Vox Populi



The Vox Populi (Latin for "Voice of the People"), are a militant underground insurgency group led primarily by revolutionary Daisy Fitzroy. They are in open conflict with Zachary Hale Comstock and The Founders, rejecting their puritanical and xenophobic ideology. Though initially the middle and upper classes of Columbia regard the Vox as simply a worrisome nuisance, referring to them derisively as "anarchists", as Booker DeWitt progresses through Columbia it becomes apparent that the city is on the verge of revolution, which eventually breaks into an all-out destructive war.

General Information
Led by Daisy Fitzroy, the Vox Populi first began as a protest group and a confederation of working-class citizens and oppressed groups, but as it became more organized its members grew more militant. Driven underground by the Founders' witch hunts, the movement eventually abandoned its initial peaceful message in favor of retaliatory violence against the ultra-nationalist faction.

Though the Vox do not claim to adhere to any particular ideology, their original goal was to breach the divide between Columbia's privileged few and the rest, erasing the social and racial boundaries imposed by the Founders. As idealism turned to bitterness, however, the Vox simply sought to appropriate all that belonged to their oppressors. A member is heard shouting, "Your homes are ours! Your lives are ours! Your wives are ours! It all belongs to the Vox!" While they claim to vouch for all of the victims of the Founders' racism, at least a portion of the Vox are shown to be antisemitic, as they defaced a Jewish-owned store in Shantytown.

Once revolution breaks out in Columbia, the Vox show their true colors: driven by vengeance, they destroy entire portions of the city and vandalize the rest, executing anyone standing in their way. They also torture any innocent citizens they come across, inflicting upon them the same oppression they lived through severalfold, and can be seen murdering civilians in Emporia.

Symbols
Most of the Vox Populi's symbols exist to oppose those of the Founders: in stark contrast to the Founders' puritanism, the Vox adorn themselves with devil horns and hoods. In mockery of Jeremiah Fink's perception of workers as cattle, many Vox fighters wear helmets in the shape of bull heads. In opposition to the Founders' blue, the Vox's primary color is red. In combat, Vox fighters tend to imitate the battle cries of American Indians, one of the groups the Founders attempted to eradicate. Later in the game, hijacked Motorized Patriots bear the features of Abraham Lincoln, a figure reviled by the Founders for his support of the oppressed.

Revolution in Columbia
During the events of BioShock Infinite, the Vox Populi's status changes from an underground resistance group to the dominant power in the city. When Booker enters Columbia, the Vox are organized and ready to fight, but lack the weaponry needed to stand against the Founders. As part of a deal with Daisy Fitzroy, Booker and Elizabeth set out to find Chen Lin, a Chinese gunsmith sympathetic to the group's cause.

When Chen Lin is found to be dead, brutally murdered at the hands of Fink's henchmen, Elizabeth opens a Tear to an alternate Columbia, one in a state of revolt. In this Columbia, the conflict between the two factions is at a tipping point, though Chen Lin, partially phased out of time, has had his tools confiscated. Travelling through to Shantytown, home of the poor and oppressed citizens of Columbia, the pair arrive at the local police station to recover the tools. After passing through another Tear, Booker and Elizabeth find themselves in a Columbia in the middle of an uprising. In this reality, Booker was a lieutenant of Daisy Fitzroy, working with Cornelius Slate to bring down Comstock's reign of oppression, with Booker being killed in the process. Chen Lin and his wife are dead, but not before the gunsmith had supplied enough weapons for an armed revolution.

After the current Booker assists the Vox in taking over Fink Manufacturing, Fitzroy kills Jeremiah Fink, ending his ruthless exploitation of the poor. Paranoid, bloodthirsty and mad with power, she orders the death of Booker and Elizabeth, though the latter kills her when she tries to execute a child. It is suggested that Preston E. Downs takes over leadership and the Vox Populi rampage across Columbia, burning entire Founders districts to the ground and executing innocent citizens. When Booker and Elizabeth head out to destroy the Siphon, the whole of Columbia is shown to be in flames as the Vox take over the city.

Behind the Scenes

 * Ken Levine stated in an interview with GameInformer magazine that the concept of the Vox Populi was partially inspired by history of the infamous 1970's German leftist group known as "Rote Armee Fraktion" (Red Army Fraction) a.k.a. Baader-Meinhof Group.
 * "Vox Populi" in Latin means "Voice of the People" and is derived from the maxim "Vox populi, vox dei" ("the word of the people is the word of God").
 * It was originally planned that like many groups throughout history, the "Vox Populi" would fragment into several splinter groups over various internal ideological differences and fight each other, but this never occurred in the game. It was also planned that much like the Founders, the Vox Populi want Elizabeth for themselves, either for her gifted abilities for their own agenda, or to possibly kill her in order to prevent the Founders from using her against them, but in the final game they have no interest in Elizabeth.