- 16,847
- 14,221
I think the timeline is rather clear when you think about it. 1874 Booker is born -- 1890 Wounded Knee happens -- after wounded knee Booker goes to the baptismal place and this where the split happens. On one hand you have booker taking the baptism and being reborn as Zachary Comstock (Timeline A), changing his life around, meeting Lutece, discovering the tear/levitating technology and making Columbia, the timeline to create Columbia is obfuscated and that's clearly due to the rift and inter-dimension travel as you can see how old Comstock is when the city is found (from all the statues) and we know his increased aging and INFERTILITY is from excessive use of tears.
On the other hand you have Booker Dewitt (Timeline B) who refused the baptism went on to work for the Pinkertons and be drownd in his sorrow of what he did at Wounded Knee. 1893 Anna is born presumably to some woman who may have died in birth or left him in three years of depression he's drank and gambled himself in to a massive amount of debt and as a 19 year old kid doesn't think through the consequences of his actions. Comstock from Timeline A comes across Booker from Timeline B, realizes he has a kid and sends Lutece to offer up the deal, give him the girl, wipe away your debt. He agrees, regrets it, tries to take Anna back, she loses her pinky in the process. From this point on Booker is "hold up" in his office for 20 years until eventually the Lutece twins come and visit him and bring him to Timeline A in-order to start the endless cycle that they've done an 'infinite' amount of times. The battle of Booker Dewitt v Songbird/Comstock.
I don't think they mentioned at all that you merge with yourself in an alternate reality it looks like you attempt to retain some of the memories ("The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist...") of that reality however they may be fuzzy if a traumatic instance has happened. Like being killed. Also the cops, vox, lin, etc. that are basically shells of people standing there weren't merged with their alternate universe selves. They were killed in the other universe and that somehow played a role on their being in that universe. This is why you have constant flash backs of the bleeding nose, the black and white grainyness. Booker dies in all these other universes that could presumably be happening at the same time or happening in some completely different time.
I may not be following you here, but either way, in Timeline A or B, Booker looks a hell of a lot younger than Comstock. I mean, Comstock looks like he is about 60-70 years old, and they are in the same time frame. Am I missing something?