[SPOILERS] SOMA unsolved mysteries thread

[Abion47]

Hmm I don't recall doubles, but scans of still-living people is definitely possible as Adam Golaski (I think that was his name) talked to a mockingbird of himself, I think mockingbirds started appearing before the crew started dying.

Golaski talking to his own Mockingbird happened in the Transmission Series, and is never mentioned once in the game. I already covered how the validity of those videos are suspect at best.

And while there were Mockingbirds that appeared in Upsilon, it is never known just who the brain scans used were, so it's impossible to determine from them whether doubles or Mockingbirds of living people were made.

I disagree there, because there's a clear trail of blood that goes from the vent to the pilot seat.

I had forgotten about that detail, but you are right. There's nothing to say when that vent got plugged up, so I will concede that point. Although one thing I will point out is that the blood, while not completely fresh, doesn't look like it would be more than a couple weeks old. (Insert: Various sources suggest that blood will turn from its characteristic red to a dark brown in as little as a couple hours after being exposed to air.)

Reed had been dead for at least 5 months by the time Simon was created, so no matter when she was moved from the power plant to the tech room (whether she was immediately dragged there after dying or she was dragged there immediately before Simon was created), it doesn't make any sense whatsoever for that blood to have come from Reed.

They used the seals to "stop the robots", so there being a seal on the pilotseat room I suppose suggests there was already something moving or talking in there when Amy and Carl left.. perhaps that submarine bot was a mockingbird?

They used the seals to stop the robots, but that doesn't mean they were only to keep the robots in. It was also to keep the robots out of certain places, hence why Carl Semken locked down the comms center as well.

The seal is also still active when you wake up, so Reed must have either come in through the vent, or already been present in the room when Carl and Amy left.

Keep in mind the timeline. Carl and Amy locked down Upsilon On May 4th, 2103. Reed didn't get there until sometime in December, 7 months later. She didn't even get scanned by Catherine until July 31st. By the time Carl was dead, Reed was still very much alive and well.

Reed could very well have come through the vent, but that still doesn't mean it was the WAU who did it. Like I said, there are no helper bots that could've fit through that vent that would've also had the dexterity to prepare Reed the way she was prepared. As a recap, they would need to sever her head, put her into a diving suit, slosh her with structure gel, stick in a battery pack (somewhere...), implant the cortex chip, and put her in the Pilot Seat. That's a lot of precise and delicate work for machines with claws for hands designed for large jobs and heavy lifting.

However, I recently started a new playthrough with some friends (who had never played it before) and I remembered a detail that I had forgotten about that all but confirms my Carthage theory. At the beginning of the game, after you release the infected robot, it goes to the room where you find the Omnitool. In that room, it runs into and kills a man who was in there before retreating into a vent. And it had to have been a human, as the body you find is dripping with fresh blood and there are no machines capable of being a Mockingbird in that room.

Who is that man? Why was he in there? It wasn't anyone stationed at Upsilon, since they had either died or been evacuated about a year before. It couldn't have been Louise Meuron (the person your Omnitool is coded for) because A] Louise is almost certainly a woman, and B] she had been one of the ones who had committed suicide after being scanned. It wouldn't have been anyone fleeing Theta to Upsilon, since that would be an idiot decision - Upsilon was the first station to be overrun by the WAU, hence it being locked down, so people fleeing Theta would have gone to Omicron (which they did).

However, there is one thing that does make sense. If you assume that it was Carthage who created Simon, then an explanation comes to mind. That man was a Carthage operative, tasked with doing the preparations for Reed's body to accept Simon and initiating the scan. He would've been able to do everything necessary, including opening the security lock on the door to gain access and the locking up behind him to protect a confused Simon from being immediately killed. He then could've retreated to the robot bay and taken refuge in that spare room until he was either rescued or could find a way out - neither of which happened, as we know.

This is why I like the Carthage theory, because it provides an explanation for everything.