[SPOILERS] SOMA unsolved mysteries thread

[Bigbob]

I finished the game New Years Eve. Read this thread a few days later and didn't realize all the great posts since then.

I have a few things to add to the Reed body conversation.
-When the shuttle crashes on your way to Lambda you can leave the Omni tool and have to come back to it. At which point there's a creature near the shuttle. Is that Ross or Akers? It could indicate that one of them dragged Reeds body to the starting room, removed the chip from the bot, etc?

-When you get the chip from Brandon Wan and bring it to the security room to update it in Theta, there's a clipboard on the desk. On it is Lasky's name with a question mark and his/her title is Carthage Power Manager or Carthage Project Manager (I can't remember exactly). Maybe Lasky is the one in the room where you get the Omni tool?

[Mudbill]

The creature by the shuttle is one of the disco head monsters AKA a Flesher. It can't be Akers nor Ross, and is probably just a random one as they seem to roam around the MS Curie/Lambda area. I don't know if anyone has speculated who the personalities behind the Fleshers could be though.

[Abion47]

I'm not sure there is any speculation that can be done on them. As far as I am concerned, the Jiangshi are the biggest unsolved mysteries in the game. Not only are they completely unmentioned in any of the game's lore, they don't even have the benefit that the Robot Girl has where a major event offers a credible explanation. They almost seem to predate any other Mockingbird or WAU monster, having either caused the Curie to sink or having populated the Curie shortly after it sinking. It's possible that they are the crewmembers of the Curie that got "saved" by the WAU, but IIRC (I'm not at a computer to check this), other than in the reactor room, there isn't really any sign of WAU corruption on the ship.

Typing that out made me realize something, though. This explains the discrepancy introduced by the Upsilon log stating that the station should have run out of power almost a year before the events of the game. The WAU was sapping power from the Curie's still functional nuclear generators.

[Bigbob]

@Abion47 good point about the Curie supplying power.

If it's a disco head then that shoots down my 1st theory.

I looked it up and it's Paula Lansky. She's noted for commenting about the structure gel remaining unchanged but the how WAU is using it "in ways we never dreamed of". Dahl also comments on Lansky participating on the studies of Ross at Omicron. Plus I think it's a male body in the room where you get the Omni tool? That defeats the logic that Lansky was the Carthage employee who created Simon 2 but I still like the Carthage angle on that.

I just remembered there's one of those security locks where you have to twist the handle, outside that omni tool room. I suppose that guy could've been chased through the vents by that robot which explains why the robot is in there in the 1st place?.

[bbqface]

All the locked doors were already locked by Amy or Carl, and as the person who authored a lot of the posts you are referring to, even I think that suggesting there is a second operative in Upsilon is too much of a stretch. I'm having a hard enough time convincing people with my points about a guy who shouldn't exist. Trying to prove the existence of a second guy who doesn't exist is a bit too much.

I agree it's a stretch to suggest there's more than one secret agent, instead I take the premise further and propose that there's an entire secret team that's deciding what to do with the WAU. What makes more sense?

Scenario A: A single secret Carthage agent acting on their own who's figured out what the WAU was trying to do by reanimating bodies, so they perform cortex surgery on Simon 2 then lock themselves in the Omnitool room, knowing what was about to happen to Simon 2 but not expecting the Construct to enter through the vents and kill him of course.

I'm having a hard time explaining that behavior, why did the single secret Carthage agent go through the trouble of helping the WAU create what became Simon 2?

Maybe this single agent wanted to see for themselves if the theory of a sound mind in a sound body really is sufficient to consider something alive. Maybe that's a reasonable motive for a secret Carthage agent/researcher? I think that's a stretch, but possible.

Scenario B: A single secret Carthage agent who's acting on orders from higher-ups that are designing the WAU experiment from another secret location on Pathos-II. If there's a secret facility to host and monitor the WAU heart, then I propose there's a secret facility to design and develop the WAU also located on Pathos-II, and that's where our mystery headless diver came from, under orders or under agreement from the WAU development team.

Since this mystery agent would have been directly involved in the WAU development and would have seen its crazy potential as a life-preserving technology, they've let go of some moral concerns and are performing cortex surgery on corpses to experiment with the WAU to further their efforts of preserving something left of humanity and life.

I might be completely wrong, but I'm thinking there's a larger investment in the WAU than we know about including another secret station of Pathos-II for the WAU development team.

This part is just my personal reasoning for a motive for Carthage to invest more secret WAU development resources in Pathos-II:
The idea that the WAU is a large investment by Carthage and there's more secret areas to Pathos-II makes sense to me, if I were Carthage I'd send more support staff to Pathos-II than three hands-off monitoring/protection staff. I'd send my research staff in secret, able to work in complete secrecy in Pathos-II to develop the WAU.

[Abion47]

You misunderstand. I absolutely believe that there is more than one person involved in the entire Carthage deal, and they are pulling strings and doing deeds all over the place. What you were suggesting is that there was more than one person involved with creating Simon in Upsilon, that a second guy locked the first guy in the Omnitool Room and then just vanished, leaving that guy to die.

As for Carthage's ultimate goal in all of this... I have my theories.

[Bigbob]

Have you guys considered that Simon asks Catherine why the WAU created him on the Zeppelin ride?
Edit: I can't find it now. It's not the Zeppelin but I'm pretty sure at some point Simon asks that. On the Zeppelin he says something like "is the WAU the reason we are the way we are?"

Wasn't there a section of Pathos 2 that was on the surface and supposedly destroyed when the comet hit? Maybe that is where Carthage is and it wasn't destroyed?

[Abion47]

Have you guys considered that Simon asks Catherine why the WAU created him on the Zeppelin ride?

Considered in what regard?

Wasn't there a section of Pathos 2 that was on the surface and supposedly destroyed when the comet hit? Maybe that is where Carthage is and it wasn't destroyed?

You're talking about the Omega surface platform. It was basically just a floating platform that holds up the end of the barrel of the space gun. A couple sources say that it was destroyed. I suppose that it's possible that the sources were exaggerated or mistaken, but that would be complete speculation as there's nothing to suggest they survived.

My personal belief is that it's a secret installation called Mu. There's no mention of it in the game for sure, but in the folder with all the greek symbols for station-specific textures, there's an extra one for Mu.

[Bigbob]

I was thinking if Simon and Catherine are talking about how the WAU created Simon that maybe FG viewed that as canon. Obviously the counter to that is Carthage created the WAU and therefore was controlling everything but maybe FG didn't think that much about the guy in the omni tool room aside from the already mentioned decision that was cut.

They could've also decided to leave the Carthage thing open ended on purpose. Look at the theories in this thread. Plus as I mentioned in that other thread Delenda Est involves time travel.

I hope their next game is written like this. I just wanted it to be that the Carthage angle was a little more obvious, or at least a way for people to piece it all together easier. Akers, Ross, Carthage... It's all so well written and I bet 90% of people play the game, like or hate the ending, and wonder what was the deal with that Ross guy? There's probably only a handful of people online even talking about Carthage.

They're working on 2 games right now , right?

[Abion47]

I was thinking if Simon and Catherine are talking about how the WAU created Simon that maybe FG viewed that as canon.

They also have Sarang talking about the Continuity, Akers talking about the WAU as if it was some sort of god, and Catherine talking about the scan as if it was a coin flip. And none of those things are true. If a character says something, it's because they think that it is true, not necessarily because it is absolute fact. Simon asks Catherine why the WAU made him because that's what he thinks happened.