[SPOILERS] SOMA unsolved mysteries thread

[Abion47]

Yes but I'm convinced that robot played at least some part in Simon's creation.I don't see any reason why it would be located in the pilot seat room, right next to the seat even, if it were just random.

There's debris all over the place. Upsilon has plenty of helper bots, and that particular room also has a tool chip dispensary in it. There are plenty of reasons for that bot to be in there that have nothing to do with Simon.

At the very leat, I can see a case being made that it was the robot that provided Simon's cortex chip, but that is the extent of that bot's possible involvement.

Also a scary mystery is that Simon was not the only non-Pathos scan the WAU had. Also David Munshi and his assistant. It is possible that more Simons (and Munshis) woke up from their dentist chair to Pathos-II.

It's certainly possible that Munshi's scan had already been used as well. There's certainly enough Mockingbirds sputtering around that haven't been clearly identified yet. But as far as multiple Simons or Munshi's are concerned, I'd have to say not likely. The WAU never used any given scan more than once. There aren't two Mockingbirds of Catherine, or Robin Bass, or Brandon Wan, or anyone else. In fact, the only time I can recall it even using the scan of a person that was still alive (excluding the Transmission videos) would be when it used Reed's scan in the Vivarium, and that was virtual.

For whatever reason, the WAU doesn't create Mockingbirds of the same person more than once. Perhaps it's task to preserve life just compels it to recreate a single person after they die so that it can continue to preserve them.

Are the WAU growths able to move actually, you never see them moving in game, so I figure it grows gradually like plants, but you do see tentacles holding on to things that it could only have caught if it moved like japanese tentacles, or the person was dead and immobile for some time while the tentacle grew around it..

I'm not sure the WAU growth moves, at least not in the way you are asking. It seems more like the gel will shoot out of some crack or hole, and will later (or sooner) coalesce into clumps or tentacles that are generally motionless.

there's also WAU growth coming out the vent Reed's body came in through...

There's nothing to suggest that Reed's body came through that vent. I would even say that vent was plugged with structure gel long before Reed ever set foot in Upsilon. The evacuation and sealing of Upsilon happened many months before Reed showed up, and even at that point, there was structure gel coming out of everywhere.

[cantremember]

For whatever reason, the WAU doesn't create Mockingbirds of the same person more than once. Perhaps it's task to preserve life just compels it to recreate a single person after they die so that it can continue to preserve them.

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.

There's nothing to suggest that Reed's body came through that vent. I would even say that vent was plugged with structure gel long before Reed ever set foot in Upsilon.

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

[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.

[cantremember]

It's also possible Reed became a reanimated WAU-ized thing and helped herself (or itself rather) into the starting room somehow, before being modified with a cortex chip.

Is there a way to find out who voiced the screams in the omnitool room?

[Abion47]

It's also possible Reed became a reanimated WAU-ized thing and helped herself (or itself rather) into the starting room somehow, before being modified with a cortex chip.

While I don't discount the possibility entirely, I will say that I don't find it at all likely. Virtually all the WAU's creations are either Mockingbirds with functioning cortex chips or living things that have been mutated with structure gel. A zombified Reed would have been neither of those things.

Is there a way to find out who voiced the screams in the omnitool room?

He is only referred to in the script and sound files as "Suit Man" or "Dive Suit Man". Judging from the scripts, there was apparently an encounter with him at one point where you would've been forced to "drain" him in order to get some required energy(?). Needless to say, this encounter was cut, and now you only experience him by hearing him scream from behind a locked door before discovering his headless corpse.

[cantremember]

They do have some reanimated "hybrids" though, like some of the people in Omicron, the guy with mechanical entrails, the girl with a metal head and scissor hand, and some guy laying on the floor in a prison jumpsuit.

I like to think the encounter with Adam Golaski and his mockingbird are canon because the other video with the vivarium is accurately described in the journals in Catherine's room.

I wish the SOMA makers would just tell us, but they are probably enjoying reading this topic.

[Abion47]

They do have some reanimated "hybrids" though, like some of the people in Omicron, the guy with mechanical entrails, the girl with a metal head and scissor hand, and some guy laying on the floor in a prison jumpsuit.

I talked about Robothead in a thread on Reddit not too long ago, but the consensus we reached was that she was saved, not reanimated. What seemed most likely was that she was a victim of the black boxes exploding, but was lucky(ish) enough that the blast didn't kill her immediately. Then the WAU, doing what the WAU does, swooped in and "saved" her. The reason we thought so is because she still has a semblance of humanity, crying and telling Simon to "Stay away". If she had been just a zombie or some simple WAU reanimation, then she wouldn't have been able to do that.

I don't recall there being any other reanimations at Omicron. Everyone was either in the WAU dream state or were super dead. I'm not sure who you are referring to when you say the guy with mechanical entrails or the guy in the prison jumpsuit, though.

I like to think the encounter with Adam Golaski and his mockingbird are canon because the other video with the vivarium is accurately described in the journals in Catherine's room.

That's fallacious, though. The Reed-Vivarium encounter is canon because the game refers to it happening. The Golaski-Mockingbird one, however, is never mentioned or even alluded to once. If the videos were otherwise sound, then this assumption might slide, but I've already covered how they are not only separate, but they are outright contradictory in some major details. Unless the information can be given at least some loose support from the game, the videos cannot be trusted as canon.

I wish the SOMA makers would just tell us, but they are probably enjoying reading this topic.

I think it would be nice too, but there's a part of me that wonders if they know either. Like, I wonder if they enjoy reading this topic so that they can find out some of the connecting lore as well.

[Karba]

It's been more than a year since I played Soma. But I can't recall finding any background of Simon on Pathos-II. Did you actually find out what he did on Pathos-II? Was he a worker there or is it just a coincidence that his consciousness was loaded into that robot at the beginning?

[Abion47]

It's been more than a year since I played Soma. But I can't recall the background of Simon. Did you actually find out what he did on Pathos-II? Was he a worker there or is it just a coincidence that his consciousness was loaded into that robot at the beginning?

Simon was a Canadian from Toronto who worked at a comic shop a hundred years prior to the events at Pathos-II (which is how the game starts). His involvement with David Munshi led to his brain getting scanned using a primitive version of the same technology that Pathos-II uses for their Pilot Seats, and as such his scan was on file (though it was a legacy scan, a flat scan template that was only ever used for research and education purposes in the field of AI).

So yes, it was almost definitely a coincidence that it was Simon that ended up in the "robot".

[Karba]

Simon was a Canadian from Toronto who worked at a comic shop a hundred years prior to the events at Pathos-II (which is how the game starts). His involvement with David Munshi led to his brain getting scanned using a primitive version of the same technology that Pathos-II uses for their Pilot Seats, and as such his scan was on file (though it was a legacy scan, a flat scan template that was only ever used for research and education purposes in the field of AI).

So yes, it was almost definitely a coincidence that it was Simon that ended up in the "robot".

Okay that explains that. Was David Munshi aware of what was going to happen? Did he copy Simons consciousness into the robot on Pathos-II in an effort to save humanity?