SPOILER WARNING, obviously, for those that, like myself might not have played the game till recently, or are still holding out. Just throwing that out there, since I haven't noticed a spoiler post in a while and all.
So there's one thing i'm having trouble with: the killing of ALL Comstocks.
This diagram
and answer #1 of
this link explain it really well.
Branch 0 is Booker who goes through with the Baptism and becomes Comstock who goes on to make differing decisions resulting in more realities.
Branch 1 is the Booker who doesn't go through with the Baltism and goes on to make differeing decisions.
But there's one issue i have with it....
In life there is constants and variables. Constants are fewer and further between but the fact that Comstock was born at the time of Baptism and killing Comstock just after that kills all Comstocks from that moment on doesn't sit entirely right with me.
Booker before this baptism will have made hundreds of choices that splintered off into tons of other timelines. Some where he didn't join the army or died during the battle of Wounded Knee, some where he was crippled as a child or where he moved to another city ect...
So if at some point in one or many of these timelines he got baptised later on or because of a different reason and became Comstock, then the Comstocks killed by Elizabeth would've been only the ones from the other (our) Baptism at that one particular point in time and not the ones that could have occured as a result of all the different decisions Booker made throughout his life.
So picture this on that diagram above.
Branch 0 is Booker who fights at Wounded Knee, he goes on to make differing decisions spawning other realities.
Branch 1 is Booker who doesn't fight at Wounded Knee.
So one of the forks of the road from branch 0 is one that leads to the creation of Comstock. But if Booker from branch 1 goes on to commit some other sins and gets baptised and becomes Comstock then Elizabeth won't have killed any of the potential Comstocks to spawn out of that timeline as they only focused on the Booker who did participate at wounded knee, leaving a multitude of possible Comstocks alive
But I suppose since they would be different Comstocks and different Columbias or no Columbias and different Elizabeths then that's a different story and not the one being told.
I guess what i'm saying is as long as Booker existed in the first place there is possibilities for Comstocks to be born again.
Only killing Booker at his birth can truly kill all possible Comstocks.
That diagram is a good representation of a branching multiverse from a multitude of "choices," it's just missing previous branches from past events that we couldn't possibly track anyway, such as any past choices leading to a death or other universes where Booker becomes a much different person and lives a completely different life from any that we know.
My take on the ending is that Booker being at the baptism is a "constant" of a vital branch point in the multiverse. The Booker that we play is the other side of the coin that spawned the future versions of Booker/Comstock and Elizabeth we see in the game. In an endless ocean of universes, one Booker went to Wounded Knee. This created a branch. At this point it became a "constant," in that particular branch off. So, now we have at least two possible outcomes: Booker surviving Wounded Knee and having done terrible things; and Booker dying in the massacre, for whatever reasons. So, in that latter branching off of universes, no Booker would be present, as he was killed.
Anyway, if you go back and rewatch the ending scenes, you can clearly see Elizabeth is almost remorseful and just before the end... looks as if she's nearly in a state of shock. She has to kill Booker for one thing, but also, she knows what she's doing will effectively erase
all future possibilities of Booker/Comstock and herself, including Anna, from the branch point at which Booker went to the baptism. She was killing Booker IN the universe, and the very point in time, which resultantly allowed the branching off of the other universes past the point of the baptism. Those universes essentially disappear from existence... which, in the grand scheme of things, are merely drops of water in the vast ocean of multiverses.
Elizabeth and Anna are completely gone. The versions of Booker that came after the baptism are gone. And any and all existences of Comstock have been washed away. All the universes that branched off by Booker choosing whether or not to take the baptism are gone. In fact, nothing from Bioshock Infinite, as we know it, is still intact. It's completely gone, that's why the ending is so unique. The infinite circle was broken. Furthermore, this could be what led to Rapture's creation. As Elizabeth said, "There's always a lighthouse, always a man and always a city." It's quite possible that a grand utopia is always fated to exist... and always fall.
However, getting back to the end of BioShock Infinite, that's not to say Booker doesn't still exist in other universes. He just never went to Wounded Knee and is most likely a completely different person. Also, many of the citizens that went to Columbia, and resources used to make the city, would likely still be intact in other universes. For instance, the Lutece scientists, although obviously not together now, as the "fused consciousness" versions (which resulted from their deaths at the hands of the sabotaged machine) would have never existed after the events that occurred at the end of the game. That's the way I see all of it, anyway.
As for the scene after the credits, that's more for ambiguity's sake than anything, in my opinion. It's almost as if they threw that in there simply to have an Inception moment, lol. It just doesn't fit the true ending, to me anyway. The Rapture DLC doesn't either, but I'll let that slide, as I loved BioShock 1 and 2.
