Weren't the crew already doomed before WAU

[Abion47]

I don't buy that the WAU intentionally created Simon.

What is your theory how Simon the clone came to existence? Who uploaded him?

I didn't elaborate my meaning. What I meant was that I don't buy that the WAU intentionally created Simon as part of some effort to create "improved intelligent cyborgs". The track record of the WAU's creations don't really demonstrate that the WAU was trying to create more "human-like" humans.

There are three and only three examples of the WAU's creation that showed humans that weren't either comatose, murderous, or delirious. And that is Ross, Catherine, and Simon.

Catherine was uploaded inside a robot, similar to mockingbirds like Carl Semkin or Robin Bass. However, unlike anyone else, Catherine was able to come to terms with her situation almost immediately. That by itself is an impressive feat, but I don't attribute that fact to the WAU. For one, the robot that housed Catherine wasn't anything special - no structure gel and no apparent modifications (other than the damage inflicted by the Flesher, anyway), so there's nothing to suggest that Catherine's creation was somehow special or different than any other mockingbird. And for another, when Catherine's mind was transferred to an Omnitool, she didn't go completely insane due to her mind occupying a body analog that is about as un-human as possible. So her sanity and coherence is not something that I attribute to the WAU, but rather her own intimate understanding of brain scans coupled to her sheer willpower to make sure the ARK project gets completed.

Ross is a bit of a strange case. I think that his situation is similar to Catherine's, in that his knowledge of the WAU directly contributed to him maintaining his individuality, but that's not all of it. He wasn't directly influenced by the WAU, but rather reanimated by the structure gel already present in his body when he was placed into isolation. The WAU couldn't get to him by normal means, so it covered his glass cell with structure gel and bombarded it with electromagnetic radiation, which eventually succeeded in repairing Ross' damaged body and bringing him back to life. (Coincidentally, this act led to the WAU ultimately killing everyone at Omicron. This is just another example of why the WAU is not a trustworthy entity.) However, a number of Ross' activities don't instill confidence in his level of sanity. For example, every time you see him, he is on a one-track mind that Simon kills the WAU, getting noticeably frustrated whenever Simon delays in any place. And when Simon does get to the WAU, he attempts to kill Simon regardless of what he chooses to do. So no, while Ross is intelligent, I don't believe that he is sane. I think he is another form of what happened to Akers, with the structure gel taking over his facilities and making him go crazy driven on whatever his prime motivation is.

And that leaves us with Simon. There's no arguing that Simon is both sane (as sane as a person who got spirited a hundred years into an apocalyptic future can be, anyway) and intelligent (debatable, but irrelevant). However, I don't think that he is an example of progress on the WAU's part, because he is the only creature directly created by the WAU with both of those qualities. No other creation even comes close. My belief is that the WAU is trying to put all of the brain scans it has access to into as many machines as it can find. As long as it has brain scans, then the WAU can still bring more people back to life. However, there are only so many pilot-seat-enabled machines in Pathos II, so it inevitably ran out. Still having some brain scans that it hasn't yet used, the WAU was trying to experiment with anything that would work - the DUNBAT and the power suit, for example, as well as all the cortex chips it could get its hands on. The fact that Simon ended up with the body he had was, frankly, an inevitable eventuality of the WAU just trying to find anything that would work. But like I said, Simon's body is not a permanent solution, and he has weeks if not days before either his battery runs out or his body decays to the point of unusability.