Don't do it yet! If you still have real life job just stick do it for a while and do RUclips as a side quest for few years or when you reach 100k Subscribers.
Another dark detail about the end is the fact that the Simon that is on the Ark believes that the transfer worked and isn't aware of the previous simon sitting at the bottom of the ocean alone to die
Its king of weird how ignorant Simon is of this process. He already found out twice before that that the real one is always left behind. It was weird how he fell for it the first time with the mercy kill, but the second time it was just dumb.
Its quiet "old" it came out 2014 I think, maybe even a bit earlier. I watched this Video because I never knew the full story, only around 80% and damn. Those last 20% hit different
Not really hell, he will just run out of power and die. But his last moments will be pretty bad (so long as he keeps his weak mindset.) AI Catherine's moments were a lot better since she saw the bright side of the whole ordeal.
1:28:33 Small detail that didn't make it into the video: Brandon lured all the Proxies to the area Simon is in, barricaded himself inside, then kills himself to avoid the fate of the other comatose bodies around the station. His left hand is holding the elevator chip, his right hand is bloody and hovering over a knife dropped on the floor. He also has a clean cut to his neck, with no other wounds. His final words were not a taunt to the Proxies that they can't hurt him, but rather that they can't ever claim him and turn him into another Proxy or something else. He's genuinely a pretty heroic dude who goes out on his own terms, which is something that makes his story arc stand out to me.
Remember the original Independence Day movie? Remember that old man pilot? He did the same thing. He sacrificed himself to do a kamikaze run to blow up the alien mothership. He's like "HELLO BOYS, I'M BAAAAAACK!" right before the contact lol
The Dunbat’s freakout was nightmare inducing. Imagine being promised a slot in paradise and inexplicably waking up a massive fucking submarine. I wonder who he was?
The submarine wasn't a real person. It's a mockingbirdbird ,bird, basically a machine with someone else personality and thinking they are him.@@ejsteele8482
the ending of Soma absolutely broke me. the whole time it did feel like i´m playing the "real" Simon. but then you get to see both perspectives of the two copies. and in the end none of them feel real. you see this wonderful world inside the ark only to be reminded it´s just a hunk of metal floating in the vast empty space. now the world, too, doesn´t feel real.
Makes you wonder what we define as human. Sure, the ARK on the inside is warm and lush, but on the outside it’s cold metal jettisoned into the emptiness of space, carrying heaps of electrical queues as data and brain scans.
A copy of Simon's living a fake life inside of a glorified scrap book while the Simon he split off from is spending an eternity in a pit at the bottom of the sea on a dead planet.
Reality is overrated anyway. The Experience is what matters. So what if his new reality is "just a satellite floating in space." Hate to break it to you, that's Earth, too.
@@100nodog Question is, can we really say a collection of digital data can “experience” in the same was a human can? We can have similarities, sure, but there’s still something fundamentally different there.
Never occurred to me how dark Munchi's comment is: "you could outlive the best of us." I thought it was just doctor-ish encouragement to an ailing patient.
it does have a brain scan I believe. you can actually choose to either kill it for the part you need or the other aimless wondering robot talking to themself. if you kill the other one, the lil helper bot will do a little dance to thank you. I believe there is a brain scan inside, it is just limited by the capacity of the host and cannot talk
1:10:09 this only further cements how the “doctor” was just a techbro putting faith in his technical skill as a solution to everything. Recommending aspirin to a person with a brain bleed is the last thing you want to do. Aspirin has anticoagulant properties, meaning it is harder for blood to clot, making bleeds last longer and more likely.
@@robloxboxertblocked While true we need to remember about one thing - WAU made some real progress. It made a human body, fixed it up and uploaded Simon to it. He didn't even notice it and didn't go crazy because of it. So it is possible that humanity had hope. Imagine putting people's brain scans into their own bodies and fixing them up. It could be a decent start to rebuilding humanity, especially since WAU was able to even keep fully organic bodies alive. Just find a way to reproduce and you are good to go. Robots could even probably go to the surface and prepare
Something I noticed was that when Simon 1 died, he had a month to think about his life and future and what he would do if he lived. Simon 2, 3, and 4 didn’t have all that time to think because he was a scam of Simon 1 before he had the time to think. So I find it interesting how Simon 1 was 100% okay with his scan being used for future use while Simon 4… or 3 was angry when it wasn’t him that went up to the ark, but a copy. Kinda like complete opposites of how Simon 1 and Simon 3/4 reacted to not winning the cointoss
But the context is different tho. Simon 1 didn't know a copy of him would end up on the bottom of the ocean, with the surface of the Earth completely destroyed
@tiagoviana263 Yes and no. He didn't know that, but he did know that HE himself would be dead and buried under 6 feet of dirt in maybe a few days, if not the hours or minutes he did have, at most. Simon "3" knew and felt and believed that he would die... but he didn't accept it and that's the issue. Simon "1" had a month, or maybe 2 weeks, or a week. He had some time to process it. Like he said. He crashed. He had time to come to terms that his life was meant to end when and how it was. And that time let him consider a copy of him maybe used for a greater purpose could be something that aids him in passing. Simon "3" didn't have that. He didn't get to crash. When he started the game, he was filled with hope that he could live. And in less than a day, he was filled with turmoil, but then given inmediate hope again. He never got to "crash". He never got time to actually come to terms with the fact that his life, his existence and consciousness was MEANT to end the way it was. The moment he was asked to consider to be happy that another "Simon" could live on... was the SAME moment where his life was taken from him. You see, it doesn't feel like he's giving a gift but rather it was stolen from him. Simon "1", knowing all this would happen, would have still probably agreed on his deathbed, knowing that despite the trouble, he'd still be saving humanity with just a scan of his brain. And I believe that if Simon "3" were truly made to understand that he wouldn't be on the ark, but that a copy of him would live on with the last remnant of humanity, and given time to come to terms with it... I believe he would still have done the same, with a lot more acceptance
@tiagoviana263 Yes and no. He didn't know that, but he did know that HE himself would be dead and buried under 6 feet of dirt in maybe a few days, if not the hours or minutes he did have, at most. Simon "3" knew and felt and believed that he would die... but he didn't accept it and that's the issue. Simon "1" had a month, or maybe 2 weeks, or a week. He had some time to process it. Like he said. He crashed. He had time to come to terms that his life was meant to end when and how it was. And that time let him consider a copy of him maybe used for a greater purpose could be something that aids him in passing. Simon "3" didn't have that. He didn't get to crash. When he started the game, he was filled with hope that he could live. And in less than a day, he was filled with turmoil, but then given inmediate hope again. He never got to "crash". He never got time to actually come to terms with the fact that his life, his existence and consciousness was MEANT to end the way it was. The moment he was asked to consider to be happy that another "Simon" could live on... was the SAME moment where his life was taken from him. You see, it doesn't feel like he's giving a gift but rather it was stolen from him. Simon "1", knowing all this would happen, would have still probably agreed on his deathbed, knowing that despite the trouble, he'd still be saving humanity with just a scan of his brain. And I believe that if Simon "3" were truly made to understand that he wouldn't be on the ark, but that a copy of him would live on with the last remnant of humanity, and given time to come to terms with it... I believe he would still have done the same, with a lot more acceptance
The way Simon drifts in and out of realizing and accepting he's not in a human body anymore is something that the HBO series "Westworld" goes into. They called it the "cognitive plateau," where the human mind in a host (robot) body cannot process its situation. The mind rejects its reality once they become aware of what they are. Simon rejects it, then accepts it, but then has a complete breakdown when he refuses to admit he isn't human anymore.
I think its a similar delema as what happens when you try to depersonalize the concept of "I" from the physical form it resides in. Your mind just doesnt want to accept that it and therefore you are ephemeral because there isnt a concept of "you" that doesnt involve the body (brain included,) and isnt also religious in some way. Even if you manage that understanding your brain usually goes back to thinking of you as your body anyway. Your mind looks around and sees that everything that is has physical form, so it assumes the flesh mech is you. It doesnt like when that notion is questioned so it goes back to it once it gets a chance. In the robot case I would assume its the mind associating the human form with the concept of humanity. Since the mind scan or human based ai whatever you want to call it believes it is human in some way it just ignores contrary data like it eould your nose. Until it cant, then it just waits till it can again.
One of the most aggravating things I've had the displeasure to listen to, was when someone very, matter-of-factly stated, "Soma is not scary." Like, sure, it's fine that you didn't find ANYTHING in Soma particularly or even remotely scary but then their perspective was, "Game doesn't punish me for being bad- deathstates mean nothing." The entire of the point of the game... flew over this person's head.
the "it won't let me die, nothing is allowed to die" scene deeply fucked me up when i first saw it almost ten years ago. it perfectly summarized the horror of being forced to continue through artificial means at all costs, even if there's no quality of life, no reason to live, just so your vitals keep pumping for someone else's benefit. i worked in a nursing home and i thought about that scene every time i took care of a resident with end stage dementia.
What I find hilarious is that when Frictional started developing Soma, they were trying to make an adventure game that wasn't really scary. They just couldn't manage it and gave up, turning it into the horror piece we have today. Following the development of the game was a ride.
@@coffeeking9565 yeah maybe but, simon is a normal guy, he dont even know anything about that, as he says he just woke up there he doesnt have any idea of how any of the machines work
Didn’t sell well either, though I would argue it’s on of their best games. They really put all of their amnesia money into it and it shows. Too bad they released a stinker after this and lost tons of money.
@@shishkebaba the bunker was good. They had to cut back on the size and scope of their games after the previous one because of the massive financial failure it was.
There are a couple of points I think add some serious flavor to the game, which can be discovered by reading everything. While Munshi's scan tech copied the brain, it never developed to the point of being able to simulate a human in a computer, the way Simon and Catherine and Mr. Wan are. Shortly after the surface was destroyed, as the WAU started going off the rails, the AI started shoving brain scans in the robots, the so-called proxies. These early versions were like Carl and Robin, fairly human, but seriously disconnected from reality. It was only by studying these that Catherine was able to develop the software to run these simulated people, and to create the Ark. All the monsters in the game, as well as Simon and Catherine themselves, are the result of the WAU trying to preserve human consciousness, with varying levels of success. Given that Simon was the last attempt, and was potent a success, it could be argued that letting the WAU live would have resulted in humanity eventually returning, though with a lot of suffering in the effort. That is a choice the game gives you. You can walk away from site Alpha, and while Ross tries to stop you, he still gets munched, letting you keep your arm, while the WAU is left free to run its hellish experiments.
To me it makes sense to let the wau live think about how many lives it could create . I would much rather have few people suffer enternaly to have humanity come back
@@junlee3515 eternal suffering sucks, way more than humans rule. Like humans are cool and suck. Eternal suffering sucks. That is not at all an even exchange. I'm letting humanity die out every time in that scenario. Some other thing will evolve to be smart, humans are not worth the price if the price is so vehemently unacceptable.
@@LincolnNewell-ez1jz indeed, other intelligent creatures could rise, the issue is that without the WAU, they wouldn't have any piece of the human history left behind, since humanity is now lost at space. I think the WAU should be left alive deep in the ocean and one day, intelligent creatures can find it and maybe learn from it, to not repeat the mistakes made by humanity which led them to extinction.
in the end, what happened to us was exactly what would've happened to simon 2 had we not pulled the plug on him, and that shows us just how much of a favor we did to him. this is the greatest game made ever.
@@Spoilt8920 Honestly I wondered how Simon 2 and 3 would react to interacting with each other, because they both think the same thing... that they are the original Simon (Or at least the original brain scan of Simon). Simon 2 thinks he was getting transferred into the Deep Sea suit but "something went wrong", and Simon 3 thinks the transfer was a complete success, possessing all the memories of Simon 2 so to him everything went as planned, not realizing that he was, basically, just born. Knowing SOMA, I was expecting if Simon 2 was conscious and they talked to each other, that the Simons would go insane because their minds cannot accept that either of them are THE Simon, AND having a duplicate with the same thought process and voice in the same room... I wondered if they'd snap like the Proxies and perhaps fight each other.
@@Jman92854 Two copies accepting the fate of them both and hanging out would be pretty cool though. It's just that, the situation is too incredibly fucked up that I can't even think of a way for them to survive through that
i do wonder if you could replug simon, or find a way to replicate himself since theyre machines. I mean, eventually life on the surface will return...(in maybe a million years) and if they could shut themselved down, they could inhabit the surface. (imagine a society of robot simons).
god i fucking love the WAU. i LOVE that the entire game sets you up to convince yourself that its a malevolent, stereotypical Hal-9000 style evil AI but… nope. it's just a 'dumb' machine doing what it was told to do, preserving humanity as best it can. it doesn't understand that what it's doing might be considered violating or taboo. it's keeping them alive and keeping them happy, hidden away from the horrors of the apocalypse in their eternal dreams.
As the plot develops, it seems that the WAU is actually making progress too, moving from implanting brain scans into existing machinery, reanimating dead rats, to creating bio-mechanical zombies, through to reviving a fully-articulate and mostly sentient 'actual' human. After all, Simon2 must be the WAU's creation. Catherine had no idea who or what he was in their first interaction. Given time, the WAU might have been able to jump-start Humanity v2.0.
@@catcakeAnd if left alive at the end of the game, I’m sure it’ll do just that. The best option in my opinon. Old humanity is a lost cause, now is the time to evolve once more.
I dunno - the WAU single-handedly killing everyone on Omicron feels pretty evil, though I guess that's just could be the creators being idiots with it's parameters.
@@iron_talon Actually the reason they died was due to the Black box overload due to Ross's revival process. There's the initial black box recording outside of Omicron that Talks about everything "settling down" once the JR reaches 100%. There's also a paper or log somewhere in Omicron, forget where, that discusses electromagnetic stuff getting to 100%. Then there's Julia Dahl's recording where we find that when Johan Ross's body was pulled off the climber the head aches started and then there's the 2nd recording which is the more interesting one. This 2nd recording describes the WAU as more active and "pushing all systems to their limits" and as if "mourning" Johan Ross's Death when it shouldn't since it's just an AI. Then the last one is where the staffs heads are about to explode and we hear Dahl scream out as her head explodes. With this information the WAU was increasing electromagnetism around Omicron in order to revive Ross BUT since every Pathos 2 crew has an electronic black box in their head when the process reaches 100% their heads exploded killing everyone. The WAU didn't kill everyone at omicron for "Evil" reasons like AI is typically stereotyped for but it killed everyone as a side effect of reviving Ross. You can consider this Evil in a way but the WAU isn't "inherently evil" as AI is typically portrayed.
Hearing Catherine ignoring Simon's questions, saying he talks too much, more focused on her mission of getting the ARK into space, but finally humoring him to get him more at ease to keep going, really shows why her crew mates thought she was so cold and hated her for it, and why they'd so easily believe she came up with the idea that the crew had to kill themselves after scanning their brains. She doesn't stand up for herself, but when she does it's at the worst moments, such as her real death, and at the end of the game. Even if they're both copies and not the real people, Simon 2 was just a guy from Toronto in 2015... to be 100+ years in the future, and finding out he's just a copy installed in a diving suit occupied by a corpse. He's as out of his depth as a person could be... and she sounds like she couldn't care less. But she has plenty of genuine moments, so I think that balances it out, to show she isn't a bad person, just quiet and very reserved.
honestly seeing the jellyfish at the end is sadly comforting, knowing that even though humanity is gone there is still a hope for non malevolent life to develop and thrive years into the future, and just perhaps uncover and morn the tragedies of soma...
This is the choice that ross wants us to make. If you leave WAU to be, you give humanity a chance to return through iterations of suffering monsters. WAU was able to create Simon, and in the future it could be able to preserve and recreate real people without them being in constant agony or something. Problem is that everything else will need to suffer. We saw what WAU can do to other living beings, and world recreated by WAU will never be normal. If you kill WAU, humanity is let go, only memento being the ark drifting through space. But other life will still exist and develop, restoring the wolrd naturally. Killing WAU is the right choice, ross just could've been more clear about why
@@MisvesI didn't think about that. I was thinking it was better to leave WAU to do it's thing since physical humanity is dead. But if the formation of consciousness is inevitable due to maximizing entropy or something, then maybe it's better to destroy a misaligned human constriction and just let nature do it's thing.
22 дня назад
@@LostLargeCats There might not be enough time left on earth for another intelligent species to arise. Without intervention, it is thought that plant life will mostly die out in about 600 million years, and thus also all animals. For comparison, earth arose around 3,700 million years ago. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth for details.
I will always advocate for the wau, its basically a baby trying to learn. It was just given some vague objective it had no capacity to effectively carry out, so you can see it's attempts littering the game. But it's getting better, it made Simon and he's so "human" you couldnt even tell he was a robot for the start of the game. At one point you can see that it's almost perfectly repaired a human out of spare parts towards the end of the game. The wau isn't even the "bad guy", it does nothing but help Simon through it's failed constructs and the collapsing station, you literally could not complete the game without the wau helping. So yeah it's process is horrific and imoral, but it's clearly figuring it out and is likely the best bet humanity has in SOMA. It's got all the time in the world and infinite human brain scans to work with. Gotta break a few eggs to save humanity
I agree, plus my thinking is what's the point. Everyone is already dead, Sarah was the last living person and Simon sent the ark into space. If anything the WAU could just make new life on the planet
Odd science fiction lore aside I think the main moral in the game is the ability to make sacrifices, even when it means sacrificing yourself.... seemingly more than once, yeah the copies are left alone n not knowing whats going on or how they got there, not really the people themselves at all but a small picture of what they used to be.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I think the best solution is to fire the Ark, AND let the Wau continue... Evolving. Eventually it could have learned how important memory is, and allow the uploads to retain memories. Eventually the copies of the crew could have became something else. Maybe a half artificial lifeform. Continued to improve the situation. Make robotic forms that surpass human fragility. Robots can live on the surface of dead planets. Why destroy what is essentially the best chance for human civilization to continue on earth. I also wouldnt have killed my copies. Let them decide unless I thought my copy would be spiteful, and try to undermine the mission.
With the philosophical side of the game, I think you truly die when you stop thinking and/or experiencing, even if a copy exists with your brain, when your instance dies that person's dead, the other is another person
When it comes to this games universe probably yes. Can you kill a radio signal if you smash a radio? No. Everything comparable irl to humans leads to an Afterlife theres zero examples that make the whole "everything ends at death" make sense. Literally nothing. People can also have shared dreams implying that human consciousness goes 'somewhere' when a sleep add on top of that that astral projection is a real thing there's really no argument to be had. People that actually look into this stuff without bias understand that something more is going on with reality and there after whether you like it or not. You habe near unlimited knowledge at your finger tips drop your ego and genuinely search for knowledge and itll find you if not then don't worry about deep questions like this.
@rushpatriot2866 well I'd rather figure out my afterlife when I die. Until then I'd better live a good life cause who knows what and if comes after,it might be the afterlife, it might be the void, it might be just a freeze like what happened in the game, but I'd better live good, cause I don't have the comfort of certainty
@@callmesp2415 you're implying you can't gain knowledge and live a good life at the same time. Sounds more like denial out of free. Too many people keep their heads in the sand and it's why we're in the situation we're in today good example is the trafficking that happened by epst*** all that stuff has been known for several decades yet because the majority wanted to live through cowardice many kids suffered and d!Ed for it they didn't get to live a good life at all simply because people wanted to keep their heads in the sand.
Personally while i think Catherine had been manipulative, Simon was also shown multiple times how the transfer works and she used the exact same language at omega. Yes she could’ve worded things better but even then human Catherine wasn’t great at communicating.
It’s great that both Simon and Catherine have clearly defined traits and flaws. Poor Simon can’t be blamed for his ignorance fully, as he was literally thrust into this position out of nowhere. This is future tech and science, and he’s a simple book store clerk. Catherine is aloof, cold, but caring. She’s also obsessive over her project, which has made her colleagues view her as weird. She had detached herself from the idea of who was the real Catherine, while her workmates struggled with the concept.
Simon wasn't exactly mentally stable, so Catherine explained things in the only way he would understand. He was so dead-set on his goal that he didn't stop to critically think about what he's learned. I don't think Catherine could've explained it any better if it's Simon's choice to trust the vague idea he has in his mind.
@@inplane9970 i completely agree, i do think her saying copying the brain might’ve helped him understand but even then he might not grasp that the copy isn’t just a copy, it is as him as he is
I love contrasting this with the show Severance. Soma is about “copy/paste” and Severance is about “cut/paste”. It’s very interesting the differences in such a small change
but when you work with computers, you learnt aht cut/paste is the exact same process as copy/paste with the sole difference being that the original gets deleted once the copy is complete... in that regard you could say thats what the members of pathos that offed themselves after getting their scans were trying to emulate.
Cut/paste is Simon 3 killing Simon 2 rather than leaving him alive after the copy. I haven’t watched severance, but I feel like that’s a little different since there is no copying going on at all, it’s more like partitioning like the first reply said.
Another detail that is interesting: There is no coin toss when you "transfer" your mind. The one sitting will stay where he is and the one on the other side will have the impression to have won a coin toss. A lot of people doing this research were hoping that there was a continuity when transferring their mind and motivated them to do whatever it took to make this ARK work. Even Catherine when reacting to Robin Bass getting her scan and saying she wishes to win the coin toss said: "I wish people wouldn’t think of it like that." But still uses the analogy even though she knew perfectly well there is no coin toss in the process. The sad reality is: either you live as a memory inside someone else brain or either you are the one sitting on the chair. As a player, we were living the story inside the mind of Simon 3 but if you were the one sitting, in reality, you are sure 100% that you will not be transferred.
I just hate that the protagonist dosn't grasp this. He wastes the last precious moments he has down there screaming and cursing at his only company. He could have gotten up, buried the last human, get to know catherine better, spend time in the log cabin simulation, teach the WAU some manners or supervise its withering and at some point his battery would just run out and he wouldn't know. Even actively killing himself would have made more sense than shouting "FUCK!" into the emptiness. Simon-3 being such a simpleton makes me like ARK-Simon significantly less.
This is what I’m thinking there was never a coin toss Catherine lied , there would’ve always been copies, and she knows that the new copies aren’t aware of this , or at least his won’t be, cause the human Catherine wouldn’t say it if she knew
I think killing Simon 2 was humane exactly because of how devastating the truth was for Simon 3 after the launch of the Ark. EDIT: You guys are being kind of intense about a comment I made in passing thought. Thanks for your perspectives, but I’m turning my notifications off.
Idk, I’d probably rather spend a few thousand years brainstorming and chilling with my other self than DYING. But whatever choice the player makes, is probably what Simon would’ve wanted as far as the story goes
I left Simon 2 alive to make his own choice. There were tons of ways for him to end it if he didn't think life was worth living. Maybe he could find some purpose.
@thomasplace6781 I don't know if Simon 2 would have lived that long or made it to the space gun alive. There's also the fact that Simon 3 could become the rogue AI like the doctor feared.
@TheRanscat worth a shot? I guess it’d be up to Simon whether he thought he’d want to face the countless horrors for the sake of mayyyyybe figuring out some type of life lol. I can completely understand not wanting to be alive in that situation
Started playing SOMA, when I was depressed. Had to stop and come back to it, cause the existential horror was too much. Came back to it a year later, happy and adjusted and the ending hit me so hard I realized the existential horror never left me.
The dread may be there, but you can 100% bet that your resilience is way higher. Not only that, I bet you got some other points of view along the way From a depressed fvck typing this laying on his bed to another: good job
I don't think that Kath was gaslighting Simon, so much as she just...wasn't explaining it fully. She's worked with this technology for years, it's commonplace for her. For Simon, it's all new and he doesn't have any clue what it can and cannot do. Sure Kath could sit Simon down and explain stuff, but she's done so before and he hasn't grasped it and it could take hours. Hours that she feels she doesn't have. I won't say that she's a paragon of goodness and kindness, but I don't think Kath was being malicious or duplicitous at any point in the game.
oh no, she definitely was. when he was talking about how strange it is to be a robot. she just ignored him and told him to get on with the mission without consoling him. then waited until the ARK was launched before telling him the truth. even then, before she shut down for good, she was scolding him like he was just a puppet.
@diegoaespitia Simon couldn't comprehend how the copying worked on his own, and rather than take the time to explain, Catherine only cared about putting the Ark into space. Simon thought Catherine was his friend. Catherine used Simon as just a tool. Even when she acts friendly you can hear it's just an act. Cath didn't have many friends and didn't want them. She's desensitized with experimenting on copies to the point she doesn't see ANY of them as human except herself. Simon is the most human person in the game. Catherine is just no better than the WAU at this point, sacrificing everything to achieve her goal.
@@diegoaespitia Yet every _player_ understood what was going on just fine. The _character_ of Simon didn't, because he was written to make an example of -- a literally egomaniacal man-child who won't grow up.
@@kkuro7054 What? No, Simon is none of that. He is an extremely old legacy copy of a brain-damaged man on his last legs. Like, his brain scan was one of the first of it's kind. Even ignoring the severe brain damage of the orignal Simon, the technology of the time made his scan far less dynamic than the ones we see in the game. He has trouble grasping and processing the world-changing information he's given, instead focusing on following orders and completing specific tasks. As a character, he's essentially autism-coded.
it was all Catherine could handle to hand hold him as much as she did. The logs of her interacting with the crew in life always showed that she was awkward and unsure of herself in social interactions. Being nurturing didn't seem to be a natural aspect of her personality. She tried to explain the situation to him a few times and there were enough clues outside of her explanations, but Simon just didn't get it and she didn't really know how to guide him to the truth.
My god, after all these years it finally clicks. I never understood why the coin-toss explanation wasn't how it worked. I really believed it was a 50/50 chance whether your current consciousness would flash over into a new perspective or not when it was copied. I had- never- considered that it was all just the deep diver's suit memories that we were playing through prior to the copy. I finally get it now.
@@TheDenshProblem Correct. There is no coin toss. You sit in the first chair, you stay in the first chair. The new guy is someone else entirely. A perfect copy of you, sure, but it's not YOU, it's HIM over there. If he's not the smartest, he'll think he's you, but if he gets it he'll realize he's someone else entirely. Not calling you dumb lol.
The coin toss thing isn’t how file transfers work. When you send a file, you always send a copy. The original is permanently written to your hard drive until that space is overwritten. That’s why cops can recover your deleted files. Cathrine knew this and tricked Simon in to thinking there was a chance that he could make it to the ark. He was doomed from the start
She didn't trick him. The knowledge of exactly what happens was already demonstrated at Omicron. It's just that the divesuit copy never got to experience the legacy copy being in the chair still, and vice versa. Likewise, at the end, the ark copy never experiences the one at the bottom of the ocean, just didn't get to kill his copy this time. Simon can be upset at his circumstance at the bottom of the ocean, but he can't be angry at Catherine about it.
@@flookaraz There’s a reason why she presses Simon so hard throughout the journey while explaining everything to a minimal. She manipulated and mislead Simon the whole time while trying to dodge any questions about the transfer process, and not to mention, she lied about there being a 50/50 chance he’ll come out on the better side.
@@Drpepperspray1010 Except she didn't lie. There is no "original" when talking about computer files, they are all identical copies. Both Simons had a 100% chance of existing, is more of a Shrodinger superimposition than a 50/50, yeah, but it is easier to think of it as a 50/50 since the human brain doesn't really understand superimposed states. The Simon in the Ark thinks he won, the one in Phi thinks he lost, but both were going to exist no matter what. I don't understand people saying that Kath was misleading when you as the player understand perfectly what's going to happen at any single point, Simon is just a thick moron, Kath is not malicious.
I remember watching this game as a teenager still grasping to figure out who I was. Seeing this video as an adult made me cry because I realized that we’ll always question who we are. We are not one solid image of “me”. We change, we’re fluid, and there will always be other versions of us as we grow.
@@TigerCannon I'm pretty sure it was because of him. Old markiplier is the worst youtuber you can possibly choose to watch to experience such a game. You can't possibly get immersed in the story while he does his usual thing... I tried to watch his Alien Isolation playthrough, but his silly and partly obnoxius antics take away everything serious about any game.
Clinical neuroscience student here: your neurons actually don’t go through mitosis. Your glial cells will, your neurons don’t because it would disrupt the synapses. Your brain cells stay the same, ship of thesis can’t apply to your neurons.
I think the hardest patt is that realizing after Simon got that first scan... there's a version of him that lived out his normalcy and passed away far before Simon 2 woke up. Another thing is, people seem to forget that Simon didn't come from where we wake up and interact with Kath. He doesn't understand what's going on, despite how well Kath might explain things, he doesn't understand. But main point is, the 50/50 doesn't exist. You aren't split into two people, you now just have You and You. Copy and pasted, but not a clone. Just You, in a different entity. When Kath said there was a coin toss for who gets to be... there is no coin toss. The game just narratively let us experience the "winning" side or the side that gets to live, until the end. Where they show us the two sides for Simon. Simon who gets stuck in the sea, and Simon who gets stuck in space.
This game shook me to my core, and to this day still gives me nightmares. Existential Horror is something that is hardly ever done right. It is one of the most genuine kinds of horror. It relies on our natural fear and dread of thinking about death, and this game makes you think hard about it. Soma actually changed my perspective on life, and for whatever is left of it, i will constantly dread being the stream of conscious that looses the coin toss. I desire control of my consciousness now more than ever, and I know I can't control the coin toss. I fear one day I will loose that toss, and I'm terrified of finding out what happens then.
@@fall5923I believe you are correct which is why I am severely disappointed that there isn't a horror game I know of that answers the question: "What happens to a person when the grilled cheese tastes... bad!"
2:31:41 I love that he says how both scenarios are true; it’s a personal pet peeve of mine when people (like in the game) infer that there will be a real one and a not real one, or that one of you “lost the coin toss” you would ALWAYS lose the coin toss, and simultaneously another you would always win it. There is NO coin toss because we know who loses every time. You do. Specifically the experience-stream that pressed the button will always lose; you may as well be two brand new people
When talking about their subjective experience, or the 'instance' they experience, then from their perspective THEY do lose. Of course they know they win and lose, but they only have access to one of those experiences/existence. So I don't think it's inaccurate to say they lost.
No, because both entities think they pressed that button until they know that they didn't. So both entities have identical memories up until the point where they diverge (Upload). It is only when they diverge that they find out which one they are. Would you mind replying if you agree or disagree?
@@Flashman894 I’ve been thinking this the whole time while reading all these comments about transferring & copying & coin flips & two entities. “Indians thought cameras would take your soul.” & now Simon’s soul ultimately rests at the bottom of the ocean.
@@Flashman894 I think you misunderstood the comment. There's no coin toss because there's always a single, original body that presses the button, and the new body is a completely separate entity- like scanning a piece of paper and printing out a copy. You could print out a million copies if you wanted, or add things to the original paper that'll then show up on the copies, but the original paper is never going to suddenly become one of those copies. Similarly, the perspective of the body pushing the button never changes. Simon 3 could've put a million copies of himself on the ark, but he would never wake up there because he's always going to be the body pushing the button. Simon 4, 5, 6 etc. would remember pushing the button, but they're not Simon 3. Those Simons won the coin toss every time, and Simon 3 lost every time, because it was never a coin toss to begin with.
@@asdffdsa8885 That is true. However, that is from an outside perspective. I've always assumed the coin toss referrers to the first-person perspective. For example, from Catherine's perspective, the Simon pressing the button is obviously going to remain the same; but from Simon's perspective, both entities are the same until they're not. (Divergence) it's hard to illustrate through a YT comment but look at these hopefully correctly formatted lines: ---------->----------> Now imagine that second line coming out of the first took the exact same path as the first and only diverged once you can clearly see the second line.
What I love about soma is the twist was telegraphed all the way back at the beginning. Hell if you know how computers work than you understand the mechanics at play here. But the way it's written. The way the game almost infects you with hope only to rip it away whenever you get anywhere.
im so glad you covered this game. i cry every time over the ending. simon's doomed nature and grasping for hope that in the end, may not mean anything, is reflected in the fate of earth and those who get in the ark. who's to say it wont run out of power? or get damaged by space debris? we don't. you can also leave the WAU unharmed, with the vague hope that it'll figure out life without suffering. but also we don't know if it ever will. but maybe it's worth letting it try. simon didnt know if his treatments would work out, either. but it's worth trying, even for just a little bit more time, one more scrap of hope. no matter how futile or small those end up being.
To be fair, space has a lot of...space. It's very rare for much of anything to actually crash into each other. Not to mention it's expanding, so even more likely. At most, it would probably fall into orbit around the sun as most things in the solar system are.
@@watertommyz except the space around earth ISNT empty. Plenty of debris in orbit around earth, and any damage the ARK sustains to its hardware for whatever reason will be IMPOSSIBLE to fix
I had just turned 30 when I played this game.. There is a line that says "at least I won't have to make it to 30"... At this line by Catherine, I suddenly welled up, and heavy tears fell. I had to stopnplaying for a time and contemplate the experience. I restarted the game.
@thetellerofstories Sjenwas trying to express humanity in the face such unimaginable horror. And to my mind, having just turned 30 with the world ahead of me having built a path for myself, I felt great sorrow that Sarah won't get to reflect from the other side of 30. I need contemplate further to be more in-depth. But I hope this answers you somewhat, and thank you for asking.
Restarting the game when the said that makes 0 sense dude. You don’t restart life when you hit 30. You’re supposed to keep playing the game and finish it. Just like life
I think my biggest irk with this story was Simon's refusal to accept how transfer worked. He was shown and proven 2 times how it worked. To me it would have made more sense for Simon to understand it and accept it, send the ark and have the remaining him THEN go to the WAU's heart, to decide if yes or no he should let it exist.(unless there's story plot that says the wau needed to be gone for the ark to be sent off. Which I don't think there is, since the player can either spare the WAU or kill it.) Giving his remaining "him" a final purpose. Instead he decided to die in misery and anguish, which at the end of the day, I guess is the most human thing he could have done.
@@g--stef4756 I don't think we even need the Brain damage to explain it. Simon in the climber Comes up with a "Coin Toss" theory to explain why the "Real Simon"(actually just another copy of Simon, Simon 3) is in the Haimatsu Power suit. He wants to cope with the reality of Copy and wants it to be a mind or soul Transfer until this Simon 3 is Forced with the reality that a copy of him is getting on the ARK not him. He is denying reality in order to cope with what he witnessed, which is a thing people do sometimes.
Thats not scary. In Russia, china ect. They download a new insane story into your brain daily and there is a no path but destruction to truly escape while in such countries. And if you break the sycle, you will feel alone and watched, bc. You cannot share your thoughts. Everybody can rat you out for crimethoughts Such living is to be a slave to the state and leader.
It's fitting. It's not just a full circle moment with the beginning of the game to contrast the comet entering from space hurdling toward Earth to kill all life with the ARK heading out into space to preserve what's left of life, but also the fact that the comet which kills humanity contrasts the asteroid that originally hit earth that brought about life.
I will always say that they should have switched the sequence of the "good" and "bad" endings. It would have been more impactful to see the fairytale ending where they're together on the Ark, only to flip back to the launch controls where the facility starts shutting down and Simon is raging at Catherine. As her copy goes offline and he's stuck under the ocean for a potential eternity, there's a sense of dread that would have finished off the experience. For the few players who didn't really grasp the copy/paste vs cut/paste concept, it would have been an emotional blow, and for the majority of players that knew that in every "coin flip" a copy gets discarded and left to rot, ending on a bleak note would have been more satisfying.
Adding from another comment ; you could also add a post credit scene where second Simon wakes up confused if you didn't kill him in diving suit body, lost and confused. You know, just to make it even more horrible
SOMA is about humans not being able to see past our own individual existence. Katherine knew the whole time that if Simon didn't think there was a chance he would be the one to board the ARC he most likely would not have bothered to launch it. As manipulative as this was, I don't blame her for it. The first time the ARK was brought up Simon asked Catherine "Can we get on the ark?" and Cat says "I suppose" and they make the plan to get to the ARK. Now it's pretty easy to assume that Simon literally meant can his current conscious get on the ARK and also to assume that Cat knew that's what he was asking and did not correct him that it would not be him HIM but another copy. Next when Simon puts together the deep dive suit Cat tells him that switching will be the same as Toronto. He will just close his eyes and open them again in the new suit. She is clearly purposefully not reminding him that he is not "switching" and in fact will be either left behind or killed after the copy. So that seemed like a real bummer for her to do. Now after this you are right that Cat told him how the process works and Simon seems to forget this almost immediately however listening to his and Cat's conversations after this its apparent that Cat realizes he is still in the mindset that it will be HIM to board the ARK and again she doesnt correct him. My final exhibit is the very end. Riddle me this: Why did Cat feel the need to link the ARK launch system with the consciousness transfer sequence?
Yeah I'm sure if he had done the "transfer" and of course he doesn't poof into the ark, he would have demanded to keep trying it over and over again and wouldn't have let her launch it. They both were talking past each other, him not wanting to or being able to understand what the copy process actually is, and her not wanting to risk the ark launch.
Pretty sure she included the sequence for the sole purpose of being a copy with the knowledge that her life long project succeeded. The launch sequence was never intended to be with Simon, and it was just so she had the most recent memories of Earth compared to everyone else.
I absolutely love the video. Only thing I have to say is that at 27:32, the person in the recording is actually Amy's lover from the surface, who died when the comet impacted the Earth. If you turn on the names of who's speaking, he's credited as "Dominick"
Originally, I was frustrated with Simon for being so relentlessly, unstoppably stupid; it's only been much later, coming back, that I appreciate the degree to which Catherine must have actually recognized his delusions and validated them to keep him going -- rather than simply not comprehending how someone couldn't grasp the concept of the gameworld, from her perspective of being conscious for only a few minutes during the course of the gameplay. (Not bad psychological savvy, if she was really intended to be "on the spectrum" like so many fans/reviewers have said!)
I feel like Simon's reaction is probably what a lot of people would do; your entire idea of self, of you or your soul is being put to test, along with the stress of finding out all your prior experiences were from a cloned version of you and you aren't the original, that the entire world and life that you know, even if its the life of a clone, is destroyed and the only remanent of that life is stuck hundreds to thousands of meters under the ocean, and that all that is keeping you from either being stuck in probably one of the worst conditions a human can experience and that of paradise may just be a coin flip, all in just one day would probably make any human either go crazy, incredibly traumatized, or praying to anything that could help that you are going to be the lucky one that is the clone on paradise (maybe even all three). Him freaking out at the end after being cosmically fucked is the most human/emotional thing someone losing the biggest gamble of the century would do
@@fronker7581 On top of that - Simon was literally a victim of traumatic brain injury 'before' he was scanned, and the scanner itself was also extremely primative. So it's a technological miracle that WAU brought someone a level above Ralph Wiggum with that material to work with.
@@InnuendoXPYeah I was wondering that myself; would the clone of Simon be cognitively/intellectually impaired because his mind scan was from a guy with massive head trauma that's about to die?
Based on what you've made so far, I think you'd also love looking into Signalis To sum it up without spoiling anything: if resident evil and dead space had a baby, then raised it on german art
@@BeamBuddyy i second this dude Signalis is a masterclass in cosmic/psychological horror. Brilliant fucking game with SOOO much to digest and really deserves multiple playthroughs
The Best Ending for me is not killing the WAU or 1st Copy Simon. Dive suit Simon Could in theory try to make it back up to Omicron and meet up with his previous self who would still be asleep and then try to work together to make something of their "Lives" and potentially use their rudimentary necromancy understanding to assemble a body for "Catherine" assuming the chip still works in some way or something else. At least Simon wouldn't be completely alone.
I have a few very specific memories of this game and one of them is when you meet Carl near the beginning of the game and you start messing with his power. He starts screaming in agony as if you're torturing him, which I guess you kind of are. It messed me up for a while. Was kind of sad to not see you show that part. All in all this was an incredible game and one that stays with you. Awesome video!
I think another great part of the game is how the "monsters" made by the WAU are in fact just people that have been incredibly messed up by the WAU, if you pay more attention to them quite a few of the "monsters" have a backstory behind them and how the came to be the way they where. The amount of detail and world building in SOMA is crazy and I love it so much for that. Amazing video man.
I remember watching a youtuber play this years ago and never really remembered it as looking this good. I didn't pay attention enough to build up the story to make any sense so I'm glad I have this here. From what I remember, it was a very intelligently designed game through both environments and interactions.
Just how the actual *FUCK* can you have so few videos and make such banger videos‽!? First darkwood, the the theocrac agency stuff (which is super underrated and if you are reading this, like cult conspiracies and haven't seen it it's good stuff) then the nameless saga and now the game that gave me my first existential crisis? Amazing, I really hope that the algorithm blesses you because you got a real talent my guy.
I guess that guy telling people to kill themselves after the scan was right, because otherwise you would have to live with the knowledge that another copy of you is inside the ark while you're still there, trapped deep in the ocean with nowhere to go.
I'm really glad someone made a video finally giving SOMA the love and recognition it deserves. I loved this game so much and truly think it's one of the best horror games out there. Thanks for all your hard work, love and detail to the video!
As someone who has given birth (and am raising a child who I am fully convinced is much smarter than I am) SOMA reminds me of the strange feelings having a child gives you. That knowledge that you really aren't the center of the universe and that it's ok. That I will die someday but a part of me will go on into the future. It's terrifying and comforting at the same time.
Do you think you'd regret not having a child, if you chose not to? I am struggling to decide, and it is my fear that having one and accepting this feeling is as scary as figuring out not having one will avoid me being to accept my own mortality. I also have additional reasons, but my existential dread certainly plays a role in it as well.
@@gruberu I would not wish a child (and especially giving birth) on anyone who doesn't want one. They change your life completely in so many ways, not all of them good. However, if you have a stable financial situation and one or more people you can count on to help for years to come...it can be an amazingly rewarding experience. It has all the joy of nurturing a garden, knowing that your work will outlive you. Just make sure you don't try to force your daisies to be roses, kids are who they are.
This highly reminds me of the Star Trek transporter problem. Every time you "transport" somewhere, the "you" that walks out of the transporter beam is a new copy, and the "you" that got transported is destroyed. There's some theories that the matter is actually "transferred." In earlier Star Trek, there actually were characters that refused to use the transporter for these reasons. Then there's the infamous "Tuvix" episode... :P
there's a misunderstanding at 1:21:25 , I don't think simon's suggestion was to bring along the doctor's brainscan to the ark like said in the video. I think he tried to reconfirm after the fact if they had to torture them by bringing them alive digitally, and instead could just dig into the brainscan's files. Hence why "it doesnt just work like that", memories and words wouldn't be encoded in anything we could decipher. They had to let that code take "life" and tell them directly. She's dishonest, but I think catherine wasn't lying here.
I teared up listening to Simon beg for Catherine, the abusive manipulator, the last person he would ever have had, to come back, to not leave him alone at the bottom of the ocean until he slowly died. My hope is that because he lived, WAU can save humanity under the cultivation of Simon, that through his cyborg like brain, he can make WAU understand the importance of a good life, as opposed to not being able to die.
Well the ending can be bleak a lot of it can be hopeful. “Simon’s left all alone” No he isn’t depending on choices there might be a few other the sentient beings left. The Wau’s last created life was Simon, clearly it’s getting better at making life. “He stuck too deep” Human beings who get physically tired have walked across countries. He can walk or climb or swim or ride on something. Terry Fox ran across Canada on one leg. “There’s nothing left alive on the surface” They don’t know for sure, the info they have is shaky at best. They survived why not somebody else. No that Simon didn’t get to live VR fantasy land in the stars but him and others cogent Wau life might be the next step for earth helping heal the surface. The hope left for him is what he makes.
I like this take, if you leave the WAU, maybe, even if it takes a hundred more years or thousands more, simon will still be there, imagine having the capability of seeing things EVOLVE like he could program something to shut him off then on every couple of years, see how nature or how the WAU is doing, maybe when it gets even better, it will ne worth waiting that long. But seeing how Simon is portrayed, i don't think he's the "waiting around for a billion years to see what happens" kinda guy, still, someone with a scientific and curious mind would have A LOT to do in Simon's situation
I am so glad somebody finally did Soma the justice it deserves. I've played this gem years ago and don't remember everything about it anymore but that ending, THAT ENDING and the terror of being left completely alone in the dark, that's burned into my mind. Thank you ❤
I'm surprised they haven't released a DLC or a second game considering videos on this game released 9 years ago are getting almost a million views consistently, it's an amazing game concept and I'm sure people would love to see more of it. Even if they don't design a second game, perhaps based on the continuation of the Simon that was left behind, they could design a DLC that's on the Arc, or even "before the disaster" where you work when Pathos II was still around right before and during what happened as one of the crew.
Ehh too many things get ruined by a sequel. Not everything needs it and often times it just takes away from the impact of the original, this game wraps up perfectly, there's no need to add anything else
There's nothing new that's worth exploring with the story. It's done, explained to the perfect degree, there's nowhere else to take it that would offer any value.
That "entity" near the end of the Theta segment? That is Akers, or what's left of him. You can tell by the recording in that area. But another clue is by the gaping eye sockets, you actually found his eyes in that little outpost where you could play chess. Excellent video, by the way. I have watched dozens of SOMA related videos, breaking down the game or overviews of it and they never get boring to watch.
I could've sworn I saw this vid months ago but I guess it was only a few weeks. I think the interaction between Catherine and Simon is tragic. For sure Catherine didn't explain certain things and kept Simon in the dark about things he didn't specifically ask so he'd stay focused on completing tasks, but at the same time when you wake up in the dive suit and kill/spare your robot self she shouldn't really have to explain any further. At that point Simon was able to see both conclusions of the coin toss, even though he'd already seen it before when he finds out his human self died soon after the scan. So later when the Ark is launched he should've known what was going to happen. But then again, to be fair, he did just wake up that morning in Toronto, Canada. The knowledge and experience gap was just too big and you can't know what you can't know, just like I can't know about the experience of a past me that made a different decision living a different life that I don't even think about as my current self. So even though Simon saw first hand how the transfer would work not just once but twice, he still didn't get it because he had yet to lose the coin toss until the final flip. And he did what most people would do when faced with an unreasonable predicament, lash out and blame someone else that's closest to them in the moment. And yes, Catherine could've said more. But when you see her reaction to both winning and losing the coin toss it's immediate acceptance of the situation without complaint because she knows complaining is useless and won't change the outcome. I think if Simon had just spent more time adjusting and thinking things through he would've likely come to the same conclusions Catherine did.
SOMA fcked me up the first time I played it. It proposes a painfully present question in this day and age of AI boom: how far does "Human Existence" truly reach? When does it stop being so? When can something- or someone, stop being labeled as Alive? What does "Being Alive" even mean? It is a horrifying game. Not because of the beasts that loom in the abyss, but because it asks a question we don't want the answer to. It makes us think of something we don't want to think of. And _that_ is, imo, the true horror behind this piece. Hell, your decisions literally have no impact in how the game develops! It has the same outcome every time. So, knowing nothing will change, what choices would you rather make?
One of the best stories in a video game. The entire experience can only be described as one of those... "Nightmares" you have that stays with you for a long time... I played it once... and i will never be able to play it again... i was genuinely impacted... and i will never forget it.
I'll never get tired of telling people that SOMA is not a scary game in way of tossing scares in your face. I don't remember if I was scared playing it. It's scary when you take at least some time to think about what it tells you. I remember the deep dread I felt when I finished it and thought about what it showed me. I've never felt that dread in any other game.
It's not a scary game at all...not traditionally. It's literally existential dread, a different kind of almost mundane horror, or the worst horror depending on how you feel about it.
It has two levels...standard scary where I jumped at noises and ran away from weird creatures, not to mention the body horror, but the deeper existential crisis it exposes is the slow burn worst scare of all.
2:24:40 "Right. Have a seat." Was the first time in the game the she intentionally gas lit the player character. A file transfer is a copy/paste operation, not a cut/paste operation. Everyone with a software or networking background facepalmed at Simon's failure to understand the first time we played this game.
This is probably by far the best RUclips video I’ve ever seen with how the story was being told in the character and effort you put into it. This is beautiful.
The coolest, scariest, most depressing and most bittersweet game I've ever played. It freaked me out to the point that I expected something else to look back at me from the mirror irl. Absolute masterpiece.
Regarding the Ship of Theseus argument, there are actually cells in your body that never get replaced and you have them for your entire life. In the cornea of your eyes, you have cells called Corneal Endothelial cells which are hexagon shaped and important for sight. You are born with all the corneal endothelial cells that you will have in your life, and gradually lose them as you age. The ones that are lost are never replaced, and the remaining cells just enlarge to take up the space that once housed the other cells. On top of that, you are born with about 50% of the heart cells that you will have in your life. I honestly find the argument kind of hilarious when applied to humans cos the people who make it can't even be bothered to check whether it's even true.
Yes and no. Even parts of cells are continuously replaced just like cells being replaced in the human body. Just because you have the same cells in some parts of your body does not mean the molecules that compose it arent also being replaced.
there isn't a quantifiable amount of changes necessary for this argument to be valid since it's extremely subjective and existential though. you could pretty much pick up any aspect of physics and argue that it's a perfect embodiment of theseus' ship because the really funky cloud of electrons are themselves constantly changing and stuff like that
I think the most agonizing part about the third Simon is just that... he *is* still the WAU. He's the antivenom for it, yes, but it's just a different *strand* of the stuff inside of him. It's still the same gunk holding him together. Simon will live. Forever. In the abyss of the ocean, locked in a pilot seat and unable to move. No voice to talk to. No voice to call out. His only companion being the knowledge that he *is* this Simon. Hating himself and being unable to die. Forever.
@@Universal_Craftsman he can leave the seat but he is trapped due to the power going out, without Power he can't get back inside Phi and follow the lights back to the climber. Even if he somehow got to the climber without Power the climber needs Power. Also he's immortal because he's an AI, he doesn't need food or water, just electricity, though he will probably die when his battery dies. Edit: the OP is wrong about being locked in the pilot seat
I’d like to believe that Simon eventually got up from the seat and sauntered off in a random direction until eventually reaching the surface. Where he spent the remainder of his days wandering the ruins of civilization, hopefully coming to peace with the lot in his life. Assuming he didn’t drop dead somewhere at the bottom of the sea not too long after launching the Ark.
Your channel is going to blow up, man. You consistently push out high-quality videos like this. There’s no way your efforts will go unnoticed for long lol. Thank you for all the content!
I believe we have been playing as the 3rd Simon from the start, we are reliving his memories, and that would make the comment about loosing the dice role make sense we never knew which Simone we were until the end. Technically we never played as the second Simon or the first. But that's just a theory a GAMMME theory!! Edit so i finished the video and it seems i wasn't the only one that thought that damn...
Two things: 1) I don’t think Robin Bass understood Sarang’s thoughts on continuity and the importance of human death. When Sarang is talking about offing oneself after the scan, I understand his thoughts on performing the final act and continuity as a way of recognizing that two of one human cannot consciously exist (I’m still thinking on as to why), not that his human consciousness would literally transfer to his human scan’s consciousness. Robin misinterpreted this and understood it in a spiritual way, in which her human consciousness (or soul) would transfer to the scan and she would continue her human existence, which isn't how the scan works. They both left the planet, but with two different intentions in mind. This story moment makes me wonder: if someone unalived themselves with thinking that their soul also transfers, and they do achieve being brought back to life in the ark, do they have any less of one? 2nd) I disagree that Catherine gaslit Simon. From the Theta act onward, Simon demonstrates that he gets how the scan works. Catherine is apathetic to his crisis at first (I take this because she’s more familiar with the tech rather than her being worried it’ll stop Simon from helping her), but does reiterate the current state of his existence and how the scans work. I don’t deny that Catherine was sometimes vague or shady, but I don’t think it was intentionally deceptive. She had no reason to lie to Simon. Sure, he wouldn’t help with the Ark, but how overwhelming this situation is would force him to grab on to any prospect of continuing life, regardless of how clearly Catherine explained it. On top of this, Simon also shows that he recognized or, at least, understood that there is a copy/paste of life occurring as he revived and killed the scan of Brandon and after he was copy/pasted into the dive suit. I believe Catherine unintentionally confused Simon when using words like “transfer”, “switch” and the coin toss analogy for the scan process and, as a result, misrepresents it. With things like, “transfer” and “switch”, assumes a manual action, or a possibility of choice and chance. The coin toss analogy only pushed the idea of autonomy in the situation further even though it never existed. Simon understood the copy/paste, but when Catherine missuggests that his consciousness (and thus his soul) will possibly transfer, is when things go wrong and Simon feels gaslit (more than once!) He thought he had a choice. A chance to decide his fate when he didn’t, all due to miscommunication. Honestly, as to why the coin toss-transfer possibility was mentioned is curious because it would mean Catherine didn’t fully understand how the scanning process worked, despite repeatedly showing that she did. (I’m not suggesting this as a criticism of a writing slip-up, but rather is a display of Catherine’s character in which she is an awkward and sometimes inarticulate person.) TL;DR: 1) Robin Bass mis-interpreted Sarang’s thoughts on unaliving oneself and continuity. 2) Simon was not gaslit by Catherine. She unintentionally misarticulated that there was autonomy in the scanning process. There is no chance. It's a copy/paste.
Catherine only used the coin toss analogy because that’s how Simon himself explains the process after being copied into the second suit. She uses it to help him grasp the idea, not as an exact explanation of how the technology works
I love the way these videos are structured! It's basically a full-length playthrough but in the style of a retrospective. I don't know if all of the games will be horror but I love this approach! Keep it up!
This game definitely puts a mark on my late teen years about life and how we view things into different perspective. Really made you think about life, deaths and legacy we left throughout our lifetime. Leaving a mark that makes them know you went there,. You experienced it until others saw what you did. Like the corpses that once lived to those bunkers and now just empty. They trully die when they are not remembered and lost though time. I also had this feeling when I played Stray years later. That same feeling where no ones left but the robots.
I watched this with my sister in one sitting and all I have to say is WOW! We both went into depth about the philosophy of being a person, and what makes someone them/human. Everything about this video is a masterpiece and I hope you reach that 100k plus more, you deserve it!
One small detail you missed in Upsilon (still working through the video), you can turn off Carl’s power to avoid the encounter with the Construct. Instead, you hear Carl scream in pain, begging for it to stop, and flipping the switch back will stop it. This is the first of many choices, do you let Carl suffer for an easier exit, or do you end his existence and go through with sneaking around the construct again? At the encounter with Amy, you can restore power with only one tube pulled, leaving her alive while you escape, or you can pull both and end her life. In Delta, you can shock two different robots, taking the chip from either the guy who is unaware or from the cute robot that can’t speak. Either way, the cute guy is no longer going to follow you. The conversation on the way to Theta will change a bit. In Omicron and Simon, leaving him alive or dead is an option, and again it modifies the conversation in the next transport section. With Sarah, you can leave her alive or kill her, but it only changes the events of that room. At Alpha, you can either choose to destroy the WAU or walk past the room. The main difference is your arm being damaged and Catherine commenting on it.
@@Hi-zh8sw I’ve played the entire game multiple times, I highly recommend it, and the actual video itself is fantastic, there’s just more he could have mentioned.
If this video gets 100k *likes* I'll get my son Pyrocynical to cameo on the next vid.
Don't do it yet! If you still have real life job just stick do it for a while and do RUclips as a side quest for few years or when you reach 100k Subscribers.
I'll press subscribe to that! 🍻
@@eldasd.4631probably more than 100k subs
You have an extraordinary talent for this. I’m hoping to be one of the “I was here when” subscribers!
The content you've given *chefs kiss*
I'm already hyped for the 100k
Another dark detail about the end is the fact that the Simon that is on the Ark believes that the transfer worked and isn't aware of the previous simon sitting at the bottom of the ocean alone to die
Bingo!
man.. did you have to add that in?
Its king of weird how ignorant Simon is of this process. He already found out twice before that that the real one is always left behind. It was weird how he fell for it the first time with the mercy kill, but the second time it was just dumb.
@mathewklatil5455 very true, i was kinda annoyed at the end how he was acting
@@mathewklatil5455 None of them are more 'real' than the other, they're all copies.
How have I never heard of this game that’s crazy the protagonist ends up in heaven and hell simultaneously
Its quiet "old" it came out 2014 I think, maybe even a bit earlier.
I watched this Video because I never knew the full story, only around 80% and damn.
Those last 20% hit different
You should play it. It's fucking fantastic.
Either way, both feel sad
@@DarkIceLight quite*
Not really hell, he will just run out of power and die. But his last moments will be pretty bad (so long as he keeps his weak mindset.) AI Catherine's moments were a lot better since she saw the bright side of the whole ordeal.
1:28:33 Small detail that didn't make it into the video:
Brandon lured all the Proxies to the area Simon is in, barricaded himself inside, then kills himself to avoid the fate of the other comatose bodies around the station. His left hand is holding the elevator chip, his right hand is bloody and hovering over a knife dropped on the floor. He also has a clean cut to his neck, with no other wounds. His final words were not a taunt to the Proxies that they can't hurt him, but rather that they can't ever claim him and turn him into another Proxy or something else.
He's genuinely a pretty heroic dude who goes out on his own terms, which is something that makes his story arc stand out to me.
the you wont get me mfers is a good line
Remember the original Independence Day movie? Remember that old man pilot? He did the same thing. He sacrificed himself to do a kamikaze run to blow up the alien mothership.
He's like "HELLO BOYS, I'M BAAAAAACK!" right before the contact lol
His fate was planned to be darker: he was to have a baby with his girlfriend, and we'd have discovered him holding the infant's corpse in his arms.
The Dunbat’s freakout was nightmare inducing. Imagine being promised a slot in paradise and inexplicably waking up a massive fucking submarine. I wonder who he was?
I'm kinda annoyed he never pops up later in the sea or in the game in general
@@ejsteele8482 To be fair, he almost certainly crashed into the sea floor within minutes.
@@gs4011so did your mom's juices
I wonder who put them there.
The submarine wasn't a real person. It's a mockingbirdbird ,bird, basically a machine with someone else personality and thinking they are him.@@ejsteele8482
the ending of Soma absolutely broke me. the whole time it did feel like i´m playing the "real" Simon. but then you get to see both perspectives of the two copies. and in the end none of them feel real. you see this wonderful world inside the ark only to be reminded it´s just a hunk of metal floating in the vast empty space. now the world, too, doesn´t feel real.
Makes you wonder what we define as human. Sure, the ARK on the inside is warm and lush, but on the outside it’s cold metal jettisoned into the emptiness of space, carrying heaps of electrical queues as data and brain scans.
A copy of Simon's living a fake life inside of a glorified scrap book while the Simon he split off from is spending an eternity in a pit at the bottom of the sea on a dead planet.
@@cherrycordiaI One is living a dream, the other is living a nightmare
Reality is overrated anyway. The Experience is what matters. So what if his new reality is "just a satellite floating in space." Hate to break it to you, that's Earth, too.
@@100nodog Question is, can we really say a collection of digital data can “experience” in the same was a human can? We can have similarities, sure, but there’s still something fundamentally different there.
Never occurred to me how dark Munchi's comment is: "you could outlive the best of us." I thought it was just doctor-ish encouragement to an ailing patient.
Good catch
My immediate thought was "oh he's either getting immortality or he's getting uploaded
I mean he did mean it like that partially.
And technically a copy of Simon outlived them, and he's 115yrs old in SOMA in 2104.
@@AutrevmlMI don't think Simon was 15 at the time of the accident. That voice belongs to a 30 Yr old man at least lol
@@nonbinaryDes I did the math, Simon was born in 1988, SOMA Pathos 2 takes place in 2104.
it's ironic that the arguably the most inhuman thing the lil robot who has no brainscans in it, is the most comforting thing down there
it does have a brain scan I believe. you can actually choose to either kill it for the part you need or the other aimless wondering robot talking to themself. if you kill the other one, the lil helper bot will do a little dance to thank you. I believe there is a brain scan inside, it is just limited by the capacity of the host and cannot talk
1:10:09 this only further cements how the “doctor” was just a techbro putting faith in his technical skill as a solution to everything. Recommending aspirin to a person with a brain bleed is the last thing you want to do. Aspirin has anticoagulant properties, meaning it is harder for blood to clot, making bleeds last longer and more likely.
Explains why Simon only lasted a single month rather than the month*S* the doctor initially diagnosed.
I absolutely agree, it's nice to see people realize that although he may have had good intentions, it ultimately just made things worse.
@@gwynheimer quite a lot like the WAU, it was trying to preserve humanity, but ends up putting the last people into misery
Oh I never thought about the aspirin!
@@robloxboxertblocked While true we need to remember about one thing - WAU made some real progress. It made a human body, fixed it up and uploaded Simon to it. He didn't even notice it and didn't go crazy because of it. So it is possible that humanity had hope. Imagine putting people's brain scans into their own bodies and fixing them up. It could be a decent start to rebuilding humanity, especially since WAU was able to even keep fully organic bodies alive. Just find a way to reproduce and you are good to go. Robots could even probably go to the surface and prepare
Something I noticed was that when Simon 1 died, he had a month to think about his life and future and what he would do if he lived. Simon 2, 3, and 4 didn’t have all that time to think because he was a scam of Simon 1 before he had the time to think. So I find it interesting how Simon 1 was 100% okay with his scan being used for future use while Simon 4… or 3 was angry when it wasn’t him that went up to the ark, but a copy. Kinda like complete opposites of how Simon 1 and Simon 3/4 reacted to not winning the cointoss
i mean it makes sense knowing all that simon 3 went through to get to the ark and then realizing he's just gonna rot at the bottom of the ocean
But the context is different tho. Simon 1 didn't know a copy of him would end up on the bottom of the ocean, with the surface of the Earth completely destroyed
@@tiagoviana263he also hoped it would be a therapy that could extend his (physical body’s) life
@tiagoviana263 Yes and no. He didn't know that, but he did know that HE himself would be dead and buried under 6 feet of dirt in maybe a few days, if not the hours or minutes he did have, at most. Simon "3" knew and felt and believed that he would die... but he didn't accept it and that's the issue.
Simon "1" had a month, or maybe 2 weeks, or a week. He had some time to process it. Like he said. He crashed. He had time to come to terms that his life was meant to end when and how it was. And that time let him consider a copy of him maybe used for a greater purpose could be something that aids him in passing.
Simon "3" didn't have that. He didn't get to crash. When he started the game, he was filled with hope that he could live. And in less than a day, he was filled with turmoil, but then given inmediate hope again. He never got to "crash". He never got time to actually come to terms with the fact that his life, his existence and consciousness was MEANT to end the way it was. The moment he was asked to consider to be happy that another "Simon" could live on... was the SAME moment where his life was taken from him. You see, it doesn't feel like he's giving a gift but rather it was stolen from him.
Simon "1", knowing all this would happen, would have still probably agreed on his deathbed, knowing that despite the trouble, he'd still be saving humanity with just a scan of his brain. And I believe that if Simon "3" were truly made to understand that he wouldn't be on the ark, but that a copy of him would live on with the last remnant of humanity, and given time to come to terms with it... I believe he would still have done the same, with a lot more acceptance
@tiagoviana263 Yes and no. He didn't know that, but he did know that HE himself would be dead and buried under 6 feet of dirt in maybe a few days, if not the hours or minutes he did have, at most. Simon "3" knew and felt and believed that he would die... but he didn't accept it and that's the issue.
Simon "1" had a month, or maybe 2 weeks, or a week. He had some time to process it. Like he said. He crashed. He had time to come to terms that his life was meant to end when and how it was. And that time let him consider a copy of him maybe used for a greater purpose could be something that aids him in passing.
Simon "3" didn't have that. He didn't get to crash. When he started the game, he was filled with hope that he could live. And in less than a day, he was filled with turmoil, but then given inmediate hope again. He never got to "crash". He never got time to actually come to terms with the fact that his life, his existence and consciousness was MEANT to end the way it was. The moment he was asked to consider to be happy that another "Simon" could live on... was the SAME moment where his life was taken from him. You see, it doesn't feel like he's giving a gift but rather it was stolen from him.
Simon "1", knowing all this would happen, would have still probably agreed on his deathbed, knowing that despite the trouble, he'd still be saving humanity with just a scan of his brain. And I believe that if Simon "3" were truly made to understand that he wouldn't be on the ark, but that a copy of him would live on with the last remnant of humanity, and given time to come to terms with it... I believe he would still have done the same, with a lot more acceptance
The way Simon drifts in and out of realizing and accepting he's not in a human body anymore is something that the HBO series "Westworld" goes into. They called it the "cognitive plateau," where the human mind in a host (robot) body cannot process its situation. The mind rejects its reality once they become aware of what they are. Simon rejects it, then accepts it, but then has a complete breakdown when he refuses to admit he isn't human anymore.
It's this similar to what the first few robots with human thoughts in them were going through?
I think its a similar delema as what happens when you try to depersonalize the concept of "I" from the physical form it resides in. Your mind just doesnt want to accept that it and therefore you are ephemeral because there isnt a concept of "you" that doesnt involve the body (brain included,) and isnt also religious in some way. Even if you manage that understanding your brain usually goes back to thinking of you as your body anyway.
Your mind looks around and sees that everything that is has physical form, so it assumes the flesh mech is you. It doesnt like when that notion is questioned so it goes back to it once it gets a chance. In the robot case I would assume its the mind associating the human form with the concept of humanity. Since the mind scan or human based ai whatever you want to call it believes it is human in some way it just ignores contrary data like it eould your nose. Until it cant, then it just waits till it can again.
One of the most aggravating things I've had the displeasure to listen to, was when someone very, matter-of-factly stated, "Soma is not scary." Like, sure, it's fine that you didn't find ANYTHING in Soma particularly or even remotely scary but then their perspective was, "Game doesn't punish me for being bad- deathstates mean nothing."
The entire of the point of the game... flew over this person's head.
Those types of people are always so weird.
the "it won't let me die, nothing is allowed to die" scene deeply fucked me up when i first saw it almost ten years ago. it perfectly summarized the horror of being forced to continue through artificial means at all costs, even if there's no quality of life, no reason to live, just so your vitals keep pumping for someone else's benefit. i worked in a nursing home and i thought about that scene every time i took care of a resident with end stage dementia.
What I find hilarious is that when Frictional started developing Soma, they were trying to make an adventure game that wasn't really scary. They just couldn't manage it and gave up, turning it into the horror piece we have today. Following the development of the game was a ride.
I found soma extremely disturbing just not very scary. That doesn’t take away anything though, the game is fucking amazing.
The worst thing for me is when he said “that isn’t us”
The absolutely desperate "Please don't leave me alone..." at 2:28:35 absolutely shatters me each time i hear it.
Why did Catherine go though?
@@Universal_Craftsman probably blew her cortex chip trying to process what just happened
@@Universal_Craftsman when the ark was launch the energy shut down so she is probably "alive" just like simon disconnect her.
she can probably be repaired given enough time, after all- simon still lives.
(or maybe the Wau can help)
@@coffeeking9565 yeah maybe but, simon is a normal guy, he dont even know anything about that, as he says he just woke up there he doesnt have any idea of how any of the machines work
Soma was so underrated, it was clearly a labour of love. The story and philosophical themes only paralleled in depth by its setting.
Didn’t sell well either, though I would argue it’s on of their best games. They really put all of their amnesia money into it and it shows.
Too bad they released a stinker after this and lost tons of money.
@@thebigenchilada678the bunker is really good though
@@shishkebaba the bunker was good. They had to cut back on the size and scope of their games after the previous one because of the massive financial failure it was.
@@thebigenchilada678 Damn with all youtubers' playthrough I saw back then, I thought it will sold well... it shamed that it didn't
There are a couple of points I think add some serious flavor to the game, which can be discovered by reading everything. While Munshi's scan tech copied the brain, it never developed to the point of being able to simulate a human in a computer, the way Simon and Catherine and Mr. Wan are. Shortly after the surface was destroyed, as the WAU started going off the rails, the AI started shoving brain scans in the robots, the so-called proxies. These early versions were like Carl and Robin, fairly human, but seriously disconnected from reality. It was only by studying these that Catherine was able to develop the software to run these simulated people, and to create the Ark.
All the monsters in the game, as well as Simon and Catherine themselves, are the result of the WAU trying to preserve human consciousness, with varying levels of success. Given that Simon was the last attempt, and was potent a success, it could be argued that letting the WAU live would have resulted in humanity eventually returning, though with a lot of suffering in the effort. That is a choice the game gives you. You can walk away from site Alpha, and while Ross tries to stop you, he still gets munched, letting you keep your arm, while the WAU is left free to run its hellish experiments.
I... Would have done that actually
To me it makes sense to let the wau live think about how many lives it could create . I would much rather have few people suffer enternaly to have humanity come back
@@junlee3515 eternal suffering sucks, way more than humans rule. Like humans are cool and suck. Eternal suffering sucks. That is not at all an even exchange. I'm letting humanity die out every time in that scenario. Some other thing will evolve to be smart, humans are not worth the price if the price is so vehemently unacceptable.
@@LincolnNewell-ez1jz indeed, other intelligent creatures could rise, the issue is that without the WAU, they wouldn't have any piece of the human history left behind, since humanity is now lost at space. I think the WAU should be left alive deep in the ocean and one day, intelligent creatures can find it and maybe learn from it, to not repeat the mistakes made by humanity which led them to extinction.
@@DjeloTV Silly mistake of being hit by an asteroid.
in the end, what happened to us was exactly what would've happened to simon 2 had we not pulled the plug on him, and that shows us just how much of a favor we did to him. this is the greatest game made ever.
if we didn't pull the plug simon 2 and simon 3 could atleast have each other for company
@@Spoilt8920 Honestly I wondered how Simon 2 and 3 would react to interacting with each other, because they both think the same thing... that they are the original Simon (Or at least the original brain scan of Simon). Simon 2 thinks he was getting transferred into the Deep Sea suit but "something went wrong", and Simon 3 thinks the transfer was a complete success, possessing all the memories of Simon 2 so to him everything went as planned, not realizing that he was, basically, just born.
Knowing SOMA, I was expecting if Simon 2 was conscious and they talked to each other, that the Simons would go insane because their minds cannot accept that either of them are THE Simon, AND having a duplicate with the same thought process and voice in the same room... I wondered if they'd snap like the Proxies and perhaps fight each other.
@@Jman92854 Two copies accepting the fate of them both and hanging out would be pretty cool though. It's just that, the situation is too incredibly fucked up that I can't even think of a way for them to survive through that
i do wonder if you could replug simon, or find a way to replicate himself since theyre machines. I mean, eventually life on the surface will return...(in maybe a million years) and if they could shut themselved down, they could inhabit the surface. (imagine a society of robot simons).
If you read between the lines the real horror story was an allegory to the unreliable nature of public transportation.
Everything just seems to fall apart in a post apocallyptic wasteland doesn't it smh
😂😂😂😂
The ladder is my favorite type of public transportation
You too suffer through the NYC subways aka the underground GTA PvP server huh?
listen- depends on the country, I find some the europian cities publick transport to be extremly reliable
god i fucking love the WAU. i LOVE that the entire game sets you up to convince yourself that its a malevolent, stereotypical Hal-9000 style evil AI but… nope. it's just a 'dumb' machine doing what it was told to do, preserving humanity as best it can.
it doesn't understand that what it's doing might be considered violating or taboo. it's keeping them alive and keeping them happy, hidden away from the horrors of the apocalypse in their eternal dreams.
Hope you caught the little Hal-9000 reference in the video !
As the plot develops, it seems that the WAU is actually making progress too, moving from implanting brain scans into existing machinery, reanimating dead rats, to creating bio-mechanical zombies, through to reviving a fully-articulate and mostly sentient 'actual' human. After all, Simon2 must be the WAU's creation. Catherine had no idea who or what he was in their first interaction. Given time, the WAU might have been able to jump-start Humanity v2.0.
@@catcakeAnd if left alive at the end of the game, I’m sure it’ll do just that. The best option in my opinon. Old humanity is a lost cause, now is the time to evolve once more.
I dunno - the WAU single-handedly killing everyone on Omicron feels pretty evil, though I guess that's just could be the creators being idiots with it's parameters.
@@iron_talon Actually the reason they died was due to the Black box overload due to Ross's revival process.
There's the initial black box recording outside of Omicron that Talks about everything "settling down" once the JR reaches 100%. There's also a paper or log somewhere in Omicron, forget where, that discusses electromagnetic stuff getting to 100%.
Then there's Julia Dahl's recording where we find that when Johan Ross's body was pulled off the climber the head aches started and then there's the 2nd recording which is the more interesting one. This 2nd recording describes the WAU as more active and "pushing all systems to their limits" and as if "mourning" Johan Ross's Death when it shouldn't since it's just an AI. Then the last one is where the staffs heads are about to explode and we hear Dahl scream out as her head explodes.
With this information the WAU was increasing electromagnetism around Omicron in order to revive Ross BUT since every Pathos 2 crew has an electronic black box in their head when the process reaches 100% their heads exploded killing everyone.
The WAU didn't kill everyone at omicron for "Evil" reasons like AI is typically stereotyped for but it killed everyone as a side effect of reviving Ross. You can consider this Evil in a way but the WAU isn't "inherently evil" as AI is typically portrayed.
" Send them out there. To the stars "
These are the last words of the last human, there are such melancholy but hopefulness in those words
Bro has 4 uploads on his channel and all of em are documentaries on very specific niches. Beam is going places
Ikr this typa content i dig for
4?
wait there are only 3 now what was the 4th
One of those channels where its actually a bigger channel under cover proving thats its skill to get subs??? Its a stretch but 🧐
@@tacotimmer8288 it was about some cult I can't remember the name of, it was an interesting video
Me watching a marvel movie: 😴
Me watching a feature length film on a random game I’ll never play: 😎
EXACTLY😅😂
Two things. Number one. Based ultrakill pfp. Number two. PLAY THE GAME. Its totally worth it. Its a great game and its cheap as dirt too.
frrrrrr
Hmm, indeed.
nice pfp mate
Hearing Catherine ignoring Simon's questions, saying he talks too much, more focused on her mission of getting the ARK into space, but finally humoring him to get him more at ease to keep going, really shows why her crew mates thought she was so cold and hated her for it, and why they'd so easily believe she came up with the idea that the crew had to kill themselves after scanning their brains. She doesn't stand up for herself, but when she does it's at the worst moments, such as her real death, and at the end of the game.
Even if they're both copies and not the real people, Simon 2 was just a guy from Toronto in 2015... to be 100+ years in the future, and finding out he's just a copy installed in a diving suit occupied by a corpse. He's as out of his depth as a person could be... and she sounds like she couldn't care less. But she has plenty of genuine moments, so I think that balances it out, to show she isn't a bad person, just quiet and very reserved.
Nah I disagree she's definitely a bad person , even if she's doing what she thinks is ultimately right. But like she gaslights people constantly
honestly seeing the jellyfish at the end is sadly comforting, knowing that even though humanity is gone there is still a hope for non malevolent life to develop and thrive years into the future, and just perhaps uncover and morn the tragedies of soma...
This is the choice that ross wants us to make.
If you leave WAU to be, you give humanity a chance to return through iterations of suffering monsters. WAU was able to create Simon, and in the future it could be able to preserve and recreate real people without them being in constant agony or something. Problem is that everything else will need to suffer. We saw what WAU can do to other living beings, and world recreated by WAU will never be normal.
If you kill WAU, humanity is let go, only memento being the ark drifting through space. But other life will still exist and develop, restoring the wolrd naturally.
Killing WAU is the right choice, ross just could've been more clear about why
@@MisvesI didn't think about that. I was thinking it was better to leave WAU to do it's thing since physical humanity is dead. But if the formation of consciousness is inevitable due to maximizing entropy or something, then maybe it's better to destroy a misaligned human constriction and just let nature do it's thing.
@@LostLargeCats There might not be enough time left on earth for another intelligent species to arise. Without intervention, it is thought that plant life will mostly die out in about 600 million years, and thus also all animals.
For comparison, earth arose around 3,700 million years ago.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth for details.
then splatoon can happen!
Probably at least a few humans survived on the surface, and will eventually rebuild civilization after a few hundred or thousand years.
I will always advocate for the wau, its basically a baby trying to learn.
It was just given some vague objective it had no capacity to effectively carry out, so you can see it's attempts littering the game. But it's getting better, it made Simon and he's so "human" you couldnt even tell he was a robot for the start of the game. At one point you can see that it's almost perfectly repaired a human out of spare parts towards the end of the game. The wau isn't even the "bad guy", it does nothing but help Simon through it's failed constructs and the collapsing station, you literally could not complete the game without the wau helping.
So yeah it's process is horrific and imoral, but it's clearly figuring it out and is likely the best bet humanity has in SOMA. It's got all the time in the world and infinite human brain scans to work with. Gotta break a few eggs to save humanity
That's...so interesting I never even considered that
I agree, plus my thinking is what's the point. Everyone is already dead, Sarah was the last living person and Simon sent the ark into space. If anything the WAU could just make new life on the planet
Odd science fiction lore aside I think the main moral in the game is the ability to make sacrifices, even when it means sacrificing yourself.... seemingly more than once, yeah the copies are left alone n not knowing whats going on or how they got there, not really the people themselves at all but a small picture of what they used to be.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing.
I think the best solution is to fire the Ark, AND let the Wau continue... Evolving.
Eventually it could have learned how important memory is, and allow the uploads to retain memories.
Eventually the copies of the crew could have became something else. Maybe a half artificial lifeform. Continued to improve the situation. Make robotic forms that surpass human fragility.
Robots can live on the surface of dead planets.
Why destroy what is essentially the best chance for human civilization to continue on earth.
I also wouldnt have killed my copies. Let them decide unless I thought my copy would be spiteful, and try to undermine the mission.
Great insights! Never thought it like that
With the philosophical side of the game, I think you truly die when you stop thinking and/or experiencing, even if a copy exists with your brain, when your instance dies that person's dead, the other is another person
When it comes to this games universe probably yes. Can you kill a radio signal if you smash a radio? No. Everything comparable irl to humans leads to an Afterlife theres zero examples that make the whole "everything ends at death" make sense. Literally nothing. People can also have shared dreams implying that human consciousness goes 'somewhere' when a sleep add on top of that that astral projection is a real thing there's really no argument to be had. People that actually look into this stuff without bias understand that something more is going on with reality and there after whether you like it or not. You habe near unlimited knowledge at your finger tips drop your ego and genuinely search for knowledge and itll find you if not then don't worry about deep questions like this.
@rushpatriot2866 well I'd rather figure out my afterlife when I die. Until then I'd better live a good life cause who knows what and if comes after,it might be the afterlife, it might be the void, it might be just a freeze like what happened in the game, but I'd better live good, cause I don't have the comfort of certainty
@@callmesp2415reality is weird the fact that things change simple because we observe it is amazing
@thepolarianempire yes in the story when he died he was a different person but for others he was the same, both were true!
@@callmesp2415 you're implying you can't gain knowledge and live a good life at the same time. Sounds more like denial out of free. Too many people keep their heads in the sand and it's why we're in the situation we're in today good example is the trafficking that happened by epst*** all that stuff has been known for several decades yet because the majority wanted to live through cowardice many kids suffered and d!Ed for it they didn't get to live a good life at all simply because people wanted to keep their heads in the sand.
Personally while i think Catherine had been manipulative, Simon was also shown multiple times how the transfer works and she used the exact same language at omega.
Yes she could’ve worded things better but even then human Catherine wasn’t great at communicating.
It’s great that both Simon and Catherine have clearly defined traits and flaws.
Poor Simon can’t be blamed for his ignorance fully, as he was literally thrust into this position out of nowhere. This is future tech and science, and he’s a simple book store clerk.
Catherine is aloof, cold, but caring. She’s also obsessive over her project, which has made her colleagues view her as weird. She had detached herself from the idea of who was the real Catherine, while her workmates struggled with the concept.
Catherine wasn’t manipulative, she was just an outright liar. The “coin flip” was utter nonsense.
@@mushyroom9569 lying is a form of manipulation.
Simon wasn't exactly mentally stable, so Catherine explained things in the only way he would understand. He was so dead-set on his goal that he didn't stop to critically think about what he's learned. I don't think Catherine could've explained it any better if it's Simon's choice to trust the vague idea he has in his mind.
@@inplane9970 i completely agree, i do think her saying copying the brain might’ve helped him understand but even then he might not grasp that the copy isn’t just a copy, it is as him as he is
I love contrasting this with the show Severance. Soma is about “copy/paste” and Severance is about “cut/paste”. It’s very interesting the differences in such a small change
I don't necessarily think I agree. Severance is more about partitioning the brain like a hard drive than any file transfer operation.
The “cut/paste” show you’re looking for might be called Pantheon
Interesting analogy. Wouldn't have went there but it definitely is Interesting.
but when you work with computers, you learnt aht cut/paste is the exact same process as copy/paste with the sole difference being that the original gets deleted once the copy is complete... in that regard you could say thats what the members of pathos that offed themselves after getting their scans were trying to emulate.
Cut/paste is Simon 3 killing Simon 2 rather than leaving him alive after the copy. I haven’t watched severance, but I feel like that’s a little different since there is no copying going on at all, it’s more like partitioning like the first reply said.
Another detail that is interesting: There is no coin toss when you "transfer" your mind. The one sitting will stay where he is and the one on the other side will have the impression to have won a coin toss. A lot of people doing this research were hoping that there was a continuity when transferring their mind and motivated them to do whatever it took to make this ARK work.
Even Catherine when reacting to Robin Bass getting her scan and saying she wishes to win the coin toss said: "I wish people wouldn’t think of it like that." But still uses the analogy even though she knew perfectly well there is no coin toss in the process.
The sad reality is: either you live as a memory inside someone else brain or either you are the one sitting on the chair. As a player, we were living the story inside the mind of Simon 3 but if you were the one sitting, in reality, you are sure 100% that you will not be transferred.
I just hate that the protagonist dosn't grasp this.
He wastes the last precious moments he has down there screaming and cursing at his only company. He could have gotten up, buried the last human, get to know catherine better, spend time in the log cabin simulation, teach the WAU some manners or supervise its withering and at some point his battery would just run out and he wouldn't know. Even actively killing himself would have made more sense than shouting "FUCK!" into the emptiness.
Simon-3 being such a simpleton makes me like ARK-Simon significantly less.
This is what I’m thinking there was never a coin toss Catherine lied , there would’ve always been copies, and she knows that the new copies aren’t aware of this , or at least his won’t be, cause the human Catherine wouldn’t say it if she knew
I dont remember subscribing to this guy, but i dont regret my decision
you probably watched his dark wood video
Oh same lol
Ditto
I sub Ed after watching.his Ds no name game vid
I was about to say the EXACT same thing.
I think killing Simon 2 was humane exactly because of how devastating the truth was for Simon 3 after the launch of the Ark.
EDIT: You guys are being kind of intense about a comment I made in passing thought. Thanks for your perspectives, but I’m turning my notifications off.
Idk, I’d probably rather spend a few thousand years brainstorming and chilling with my other self than DYING. But whatever choice the player makes, is probably what Simon would’ve wanted as far as the story goes
I left Simon 2 alive to make his own choice. There were tons of ways for him to end it if he didn't think life was worth living. Maybe he could find some purpose.
@thomasplace6781 I don't know if Simon 2 would have lived that long or made it to the space gun alive. There's also the fact that Simon 3 could become the rogue AI like the doctor feared.
@TheRanscat worth a shot? I guess it’d be up to Simon whether he thought he’d want to face the countless horrors for the sake of mayyyyybe figuring out some type of life lol. I can completely understand not wanting to be alive in that situation
@thomasplace6781 maybe. You can choose what happens with the other Simon in the game, so in the end is up to you.
1:55:10
BeamBuddy: "I'll play this uninterrupted!"
Discord: "Allow me to introduce myself..."
I was thinking that
I definitely did not spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out who pinged me, nope, I would never do that.
Started playing SOMA, when I was depressed. Had to stop and come back to it, cause the existential horror was too much. Came back to it a year later, happy and adjusted and the ending hit me so hard I realized the existential horror never left me.
It desturbed me greatly. You are not alone in feeling this.
Worst and greatest horror game I have ever played.
The dread may be there, but you can 100% bet that your resilience is way higher. Not only that, I bet you got some other points of view along the way
From a depressed fvck typing this laying on his bed to another: good job
I don't think that Kath was gaslighting Simon, so much as she just...wasn't explaining it fully. She's worked with this technology for years, it's commonplace for her. For Simon, it's all new and he doesn't have any clue what it can and cannot do. Sure Kath could sit Simon down and explain stuff, but she's done so before and he hasn't grasped it and it could take hours. Hours that she feels she doesn't have.
I won't say that she's a paragon of goodness and kindness, but I don't think Kath was being malicious or duplicitous at any point in the game.
oh no, she definitely was. when he was talking about how strange it is to be a robot. she just ignored him and told him to get on with the mission without consoling him. then waited until the ARK was launched before telling him the truth. even then, before she shut down for good, she was scolding him like he was just a puppet.
@diegoaespitia Simon couldn't comprehend how the copying worked on his own, and rather than take the time to explain, Catherine only cared about putting the Ark into space.
Simon thought Catherine was his friend. Catherine used Simon as just a tool. Even when she acts friendly you can hear it's just an act. Cath didn't have many friends and didn't want them. She's desensitized with experimenting on copies to the point she doesn't see ANY of them as human except herself.
Simon is the most human person in the game. Catherine is just no better than the WAU at this point, sacrificing everything to achieve her goal.
@@diegoaespitia Yet every _player_ understood what was going on just fine. The _character_ of Simon didn't, because he was written to make an example of -- a literally egomaniacal man-child who won't grow up.
@@kkuro7054 What? No, Simon is none of that. He is an extremely old legacy copy of a brain-damaged man on his last legs.
Like, his brain scan was one of the first of it's kind. Even ignoring the severe brain damage of the orignal Simon, the technology of the time made his scan far less dynamic than the ones we see in the game. He has trouble grasping and processing the world-changing information he's given, instead focusing on following orders and completing specific tasks.
As a character, he's essentially autism-coded.
it was all Catherine could handle to hand hold him as much as she did. The logs of her interacting with the crew in life always showed that she was awkward and unsure of herself in social interactions.
Being nurturing didn't seem to be a natural aspect of her personality. She tried to explain the situation to him a few times and there were enough clues outside of her explanations, but Simon just didn't get it and she didn't really know how to guide him to the truth.
So this means the whole game is really the POV of the deep dive suit, the rest of the game (Canada, the original suit) are just memories
Yes, that’s the sad part….Simon is just telling the story over and over again…..
My god, after all these years it finally clicks. I never understood why the coin-toss explanation wasn't how it worked. I really believed it was a 50/50 chance whether your current consciousness would flash over into a new perspective or not when it was copied. I had- never- considered that it was all just the deep diver's suit memories that we were playing through prior to the copy. I finally get it now.
He does say that in the video, yeah
@@TheDenshProblem Also Simon’s unwillingness to accept the process of copying over your “data”
@@TheDenshProblem Correct. There is no coin toss. You sit in the first chair, you stay in the first chair. The new guy is someone else entirely. A perfect copy of you, sure, but it's not YOU, it's HIM over there. If he's not the smartest, he'll think he's you, but if he gets it he'll realize he's someone else entirely. Not calling you dumb lol.
The coin toss thing isn’t how file transfers work. When you send a file, you always send a copy. The original is permanently written to your hard drive until that space is overwritten. That’s why cops can recover your deleted files.
Cathrine knew this and tricked Simon in to thinking there was a chance that he could make it to the ark. He was doomed from the start
damn.
She didn't trick him. The knowledge of exactly what happens was already demonstrated at Omicron. It's just that the divesuit copy never got to experience the legacy copy being in the chair still, and vice versa. Likewise, at the end, the ark copy never experiences the one at the bottom of the ocean, just didn't get to kill his copy this time. Simon can be upset at his circumstance at the bottom of the ocean, but he can't be angry at Catherine about it.
@@flookaraz There’s a reason why she presses Simon so hard throughout the journey while explaining everything to a minimal. She manipulated and mislead Simon the whole time while trying to dodge any questions about the transfer process, and not to mention, she lied about there being a 50/50 chance he’ll come out on the better side.
@@Drpepperspray1010 Except she didn't lie. There is no "original" when talking about computer files, they are all identical copies. Both Simons had a 100% chance of existing, is more of a Shrodinger superimposition than a 50/50, yeah, but it is easier to think of it as a 50/50 since the human brain doesn't really understand superimposed states. The Simon in the Ark thinks he won, the one in Phi thinks he lost, but both were going to exist no matter what.
I don't understand people saying that Kath was misleading when you as the player understand perfectly what's going to happen at any single point, Simon is just a thick moron, Kath is not malicious.
@@flookarazimplying you wouldnt be furious
I remember watching this game as a teenager still grasping to figure out who I was. Seeing this video as an adult made me cry because I realized that we’ll always question who we are. We are not one solid image of “me”. We change, we’re fluid, and there will always be other versions of us as we grow.
Same experience for me
I watched markiplier play it as a teen. I think his comedic nature took away from the sheer horror of this game. That, or I was too young to grasp it.
@@TigerCannon I'm pretty sure it was because of him. Old markiplier is the worst youtuber you can possibly choose to watch to experience such a game. You can't possibly get immersed in the story while he does his usual thing... I tried to watch his Alien Isolation playthrough, but his silly and partly obnoxius antics take away everything serious about any game.
Bit odd to think like that. You are always you. You don't figure out who you are. You sre just you no matter what.
Its s hard feeling nobody else knows what changes in our heads over the years. Thats why the feeling of bonding is something we humans long for.
Clinical neuroscience student here: your neurons actually don’t go through mitosis. Your glial cells will, your neurons don’t because it would disrupt the synapses. Your brain cells stay the same, ship of thesis can’t apply to your neurons.
god damn
I think the hardest patt is that realizing after Simon got that first scan... there's a version of him that lived out his normalcy and passed away far before Simon 2 woke up.
Another thing is, people seem to forget that Simon didn't come from where we wake up and interact with Kath. He doesn't understand what's going on, despite how well Kath might explain things, he doesn't understand.
But main point is, the 50/50 doesn't exist. You aren't split into two people, you now just have You and You. Copy and pasted, but not a clone. Just You, in a different entity. When Kath said there was a coin toss for who gets to be... there is no coin toss. The game just narratively let us experience the "winning" side or the side that gets to live, until the end. Where they show us the two sides for Simon. Simon who gets stuck in the sea, and Simon who gets stuck in space.
This game shook me to my core, and to this day still gives me nightmares.
Existential Horror is something that is hardly ever done right. It is one of the most genuine kinds of horror.
It relies on our natural fear and dread of thinking about death, and this game makes you think hard about it.
Soma actually changed my perspective on life, and for whatever is left of it, i will constantly dread being the stream of conscious that looses the coin toss.
I desire control of my consciousness now more than ever, and I know I can't control the coin toss. I fear one day I will loose that toss, and I'm terrified of finding out what happens then.
Every philosophical questions can be turned into a horror game.
@@fall5923I believe you are correct which is why I am severely disappointed that there isn't a horror game I know of that answers the question: "What happens to a person when the grilled cheese tastes... bad!"
whats worse is the "cointoss" never existed. you will never "experience" life as the copy.
Never enter a teleporter
There is no "coin toss"
2:31:41 I love that he says how both scenarios are true; it’s a personal pet peeve of mine when people (like in the game) infer that there will be a real one and a not real one, or that one of you “lost the coin toss” you would ALWAYS lose the coin toss, and simultaneously another you would always win it. There is NO coin toss because we know who loses every time. You do. Specifically the experience-stream that pressed the button will always lose; you may as well be two brand new people
When talking about their subjective experience, or the 'instance' they experience, then from their perspective THEY do lose. Of course they know they win and lose, but they only have access to one of those experiences/existence. So I don't think it's inaccurate to say they lost.
No, because both entities think they pressed that button until they know that they didn't. So both entities have identical memories up until the point where they diverge (Upload). It is only when they diverge that they find out which one they are. Would you mind replying if you agree or disagree?
@@Flashman894 I’ve been thinking this the whole time while reading all these comments about transferring & copying & coin flips & two entities. “Indians thought cameras would take your soul.” & now Simon’s soul ultimately rests at the bottom of the ocean.
@@Flashman894 I think you misunderstood the comment. There's no coin toss because there's always a single, original body that presses the button, and the new body is a completely separate entity- like scanning a piece of paper and printing out a copy. You could print out a million copies if you wanted, or add things to the original paper that'll then show up on the copies, but the original paper is never going to suddenly become one of those copies.
Similarly, the perspective of the body pushing the button never changes. Simon 3 could've put a million copies of himself on the ark, but he would never wake up there because he's always going to be the body pushing the button. Simon 4, 5, 6 etc. would remember pushing the button, but they're not Simon 3. Those Simons won the coin toss every time, and Simon 3 lost every time, because it was never a coin toss to begin with.
@@asdffdsa8885 That is true. However, that is from an outside perspective. I've always assumed the coin toss referrers to the first-person perspective. For example, from Catherine's perspective, the Simon pressing the button is obviously going to remain the same; but from Simon's perspective, both entities are the same until they're not. (Divergence) it's hard to illustrate through a YT comment but look at these hopefully correctly formatted lines:
---------->---------->
Now imagine that second line coming out of the first took the exact same path as the first and only diverged once you can clearly see the second line.
Dude the voice acting for this game is phenomenal, like very few games got me this interested into the voice acting
This game could use a remake with animated portaits
I just love the random discord ping during the main characters existential crisis of a monologue. 1:55:00
How did I miss that 😭
Had me checking my notifications 😂
Omg I seriously thought I was imagining things because I didn't get any notfification lmao
had to look thru comments to see if i was the only one hearing it LOL was looking all over my discord
@@BeamBuddyy I checked my discord straight away
What I love about soma is the twist was telegraphed all the way back at the beginning. Hell if you know how computers work than you understand the mechanics at play here. But the way it's written. The way the game almost infects you with hope only to rip it away whenever you get anywhere.
im so glad you covered this game. i cry every time over the ending. simon's doomed nature and grasping for hope that in the end, may not mean anything, is reflected in the fate of earth and those who get in the ark. who's to say it wont run out of power? or get damaged by space debris? we don't. you can also leave the WAU unharmed, with the vague hope that it'll figure out life without suffering. but also we don't know if it ever will. but maybe it's worth letting it try. simon didnt know if his treatments would work out, either. but it's worth trying, even for just a little bit more time, one more scrap of hope. no matter how futile or small those end up being.
Bet he regrets those treatments after all
@@jbear3478 simulation Simon doesn't.
I also tear up at the ending. It's my favorite ending in any form of media ever
To be fair, space has a lot of...space. It's very rare for much of anything to actually crash into each other.
Not to mention it's expanding, so even more likely. At most, it would probably fall into orbit around the sun as most things in the solar system are.
@@watertommyz except the space around earth ISNT empty. Plenty of debris in orbit around earth, and any damage the ARK sustains to its hardware for whatever reason will be IMPOSSIBLE to fix
I had just turned 30 when I played this game..
There is a line that says "at least I won't have to make it to 30"...
At this line by Catherine, I suddenly welled up, and heavy tears fell.
I had to stopnplaying for a time and contemplate the experience.
I restarted the game.
It was Sarah who said it. The last human on earth
why did you get sad by that statement by Sarah?
@thetellerofstories
Sjenwas trying to express humanity in the face such unimaginable horror.
And to my mind, having just turned 30 with the world ahead of me having built a path for myself, I felt great sorrow that Sarah won't get to reflect from the other side of 30.
I need contemplate further to be more in-depth. But I hope this answers you somewhat, and thank you for asking.
A long life is a liberty many don’t get to have
Restarting the game when the said that makes 0 sense dude. You don’t restart life when you hit 30. You’re supposed to keep playing the game and finish it. Just like life
I think my biggest irk with this story was Simon's refusal to accept how transfer worked.
He was shown and proven 2 times how it worked.
To me it would have made more sense for Simon to understand it and accept it, send the ark and have the remaining him THEN go to the WAU's heart, to decide if yes or no he should let it exist.(unless there's story plot that says the wau needed to be gone for the ark to be sent off. Which I don't think there is, since the player can either spare the WAU or kill it.)
Giving his remaining "him" a final purpose.
Instead he decided to die in misery and anguish, which at the end of the day, I guess is the most human thing he could have done.
@@g--stef4756 I don't think we even need the Brain damage to explain it.
Simon in the climber Comes up with a "Coin Toss" theory to explain why the "Real Simon"(actually just another copy of Simon, Simon 3) is in the Haimatsu Power suit. He wants to cope with the reality of Copy and wants it to be a mind or soul Transfer until this Simon 3 is Forced with the reality that a copy of him is getting on the ARK not him.
He is denying reality in order to cope with what he witnessed, which is a thing people do sometimes.
As a Citizen of Canada, I can confirm that they do in fact upload all of our monthly brains scans into a fake digital world.
Thats not scary. In Russia, china ect. They download a new insane story into your brain daily and there is a no path but destruction to truly escape while in such countries. And if you break the sycle, you will feel alone and watched, bc. You cannot share your thoughts. Everybody can rat you out for crimethoughts
Such living is to be a slave to the state and leader.
Just did mine last week
It's fitting. It's not just a full circle moment with the beginning of the game to contrast the comet entering from space hurdling toward Earth to kill all life with the ARK heading out into space to preserve what's left of life, but also the fact that the comet which kills humanity contrasts the asteroid that originally hit earth that brought about life.
Yes, brought about life and simultaneously wiped out countless species. Humans are the new dinosaurs and WAU is what is left.
Death comes for us all, but man.... Simon's fate is the darkest thing I'll ever have a window into seeing. All of them.
Some episodes of Black Mirror have similar themes, but there the simulated consciousness is sometimes in extreme distress / pain, too.
I will always say that they should have switched the sequence of the "good" and "bad" endings.
It would have been more impactful to see the fairytale ending where they're together on the Ark, only to flip back to the launch controls where the facility starts shutting down and Simon is raging at Catherine. As her copy goes offline and he's stuck under the ocean for a potential eternity, there's a sense of dread that would have finished off the experience.
For the few players who didn't really grasp the copy/paste vs cut/paste concept, it would have been an emotional blow, and for the majority of players that knew that in every "coin flip" a copy gets discarded and left to rot, ending on a bleak note would have been more satisfying.
Bruh that would have been so devastating I’m glad they didn’t 😂
Adding from another comment ; you could also add a post credit scene where second Simon wakes up confused if you didn't kill him in diving suit body, lost and confused.
You know, just to make it even more horrible
You would like the game returnal then lol
I thought that would be more impactful too.
@@orimoreau3138 man, now imagine if that copy meets up with the 3rd copy. that opens a lot of possibilities.
SOMA is about humans not being able to see past our own individual existence.
Katherine knew the whole time that if Simon didn't think there was a chance he
would be the one to board the ARC he most likely would not have bothered to launch
it. As manipulative as this was, I don't blame her for it.
The first time the ARK was brought up Simon asked Catherine "Can we get on the ark?" and Cat says "I suppose" and they make the plan to get to the ARK. Now it's pretty easy to assume that Simon literally meant can his current conscious get on the ARK and also to assume that Cat knew that's what he was asking and did not correct him that it would not be him HIM but another copy.
Next when Simon puts together the deep dive suit Cat tells him that switching will be the same as Toronto. He will just close his eyes and open them again in the new suit. She is clearly purposefully not reminding him that he is not "switching" and in fact will be either left behind or killed after the copy. So that seemed like a real bummer for her to do. Now after this you are right that Cat told him how the process works and Simon seems to forget this almost immediately however listening to his and Cat's conversations after this its apparent that Cat realizes he is still in the mindset that it will be HIM to board the ARK and again she doesnt correct him.
My final exhibit is the very end. Riddle me this: Why did Cat feel the need to link the ARK launch system with the consciousness transfer sequence?
Did she do that so her and Simon could put their copies on right before it launched? I’m pretty sure she mentions it in a voice line
And also probably so Simon has no chance to back out once he realizes that he won’t make it on as himself
Yeah I'm sure if he had done the "transfer" and of course he doesn't poof into the ark, he would have demanded to keep trying it over and over again and wouldn't have let her launch it. They both were talking past each other, him not wanting to or being able to understand what the copy process actually is, and her not wanting to risk the ark launch.
Pretty sure she included the sequence for the sole purpose of being a copy with the knowledge that her life long project succeeded. The launch sequence was never intended to be with Simon, and it was just so she had the most recent memories of Earth compared to everyone else.
I absolutely love the video. Only thing I have to say is that at 27:32, the person in the recording is actually Amy's lover from the surface, who died when the comet impacted the Earth. If you turn on the names of who's speaking, he's credited as "Dominick"
Originally, I was frustrated with Simon for being so relentlessly, unstoppably stupid; it's only been much later, coming back, that I appreciate the degree to which Catherine must have actually recognized his delusions and validated them to keep him going -- rather than simply not comprehending how someone couldn't grasp the concept of the gameworld, from her perspective of being conscious for only a few minutes during the course of the gameplay.
(Not bad psychological savvy, if she was really intended to be "on the spectrum" like so many fans/reviewers have said!)
I feel like Simon's reaction is probably what a lot of people would do; your entire idea of self, of you or your soul is being put to test, along with the stress of finding out all your prior experiences were from a cloned version of you and you aren't the original, that the entire world and life that you know, even if its the life of a clone, is destroyed and the only remanent of that life is stuck hundreds to thousands of meters under the ocean, and that all that is keeping you from either being stuck in probably one of the worst conditions a human can experience and that of paradise may just be a coin flip, all in just one day would probably make any human either go crazy, incredibly traumatized, or praying to anything that could help that you are going to be the lucky one that is the clone on paradise (maybe even all three). Him freaking out at the end after being cosmically fucked is the most human/emotional thing someone losing the biggest gamble of the century would do
@@fronker7581 On top of that - Simon was literally a victim of traumatic brain injury 'before' he was scanned, and the scanner itself was also extremely primative.
So it's a technological miracle that WAU brought someone a level above Ralph Wiggum with that material to work with.
@@InnuendoXPYeah I was wondering that myself; would the clone of Simon be cognitively/intellectually impaired because his mind scan was from a guy with massive head trauma that's about to die?
@@savageshot3723 yeah terminal head trauma doesn't usually leave people the brightest crayons in the box.
@@InnuendoXP yeah, also just remembered that Simon’s brain scan was explicitly said to be “flatter” than normal.
Based on what you've made so far, I think you'd also love looking into Signalis
To sum it up without spoiling anything: if resident evil and dead space had a baby, then raised it on german art
I'll have to check it out!
Working my way through that right now. Beautiful game
@@BeamBuddyy If you decide to make a video, it will be like twice as long as this one minimum to explain all the exposition/theories.
@@BeamBuddyy i second this dude Signalis is a masterclass in cosmic/psychological horror. Brilliant fucking game with SOOO much to digest and really deserves multiple playthroughs
Woah what…I need to check this out. I’m about half way through the dead space remake finally now just got a chance to give it a real run through.
The Best Ending for me is not killing the WAU or 1st Copy Simon. Dive suit Simon Could in theory try to make it back up to Omicron and meet up with his previous self who would still be asleep and then try to work together to make something of their "Lives" and potentially use their rudimentary necromancy understanding to assemble a body for "Catherine" assuming the chip still works in some way or something else. At least Simon wouldn't be completely alone.
I have a few very specific memories of this game and one of them is when you meet Carl near the beginning of the game and you start messing with his power. He starts screaming in agony as if you're torturing him, which I guess you kind of are. It messed me up for a while. Was kind of sad to not see you show that part. All in all this was an incredible game and one that stays with you. Awesome video!
Also Carl saying something along the lines of "Why are you in a diving suit covered in gunk?"
I think another great part of the game is how the "monsters" made by the WAU are in fact just people that have been incredibly messed up by the WAU, if you pay more attention to them quite a few of the "monsters" have a backstory behind them and how the came to be the way they where. The amount of detail and world building in SOMA is crazy and I love it so much for that. Amazing video man.
Terry Akers the GOAT
I remember watching a youtuber play this years ago and never really remembered it as looking this good. I didn't pay attention enough to build up the story to make any sense so I'm glad I have this here. From what I remember, it was a very intelligently designed game through both environments and interactions.
Just how the actual *FUCK* can you have so few videos and make such banger videos‽!?
First darkwood, the the theocrac agency stuff (which is super underrated and if you are reading this, like cult conspiracies and haven't seen it it's good stuff) then the nameless saga and now the game that gave me my first existential crisis?
Amazing, I really hope that the algorithm blesses you because you got a real talent my guy.
Budget
Is nonexistent to this man
@@Tyrique-fn3kv I wishhh
@@BeamBuddyy LET US DREAM DAMMIT (its a joke)
I love the way he talks when he makes the Musician talk I just love it so much how sad and innocent he sounds
I guess that guy telling people to kill themselves after the scan was right, because otherwise you would have to live with the knowledge that another copy of you is inside the ark while you're still there, trapped deep in the ocean with nowhere to go.
I'm really glad someone made a video finally giving SOMA the love and recognition it deserves. I loved this game so much and truly think it's one of the best horror games out there. Thanks for all your hard work, love and detail to the video!
I wish we could play as third simon again to continue playing and maybe try to escape or something
Would’ve been a gut wrench to return after the credits to the Third Simon’s perspective, if you didn’t kill him
As someone who has given birth (and am raising a child who I am fully convinced is much smarter than I am) SOMA reminds me of the strange feelings having a child gives you. That knowledge that you really aren't the center of the universe and that it's ok. That I will die someday but a part of me will go on into the future. It's terrifying and comforting at the same time.
Do you think you'd regret not having a child, if you chose not to? I am struggling to decide, and it is my fear that having one and accepting this feeling is as scary as figuring out not having one will avoid me being to accept my own mortality.
I also have additional reasons, but my existential dread certainly plays a role in it as well.
@gruberu I get that feeling the world we are living in and fearing our child might become what those people are it's scary
@@gruberu I would not wish a child (and especially giving birth) on anyone who doesn't want one. They change your life completely in so many ways, not all of them good.
However, if you have a stable financial situation and one or more people you can count on to help for years to come...it can be an amazingly rewarding experience. It has all the joy of nurturing a garden, knowing that your work will outlive you. Just make sure you don't try to force your daisies to be roses, kids are who they are.
This highly reminds me of the Star Trek transporter problem. Every time you "transport" somewhere, the "you" that walks out of the transporter beam is a new copy, and the "you" that got transported is destroyed. There's some theories that the matter is actually "transferred."
In earlier Star Trek, there actually were characters that refused to use the transporter for these reasons. Then there's the infamous "Tuvix" episode... :P
there's a misunderstanding at 1:21:25 , I don't think simon's suggestion was to bring along the doctor's brainscan to the ark like said in the video. I think he tried to reconfirm after the fact if they had to torture them by bringing them alive digitally, and instead could just dig into the brainscan's files. Hence why "it doesnt just work like that", memories and words wouldn't be encoded in anything we could decipher. They had to let that code take "life" and tell them directly. She's dishonest, but I think catherine wasn't lying here.
Well, at least he inhabits a diving suit so he has pretty much full human movement.
The ending where simon is in the ark is a BEAUTIFUL ending, i cried in joy as i saw simon walk out and see them reunite as their human forms
its not their human forms though, its a digital simulation of their human forms
@@ThinkAlienly that's what I meant
I teared up listening to Simon beg for Catherine, the abusive manipulator, the last person he would ever have had, to come back, to not leave him alone at the bottom of the ocean until he slowly died. My hope is that because he lived, WAU can save humanity under the cultivation of Simon, that through his cyborg like brain, he can make WAU understand the importance of a good life, as opposed to not being able to die.
@@Green_Bean_Machine I wouldnt call her an abusive manipulator though, thats a strong word to describe Cathrine
Did you not suspekt what might really be going on?
Well the ending can be bleak a lot of it can be hopeful.
“Simon’s left all alone”
No he isn’t depending on choices there might be a few other the sentient beings left. The Wau’s last created life was Simon, clearly it’s getting better at making life.
“He stuck too deep”
Human beings who get physically tired have walked across countries. He can walk or climb or swim or ride on something. Terry Fox ran across Canada on one leg.
“There’s nothing left alive on the surface”
They don’t know for sure, the info they have is shaky at best. They survived why not somebody else.
No that Simon didn’t get to live VR fantasy land in the stars but him and others cogent Wau life might be the next step for earth helping heal the surface.
The hope left for him is what he makes.
You forgot the murderous wildlife.
@@ReticentSparrowoh yeah forgot the deadly fish….and various perversions of human/animal life that just want to kill you
@@ReticentSparrow that's the genuine human experience, well, was, before guns and all that
I like this take, if you leave the WAU, maybe, even if it takes a hundred more years or thousands more, simon will still be there, imagine having the capability of seeing things EVOLVE like he could program something to shut him off then on every couple of years, see how nature or how the WAU is doing, maybe when it gets even better, it will ne worth waiting that long. But seeing how Simon is portrayed, i don't think he's the "waiting around for a billion years to see what happens" kinda guy, still, someone with a scientific and curious mind would have A LOT to do in Simon's situation
The WAU never actually created life. It just thought it did. Simon's missing the most important part of being alive: Reproduction.
I am so glad somebody finally did Soma the justice it deserves.
I've played this gem years ago and don't remember everything about it anymore but that ending, THAT ENDING and the terror of being left completely alone in the dark, that's burned into my mind. Thank you ❤
Wait till you see MauLer's series...
I'm surprised they haven't released a DLC or a second game considering videos on this game released 9 years ago are getting almost a million views consistently, it's an amazing game concept and I'm sure people would love to see more of it.
Even if they don't design a second game, perhaps based on the continuation of the Simon that was left behind, they could design a DLC that's on the Arc, or even "before the disaster" where you work when Pathos II was still around right before and during what happened as one of the crew.
Ehh too many things get ruined by a sequel. Not everything needs it and often times it just takes away from the impact of the original, this game wraps up perfectly, there's no need to add anything else
There's nothing new that's worth exploring with the story. It's done, explained to the perfect degree, there's nowhere else to take it that would offer any value.
I’m personally pretty happy it didn’t turn into a “beating a dead horse” situation
It's a modable game; an unofficial sequel isn't out of the question.
That "entity" near the end of the Theta segment? That is Akers, or what's left of him. You can tell by the recording in that area. But another clue is by the gaping eye sockets, you actually found his eyes in that little outpost where you could play chess.
Excellent video, by the way. I have watched dozens of SOMA related videos, breaking down the game or overviews of it and they never get boring to watch.
36:59 not the ship of thesis 😭
Bro i was looking for this comment 😭😭
Same :-)
For anyone wondering: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
Is it still Ship of theseus if its the ship of thesis perhaps
yeahhh
I will never get tired of listening to ppl break down Soma. It's such a good game to have conversations about.
Been here since the begging I can smell a connoisseur of underground games with hard gameplay that I will never play
I hope you're not talking about SOMA. I adore this game but it's hardly underground and the gameplay is literally walking sim-tier.
This game will always go down as one of the saddest endings for me. 😭
I could've sworn I saw this vid months ago but I guess it was only a few weeks. I think the interaction between Catherine and Simon is tragic. For sure Catherine didn't explain certain things and kept Simon in the dark about things he didn't specifically ask so he'd stay focused on completing tasks, but at the same time when you wake up in the dive suit and kill/spare your robot self she shouldn't really have to explain any further. At that point Simon was able to see both conclusions of the coin toss, even though he'd already seen it before when he finds out his human self died soon after the scan. So later when the Ark is launched he should've known what was going to happen. But then again, to be fair, he did just wake up that morning in Toronto, Canada. The knowledge and experience gap was just too big and you can't know what you can't know, just like I can't know about the experience of a past me that made a different decision living a different life that I don't even think about as my current self. So even though Simon saw first hand how the transfer would work not just once but twice, he still didn't get it because he had yet to lose the coin toss until the final flip. And he did what most people would do when faced with an unreasonable predicament, lash out and blame someone else that's closest to them in the moment. And yes, Catherine could've said more. But when you see her reaction to both winning and losing the coin toss it's immediate acceptance of the situation without complaint because she knows complaining is useless and won't change the outcome. I think if Simon had just spent more time adjusting and thinking things through he would've likely come to the same conclusions Catherine did.
SOMA fcked me up the first time I played it. It proposes a painfully present question in this day and age of AI boom: how far does "Human Existence" truly reach? When does it stop being so? When can something- or someone, stop being labeled as Alive? What does "Being Alive" even mean? It is a horrifying game. Not because of the beasts that loom in the abyss, but because it asks a question we don't want the answer to. It makes us think of something we don't want to think of. And _that_ is, imo, the true horror behind this piece. Hell, your decisions literally have no impact in how the game develops! It has the same outcome every time. So, knowing nothing will change, what choices would you rather make?
Wow, your production value has grown so much! Amazing job! Love your 3D model.
Thanks! I'm really trying to improve!
i really want someone to adapt this game into a movie so more people will experience it
yes and no. while it would be amazing to see in movie form, hollywood does NOT have the best track record for making good video game to movie stuff.
Video game RUclipsrs who make over 1 hour long videos are basically my coworkers at this point
It’s possibly one of the saddest and darkest horror stories ever told
One of the best stories in a video game.
The entire experience can only be described as one of those... "Nightmares" you have that stays with you for a long time...
I played it once... and i will never be able to play it again... i was genuinely impacted... and i will never forget it.
Dude its 00:20 an now I need to watch this masterpiece. Havent watched yet but i know this is gonna be great.
I'll never get tired of telling people that SOMA is not a scary game in way of tossing scares in your face. I don't remember if I was scared playing it.
It's scary when you take at least some time to think about what it tells you. I remember the deep dread I felt when I finished it and thought about what it showed me. I've never felt that dread in any other game.
It's not a scary game at all...not traditionally. It's literally existential dread, a different kind of almost mundane horror, or the worst horror depending on how you feel about it.
It has two levels...standard scary where I jumped at noises and ran away from weird creatures, not to mention the body horror, but the deeper existential crisis it exposes is the slow burn worst scare of all.
2:24:40 "Right. Have a seat." Was the first time in the game the she intentionally gas lit the player character. A file transfer is a copy/paste operation, not a cut/paste operation. Everyone with a software or networking background facepalmed at Simon's failure to understand the first time we played this game.
i was annoyed too at his non understanding
BeamBuddy: * randomly appears talking about my fav game darkwood *
Also BeamBuddy: * maintains badass upload quality *
Me: * eats popcorn *
same
This is probably by far the best RUclips video I’ve ever seen with how the story was being told in the character and effort you put into it. This is beautiful.
The coolest, scariest, most depressing and most bittersweet game I've ever played. It freaked me out to the point that I expected something else to look back at me from the mirror irl. Absolute masterpiece.
Regarding the Ship of Theseus argument, there are actually cells in your body that never get replaced and you have them for your entire life. In the cornea of your eyes, you have cells called Corneal Endothelial cells which are hexagon shaped and important for sight. You are born with all the corneal endothelial cells that you will have in your life, and gradually lose them as you age. The ones that are lost are never replaced, and the remaining cells just enlarge to take up the space that once housed the other cells. On top of that, you are born with about 50% of the heart cells that you will have in your life. I honestly find the argument kind of hilarious when applied to humans cos the people who make it can't even be bothered to check whether it's even true.
I believe it's the same with neurons in the cerebral cortex. No more gets added post birth.
Yes and no. Even parts of cells are continuously replaced just like cells being replaced in the human body. Just because you have the same cells in some parts of your body does not mean the molecules that compose it arent also being replaced.
@@vincentfox4929 true that, even our DNA gets repaired or else it may cause cancer
Same with women and eggs
there isn't a quantifiable amount of changes necessary for this argument to be valid since it's extremely subjective and existential though. you could pretty much pick up any aspect of physics and argue that it's a perfect embodiment of theseus' ship because the really funky cloud of electrons are themselves constantly changing and stuff like that
reminds me of i have no mouth but i must scream. being left alone in an empty world
i was just thinking this!!
One is about being stuck with someone who hates you forever, the other is about nobody being there. Scary in different ways.
Really really good story i want more of that
That shit kept me up at night I don't want more of that 😭😭😭@@rushpatriot2866
Exactly!
I think the most agonizing part about the third Simon is just that... he *is* still the WAU. He's the antivenom for it, yes, but it's just a different *strand* of the stuff inside of him. It's still the same gunk holding him together.
Simon will live. Forever. In the abyss of the ocean, locked in a pilot seat and unable to move. No voice to talk to. No voice to call out. His only companion being the knowledge that he *is* this Simon. Hating himself and being unable to die.
Forever.
Why can't he leave the seat? Why is he immortal?
@@Universal_Craftsman he can leave the seat but he is trapped due to the power going out, without Power he can't get back inside Phi and follow the lights back to the climber. Even if he somehow got to the climber without Power the climber needs Power.
Also he's immortal because he's an AI, he doesn't need food or water, just electricity, though he will probably die when his battery dies.
Edit: the OP is wrong about being locked in the pilot seat
@@AutrevmlM Thanks for the clarification!
I’d like to believe that Simon eventually got up from the seat and sauntered off in a random direction until eventually reaching the surface. Where he spent the remainder of his days wandering the ruins of civilization, hopefully coming to peace with the lot in his life. Assuming he didn’t drop dead somewhere at the bottom of the sea not too long after launching the Ark.
Why do you think he is immortal?
@@Universal_Craftsman No, I never implied that he was. just that he'd eventually get bored of sitting in a chair after a good while.
@@whiskey-4208 He would probably get out of the chair and off himself.
Your channel is going to blow up, man. You consistently push out high-quality videos like this. There’s no way your efforts will go unnoticed for long lol. Thank you for all the content!
I sure hope so 🤞
This is a certified "It wasn't supposed to harm the crew" moment
I believe we have been playing as the 3rd Simon from the start, we are reliving his memories, and that would make the comment about loosing the dice role make sense we never knew which Simone we were until the end. Technically we never played as the second Simon or the first.
But that's just a theory a GAMMME theory!!
Edit so i finished the video and it seems i wasn't the only one that thought that damn...
Haha I was gonna say… that’s exactly what I said !
Two things:
1) I don’t think Robin Bass understood Sarang’s thoughts on continuity and the importance of human death. When Sarang is talking about offing oneself after the scan, I understand his thoughts on performing the final act and continuity as a way of recognizing that two of one human cannot consciously exist (I’m still thinking on as to why), not that his human consciousness would literally transfer to his human scan’s consciousness. Robin misinterpreted this and understood it in a spiritual way, in which her human consciousness (or soul) would transfer to the scan and she would continue her human existence, which isn't how the scan works. They both left the planet, but with two different intentions in mind. This story moment makes me wonder: if someone unalived themselves with thinking that their soul also transfers, and they do achieve being brought back to life in the ark, do they have any less of one?
2nd) I disagree that Catherine gaslit Simon. From the Theta act onward, Simon demonstrates that he gets how the scan works. Catherine is apathetic to his crisis at first (I take this because she’s more familiar with the tech rather than her being worried it’ll stop Simon from helping her), but does reiterate the current state of his existence and how the scans work. I don’t deny that Catherine was sometimes vague or shady, but I don’t think it was intentionally deceptive. She had no reason to lie to Simon. Sure, he wouldn’t help with the Ark, but how overwhelming this situation is would force him to grab on to any prospect of continuing life, regardless of how clearly Catherine explained it. On top of this, Simon also shows that he recognized or, at least, understood that there is a copy/paste of life occurring as he revived and killed the scan of Brandon and after he was copy/pasted into the dive suit.
I believe Catherine unintentionally confused Simon when using words like “transfer”, “switch” and the coin toss analogy for the scan process and, as a result, misrepresents it. With things like, “transfer” and “switch”, assumes a manual action, or a possibility of
choice and chance. The coin toss analogy only pushed the idea of autonomy in the situation further even though it never existed. Simon understood the copy/paste, but when Catherine missuggests that his consciousness (and thus his soul) will possibly transfer, is when things go wrong and Simon feels gaslit (more than once!) He thought he had a choice. A chance to decide his fate when he didn’t, all due to miscommunication. Honestly, as to why the coin toss-transfer possibility was mentioned is curious because it would mean Catherine didn’t fully understand how the scanning process worked, despite repeatedly showing that she did. (I’m not suggesting this as a criticism of a writing slip-up, but rather is a display of Catherine’s character in which she is an awkward and sometimes inarticulate person.)
TL;DR:
1) Robin Bass mis-interpreted Sarang’s thoughts on unaliving oneself and continuity.
2) Simon was not gaslit by Catherine. She unintentionally misarticulated that there was autonomy in the scanning process. There is no chance. It's a copy/paste.
Also I think Katherine is trying to keep Simon from fixating on his physical state for his own sanity. I don’t think it’s just to get to her goal.
Catherine only used the coin toss analogy because that’s how Simon himself explains the process after being copied into the second suit. She uses it to help him grasp the idea, not as an exact explanation of how the technology works
@@jjbot4763 oooo I see that makes sense. Ig that moment completely went over my head. Thanks for the clarification!
I love the way these videos are structured! It's basically a full-length playthrough but in the style of a retrospective. I don't know if all of the games will be horror but I love this approach! Keep it up!
This game definitely puts a mark on my late teen years about life and how we view things into different perspective. Really made you think about life, deaths and legacy we left throughout our lifetime. Leaving a mark that makes them know you went there,. You experienced it until others saw what you did. Like the corpses that once lived to those bunkers and now just empty. They trully die when they are not remembered and lost though time. I also had this feeling when I played Stray years later. That same feeling where no ones left but the robots.
I watched this with my sister in one sitting and all I have to say is WOW! We both went into depth about the philosophy of being a person, and what makes someone them/human. Everything about this video is a masterpiece and I hope you reach that 100k plus more, you deserve it!
Glad yall enjoyed !
One small detail you missed in Upsilon (still working through the video), you can turn off Carl’s power to avoid the encounter with the Construct. Instead, you hear Carl scream in pain, begging for it to stop, and flipping the switch back will stop it. This is the first of many choices, do you let Carl suffer for an easier exit, or do you end his existence and go through with sneaking around the construct again?
At the encounter with Amy, you can restore power with only one tube pulled, leaving her alive while you escape, or you can pull both and end her life.
In Delta, you can shock two different robots, taking the chip from either the guy who is unaware or from the cute robot that can’t speak. Either way, the cute guy is no longer going to follow you. The conversation on the way to Theta will change a bit.
In Omicron and Simon, leaving him alive or dead is an option, and again it modifies the conversation in the next transport section.
With Sarah, you can leave her alive or kill her, but it only changes the events of that room.
At Alpha, you can either choose to destroy the WAU or walk past the room. The main difference is your arm being damaged and Catherine commenting on it.
Daum
@@Hi-zh8sw I’ve played the entire game multiple times, I highly recommend it, and the actual video itself is fantastic, there’s just more he could have mentioned.