"The lord forgives everything, but I'm just a prophet so I don't have to." When the mad cult leader Zachary Comstock booms this phrase to the player in his introduction, they know they've come to a bad place.
The year is 1912 and you are former Pinkerton detective turned private eye, Booker DeWitt. His current employers give him a mission with a reward far too tempting to turn down. He is to go to the segregated city of Columbia, a fantastical land in the sky that literally took off into the air seceding from The United States after The Civil War. This all occurred under the watchful eye of the prophet Father Comstock.
“Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt” is the mysterious phrase Booker hears over and over. If he goes to Columbia and rescues an
imprisoned girl named Elizabeth from the clutches of Comstock and returns her safely to New York, his immense
gambling debt will be cleared.
The moment DeWitt arrives to the city in the
sky we immediately know things aren’t going to be that simple. The city itself is a jingoistic society filled with classism, racism,... pretty much any negative-isms you can imagine. On top of that, the captive victim herself, Elizabeth, who we learn is being observed and
experimented on like a guinea pig, has the ability to create “tears” or small
portals into alternate universes.
Multiple dimensions and endless possibilities play a pivotal role in the game, hence the title Bioshock Infinite. The idea that in
reality we exist in one universe among many is not one that is completely
implausible. It may be possible to learn someday whether alternate dimensions exist thanks to the Large Hadron Collider.
The Hadron Collider waits patiently underground contemplating whether to enlighten humankind...or destroy it.
Early on in Columbia, we meet a pair of
bizarre characters, the Lutece twins, Rosalind and Robert (though really I
should be putting “twins” in sarcastic quotes).
Crucial to the plot, Rosalind’s scientific research into quantum levitation are what allow the city of
Columbia to float in the sky. Not twins
in the true sense, during her experiments into the multiverse, Rosalind found
another version of herself…only this version was born with a Y chromosome and went by the name Robert. They decide
to live together in the same universe as siblings.
As proper physicist, they even give their own gory take on the thought experiment Schrödinger's cat.
Or less gory when compared to Einstein’s
gunpowder version.
Check out the official site here: http://www.bioshockinfinite.com/home
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