism after wounded knee while Comstock is the Booker that DID receive the baptism. Wounded Knee and baptism have both previously been mentioned/happened in the game so it's not completely out of nowhere. When Elizabeth drowned Booker in the baptism that killed every possible version of Comstock (but not the Booker who walked away).

Comstock became sterile due to experiments involving tears and his best solution was to steal OUR Booker's daughter.

Songbird is hinted at being either a version of a big daddy that Fink was able to create or some other creature that Fink found which he replicated. He found this out when he saw something similar through a tear (which is also why there's old timey versions of modern day songs around).

Booker was indebted to people originally and when he gave Comstock Anna Comstock payed off that debt. Considering he would have an entire world after him rather than a city is probably why he wouldn't kill them. When he went to Columbia he had already cleared that debt but Booker's mind filled in some of the blanks as to why he is now in an alternate reality so he created his own reason for being there "Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt." The Luteces most likely assisted in creating that illusion with the notes and the dead body.

Elizabeth eventually broke down throughout the years. Comstock did die but not before ensuring that his legacy would live on within Elizabeth.

It took a while for all the pieces to fall into place for me but when they did it made me realize why I love this game so damn much.

 

[FeraIMuse]

I wanted to thank both of you for helping me work things through.

To Averant, "You didn't get the game, did you?" I beg to differ. I consider myself a relatively intelligent individual and, perhaps in my own defense, I *did* play the game through one, marathon-sitting.

However, I feel like there were certain aspects of its mythology that were accepted as rote, and then cast aside. However, I understand your derision, even if I don't particularly agree with it. Nevertheless, you walked me through aspects of its terminology and the story that, having played through it myself, I might have to go back and play again, but not for the same reason that most starry-eyed reviewers point out "To experience it again!" but rather, to hammer down certain things that were hinted at. I appreciate that.

Furthermore, I don't necessarily agree that you should need to get collectables in order to flesh out the main story, itself, (I got over 60 of them, by the way, so I don't want you to think I was going "Oh, Voxphone? Durr!") It's along the same lines of, for instance, console-games that have accepted-canon literature. If you can't tell that story through the game itself, isn't it kind of lazy to say, "Oh, you didn't read the fifteen novels, three comic-books, and eight graphic-novels? Sorry!"

I remember the Pavlov reference and, to be fair, that was one of the instances in the game where I was geared up (more than usual, on an emotional level) to get those prigs that snatched Elizabeth... but again, it falls back to my previous questions, though, that I don't necessarily feel were answered: Couldn't Booker have chosen not to become Comstock, especially considering the growing animosity towards the "antagonist" towards the end? ... and furthermore, didn't he effectively kill his own daughter at the very, very end of the game, or did he simply leave her trapped in Columbia, as she had grown up at that point?

I don't want you to assume that I'm a wayward child, wandering from having suckled the COD teat... I grew up on story-rich games like The Longest Journey, Planescape: Torment, and the Baldur's Gate Saga. To be fair, both of the Bioshock games had a story that were start, middle, end, finish, wrapped in its own mythos and I didn't come away asking these sorts of questions.

I understand that Bioshock Infinite also factored in possibilities like the multi-world theory of existence, as well as quantum mechanics, (and I distinctly remember sitting back and going, "... why is my great-looking FPS talking about quantum mechanics?!") but, again, I thought that there were some things that weren't solidly addressed.

Could this be a matter of "leave it up to the player"?

 

[CommanderL]

I wanted to thank both of you for helping me work things through.

To Averant, "You didn't get the game, did you?" I beg to differ. I consider myself a relatively intelligent individual and, perhaps in my own defense, I *did* play the game through one, marathon-sitting.

However, I feel like there were certain aspects of its mythology that were accepted as rote, and then cast aside. However, I understand your derision, even if I don't particularly agree with it. Nevertheless, you walked me through aspects of its terminology and the story that, having played through it myself, I might have to go back and play again, but not for the same reason that most starry-eyed reviewers point out "To experience it again!" but rather, to hammer down certain things that were hinted at. I appreciate that.

Furthermore, I don't necessarily agree that you should need to get collectables in order to flesh out the main story, itself, (I got over 60 of them, by the way, so I don't want you to think I was going "Oh, Voxphone? Durr!") It's along the same lines of, for instance, console-games that have accepted-canon literature. If you can't tell that story through the game itself, isn't it kind of lazy to say, "Oh, you didn't read the fifteen novels, three comic-books, and eight graphic-novels? Sorry!"

I remember the Pavlov reference and, to be fair, that was one of the instances in the game where I was geared up (more than usual, on an emotional level) to get those prigs that snatched Elizabeth... but again, it falls back to my previous questions, though, that I don't necessarily feel were answered: Couldn't Booker have chosen not to become Comstock, especially considering the growing animosity towards the "antagonist" towards the end? ... and furthermore, didn't he effectively kill his own daughter at the very, very end of the game, or did he simply leave her trapped in Columbia, as she had grown up at that point?

I don't want you to assume that I'm a wayward child, wandering from having suckled the COD teat... I grew up on story-rich games like The Longest Journey, Planescape: Torment, and the Baldur's Gate Saga. To be fair, both of the Bioshock games had a story that were start, middle, end, finish, wrapped in its own mythos and I didn't come away asking these sorts of questions.

I understand that Bioshock Infinite also factored in possibilities like the multi-world theory of existence, as well as quantum mechanics, (and I distinctly remember sitting back and going, "... why is my great-looking FPS talking about quantum mechanics?!") but, again, I thought that there were some things that weren't solidly addressed.

Could this be a matter of "leave it up to the player"?

Think of it as this There are two worlds there are two bookers One gets baptists and becomes Comstock the other refuses and becomes the booker we know there is no time travel only diffrent universes one leads to comstock the other booker booker was brought in from his universe into comstocks one

 

[shrekfan246]

Couldn't Booker have chosen not to become Comstock, especially considering the growing animosity towards the "antagonist" towards the end?

The Booker we played did choose to not become Comstock. That was the entire point.

I think you'll find this quote endlessly useful in your travels:

When you're talking about time travel and/or alternate universes, there's nothing concrete even in the scientific community, so the people writing the story have an infinite number of possibilities to work with. I don't think it should be such a shock that a video game didn't dwell too heavily on the science of the universe, but a lot of it is explained by the Voxophones, especially the Lutece's.

 

[SayHelloToMrBullet]

snip

http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/28/understanding-bioshock-infinites-ending-ending-explanation/

This article does a great job of explaining the ending. It's really in depth and helped me out a fair bit.

 

[Yassen]

Couldn't Booker have chosen not to become Comstock, especially considering the growing animosity towards the "antagonist" towards the end? ... and furthermore, didn't he effectively kill his own daughter at the very, very end of the game, or did he simply leave her trapped in Columbia, as she had grown up at that point?

You're kind of missing the point of the multiverse. Yes, Booker could have declined the baptism to not become Comstock. As a matter of fact, he already did. But just because this ONE Booker declined doesn't mean another Booker in another universe won't. As Elizabeth put it, "There are a million, million worlds where Comstock still lives." The only way to prevent his very existence is to go back in time and "smother him in the crib."

Does Elizabeth stop existing as well? Sadly, the ones we saw did cease to exist. But as the post-credits stinger suggests, there's a universe where Booker never made the trade and the two of them can finally be together, father and daughter.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

Okay, I got the game on Tuesday, I sat there and worked through breakfast, lunch, and dinner at it, (played at it?) and I have to say that there are a few things towards the end that I simply don't understand.

THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE. THIS IS INVOLVING THE END OF THE GAME. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T BEATEN THE GAME. I don't know HOW MUCH MORE CLEARLY I can put it!

Ok I'll try to explain as best as I can.

So, wait, Booker is Comstock?

When did that come about?


How did that come about?

It's mentioned in passing towards the end, but that's it!

How did that happen?

Yes and no, After the battle of wounded knee Booker began to feel deep remorse for what he had done (Basically slaughtered the native Americans, woman and child..everyone, and he enjoyed it at the time too) so he decided to go get baptised as he wanted to wash away his sins. Now this is where the timeline splits. The Booker we play does not go through with the baptism when the time comes. He realises that his sins will still be there and the baptism is just pointless and a cowedly way to shed his guilt. He resolves to live with his guilt as a kind of penance. According to quantum theory then every time a choice can be made then the timelines split, creating a universe for every possible outcome that could result from that choice. Comstock is the Booker that decided to go through with the baptism and shed his sins that way. He is a Booker that has been 'born again' so he changes his name to Comstock.

Couldn't Booker, as he is now, knowing what he does now, choose not to become Comstock, or is that set in stone? (Especially pointed, considering at one point, having been fed misinformation(?), Booker says "She is NOT your daughter!" which Comstock responds, "Perhaps not"... but wait. She IS Comstock's daughter, if Comstock is Booker! So dahell?!)

No he couldn't as the choice that makes him into Conmstock has already been made in the past. So yes it is set in stone. Elizabeth is not Comstock's daughter she is Bookers. Elizabeth was born after the baptism/no baptism choice that created Comstock. Comstock has been made sterile from the experimentation he has been involved in with the tares between the universes so he can not have a child. He MUST have a child though in order to continue his vision. Comstock is dying and he knows it, he has multiple tumours that probably also a result from experimentation with the tares. He knows of the existence of the parallel dimensions so he resolves to find one where he has a child. This just so happens to be the universe where our Booker comes from and as it turns out our Booker is way in gambling debt and has a bad drinking problem (Because of the PTSD from Wounded Knee), Comstock thinks 'Jackpot' and send male Lutice to make a bargain with our Booker, give up his daughter and Comstock will pay off his debt.

Where the flying frack did Songbird come from? What is Songbird?

Songbird is a created by Fink using information he gained from spying through the tares into other universes. Songbird is basically a guardian for Elizabeth in the tower. He made sure that she would stay locked up but also he was a sort of companion to her. He brought her books and things from the outside world and helped to keep her mentally stable and from going off the deep end because of her isolation.

I honestly expected Booker to turn out to be Songbird as a "later" version! Well, once they started getting into alternate realities. It's very protective of her, and seems to hold a particular animosity towards you/Booker, which you could, possibly, perceive as hating itself because of what it once was.

Interesting theory, but Songbird is just out the get Booker because he took Elizabeth away from the tower.

Who the hell was Booker in debt to, that he couldn't slaughter them wholesale?

You've spent HOURS of the game, depopulating their police-force, giant mechanical founding-fathers with gatling-guns, and cyborgs with hearts in jars, but his explanation is "I was in debt to people you don't want to be in debt to." Who? Terminators?!

At WHAT POINT did Booker think it was a good idea to PUT HIS CHILD UP FOR COLLATERAL? Like, how drunk was he, exactly? AND WHO WAS HE IN DEBT TO THAT DEMANDED HIS CHILD, THAT CHARITY WITH THE OLD BEARDED GUY THAT TALKS ABOUT "FOR FIVE DOLLARS A DAY"!?

It's never clarified exactly who Booker was in debt to, it's not really important to the story so I guess that's why it was left out but as for why book didn't just pop a cap in his creditors asses then it's implied that the people he was in debit to were basically the mob. Booker is just a normal man at that point. Highly doubt he would be able to one man army the entire New york mob and even if he did then the police would probbaly take issue with all the murdering and that.

If there are alternate versions of your daughter, why aren't there alternate versions of you? I mean, if Comstock is an alternate version of Booker, and he's existing at the same time and on the same realm, even having conversations with himself, why isn't there a Booker Army?

There is an army of Bookers, just not all together at the same time. Before you get the the raffle the Lutice 'twins' ask you to flip a coin, male Lutice has a sandwich bored with a tally of the of previous results and they are all heads. This implies that there have been over 100 Bookers that have made the same choice before, the whole thing is basically on a loop, and booker always chooses tails but the coin will always be heads.

There's a point towards the end where Elizabeth is captured and tortured for years and years (and years) to the point where when you find her, she's old enough to be your mother... who was torturing her? Why? On whose orders? Was it Comstock? If so, he had to be PRETTY SPRY for being over a hundred at that point! (Consider Elizabeth was a young woman when you met her, say, early 20's, and Comstock was probably in his 60's, judging by appearances, and when you find her later, *she's* in her 60's, so add 40 years.)

Yes it was Comstock giving the orders to torture Elizabeth, but you have to remember he has a fanatically loyal following so even after he dies then he has people who will continue his beliefs.
The reason for the torture was to brake her will and make her into the leader that will fulfill Comstock's profercy of destroying the 'sinners' and 'mountains of man'...basically everyone who wasn't from Columbia.

Don't get me wrong, Bioshock Infinite is an AWESOME game, but I honestly took a step back and said literally, out loud, ".... waitaminute." Am I the only one? It seems like there are points where the game pointedly contradicts itself and its own fiction, and we go along with it because the game is PHENOMENAL.

Maybe I really do get it, but it's a me from an alternate reality that raised my not-daugther who it turns out was super-psychic....

Oh, that opens up a whole slew of questions about her abilities, where they came from, who her mother was, what happened to her mother, why, exactly, the two chrono-scientists wanted her, what made HER special--GAAAA! SONGBIRD!

Elizabeth's abilities come from the fact that she is not from the same universe as Columbia and Comstock. At the end of the game we get to see the point at which our Booker sells Elizabeth (who is called Anna in our Bookers world) to Comstock. He hands over the baby Elizabeth (Anna) to male Lutice but almost immediately begins thinking 'WTF have I done?'. He chases down Lutice and see him step into a tare where female Lutice and Comstock are waiting. He then tries to get the baby back but can't as Comstock orders the machine generating the tare shut down. As the tare is closing the baby reaches out for Booker but the portal closes and ends up chopping off the tip of her little finger. This is the cause of Elizabeth's power, as female Lutice mentions in an Voxaphone recording that Elizabeth's power comes from 'A small part of her remaining where she came from' which is our Bookers universe. She then states that the universe does not like something being in two different reality's at once, quote "It seem's the universe does not like it's peas mixed with it's porridge". This gives Elizabeth the ability to manipulate and create tares coz, you know, psudo-science FTW.

The two chrono-scientists are actually the same person. Madam Lutice was a brilliant physicist who experimented with quantum mechanics and basically created the tares in the first place. The male 'twin' is a version of her from another reality. Comstock found out about her experiments somehow and commissioned her to help him build Columbia which she did only so she could continue her experiments. She didn't care about Comstocks beliefs. Comstock used the tares to make his prophecies by spying through them into different universes BTW, that's how he cold tell the future[footnote] The tares seem to have some sort of temporal component too, as we can see from things in the game e.g. the songs and the modern fire truck in the tare to Paris Elizabeth opens in her tower.[/footnote].
The Lutice 'twins' carried on working for Comstock until he asked them to find a universe where he had a child and to then bring her into this reality. After they did this then Comstock had them assassinated because they knew too much and could potentially ruin his clams of Elizabeth being his 'Lamb'. The assassin fucked up though, and boy did he fuck up hard. He waited for the 'twins' to use there tare generating machine to travel to another reality and then sabotaged the machine, thinking that this would kill them. It didn't. It just left them stranded between the realities, they could not get back but were no longer limited to having to use the machine. They had been set free of the space-time continuum and could hop between the dimensions at will. They decide to get reveng on Comstock for this betrayal by fucking his shit up royally by setting Booker on a quest to get Elizabeth from Comstock.

....
..
.

Wow that's the longest post I think I've ever made...ever. Just goes to show how much I love this game I suppose. Still if you have any other questions just ask and I'll do my best to answer them.

 

[FeraIMuse]

I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised by the feedback I've been getting from my question. I'm not trying to say that the questions were keeping me up.... well, okay, that's not true--I was literally laying in bed, trying to figure things out, and then I got up and posted on HERE, because I thought maybe one or two responses would help settle things, but both the responses and their content? Super thumbs up, guys and gals, this is just awesome. I'm actually going through the game again, but at a slower pace this time around... I'll admit I took it slowly at the start, but as the gunplay picked up in pace, my exploration decreased exponentially, so now I'm going to try and find as many in-game hints as I can. Even if I find just as many, if not less Vox-Phones as I had before, as well as in-game dialogue and the like, the answers and insights here have been very helpful, thanks to all of you!

 

[Floppertje]

I think I get it. but why is the timeline split right there where booker accepts or denies his baptism? why isn't there one where he refuses to kill the natives at wounded knee? [OHHH! I just now realized. the bit where you're in the museum and slate gets mad because apparently comstock stole his credit for the battles of Wounded Knee and the Boxer rebellion, Booker claims that Comstock was never there. But he WAS. Booker was Comstock, he was there and after he was reborn as Comstock, he took credit for winning the battles as commander of the 7th cavalry (or whatever the number was). that just now clicked into place. back on track now.]
I often think of how my life has come to where it is because of a million different choices and coincidences. so how is that split the only one? is it only the really significant choices that create a split? if so, was the yea or nay to baptism the ONLY significant choice he made? what about joining the military? wasn't THAT a significant choice?
that's the problem with stories involving multiple timelines... they always raise more question than they answer.

 

[Weatherking]

I think I get it. but why is the timeline split right there where booker accepts or denies his baptism? why isn't there one where he refuses to kill the natives at wounded knee? [OHHH! I just now realized. the bit where you're in the museum and slate gets mad because apparently comstock stole his credit for the battles of Wounded Knee and the Boxer rebellion, Booker claims that Comstock was never there. But he WAS. Booker was Comstock, he was there and after he was reborn as Comstock, he took credit for winning the battles as commander of the 7th cavalry (or whatever the number was). that just now clicked into place. back on track now.]
I often think of how my life has come to where it is because of a million different choices and coincidences. so how is that split the only one? is it only the really significant choices that create a split? if so, was the yea or nay to baptism the ONLY significant choice he made? what about joining the military? wasn't THAT a significant choice?
that's the problem with stories involving multiple timelines... they always raise more question than they answer.

The way I understood it, the multi-verse setup in infinite is based on constants and variables. That is to say, constants are events that will not change through all the possible timelines, maybe see them as fate set in stone, and variables being things that can be changed between them. They use the coin-toss scene with the Luteces in the beginning of the game to illustrate this, the coin turning out heads being a constant and Bookers choice being the variable(I think it's possible for him to say either heads or tails in the game?).
Maybe the events of Wounded knee are a constant, something that will always have happened to Booker, and the baptism split being a two way variable leading to two potential constants, Booker becoming Comstock or the player character Booker.

Regarding fuck-upedness in infinite multi-verse stories, yeah that's the trouble with infinity for you. You could say that in a infinite possibility space, there could be a world where all these laws of multi-verse didn't apply and infinity is not possible therefore contradicting and collapsing the whole damn thing while still keeping the nature of infinity in mind. Mind-fuck.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

...Snipity...so how is that split the only one? is it only the really significant choices that create a split? if so, was the yea or nay to baptism the ONLY significant choice he made? what about joining the military? wasn't THAT a significant choice?
that's the problem with stories involving multiple timelines... they always raise more question than they answer.

It's not the only one, every time Booker (or anyone for that matter) made a choice it caused a universe to split off.

However the baptism choice is the only one that matters as that is the moment when Comstock is 'born'. Without that choice there would still be an infinite numbers of Bookers in an infinite number of worlds but there would be no Comstock in any of them as the choice that made him will never have been able to be made.

What Elizabeth did wasn't to take Booker back to his past as such but to take all the 'Bookers' that will face the choice of baptism (thus the possibility of becoming Comstock) across all the universes back to the point where that decision is made. This is why we get the many different Elizabeth's all appearing. So when the Elizabeths drown Booker it symbolises erasing the choice from all of the universes.

 

[Sight Unseen]

I think I get it. but why is the timeline split right there where booker accepts or denies his baptism? why isn't there one where he refuses to kill the natives at wounded knee? [OHHH! I just now realized. the bit where you're in the museum and slate gets mad because apparently comstock stole his credit for the battles of Wounded Knee and the Boxer rebellion, Booker claims that Comstock was never there. But he WAS. Booker was Comstock, he was there and after he was reborn as Comstock, he took credit for winning the battles as commander of the 7th cavalry (or whatever the number was). that just now clicked into place. back on track now.]
I often think of how my life has come to where it is because of a million different choices and coincidences. so how is that split the only one? is it only the really significant choices that create a split? if so, was the yea or nay to baptism the ONLY significant choice he made? what about joining the military? wasn't THAT a significant choice?
that's the problem with stories involving multiple timelines... they always raise more question than they answer.

The way I understood it, the multi-verse setup in infinite is based on constants and variables. That is to say, constants are events that will not change through all the possible timelines, maybe see them as fate set in stone, and variables being things that can be changed between them. They use the coin-toss scene with the Luteces in the beginning of the game to illustrate this, the coin turning out heads being a constant and Bookers choice being the variable(I think it's possible for him to say either heads or tails in the game?).
Maybe the events of Wounded knee are a constant, something that will always have happened to Booker, and the baptism split being a two way variable leading to two potential constants, Booker becoming Comstock or the player character Booker.

Regarding fuck-upedness in infinite multi-verse stories, yeah that's the trouble with infinity for you. You could say that in a infinite possibility space, there could be a world where all these laws of multi-verse didn't apply and infinity is not possible therefore contradicting and collapsing the whole damn thing while still keeping the nature of infinity in mind. Mind-fuck.

I just looked up some youtube videos, and you're right, Booker CAN say either heads or tails, even though the outcome is ALWAYS heads (123 times to be precise) Also, thank you sir for opening my eyes to the significance of that particular scene. I wasn't aware that he could say either heads or tails, and I thought it was just a reference to the fact that 122 Bookers went through the coin toss before him. I didn't realize the "constants and variables" theme that they were showing.

Another take on it is that maybe the Wounded knee split was variable, just not relevant to the plot of Infinite. For all we know, that may have been the split that created Andrew Ryan, or something... But since its not important to the story they were telling, they decided not to explain it.