Alternate Elizabeth?

[Vader0629]

*Possible spoilers*

At the police station in Finkton, Elizabeth takes you through a tear for the second time. When you get out, you learn that the Booker in this universe was with the Vox and died when destroying the Hall of Heroes with Slate. In a voxophone, he mentions that the Elizabeth in that universe was already gone when he reached Monument Island. He thought that she was evacuated by Comstock and his men.

What I'm wondering is where is this Elizabeth? It's highly unlikely that she went anywhere in a tear due to the fact that she never met Booker. Why doesn't Comstock say anything later in the story? There are apparently two Elizabeths but Comstock still knows about your Booker and Elizabeth and he has his doctors work on your Elizabeth in Comstock House.

Is this just a massive plot hole? Or am I missing something? I've finished the game multiple times on both PC and console and have finished the DLCs. This is the one thing that I don't understand.

[tspendragn]

Booker joined the Vox, and he was supposed to get Elizabeth once they took Comstock House. Unfortunately, that Booker died fighting his way towards there, and became a martyr to the Vox.

[his1roguenation]

Nobody says this game is perfect, it's just pretty close to it.

[Eat3n]

Originally posted by tspendragn:

Booker joined the Vox, and he was supposed to get Elizabeth once they took Comstock House. Unfortunately, that Booker died fighting his way towards there, and became a martyr to the Vox.

That still doesn't explain what happened to Elizabeth

[Eat3n]

Originally posted by Vader0629:

*Possible spoilers*

At the police station in Finkton, Elizabeth takes you through a tear for the second time. When you get out, you learn that the Booker in this universe was with the Vox and died when destroying the Hall of Heroes with Slate. In a voxophone, he mentions that the Elizabeth in that universe was already gone when he reached Monument Island. He thought that she was evacuated by Comstock and his men.

What I'm wondering is where is this Elizabeth? It's highly unlikely that she went anywhere in a tear due to the fact that she never met Booker. Why doesn't Comstock say anything later in the story? There are apparently two Elizabeths but Comstock still knows about your Booker and Elizabeth and he has his doctors work on your Elizabeth in Comstock House.

Is this just a massive plot hole? Or am I missing something? I've finished the game multiple times on both PC and console and have finished the DLCs. This is the one thing that I don't understand.

It's a plothole indeed. The game and the DLC are full of holes and inconsistencies that are just explained away with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ answer of "infinite universes".

[Be "Coo" Bro]

Well, I think Ken left it to your choice. Just like how the post credit sequence can be left to what you think happened.

[essen]

Elizabeth says it feels more like she's creating a new reality rather than moving into a different one. Booker and a few soldiers get a bloody nose and remember dying, showing they are one and the same. Elizabeth is also one and the same.

That's how the game tried to explain these things (at least for the 2 times you enter a tear to get weapons) but I agree it's terrible. Especially considering the ending explains something else entirely. The story in general is not very good, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[Shou Hazama]

The story is good but not all the thins are explains in the game

[gandhi_the_peacemaker]

Frankly, I think it's easier to just handwave that stuff. The many universes shtick seems like more of a meta commentary tool than an in-game story mechanic. Well, it is that, too, but like I said, as far as the story goes it's a handwave.

[Solarmech]

When Booker and Elizabeth travel to different realities, they actually don't travel. What Elizabeth is doing is MERGING two different realities together and no one realizes it (other than Comstock). When this happens Elizabeth is merged with her alternate and so is Booker. Which is why he gets a nosebleed when confronted with his being dead in the Vox Revolt reality. Elizabeth's control of her abilites is far from perfect though. You can see the merge of realities best when she does it after the finding the Gunsmith's body. (If you just jumped realites there would be two colpies of Booekr and Elizabeth and people would not be suffering from tear sickness becasue they are alive in one reality and dead in another.) sm

[Ivlichnov]

*Spoilers for Bioshock Infinite.*

Comstock may have seen this future through a tear and was expecting both Booker and Elizabeth.

Booker gets dragged into the future and then sent back to the past. Does this act merge two realities?

And did Booker get sent back to the same Columbia that he left? Future Liz may not have been able to see all of the doors.

[Solarmech]

I guess I should add a bit more info. Elizabeth CAN make normal portal style openeings to other realities. These do *not* merge realities and you can travel to another reality through them. The first couple tears she opens in the game are the portal style. The one to Paris and in the elevator with Booker to get rid of the bee. This is the same general type that is used by the Lutece devices, though they may look different.

She merges realities later in the game in order to change things so that Booker and Elizabeth's goals can be reached. I should have mentioned that earlier. sm

[Drone 7]

The voxophones mention Elizabeth being moved to Comstock's fortress, which I'm guessing is Comstock house, the place where you meet the boys of silence. Remember you go through two tears with Elizabeth and the revolutionary one universe is where you fight the ghost and Songbird takes Elizabeth from you. However the sequence after that is a different universe, one in the future where Elizabeth is much older (so once again the universe has changed and the Vox probably didn't have a revolution in this one). If you've been following so far then you'll know that the other Elizabeth you're talking about is in Comstock house so obviously you'll never meet her if she's locked in there when you go through the tear, and why you won't see her when you are in Comstock house because you're now in a different (future) universe.

More that likely going through a tear doesn't merge the existing Booker and Liz with the new ones. The same thing could apply to the first tear you go through, another version of Elizabeth exists in this tear but should still be in Monument Island, therefore she doesn't interfer with you when you're in that tear, and there is no Booker in these tears because Columbia isn't his original universe.
The second tear however is one the Lutece's have obviously tampered with already by sending an alternative Booker (probably on a different day from your Booker which is why he teams up with Slate rather than what you do). But since this tear's Booker is dead you have no chance of meeting him either and Liz is in Comstock house as explained.

When you're in Comstock house you can hear your Liz through tears (this could mean you're not in your Liz's universe when she is there, but instead the older Liz you eventually meet is the other Liz that was moved to Comstock house) If you pay careful attention to the "voxotears" and the voxophones you can see the tears are obviously your Liz but the voxophones could not be. Even if this other Liz never met Booker, simply increasing her powers and removing the Siphon would allow her to be aware of the alternate Bookers and know the truth (that Booker is her father). The tears where you hear your Liz, indicate that you're in a different universe from the Vox revolutionary one, when older Liz sends you back however it is to the previous universe where the vox had their revolt.

Yes Comstock knows there are currently two Elizabeths in his universe when you board that Hand of the Prophet (she's still probably locked up), but this Comstock and the one you met at the beginning of the game aren't the same, they are alternate versions of one another. Which is probably why he chose to experiment on your Liz because she is worth even less to him that HIS Liz. That is why he says his last words: It is finished. He's aware that the universes have gotten ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up, since some rouge Liz and Booker managed to find their way into his reality, and everything that was once perfect is going to fall to pieces if those two managed to get this far. (Also why would Comstock mention to his enemy that there are two Elizabeth's in Columbia at that point, the man is fanatical about keeping HIS Elizabeth safe).

TL;DR?
Sorry, only have a long version.

[Pizza Prophet]

It is something that is unclear to me as well. It partly seems like realities merging and it partly seems like a parallel universe, as if it is both at the same time. Another thing that does not make sense is Monument Island already in ruins from songbird when you reach it at the end of the game.

This doesn't make sense because they are supposedly in a different universe where Booker joined the vox, which meant that there was no reason for Songbird to destroy Monument Island, because she had been moved before Booker got there.

I think the game moves forward with the assumption that only one key thing changed when you go into a new universe, but Booker being a martyr in this new universe seems to cause a conflict of logic. That is unless of course Liz was able to somehow merge realities together and truly only attempt to change one key thing, it doesn't make 100% logical sense but there is probably some way to explain it away.

The alternate Liz you refer to is another issue. But I think it isn't as much of a contradiction as much as it is an interesting story detail. You can fill in the hole in your own and it will work out. Considering how they never addressed it, it boils down to being something you either decide yourself or just simply something they overlooked. The first couple times I played I overlooked it as well. I only got to thinking about it during the DLC.

In a nutshell, it isn't explained anywhere in the game so it is up to the player.

[Ivlichnov]

Originally posted by Solarmech:

Elizabeth CAN make normal portal style openeings to other realities. These do *not* merge realities and you can travel to another reality through them.

She merges realities later in the game in order to change things so that Booker and Elizabeth's goals can be reached. I should have mentioned that earlier. :bird: sm

Yes, I overlooked that fact in my post.

And the tears in the future Comstock house, I thought were created from years of Elizabeth being held there, as she slowly becomes the Lady Elizabeth that we see at the end of that section.

It is a similar process to the tears opening in Columbia as a result of her powers leaking into the City.

But if tears are also created by Elizabeth's hopping between Universes, then some of those tears that we see in the game, may have been created by other versions of Elizabeth from other parallel Universe’s and also by different versions of the Lutece's tear machine.

*Spoilers for Burial at Sea Ep 2.*
Also the First Lady Airship in Finkton in Burial at Sea, is not quite the same as the one that Booker and Liz use to leave Finkton in the main game.

Looking at my screenshots, interior details differ and the wrench is still there on the airship in BaS as if Elizabeth never used it.

[Eat3n]

Originally posted by Solarmech:

When Booker and Elizabeth travel to different realities, they actually don't travel. What Elizabeth is doing is MERGING two different realities together and no one realizes it (other than Comstock). When this happens Elizabeth is merged with her alternate and so is Booker. Which is why he gets a nosebleed when confronted with his being dead in the Vox Revolt reality. Elizabeth's control of her abilites is far from perfect though. You can see the merge of realities best when she does it after the finding the Gunsmith's body. (If you just jumped realites there would be two colpies of Booekr and Elizabeth and people would not be suffering from tear sickness becasue they are alive in one reality and dead in another.) sm

Okay, i believed you until i replayed the game. If Elizabeth and Booker merge with their otherselves then how can Booker and Comstock be in the same reality? According to your idea they should have merged.