The Ultimate SOMA Discussion Thread

[VaeVictis]

I can't help but think of 'Brave New World' when I hear the word 'soma.' In the book, it is a drug used to essentially brainwash people into conformity and remove much of what makes one human.
An unlikely connection as it is more likely to derive it's significance from what has already been stated, but it's interesting to think about.

[Cuyir]

It's probably an international space station.

International Station, maybe. Space? I don't think so, actually.

I mean, you won't want to transport things like that in rockets.

Also there would be no gravity if that was the case.

Artificial gravity.

Do you even Sci fi? haha.

And there's a looooooooong relationship between sci fi horror and finding dangerous stuff in space and putting it in the ship you're piloting (the Alien series comes to mind).

Well what about the other extreme: Underwater?

Maybe. But it just screams spacy for me. The machine was found somewhere in a salvage mission, so unless humans are living underwater and that salvage team recovered it from a defunct station there wouldn't be anywhere to find the machine. Really seems like a ''they found the machine in some derelict space station/settlement/ship and brought it aboard'' sort of thing.

[pikmintaro]

Well watching just the video it was pretty interesting, at first I thought it was just showing her she was going to die, and that it was a reality warping computer or something, then I watched the video again, and noticed she seems to come back to life on the screen, so I'm really wondering what's happening.

Obligatory spoiler tags for image post.

Spoiler below!

The screen "generates" what it's showing, assembling it from several objects.


What's more it does so from the angle of the camera we're looking through, calling into question how much of what we saw can be trusted.

Either it's accurate and there's an "it" that under certain circumstances needs to be contained or we're being lied to and not only is everything I said in the first place still true, but things are considerably worse on top of that.

Well no image is showing up for me, but I gathered as much from the previous discussions earlier in the topic (After seeing the video I read through all previous posts to see what I could find about the game.) I just hope it's not like you get to the end of the game and then it's like "Oh yeah the entire thing was in your crazy character's mind and none of it actually happened." I guess that would be ok, but I prefer when things are actually supposed to be happening.

It also sort of reminds me Serial Experiments Lain (And a bunch of other Cyberpunk things.) with the huge mass of wires, cords, and cables coming off the monitor thing.

[MegaScience]

Maybe. But it just screams spacy for me. The machine was found somewhere in a salvage mission, so unless humans are living underwater and that salvage team recovered it from a defunct station there wouldn't be anywhere to find the machine. Really seems like a ''they found the machine in some derelict space station/settlement/ship and brought it aboard'' sort of thing.

Salvage doesn't have to mean from similar places. They are told of an odd person, go to salvage from his property, discover things. The place shown seems to be a containment and storage facility - not solely a barracks for recovery teams, so it'd make sense. Easier, safer, and less noticeable transportation of possibly dangerous items than shipping them around or to open space.

[PutraenusAlivius]

Ddonohu2's GIF since no one can saw it:
http://postimg.org/image/s0g5p4rw9/

[Cuyir]

Ddonohu2's GIF since no one can saw it:
http://postimg.org/image/s0g5p4rw9/

Good looking out jap.

The screen "generates" what it's showing, assembling it from several objects.


What's more it does so from the angle of the camera we're looking through, calling into question how much of what we saw can be trusted.

Either it's accurate and there's an "it" that under certain circumstances needs to be contained or we're being lied to and not only is everything I said in the first place still true, but things are considerably worse on top of that.

The Pov seems to be from a camera of sorts, to catalog her tinkering. The fact that the machine was able to do what it did, showing the same pov on the monitor, might just mean it tapped into the feed or something and manipulated her.

But you bring a good point. It could easily just as well manipulate what we're seeing (look at the red lettering that appears during the flashes when the video begins).

I think the Machine itself isn't visible on the monitor either.

[Damascus Rose]

About that Routine video, it looks like some of the enemies are robots. Do you think robots could be scary? What if there are robo-enemies in soma?

I think a robot could be scary if there was some messed up lore surrounding them, and if the stuff they speak is creepy, like some "who am I" "am I human" kind of thing, so they make you uncomfortable. Not those words exactly but that meaning. And if they looked really fucked up, like different parts of another machine put together that don't fit the design and replace a lost arm or something, and if they had a lot of broken wires with electricity coming from them like it's malfunctioning. That would be scary as hell.

It's really cool to think of how they could be scary, what do you guys think? Are robots scary at all?

[Alardem]

System Shock 2 does the cyborg concept pretty well. Aside from the fucked-up Midwives, there are also hacked service-bots which chirp out friendly greetings and polite warnings as they walk towards you with the intent of exploding.

I actually really hope that, atmosphere-wise, this will be the successor to System Shock that Bioshock, with its heavy emphasis on action, ended up not being.

[Damascus Rose]

That's cool, except that voice raped my ears. I've never played system shock but it looks like it is probably an inspiration for this game.

[PutraenusAlivius]

I think an underwater or space setting would be great, although I prefer Space more because let's face it, it looks like it's in a Space Station. Only in my opinion.
besides, an underwater setting kinda makes it look as if a Bioshock copy