Columbia

Columbia is a floating city in the sky and is the setting of BioShock Infinite. It is composed of neoclassical buildings constructed on giant reactors and self-sustaining balloons to make the city literally fly over the clouds. It is revealed later in the game that quantum mechanics actually allows the city to float, not the reactors and balloons.

History
Constructed by the American government and originally conceived as a floating symbol of American ideals at a time when the United States was emerging as a world power, Columbia was dispatched to distant shores with great fanfare by a captivated public. However, what began as a brand new endeavor of hope turned drastically wrong: in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion, Columbia fired upon a group of Chinese civilians. This event revealed to the citizens of Columbia and the world the true nature of their floating city: that it was essentially a heavily armed aerial battleship. The event in question created problems between leadership in Columbia and the United States, causing the city to disappear into the clouds.

Some time after the city's disappearance, its inhabitants began a bloody civil war over drastically opposed ideologies. One faction, The Founders, supported ideals of American exceptionalism. The other, the Vox Populi, was passionately in favor of equal treatment for all races and economic status and held marxist/communist ideals. The Founders wished to use Elizabeth, a young woman with extraordinary abilities who had been captive within the city for 15 years, for their own ends.

In 1912, a former Pinkerton agent named Booker DeWitt was sent to the city to bring Elizabeth to New York.

Religious beliefs and Philosophies
Columbia's founder Zachary Comstock quoted Columbia as "another Ark". Comstock hailed himself a prophet who was approached by the angel named Columbia, who pointed him skyward. As a result the citizens of Columbia worship Comstock as a God following his word blindly. The people stand by Comstock's decision of intervening in the Boxer rebellion and subsequently leaving the union and become its own nation. Comstock's manipulation of the people of Columbia is evidenced by their savior like view, Columbia itself seen as the "Arc" and a salvation for the people. However it is unlikely that the "foreign hordes" living in Columbia will worship Comstock's tyrannical rule over non-Americans. Despite this, members of the Vox don't worship Daisy Fitzroy as a prophet or god like figure.

Business
Fink Manufacturing is the leading business in Columbia. Besides being the highest employer in Columbia it also manufactures most of Columbia's resources from building materials like locks to vending machines. There is also a high demand for Vigors that have their own independent companies creating the vigor yet they are bottled and distributed by Fink Manufacturing.

Science and Technology
Columbia possesses numerous technologies that are seemingly beyond the capabilities of the rest of the world circa 1912. The most prominent of these technologies is the system of quantum mechanics that allows Columbia to remain aloft. Although most buildings feature balloons, propellers, and reactors, these devices are only ancillary to Columbia's flight. Rosalind Lutece discovered a method of indefinitely suspending atomic particles in mid-air, the "Lutece Field", which her colleagues lauded as "quantum levitation". Lutece reasoned that if an atom could be suspended, larger objects such as buildings could as well. Columbia is the end result of Lutece's work.

The city contains other technological marvels, including Vigors, which grant various superhuman powers, the Songbird, Handymen, mechanical horses, Voxophones, and advanced weaponry.

Altitude
According to the automatic voice while DeWitt ascends to Columbia in the begining of the game, Columbia resides at an altitude of aproximately 18,000 ft. This altitude would have a serious effect on the health of its residents. In the aviation world, [Federal Aviation Regulation Part 91.211] requires suplemental oxygen for the minimum flight crew at altitudes at or above 12,500 ft above sea level if sustained for more than 30 minutes with stricter requirements as altitude increases inlcuding suplemental oxygen or cabin pressurization for all crew and passengers above 15,000 ft. The lower air pressure and oxygen can effect judgement and instill a sense of euphoria, tunnel vision, and hypoxia (insuficient oxygen supply to the body or parts of the body) within moments. Prolonged exposure can also result in  [altitude sickness] and  High altitude pulmonary edema or a fatal cerebral edema.

Pressumably if the citizens of Columbia were to live there long enough and/or have a gradual amclimation before pilgrimage, their bodies could adapt at least in part as referenced by societies in high mountainous ares, but the sudden change of altitude coupled with the deep religious entry into the city could serve to indoctrinate the people even more, assuming they could survive.


 * However at one point,a man in the Garden of New Eden says "The Prophet fills our lungs with water,to make the air taste better." This suggests that the water in the Welcome Center may have something to do with acclimation.

Locations
Columbia is composed of several distinct districts:
 * Comstock Center
 * Fraternal Order of the Raven
 * Garden of New Eden
 * Raffle Square
 * Welcome Center
 * Emporia
 * Bank of the Prophet
 * Comstock House
 * Downtown Emporia
 * Emporia Towers
 * Lutece Labs
 * Memorial Gardens
 * Port Prosperity
 * Finkton
 * Finkton Docks
 * Fort Franklin
 * Good Time Club
 * Plaza of Zeal
 * Shantytown
 * Worker Induction Center
 * Monument Island
 * Monument Island Gateway
 * Monument Tower
 * Soldier's Field
 * Arcade
 * Battleship Bay
 * First Lady's Aerodrome
 * Hall of Heroes
 * Soldier's Field Welcome Center

Trivia

 * The name Columbia refers to the female personification of the United States used in various forms of patriotic symbolism in the 19th century.
 * As well as the origins of the name mentioned above, Columbia is also the angel that visited Comstock inspiring him to build Columbia (his own ark). This can be heard at the celebrations at the start of the game when the floats pass by.
 * Early in development, Columbia was meant to be much darker than it currently is. Ken Levine mentioned at a press conference that the concept looked like "Rapture in the sky".
 * Columbia's entry is a mirror of Rapture's: both journeys start at a lighthouse, but whereas the journey to Rapture is a descent to a bathysphere, that to Columbia is an ascension to an airborne capsule. As when a whale comes into view when the player descends down to Rapture, a zeppelin comes into view when the player is launched up to Columbia. Fitting how the players start their journeys to the lighthouses are opposite, the player rode an airplane in BioShock and Booker takes a boat in Infinite. A parellel is also evident as Bioshock opens with a sign declaring Rapture's atheism, whereas the lighthouse at the start of Infinite has signs alluding to Columbia's heavily religious society.
 * The events of BioShock Infinite begin on July 6, 1912, the anniversary of Columbia's secession from the United States.
 * Columbia appears in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Here, it makes two appearances: once, in the background of the Uncharted stage, Stowaways, and again as its very own stage, which is invaded by the Twisted Metal character, Dollface.
 * Columbia is shown attacking New York City in 1984 in one reality. How the floating city was not picked up on radar, sighted by aircraft, or otherwise detected by the rest of the world in the years following 1912 is left unexplained.