Aspects of Columbia: Speculate

[PoeticMadnesss]

I've asked similar questions and have had debates over at the 2k boards ages ago over some of these questions about Rapture, so I decided to bring the speculations here for these ideas regarding Columbia. Speculate on the following (more ideas to come):


1. How do you think they warm the buildings?

2. How do you think they get supplies, such as food, water, liquor, etc?

3. Do you think farming is possible within the city?


These are only a few ideas that I came up with off the top of my head. I realize that many details aren't known about the game/city yet, hence mainly all of it being speculation. Feel free to discuss, and more ideas will be added.

[Muskel]

These are the types of things that I'm wondering also, besides what drives the buildings.


1. I think there's some type of gas fueled radiant heating either in floor or walls. Fireplaces too, but I don't see any wood so I suppose gas. If not some type of invented technology, I imagine a boiler room ran on gas.


What gas then? I don't know! Methane? This one has me really wondering how it's done.


2. It's possible they make supply runs to and from land. I wonder how it's regulated, or by whom. On the other hand, maybe the city generates it's own supplies.


3. I don't see much space for farming in Columbia, or the weather consistency. Cloning may not be far out of the realm here.

[Svenderson]

There is only one thing we should be concerned about when dealing with a giant, densely populated, flying city:


Sewage.

[PoeticMadnesss]

svenderson said:<P>There is only one thing we should be concerned about when dealing with a giant, densely populated, flying city: </P>

<P>Sewage. </P>


Great point o.O currently trying to figure out how to edit the first post (if possible, even) to add that to the list. xD


I can just imagine it being dumped out the side, killing hundreds of people below...lmao xDDD

[trulsante]

I could totally see large barges with crops growing on them. And if we have them the sewage wouldn't go to waste now, would it.


As to supplies I guess that airborne vehicles, balloons or even zeppelins, are making regular trips down to earth to re-supply. Either by raiding the country side, or by trading/buying.


And how the city stays afloat... I guess that's the steampunk element in work. By the looks of it, the buildings are kept in the air by technology similar to hot air balloons. With that in mind all one need is really some kind of steampunk invention to keep it 'believable'.


In any case, I bought that Rapture could excist (I have an engineer friend who did quite extensive research on the whole concept with a city underwater and actually found that it could work, with some exceptions...)so I'm not late to believe in a floating city around the turn of the century. After all, a lot of inventions that we take for granted today came into being around that time. AC/DC being one of these things... Perhaps we'll even see Nikola Tesla running around in Colombia...?

[PoeticMadnesss]

Idea!


Buildings are always in motion, so there's a potential of the city having various wind turbines in place to give us the electricity in the entire city.


Water can be collected from the condensation in the clouds.



trulsante said:<P>I could totally see large barges with crops growing on them. And if we have them the sewage wouldn't go to waste now, would it.</P>


Very very true. I wonder what would happen to crops at that temperature though o.O...this is looking way too far into it, I know, but I wanna know if crops can survive such altitudes when growing. xD


-----------------


The one thing that's still puzzilng me is the fuel. I know how it could work, rather easily, if they hadn't shown a jet of flame come from one ofthe buildings in the trailer. They could have just transferred the turbine power into a heating source, which would have manipulated the air density within the balloons, keeping the buildings aloft. It's the flame that's throwing me off. xD


I know that it has to do with thermodynamics, in the least.

[ragingmudcrab]

poeticmadnesss said:

Idea!

Buildings are always in motion, so there's a potential of the city having various wind turbines in place to give us the electricity in the entire city.


Probably their best option. It's what I'd do if I were a Columbian.

[Muskel]

When the building crashes in the demo, whats up with the electricity around the balloon? Was it electo-bolted? Or is the electicity part of the fuel system?

[PoeticMadnesss]

muskellounger said:<P>When the building crashes in the demo, whats up with the electricity around the balloon? Was it electo-bolted? Or is the electicity part of the fuel system? </P>


Haven't got a clue; to be completely honest I've only watched the video once, so I didn't even notice the electricity xD


Could be static :p rather interesting idea...static electricity from giant balloons... <.< I wonder what they're made out of.

[Muskel]

The demo is up on PSN if you haven't seen it...it is awesome in HD/surround sound.


I don't think a simple electo-bolt couldshould take down a building. It's got me thinking..

[Sans Frontieres]

I'm glad there's a thread to discuss this :) My degree is in Construction Management and this kind of stuff really strikes my fancy



1. How do you think they warm the buildings


Since the balloons in the buildings would have to fire up every so often, as to maintain/regulate/change their elevation, I would assume some sort of duct work could be routed from where the hot air is trapped by the balloons, throughout the buildings and then closed up after boosting to stop the heat from escaping. The "boosters" would have to output a ton of heat to keep elevation, but in the world of Columbia, I think that could be possible. Also, though they have sky lines and so on...that time period didn't have heating/cooling systems, so maybe they don't have it at all (it's annoying to renovate those old buildings). And, we don't know what elevation they're floating about at. If they're at about 10,000ft that's not so bad (my hometown is at a similar elevation).



2. How do you think they get supplies, such as food, water, liquor, etc?


I think they have a contact of some kind on land somewhere. That's my theory as to how Booker actually gets on Columbia (by being a stowaway of sorts at that 're-supply' point)



3. Do you think farming is possible within the city?


Yes. I think as there was an Arcadia in BS1 to maintain oxygen via natural means, there will be some sort of farming capability in Columbia. They have animals and if you can raise livestock, you can have a fighting chance to farm (the population can't be super huge though, and maybe that's one of the reasons for the anarchists/revolts, I'm thinking to past history of Russia and France and their issues w/ lack of food). Though w/ Vigors and the whositwhatsits in the floating city. who knows what's possible ;)


As for the electricity issue, some sort of wind or solar power are probably the logical choices. Though, I personally hope the "boosters" heat up giant boilers and the steam that comes off spins a giant turbine (like a powerplant) in each. Yay Steam! I would think any balloon would have a ton of static electricity charged up in it, and once in came into contact w/ something else, it discharged. But I really don't know. (Sorry for the long post)

[PoeticMadnesss]

muskellounger said:<P>The demo is up on PSN if you haven't seen it...it is awesome in HD/surround sound.</P>

<P>I don't think a simple electo-bolt couldshould take down a building. It's got me thinking.. </P>


Interesting idea. I wonder what they did to help protect the balloons from being popped...If there were no protection, then it'd probably be easy as hell for anyone to just shoot a few holes into them, and cause an entire building to collapse. Which also means there's probably a failsafe somewhere on the balloons. So much to think about O.O


@jayakers: I didn't respond to you because you summed everything up so brilliantly :D

[trulsante]

Yeah, let's hope that IR dares to bring more steampunk into the mix!

[yellowfddriver]

More steampunk, you say?


It seems like everything you NEED to do in Columbia is handled in Columbia somehow. Discovering what will be in the fun!

[hitwithfish]

Dude, what if one of the horses drank that murder of crows vigor!?!


The humans would be properly screwed by PONY POWER!

[ragingmudcrab]

hitwithfish said:

Dude, what if one of the horses drank that murder of crows vigor!?!

The humans would be properly screwed by PONY POWER!



Yeah, I lol'd.

[trulsante]

I wonder if all of our questions are properly explained in the game, as it was in Bioshock 1 and 2. And by that I mean that there are explanations given as to how building on the bottom of the sea is possible, and how the supply of energy works etc.


Another thing I was thinking about from the gameplay video was the placement of the cannons. Why are they made to shoot "back" at the city, rather than down towards enemies? Perhaps they are being mounted like that after the disappearance of Colombia? Or perhaps you simply shuffle the buildings to enable clear shots?

[ragingmudcrab]

trulsante said:Another thing I was thinking about from the gameplay video was the placement of the cannons. Why are they made to shoot "back" at the city, rather than down towards enemies? Perhaps they are being mounted like that after the disappearance of Colombia? Or perhaps you simply shuffle the buildings to enable clear shots?



No, they just rotate a full 360 degrees.

[gamertam]

May i play along in this thread...? i'm more puzzling as how the building themselves were built? (raw materials, fabric and steel) also who financed it? lastly, were there outside influenced in the designed the building themselves? Did the U.S government secretly co-hoots with the MAN or MEN in Columbia, like how we were all speculated the same for Rapture?


One more thing: will we see anything similar to Bioshock 1 For example:

--Health Stations

--Power to the People Machines

--U-Invent Machines

--Vita-Chambers

[Senhor]

Bioshock Infinite is a dream of some drunken splicer in Rapture. I bet whathever you want on it

[levyathyn]

Myself, I've been wondering about the names, both of Columbia itself and BioShock's 'Infinite' subtitle.


Columbia is automatically associated with Columbus, and America's discovery, as well as discoveries in general. In this situation, I believe it refers to the aforementioned 1893 World's Fair, dubbed by officials as 'The Columbian Exposition Fair' and by many attendees as 'The White City'. At the time, the Fair was a showcase of American engineering, architecture, and scientific advancement, with the debut of such things as Ferris' wheel. If you imagine Columbia as a sort of extended World's Fair, it's easy to imagine scientific advancement, psycho-societal hopefulness, and the hard-working American tradition of overcoming odds during that time period.


Infinite as a name implies reurrence, on a grand scale. Maybe it's referring to the human nature to ruin things and situations that are seemingly perfect, such as in both Eden and Rapture. Again, as someone else has said, it could also imply something in the nature of multiple universes, which would explain many questions about it. Hell, there are dozen explanations that would fit here.


I could see a high-flying society of people hunting birds in flocks using nets, growing crops in glass greenhouses built and hung lower in the city, using a large berthing platform to construct new buildings and dock older ones for repair and refit. It would be an amazing city. One explanation for a power source in Columbia is solar power. Easily obtained and easily stored, the only possible reason they wouldn't use it is the complete and total lack of it (almost) in 1912.


Back as far as the 1880's, there have been devices created to try and harness the sun's power, albeit ineffectively at first.


One alternative? Wind power. Free, prevalent, and unlimited when harnessed right. As Jayakers mentioned, these are my leading choices going into the game, as well as, of course, steam power.


Hydraulics would be an interesting device for the time period, powered with either steam or water.

[ragingmudcrab]

Levine has said that Columbia is basically a World's Fair that traveled from city to city showing off all the crazy ☺☺☺☺ they had and proving that America's possibilities were Infinite (get it, lololol).

[oobs]

well sewage is a good point..but geez just hang one over the side and let gravity take care of the rest..would be abit chilly in winter. good chance for wind burn on your ass


how do you deal with the thin air..how far up is the city...just thinking if your on a jumbo jet can't hang your head out the window or anything

[Sans Frontieres]

The name "Columbia"

I agree that it comes from the World's Fair in 1893..<span>before it landed on the US east coast and became (cue scary music) THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA aka Washington D.C. (honestly, I have no idea, just a thought, and suprised no one has made that link on here yet).</span>


How buildings were built and how were they funded?

I'd think they'd be constructed in some sort of 'dry dock'. A space where the building can be erected, and then when it's at a certain stage of completion, the balloons would inflate and boom...floaty building.


Like a World's Fair, I'm sure it was a government thing and initial funding was there, either by exhibitors paying to get their shop in or a society or something, just like The Crystal Palace and other World's Fairs...but there was someone behind the scenes pulling a few strings. Perhaps somebody like O. O. L. ('http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Orrin_Oscar_Lutwidge')(for those that didn't follow SitS) or an Andrew Ryan (but not him obviously). Essentially someone secretly manipulating the situation for their gain. I'm sure admisssions were charged, before everything went all nuts..dolla dolla bills y'all.

[henriquesalesbrito]

... How nice! I could subscribe !!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :) :) :)

[henriquesalesbrito]

... The building, seem to me to be a large mainframe, which would serve as a "mother ship" to make repairs on smaller structures, which lack independence and can engage in prinicpial part of the city.


... They should have access to technologies like airplanes, obviously, or like ships, or even use one of your creatures hybrid, created by Dr. MARLOWE'S, maybe a cyborg with wings to go to the ground to steal food and supplies in general, maybe some kind of handyman with WINGS!


... Think it's perfectly possible that an act in agriculture COLUMBIA, the main structure should be large enough to house small farming, at least enough for the elite of Columbia, but I think after they become psicvóticos they just the tonic rpecisam MARLOWE, hows the only plicers porecisam ADAM to survive.

[iglegacy_jordan]

i think Food Supplies is delivered by a Balloon. just like how the whole city float.


- Farming around the city is impossible for me :) because the city is around 100 miles above the ground .. there's no plant or crops can survive that kind of harsh surrounding ,, specially when it rains :X

[ragingmudcrab]

I figure they'll be farming up there. It may be impossible, but so is building a city at the bottom of the sea (due to the expansion of the earth's sea-floor) and that worked out in BioShock.

[zwqase]

I'm kind of curious in how the buldings stay together. I mean, those connected by sky-lines are sort of obvious, but in the demos we've gotten you can se many buildings not connected to this network of rails. Guess there could be pilots in each building, but that seems kind of risky, flying around up there in the clouds, steering an entire building, trying not to crash into another building.

[v3nd3tta]

can you bungy jump for fun in columbia?

[mpress24]

zwqase said:I'm kind of curious in how the buldings stay together. I mean, those connected by sky-lines are sort of obvious, but in the demos we've gotten you can se many buildings not connected to this network of rails. Guess there could be pilots in each building, but that seems kind of risky, flying around up there in the clouds, steering an entire building, trying not to crash into another building.


In the E3 gameplay demo when the the path branches off and Elizabeth says,"there might be more supplies this way", right when they start to walk across the walkway between the buildings you can see an enourmous chain connected to the adjacent building. From what I have seen I do not think that the skylines are built into the cities infrastructure. I think the chain seen in the video is probably the answer to your question.

[cainabel]

They could easily generate electricity to warm their homes from wind power. I think they supply farm up there so food isn't a problem. And I would think they collect water droplets from the atmosphere or something like that for water. Or they use tears to get supplies.

[poggle]

Totally isolated and completely self-sufficient, Columbia is.

[Juan29.Zapata]

cainabel said:They could easily generate electricity to warm their homes from wind power. I think they supply farm up there so food isn't a problem. And I would think they collect water droplets from the atmosphere or something like that for water. Or they use tears to get supplies.



Yes to everything except the tears, which so far only Elizabeth is able to do.


And plus, she only acknowledge that she had those powers after or shortly before you meet her.