WI: Real-life Columbia (BioShock Infinite)

[Caravels of Portugal]

OOC Disclaimer: The poster does not condone or endorse any of the viewpoints or social values depicted in the 2013 video game BioShock Infinite by Irrational Games. The thread is only for speculative discussion only.

Your goal in this thread, if you choose to accept it, is to create a real-life version of Columbia from BioShock Infinite. For those who did not play the game, Columbia is a theocratic police state ruled by Zachary Hale Comstock. Institutional racism and virulent elitism is a defining trait of the city's culture, alongside with American exceptionalism and idolatry of Zachary Hale Comstock, his daughter Elizabeth, and the Founding Fathers of America.

The social values of Columbia in the game is highly regressive, reactionary, and autocratic in social values such as white supremacism, (pseudo-)Christian fundamentalism, jingoistic militarism, and American exceptionalism coupled with the harsher details of the Gilded Age. The people are exposed to endless propaganda which states Elizabeth will fulfill Comstock's prophecy to 'drown in flame the mountains of Men', meaning the city of Columbia would destroy the surface world with its weapons.

What would be the possible candidates for real-life Columbia?

 

[Deleted member 177304]

Can you clarify a bit? I'm not sure I'm understanding your question. Do you want a scenario of the literal flying city, which in that case is ASB, or do you want a society that shares the political and societal values of Columbia? If it's the latter than I suppose a more radical and seccessionist Mormon Church might give you the building blocks of an IRL Columbia.

As an aside, this is why Bioshock Infinite is imo the weakest entry in the series (though it's still decent in it's own right). While the first two game were pretty focused in their critique of Objectivism and Altruism, respectively, Infinite was pretty clumsy in it's critique of American Exceptionalism.

 

[Caravels of Portugal]

Can you clarify a bit? I'm not sure I'm understanding your question. Do you want a scenario of the literal flying city, which in that case is ASB, or do you want a society that shares the political and societal values of Columbia? If it's the latter than I suppose a more radical and seccessionist Mormon Church might give you the building blocks of an IRL Columbia.

A society that shares the social and political values of Columbia. That's the purpose of the discussion and its associated scenario.

 

[Deleted member 177304]

A society that shares the social and political values of Columbia. That's the purpose of the discussion and its associated scenario.

Very well. In that case I'd say that a more radical and seccessionist Mormon Church, coupled with a weaker federal government, might serve as a good launching off point. The Mormons secede and form the nation of Deseret, which effectively evolves into an IRL Columbia. As for Columbia-Deseret's trajectory, the most tame scenario I can think of is that it goes through the Latin American cycle of dictatorships and flawed democracy, with the systematic racism being dialed back sometime in the late 20th century. The most wild scenario I can think of is that Deseret does a Russia and collapses into revolution, with all the Columbia-esque elements being violently expunged.