A lot of this can be considered speculation but it is based on what is seen in game. Another reason this is a Blog Post is that I donât think many people wonder that much about how Comstock came to power in Columbia or much about anything before that. Itâs not important to the game.
I ran across an old interview with Ken Levine and in it he mentions that Comstock started off as a Protestant. (Reaching For the Heavens: BioShock Infinite's Racial Themes and Crafting Columbia with Ken Levine). In other words he didnât start off proclaiming himself to the Prophet and deifying the Founding Fathers. So letâs start off right after Booker accepts the baptism and changes his name to Zachary Hale Comstock. Now I once saw a criticism of the Comstock name and the problem was that it didnât reflect a massive religious conversion. Zachary actually works as itâs a version of Zacharias, but Comstock does not. Maybe âChenaniahâ or something else would have been more fitting. This can be taken as an indication that maybe at the start Comstock wasnât like he became later. Of course the name Comstock is likely a result that the early version of him being a political leader, not a religious one. The Comstock name is a reference to Anthony Comstock, a 19th Century politician that ran the âNew York Society for the Suppression of Viceâ. A real nice guy who once boasted about how many people he had driven to suicide.
After picking a new name, what did Comstock do? At the time he didnât have anywhere to go and no known ties to anything or anyone. It seems likely that he spent some time with Preacher Witting and it was then Comstock started to get religion. Somewhere along the line Comstock started preaching himself and quickly out-shown Witting. The two clearly did stay in contact and Witting become a follower of Comstock at some point. Now how could Comstock rise to prominence that quickly? There is something in Hollywood they call âItâ. They donât what âItâ is, but they know when someone has âItâ. Other terms that could be used would be charisma or force of personality. Combine that with a forceful speaking presence you get someone that can hold an audience in the palm of their hands. There have been a large number of preachers that rose to great prominence in American society in the 19th Century and they still do so today (For good and ill) and wielded considerable influence. Some of them even advising U.S. Presidents.
Comstock was clearly praising the Founding Fathers by this point, but not nearly to the same extent that is seen in the game. This is actually normal. Most extreme groups don't start out extreme, but become more over time. There are exceptions but often there are precursor groups that lead to the extremists. A big part of Comstockâs early sermons clearly focused on being forgiven, washing one of their sins through baptism and similar ideas. After some time, probably as little as a year, Comstock traveled to New York City and that is where he met and quickly married Annabelle Watson, known to us as Lady Comstock. It seems likely that Annabelle attended one of Comstockâs sermons since she was clearly a believer. It was in New York that Comstock also somehow came across some of the work of Rosalind Lutece and sees potential. It seems that a many, if not all of her theories were dismissed by the larger scientific community. In a way you canât blame them, the Luteces work was really out there for the time. Comstock has some money and uses it to support Rosalindâs research and she is able to create the first Tear Machine.
This first Tear Machine was considerably less capable than later ones, but it was still able to allow the observation of alternate realities and possible future events. This is when Comstock started to lose it. He soon came to see these possible future events as visions from God and The Prophet is born. Armed with his âvisionsâ Comstockâs flock grew and so did his influence. Think a moment, Comstock could accurately predict the future and be specific about things. Not just some vague statement, but âOn this day Joe Schmoe will attack Senator Whatshisnameâ and it *Happens*. That is more than enough to convince a lot of people that Comstock was getting visions from God. This gives Comstock a number of followers that could easily be in the millions.
Things are not going as great for Comstock as they may seem though. Comstock believing that he is seeing visions from God and becomes determined to make what he sees come true. And what he sees is his daughter ruling a flying city called Columbia and destroying the world. He also has become sterile as a result of using the Tear Machine. So while he is using every bit of influence he has to get the U.S. Congress to provide money for the Luteceâs research and the construction of Columbia he is also trying to get Lady Comstock pregnant not knowing or not believing he is sterile.
So Columbia is constructed for the 1983 World Fair and is a huge hit. But Comstock is not the ruler of the city. It is still the US governments money that paid for it and it belongs to them. Comstock is just a highly prominent citizen aboard Columbia as it is sent around the world as an example of American Exceptionalism with a âmiracle childâ named Elizabeth on board. Away from US shores Comstock begins to subvert the people and institutions of Columbia to follow him. Many of the government officials probably become Comstockâs followers, but itâs not enough for to control Columbia outright. So on December 28th 1894 Comstock and his followers quietly arrest and then murder 40 of Comstockâs political opponents giving him control of Columbia.
From the point of view of those on the surface things didnât change much on Columbia as it traveled around the world. To those on Columbia things didnât really change that much either. A few people were no longer around, but Columbia had a population in the hundreds of thousands, possibly over half a million. People move around a lot and there were rumors that Councilman Smith went back to Chicago. Not like someone killed him, the police would certainly get involved if that was the case. Right?
With Comstock fully in control of Columbia, he would start ramping up his propaganda and restrictions on who emigrated to Columbia. Slowly Columbia would become a police state in which information to and from the surface would be censored or altered. The city's isolation making this a much easier task than if it were on the surface. Many of those in Columbia would never realize what was happening and if they did most would keep their mouths shut, fearing a late night visit from members of the Order of the Raven or Columbia Police.
Columbia would become self-sufficient as well as building up a powerful military. This was done in preparation for the day Columbia would officially break away from US Government control which had been foreseen by the Prophet. Tensions with the McKinley Administration started to grow as those on the surface started to realize that something wasnât right on Columbia. Also the number of followers Comstock had on the surface likely waned as he was not around and the more extreme nature of Comstock's beliefs became known. You can bet most of the established religions took a very dim view of deifying the Founding Fathers and took measures to limit Comstock's influence. Things came to a head when in 1901 Columbian forces put down the Boxer Rebellion in China, killing untold numbers of innocent civilians in the destruction of Peking. This act had not been sanctioned by the US government and Columbia refused to stand down when ordered and succeeded. With their succession from the United States Comstock would have taken full and open control of Columbia.
So there you have it. Hope you liked this little mental exercise. sm