[SPOILERS] So many unanswered questions and so little payoff...

[GhylTarvoke]

THANK YOU SIR!

Alright, thanks for your explanations and your well stated point of view, but i've got to be honest, a lot of these bits of lore and dialogue you refer to, I found them as well. However, most of them still don't make much sense to me, I guess I shouldn't take a video game so seriously, even though uh...It wanted me to take it seriously? I guess? Oh well.

It's true that parts of the story don't line up nicely. Structure gel's and Ross' abilities are hand waved, for example.

Yeah, regarding Simon and viewing SOMA as a 'litmus test', I still feel that the game should have had multiple endings and Simon reactions based on your actions and choices throughout the game, I didn't view the ARK as entirely pointless exactly, i'm just surprised that Simon-3 was not as savvy as the average player was by that point...

Yes, increasing player freedom is usually good. I was lucky, because I agreed with Simon that the ARK was humanity's best shot. If you disagreed, it could feel like the game was manipulating you.

Simon does seem dense, though the ending surprised me - I expected the ARK to be glitchy and horrible.

Regarding Catherine, she probably had Aspergers Syndrome or something along those lines yeah, she strongly reminds me of someone I knew in real-life, in both mind and body, but that person was more sensible, sociable and did not study I.T. further despite their obvious skill and understanding with it.

It's really interesting that of all the simulated/roboticized/mutated people on PATHOS-II, Catherine is by far the most well-adjusted. Her personality seems the most likely explanation.

Also, do you really believe that humanity in SOMA was completely and utterly doomed to extinction no matter what Simon did?

I was speaking from a cosmological perspective: humanity will die eventually no matter what we do, so the ARK's limited lifespan isn't all-important.

In SOMA, if you don't regard the simulations/robots/mutants as human, then humanity is already extinct. Otherwise, the WAU and the ARK are the only two options for survival. I don't trust the WAU. Even if its recreations of people are improving, it has a very poor track record.