[SPOILERS] SOMA unsolved mysteries thread

[Abion47]

If you want to try to slow down the audio, it's under "sounds/level/02_theta_tunnels.fev {/sweeteners/brandon_tv/brandon_tv_emergency}". (The path in the brackets is the path within the .fev file.)

There's no point in slowing down the video. I put the video together using the images from "textures/static_terminal_graphics/satellite_screenshots". They are just stills, so you can analyze each one all you want.

[Bigbob]

You have me at a huge disadvantage because I'm on ps4 and a smart phone.

I wanted to try and clean up the audio somehow. I think it's just talking about the comet and the impact on earth. However it would be weird for anyone to be talking about seeing the destruction unless it's the Curie.

If it's after the comet and not the Curie it changes a lot of the cannon. Interesting.

Or like you said it's a recording from before the comet and nothing interesting.

Edit: Best I could do was record it using my phone camera, use 1 app to convert to mp3 and another app called Maple to adjust everything. I wasn't working with the original file found on pc though.

I'm getting "military", "air force", 30 miles south", "across an area" "struck down in the pacific ocean", "July 3rd or 23rd", "cloud".

[Abion47]

The original file is an FMOD soundbank file, so you need to download the FMOD studio in order to play it. However, the version required is an older version of FMOD, and last I checked, the download links for that version got pulled from their website.

Otherwise, the only thing you can do is find a working conversion tool. The only one I know of (fsbext) is a Linux-only utility that doesn't come prebuilt, so it takes a level of tech savvy-ness in order to use it.

As far as the content, it doesn't make any sense to me. Why would an emergency broadcast from Talos or earlier be playing on repeat in Theta of all places? And you can't really make sense of that broadcast originating from after the Talos landing without making some pretty hefty assumptions.

[Bigbob]

I was thinking they might have left communications open in case something came from the surface and that's all they could get? I'm not sure how central the Omega platform was to getting any communication from the surface? Correct me If I'm wrong but was it the initial impact that destroyed Omega? Maybe they were hoping to hear from someone from the surface, if that could even be done without Omega?

What's confusing me is we both heard "July". I looked at the timeline and couldn't find anything significant except I think Sarang committed suicide in July? I'll look again but I tried looking at the July before and after the comet.

I couldn't find what you were saying about someone got killed. Also like you I'm missing about 10-15 seconds of audio that could be substantial.

I would say I'm left to conclude that Frictional recorded this early in development and never had time/resources to re-record something so insignificant, but there sure is a lot of little things I notice with every play through that originally seemed insignificant but now I realize is extremely important. This recording seems like too big an oversight for how methodical and extremely well laid out the game is designed.

I've even seen lines edited after the original pc release that show that they were almost obsessed with only giving away information they wanted. Which is why I think that audio has something more hidden in it.

[Bigbob]

This game has a lot of ironies and I love it.
-Dahl is desperately trying to leave Ross at Alpha to study the WAU. Ross is desperately trying to get to Omicron to destroy the WAU.

-Dahl sacrifices people as the ultimate "company man" to Carthage. Ross turned on Carthage.

-Ross dies trying to get to Omicron despite Dahl’s efforts to keep him in Alpha. Dahl dies because Ross never made it to Omicron.

-Catherine had to invent the ARK for Sarang to have a way to practice Continuity. The suicides lead to Strohmeier putting the ARK project on hold.

-The Pilot Seats are designed for the WAU to steal scans so every time Catherine does a scan she's giving a copy to the WAU. Which means that every person living on in the ARK has a good chance of another copy in Pathos 2. Being scanned to the ARK could be seen as making a digital AND physical copy.

-Sarang commits suicide because he wants only 1 copy in the ARK, but the WAU will likely create more copies anyways.

-killing the WAU stops it from creating these fake humans, but could potentially mean the people on life support die.

-Carthage/the WAU leaked structure gel and created proxies leading to the downfall of Pathos 2. Without Carthage we don't have the Vivarium and therefore no ARK.

-Killing Simon 2 out of sympathy means that Simon 3 has no hope of activating the Climber. Killing Sarah Lindwall so she won't be left alone means Simon 3 is left alone.

[Bigbob]

To the topic creator: if you want me to stop bumping your topic please let me know and I'll create my own topic for my ramblings.

In Simon's apartment is a statue of Ombra Della Sera. This is likely a reference to the Etruscans, who have their own history with Carthage. It appears the history is much earlier than the Punic Wars. The 2nd link has some info.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombra_della_sera

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_civilization

Update on volterra https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ancient...p/1-15700/

Volterra's status thereafter is unclear beyond that it contributed, as did many other Etruscan cities, to the campaigns of Scipio Africanus against Carthage during the Second Punic War (218-201 BCE). According to the Roman writer Livy, it gave grain and timber for shipbuilding.

Edit: Here's the deal. As I find new stuff I'll edit this post until someone else posts so that I'm not incessantly bumping the topic.

In Simon's apartment is a book on Rome.

His toothpaste is made by a multinational company called ENI. ENI is headquartered in Rome and has expanded their oil operations into northern Africa. The city of Carthage was in Africa.

Edit again:
Based on Dahl’s audio logs I think it's pretty obvious she didn't know what the WAU really was despite working for Carthage. Ross I wasn't so sure until I found a book in his room called The Evil Genius by Renee Descartes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon

"René Descartes hypothesized the existence of an evil demon, a personification who is "as clever and deceitful as he is powerful, who has directed his entire effort to misleading me." The evil demon presents a complete illusion of an external world, including other minds, to Descartes' senses, where there is no such external world in existence."

Edit: If you leave Catherine in the escape pod of the Curie, leave and go back before pulling the plugs on the reactor, she theorizes that the Jinjashi(sp?) are dead people brought back to life. That's probably common belief though?

Another edit:
During the simulations when you are trying to get the security code from Brandon Wan for the Dunbat, one of the locations is Versailles. This is a reference to the Treaty of Versailles.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthaginian_peace

"At the end of the Third Punic War, the Romans laid siege to Carthage. When they took the city, they killed most of the inhabitants, sold the rest into slavery, and destroyed the entire city. There is no ancient evidence for modern accounts that the Romans sowed the ground with salt.[1]

By extension, a Carthaginian peace can refer to any brutal peace treaty demanding total subjugation of the defeated side.

Modern use of the term is often extended to any peace settlement in which the peace terms are overly harsh and designed to accentuate and perpetuate the inferiority of the loser. Thus, after World War I, many (the economist John Maynard Keynes among them[2]) described the Treaty of Versailles as a "Carthaginian Peace." "

[Abion47]

You know, the problem with posting your new additions as edits is that people who are responding to you won't get a notification and won't know when you post something new until they actually come back and manually check.

Based on Dahl’s audio logs I think it's pretty obvious she didn't know what the WAU really was despite working for Carthage. Ross I wasn't so sure until I found a book in his room called The Evil Genius by Renee Descartes. ...

This leads to the suspicion that I already had that Ross/Carthage already was fully aware of what the WAU was doing. This makes me think that the reason Ross decided to kill the WAU wasn't because it was doing bad things but because it had broken free of their control.

If you leave Catherine in the escape pod of the Curie, leave and go back before pulling the plugs on the reactor, she theorizes that the Jinjashi(sp?) are dead people brought back to life. That's probably common belief though?

I actually hadn't ever heard her say that before. I was just under the impression that the Jiangshi would always be a mystery. This does lead to one theory, though.

After Reed cut the power at Omicron, the WAU had very little time to find a new source of power. Eventually, it found the fusion reactor onboard the Curie, which alongside the auxiliary power systems would provide enough to get by until a more permanent solution could be found. So the WAU smothered the Curie in structure gel, linking the reactor to itself. When the reactor came online, the power coursed through the gel to any corpses on board in contact with it to get reanimated (similar to the mouse). Acting purely on baser instinct, these walking corpses would be drawn to sources of electrical energy since they need it to remain alive, which is why they flock around the Curie and attack Simon if he gets too close.

It also offers an explanation as to how they got their EMP abilities. The sheer amount of power generated by the fusion reactor has supercharged the gel, causing them to unwittingly send out the EMP waves at random intervals. (This would tie into the explanation for Ross' own EMP abilities since the gel in his body was supercharged in a very similar manner.)

[Bigbob]

Yeah that's true about editing. I have 3 unsolved mysteries I'm interested in hearing your opinion. On the notebook in Munshi's office where you get the pass code are a few things written down. At the bottom is something that looks like "Delposte method". Any idea what it says or relevance?

In the Machine Hanger in Upsilon (1st room you can data mine a robot) there's a blue print on the wall of an A95 Worker. One of the parts is a Platine B9X. Platine makes absolutely no sense for a robot that I could figure but there is the Platine states. I was digging around for a connection to the Punic Wars.

In Ross's room is a 2nd book but I couldn't make out if it says anything on ps4. I might actually create a Twitter account to hit up Frictional Games. I particularly want to know if there's more to that Brandon Wan transmission.

[Bigbob]

Not sure if people picked up on this but I think the Upsilon robot is in the Machine Hanger when you first go in. It moves randomly as a scare tactic when you approach it and disappears when you go into the back where the robot is that Amy calls creepy as hell.

Aleksey and Lyoshka

These are the names the body in Tau says. The one holding the picture of a young boy. Lyoshka is a sort of short name/nickname for Aleksey. Similar to how the US might call someone Bill when their real name is William.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey

Alexey is a common name in Russian and Bulgarian and originated from the Greek name Alexios, meaning Defender.

Alexey may also be romanized as "Alexei", "Aleksei", "Aleksey", "Alexej", "Aleksej", etc. It has been commonly westernized as Alexis." In Soma it's spelled Aleksey which is one of the Roman spellings of the name.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexius

Alexios is a very common name in Roman culture representing many Roman politicians during the Byzantine Empire (Rome during the medieval era) . A common associated name to Alexios is Alexander. One of the most famous Macedonians was Alexander the Great. Macedonia had their own conflicts with Rome.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argead_dynasty

"Alexander at the top of his reign was simultaneously King of Macedonia, Pharaoh of Egypt, King of Persia and King of Asia". This was prior to the Punic Wars.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_Wars
During the Second Punic War, Philip V of Macedon allied himself with Hannibal (of Carthage). Rome's interest was not in conquest, but in keeping Macedon busy while Rome was fighting Hannibal. "

[Bigbob]

I have 2 more Punic War references. No one's really commenting much so I wonder if I'm the only one that finds this incredibly smart? They crammed in all these references to the Punic Wars and fit Simon, Catherine, the ARK and Pathos 2 around it. Or the other way around. It's like they have 2 stories going at once kind of. I'll keep posting I guess.

Cadiz, Spain
One of the thank you notes to Jonsy in the Upsilon comm room is from Cadiz.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A1diz

"The city fell under the sway of Carthage during Hamilcar's Iberian campaign after the First Punic War. Cádiz became a depot for Hannibal's conquest of southern Iberia, and he sacrificed there to Hercules/Melqart before setting off on his famous journey in 218 BC to cross the Alps and invade Italy.[14] Later the city fell to Romans under Scipio Africanus in 206 BC.[15]"

Delphi
This one took me a couple of hours of googling. I discovered it by accident when reading about Alexander the Great. Props to Frictional for getting me to finally pay attention to history.

On the notepad with the pass code in Munshi's office is written "Delphi Method". The Delphi Method is a panel of experts sitting at a roundtable with a moderator, taking turns discussing the topic of interest until they come to mutual agreements. I originally wrote it off because it didn't make sense with what Munshi was doing. I mean, it could but the game never seems to indicate anyone else other than Berg and Munshi. Which is why it's so clever that they used the term to possibly tie it in to the brain scans but it could also be a potential reference to something else.

I think it's more a reference to Delphi in Greece.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi

There's probably quite a few references to the Punic Wars and Carthage but I'll go with Quintus Catius.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Catius

"Quintus Catius was an officer (legatus) of the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War.

In 205, Catius and Marcus Pomponius Matho, who would later become the praetor in charge of the investigation against Pleminius, were sent as Rome's ambassadors to Delphi with gifts to dedicate at the temple."

Still looking at Platine. Platine platine platine. What are you hiding Frictional Games?

Another one:
James Bloom
One of the letters to Jonsy is from a James Bloom. Most likely a reference to author James J. Bloom who for years has written about the Roman military.

The Jewish Revolts Against Rome, A.D. 66-135: A Military Analysis https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786444797/ref...bzbT2WJ87K