[MASSIVE PLOT SPOILER DISCUSSION] - WAU

[1minus1is0]

So, I wanted to post here my findings and interpretations on WAU being the last best hope for humanity. Excuse any formatting inconsistencies as I am copy pasting from reddit.

I took some time to carefully re-read all the text logs and try all the options and went back and re-watched the trailer tapes. A lot of things make a lot more clear sense to me now.

1) The body that Simon-2 is in belongs to Reed, but who is that? Reed is the woman from the trailer tapes.

2)The Vivarium is an WAU project, where the WAU built the fundamental technology that Catherine made the ARK from. WAU had secretly scanned everyone who used the drone control pods or interfaced with the scanners. Through the Vivarium we know that WAU could scan people at a distance even without a scanner at pretty much any time.

3) Simon-2 was built by WAU by combining the Simon template with the scans of Imogen Reed. Basically the WAU experimented with its scans for a long time trying to make robot humans. It failed repeatedly, but through trial and error eventually first succeeded with Simon-2. As long as Simon-3 did not kill WAU (assuming Ross' plan even works) then WAU would have 100% suceeded in making a robot for every single person on Pathos-II. [edit: likely several.]

4) The robots and the cortex chips. All the robots and cortex chips have sufficient storage data to contain either a full scan or a partial scan of a person. WAU has been uploading personalities constantly in a continuous trial and error. Killing any of them will not extinguish their backup at WAU irreparably. These are just sad and unfortunate failed experiments.

5) Killing the welding drone on Delta is just as hideously evil as killing the Wrangler. It's cortex chip is capable of only slightly less capacity than a wrangler. It is likely it had a personality trapped inside it too, but this is not concrete. The wrangler actually had two separate personalities in the same body.

6) The WAU did not order Akers to kill anyone. Akers learned, through his interface with WAU that WAU was able to translate organic humans into a ARK-like network if it got ahold of their physical bodies. Akers took this to a religious extreme all on his own. The WAU then followed up because it didn't really care WHY Akers was acting, so long as it achieved its set goal of connecting as many human beings as possible.

7) Why did WAU do this when it could create copies? Simple. The WAU understood the dilemma of the "coin-toss" perfectly well. It didn't want the originals to die, and the "continuity" suicide thing actually caused it to freak out and try to save everybody on Theta from killing themselves.

8) The proxies in Theta, and likely at least a few of the EMP monsters are likely simplistic robots directly commanded by WAU to do certain tasks. How well they do it is based on how much personality they have left. Akers had a lot of personality left and came up with a whole religious reasoning, but it was irrelevant. He eventually fried himself out or went insane. Likely from the stress of being rejected as a monster. And he was a bad person for what he did to the people at Delta. But the folks at Delta are still alive I think.

9) There was no massacre at Theta and the only people who died were those that committed suicide and those that escaped. Everyone else is perfectly alive and connected to WAU in some way. Akers described this state as a "lucid dream" and I dont think its a walk in the park sunshine and roses kind of deal, more like a vague purgatory limbo and pretty not fun.

10) Why? Because WAU's priority was saving mankind. This meant both keeping every organic human (the Primes) physically alive forever and connected to a WAU network, as well as making robots from scans. Eventually WAU would likely have been able to create actual robot bodies for the Primes themselves so long as both the original body and the robot were physically connected. Or maybe not but it is sort of a philosophical question as to how exactly the direct interface works. It may just be a form of scan too. At any rate, lots of robots like Simon was the future plan for WAU.

11) It might be that every personality connected to WAU becomes part of WAU's "conciousness" and it is likely that using the scans and later the primes WAU became not only sentient, sapient, and self aware, but also intelligent beyond human comprehension and capable of complex multitasking beyond any supercomputer. At the same time WAU is deeply benevolent in so far as its core directives are benevolent to humanity. WAU understands what the core directive is and what it means and is capable of interpreting and re-interpreting it.

12) Wau did choose to kill all the primes at Omicron. It had no choice however, because much like WAU's action in preventing the stupid humans from committing suicide at Theta, it had to take action to prevent the stupid humans from killing all the personalities stored within WAU and ultimately dooming mankind by killing WAU.

13) This was Ross' plan. He understood that WAU was storing backups of everyone. He understood that WAU was incorporating every Prime it could find to save them from their own stupidity until WAU could come up with a better solution. Ross was horrified at the implications of this and decided that killing WAU would be better because the unfinished experiments were horrifying, Theta was horrifying, and letting WAU dictate the future of humanity was horrifying to Ross. What a dick. I dislike him more than I dislike Simon.

14) Killing any of the humans is still horrible and killings any of the robots is still horrible. Every single expression (ie: running version) of a scan is a completely separate sentient being that is in all respects a "person". There are likely a multitude of such iterations and scans in WAU at any given time, not just 1 or 2, and they are likely iterated and simulated constantly in hopes of a perfect solution.

15) And most troubling: WAU NEVER EVER EVER shuts down any of the running versions once they are activated no matter what unless it has no choice. No matter how demented, or insane, or crippled a running version may be, WAU considers it just as human as any prime and is loathe to kill one unless it absolutely has to. Not only does WAU consider a running version human, it considers EACH ITERATION to be a completely separate and individual human with all the benevolence and protections that this mandates. The benevolence is not absolute, but it is pretty damn benevolent, and even when it isn't it's not a total loss because there are plenty of backups at WAU.

16) unlike Catherine's ARK tech, it appears to me very likely that WAU would eventually, in time, develop an actual physical transfer process for the primes. Maybe not super mobile in manifestation, but certainly functional. As far as actual transfer of robots? This was already possible, you just needed to physically move the chip with another set of hands, which Simon did not have at Omicron.]

17) WAU does understand the importance of individuality and free will and does understand, dimly, but will likely evolve to fully understand, exactly what it means to be human even if WAU itself is not human and will never become human as its thinking is different and beyond human thinking anyway. We know this because of its treatment of the demented robots. WAU is intentionally trying to create self sufficient sentient robots like Simon-2 because Simon-2 IS human. Simon-2 is the very definition of human. WAU understands what the ARK project is, and why it is dumb and pointless, but lets humans do it anyway because of its benevolence and respect for their choices and free will.] [edit: so long as that choice is not death or maybe just so long as that choice is not mass death of others.]

18)

here's a message that scrolls across the pilot seat in Upsilon. Which, I think constitutes WAU's thoughts as it was creating Simon-2.

<![CDATA[ RESTORE LIFE SIMON JRT ME SENSE AS RESTORE SIMON SIM0N LIFE DAVID GRAPH LEGACY SIMON RESTORE CONCEPT SOUL OK DEAD RESTORE RESTORE REED SAVE ME SENSE DAVID RESTORE TRAUMA SIMON DEAD RESTORE CARRY OK TURN POWER]]>

It is a heartbreakingly humane mind that functions completely differently from out brains and just appears alien to us because of the "language" barrier.

an algorithmic system attempting to apply philosophical concepts is mind-blowingly amazing AI. In order for a computer to even ATTEMPT to do this without immediate failure error requires it to have an ability to DEFINE these philosophical concepts at all, even if incorrectly.

To even get to that point is humane. As i said, WAU's mind is fundamentally not human and will never be human. WAU's way of perceiving the world is wholly foreign an alien to humans.

And yet even so, in the face of the apocalypse this machine is trying to faithfully fulfill a directive to preserve humanity, something that is totally foreign, irreconcilably different, and frankly unnecessary to it.

If that isn't heartbreakingly beautiful I don't know what is. WAU loves humans more than a dog loves its master. this single-minded devotion is so close to our understanding of love that the parallels are heart-touching. But yeah, WAU does not love exactly the way we understand love. It has a rough parallel that, while comparable, is utterly alien to human thought.

I'll put it another way: In order to attempt to run RESTORE, RESTORE must be defined. In order to attempt to run RESTORE LIFE, LIFE, DEAD must be defined. These are a string of definitions.

here is a rough translation

[Turn on and load up basic run-time environment of the functions, within that environment do the following functions as defined subsequently] Run Function RESTORE LIFE on SIMON JRT, which means I perceive LIFE in this instance as a true/false check of whether subsequent to running this function SIMON has LIFE, which in turn means DAVID LIFE LEGACY SIMON (bears a resemblance to the legacy template I have stored on file), In order for that test to be true or false I must first run RESTORE SOUL and it must either pass[OK] or fail[DEAD] (presume for the moment that these are here defined, after all the above is a simplification of code language).
At this point the phrase cuts off. It could be understood that the function returned [DEAD], ie failed, so RESTORE LIFE failed, so the thought ended and starts again.
Run function RESTORE REED SAVE(?), which is defined as SIMON RESTORE TRAUMA(?), for the reason that SIMON is DEAD because RESTORE LIFE SIMON has just now failed, -- then we have another break in logic syntax.
RESTORE CARRY (Presumably RESTORE TRAUMA had previous succeeded and CARRY just means transfer the whole algorithm to the robot), the Transfer is okay. Give power to the Robot. ----> Simon wakes up.

Note also, that the crazed robot in Upsilon, when enraged, appears to scream SIMON over and over and over. It would be sad if that is Munchi's personality loaded into it and gone mad.

[quick edit:

ME SENSE is a check function
RESTORE is a transform (do something) function
CARRY is a transfer function
TURN POWER is a command to turn on the robot
the rest are undefined objects (presumably defined in CDATA) whose definition we can guess at by their title.]

[further edit: if anyone could post any other code that appears on the terminals I would be interested to try to translate it too]

[further edit:
19) Simon-2 is the first WAU monster "with a sound mind in a sound body". He is the first of a new race of humans I call New Humanity that are not only better than humanity in every way due to resilience and less reliance on condition, but very likely to repopulate the earth an the solar system in a way that Old Humanity would never be able to without much more difficulty.]

[BrokenJadeMirror]

If you read the supersecret.rar files, some cut story content (probably cut late in game development as this is a more recent file that closely resembles the finished game), Simon was supposed to encounter another suited robot much like himself, except it was a little less lucid and very close to dying. Putting some of it under the spoiler tag cause it's kinda long.

It's located supersecret.rar>>design>>documents>>updates.doc
The link to the password to supersecret.rar can be found in some other threads on the forum.

Spoiler below!

-i- Find suit robot; try to talk to it (dialog)
When just outside of the Robot repair room you hear some mumbling from inside. Going inside you find a robot made up from a suit sitting in corner, mumbling to himself.
DIALOG: This is 10 or more lines, each pretty long (10 seconds) that are meant to be played at random. The robot is convinced he is a human, but is in some catatonic state. The whole situation together with some problems with his simulated mind has just left him in this sort of state. Want to make sure it does not feel like he repeats himself, so want to have some overlap in what he talks about in each subject. We want him to go of as confused, scared and traumatized. It is also crucial that it is evident that he does not see himself as a robot and that he is not 100% correct in how he sees the environment. Also note that these around bound to be interrupted. Somewhere in his ramblings he must talk about having to shut the door, wanna keep it fairly subtle, but together with the other hints, it should make it pretty clear to the player what needs to be done.

Since it's not canon though, it's hard to say where it fits into your discussion.

I'll add that I've been curious the whole time how exactly the WAU managed to build Simon since it doesn't exactly have a physical body. The little robot at the foot of the pilot seat Simon wakes up in is a likely candidate.

Also, the teaser trailer shows the WAU room from Alpha before structure gel creates that mouthed monstrosity that you can stick your hand into and get it torn off if you choose to kill the WAU. I'm curious how the brain that the WAU supplanted with those mechanical parts is related to how the WAU understands PATHOS II and the humans inside.

[Noisecode]

I'll add that I've been curious the whole time how exactly the WAU managed to build Simon since it doesn't exactly have a physical body. The little robot at the foot of the pilot seat Simon wakes up in is a likely candidate.

It's my belief that Depth will help explain how Imogen's body was converted. See here soma item warning

She is wearing a diving suit there and the scene from Depth in which that originates I'm predicting is near the end of the film most likely

I did notice the dead robot (missing a cortex chip no doubt) and a small blood trail leading up to the pilot seat in upsilon so........yes. we are missing some information. What happened to Reed between Vivarium and Soma?

Original poster: Very well thought out post and i agree with much of what you said. Part of the charm of Soma has been it's thought provoking premise.

[humanoid]

Very interesting thoughts, especially 7) made me reconsider a lot about the story and changes the implications of many of your choices ingame.

9) There was no massacre at Theta and the only people who died were those that committed suicide and those that escaped. Everyone else is perfectly alive and connected to WAU in some way. Akers described this state as a "lucid dream" and I dont think its a walk in the park sunshine and roses kind of deal, more like a vague purgatory limbo and pretty not fun.

Where did he describe this? From what I gathered its actually similar to the ARK (as in your mind is living in an artificial world).
Perhaps even better since that life seems to be based on your previous life and/or your idea of a happy life instead of some foreign new world.
We've seen a glimpse of that after Simon-2 gets captured in Theta by a Proxy where he's living as Simon-1 with Ashley again.

Other than that, here are some things where I'm still looking for answers/validation:

1) Where did the WAU originate from, was it an AI constructed by humans as an experiment before the asteroid hit the earth?

2) Some notes in Omicron say that the WAU tried all it could to get to Ross's body in order to keep him alive. But at that point Ross already wanted to stop the WAU, so why did it try to get to him to keep him alive instead of letting him die?
Or did I understand it wrong and it wanted to kill him because he was kept alive by the other people at Omicron?

3) Isn't Catherine-2 (and Simon-2 for that matter) infected by / linked to the WAU? If so, why was Catherine-2 still determined to launch the ARK instead of using Simon-2 to do stuff for the WAU?
And wouldn't that imply that the WAU got on the ARK when she copied herself onto it?

[1minus1is0]

Where did he describe this?

Its written on the walls in Delta and i think there is a note in that office.

1) Where did the WAU originate from, was it an AI constructed by humans as an experiment before the asteroid hit the earth?

WAU was one of the research projects on or parallel to structure gel. It was Ross and Sarang and somebody named Dahl and probably others, who were the top secret Alpha staff. Ross and Co were instrumental in first removing all safety constraints from WAU, and then letting it loose on all the station's systems so that it could upkeep, repair and maintain the systems. It's not clear how it merged to be a structure gel entity or when, or if it was always the project like that. But certainly before the above events.

2) Some notes in Omicron say that the WAU tried all it could to get to Ross's body in order to keep him alive. But at that point Ross already wanted to stop the WAU, so why did it try to get to him to keep him alive instead of letting him die?
Or did I understand it wrong and it wanted to kill him because he was kept alive by the other people at Omicron?

Because the WAU is not a thinking thing the way humans are. It is some kind of other type of thinking thing. It's directive was to preserve humans, and Ross was a human at that point, although a corpse. That note kinda contradicts the whole "blow up brainboxes to save itself" thing. Not clear why it didn't kill Ross if it was willing to kill organics. It may even have been an accident caused by trying to revive Ross remotely with EM waves, which would be hilarious. One of the key points in SOMA is that outside from the prime directive nobody knows what WAU is thinking, we can only speculate from its actions.

edit: also Ross was stone cold dead when he got to Omicron.

3) Isn't Catherine-2 (and Simon-2 for that matter) infected by / linked to the WAU? If so, why was Catherine-2 still determined to launch the ARK instead of using Simon-2 to do stuff for the WAU?
And wouldn't that imply that the WAU got on the ARK when she copied herself onto it?

Yes. But it is clear that WAU connection is not mind control. WAU doesn't have a mind that works that way, at least at that point. WAU is not on the ARK because we would have noticed structure gel, and the last human was watching it. presumably she knew how to prevent contamination and that was what the secure lock in her chair was. Or maybe he did. We don't know. Personal theory is that WAU did not get on the ARK, and that WAU does not control the monsters directly.

[humanoid]

WAU was one of the research projects on or parallel to structure gel. It was Ross and Sarang and somebody named Dahl and probably others, who were the top secret Alpha staff.

Yeah I know, its just that I got the impression from one of the documents in Sarang's room that these people were merely maintainers or overseers of the WAU, not its creators.

It may even have been an accident caused by trying to revive Ross remotely with EM waves, which would be hilarious.

Ah yes, I remember thinking that as well when I played that section, though its still doesn't make much sense to me why it should be worth the effort just to keep one human alive (especially if he was dead already).
Unless Ross was somehow more important to the WAU than any other person left alive? I mean the documents mention that he was the only one with constant direct access to it.
Though as far as I know its never explained what role he has in Pathos II other than just "overseeing the WAU".

WAU is not on the ARK because we would have noticed structure gel, and the last human was watching it.

Yes but I was mainly talking about the fact that Catherine's cortex chip was covered with structure gel, not the ARK itself.
But I guess the WAU is spreading itself physically, not virtually, so that copy of Catherine on the ARK probably really doesn't include any of WAU's presence.

[Filizitas]

Yes the ARK was protected by humans all the time, lately i believe from Kate. So WAU didnt got its hand on at any time.

Catherines and Simons Brainscans were the only data sended to the ARK. So the ARK is out of reach!

[Kein]

Ross was horrified at the implications of this and decided that killing WAU would be better because the unfinished experiments were horrifying, Theta was horrifying, and letting WAU dictate the future of humanity was horrifying to Ross. What a dick. I dislike him more than I dislike Simon.

Also I feel like i just read a fanfic. Eh.

[RossisBoss]

Also I feel like i just read a fanfic. Eh.

I share this feeling. You can not sympathize with WAU. Its reasoning was very black and white and Ross' entire gripe was about how dangerous a machine trying to process and decide what constitutes living was. WAU was fine with reviving corpses. It was fine with merging living people with nearby machinery. I don't see how anyone can look at characters like Amy and think, "Yeah, stopping WAU is unreasonable and Ross is the dick!" If you don't do as Ross asks, it's very likely that WAU would simply continue on with its experiments, creating more Simons (and others, considering the library of brain scans it now controls). Not to mention the environmental impact it was having on sea life.

Also as I recall the WAU was originally created for the purpose of maintaining the structure gel that was holding most of the living/working places together under water. Things began to take a turn for the worse when WAU began to spread structure gel not only around itself, but on people.

[Kein]

Also I feel like i just read a fanfic. Eh.

I share this feeling. You can not sympathize with WAU. Its reasoning was very black and white and Ross' entire gripe was about how dangerous a machine trying to process and decide what constitutes living was. WAU was fine with reviving corpses. It was fine with merging living people with nearby machinery. I don't see how anyone can look at characters like Amy and think, "Yeah, stopping WAU is unreasonable and Ross is the dick!" If you don't do as Ross asks, it's very likely that WAU would simply continue on with its experiments, creating more Simons (and others, considering the library of brain scans it now controls). Not to mention the environmental impact it was having on sea life.

Also as I recall the WAU was originally created for the purpose of maintaining the structure gel that was holding most of the living/working places together under water. Things began to take a turn for the worse when WAU began to spread structure gel not only around itself, but on people.

Regardless, the choice you make in the end does not really matter much since you are leaving with the ARK. My primary driving reason was to cripple WAU so it won't mess up with our plans to launch ARK but shorty after that I realized this is not going to happen in any way and I probably should have left him on Earth doing whatever he wants, it does not really matter anyway. Might as well populate it with weird robots, they can survive it.

The decision would make more sense of you were about to stay, though. Well, at least one SIMON stays, may be even 2.