[SPOILERS] SOMA unsolved mysteries thread

[Abion47]

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.

Well, I can't speak for others, but personally, I think all this Punic War stuff, while interesting, isn't exactly an "unsolved mystery". These references are all scattered around, but finding them doesn't really provide any insight into the story of SOMA itself. It's more of an easter egg hunt than a huge revelation.

[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.

Well, I can't speak for others, but personally, I think all this Punic War stuff, while interesting, isn't exactly an "unsolved mystery". These references are all scattered around, but finding them doesn't really provide any insight into the story of SOMA itself. It's more of an easter egg hunt than a huge revelation.

Makes sense. Well I've been posting most of my findings here as well.

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/735003-soma/75224380

If anyone does happen to find this Punic Wars stuff interesting they can just refresh that link every few days.

BTW I wanted to ask. Are you the person that did the Gamelogical digs videos?

Also wanted to say this whole thing started because I'm looking feverishly for something in game that confirms for sure that Carthage Industries is still in existence. Here is an unsolved mystery. There's a lot of stuff in Chinese. I wonder if anything there is a hint?

[Bigbob]

What are these symbols?

https://youtu.be/I4beUAn-YNk

They're on the still breathing body near the Zeppelin landing pad in Delta.

He talks about it in the first 30 seconds. Also is it an unaccounted for body? Do we know how many people are on the Komorebi team? Komorebi’s body is in the comm tower. Shawn Evans is in a building and can be data mined. 1 other person is dead near the Zeppelin landing pad. Is this body a 4th from that team or someone/something else?

[Abion47]

BTW I wanted to ask. Are you the person that did the Gamelogical digs videos?

No, unfortunately. I've got a bunch of stuff that I probably could do videos on, but I doubt that I have the patience to actually sit down and do it.

What are these symbols?

https://youtu.be/I4beUAn-YNk

They're on the still breathing body near the Zeppelin landing pad in Delta.

They appear to the glyphs 信 and 申. They could be either Chinese or Japanese - Carthage and Haimatsu both have enough standing in Pathos II for the diving suit to have come from either one. Either way, it seems to mean something like "Extending Faith" or "Trust My Words". (Disclaimer: I don't read either Chinese or Japanese, so these are my best guesses.)

In any case, it seems to just be something slapped on the sides of all the diving suit helmets.

Also is it an unaccounted for body? Do we know how many people are on the Komorebi team? Komorebi’s body is in the comm tower. Shawn Evans is in a building and can be data mined. 1 other person is dead near the Zeppelin landing pad. Is this body a 4th from that team or someone/something else?

The Theta roster lists Shawn Evans as a Field Service Technician. There are two other such people - Robin Bass and Joaquin Defreine. Seeing as it couldn't be Robin, it could be Joaquin perhaps.

[Bigbob]

I was sort of tying it back to your Omni tool room body in that I wonder if the Delta body is somehow not from Pathos 2? The diving suits in the room you wake up in and when you look in the mirror seem to have a break in the stomach area. The suit at Delta (and maybe Omni tool room?) go further down past the waist? I'll try looking closer in game when I actually have time.

You are definitely right on the first symbol but I thought the 2nd one was an upside down "V"? That still ties back to either Chinese or Japanese anyways but I can't read it either. However I picked up every helmet I could find in Upsilon and I think the helmets have a different Chinese writing on them. I'm wondering if most helmets are the same except for a few? That's where I was going.

Joaquin could be the dead body near the landing pad?

Edit: nm I might be wrong about the helmet writing being different.

[Bigbob]

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BF%...BA#Chinese

I kind of see that, which could potentially mean "messenger".

The whole reason I keep posting and I'm probably annoying people is because I'm not terribly convinced that something hasn't been found yet. Dahl’s audio logs say "I'll follow up with what I find" and "I could use some advice if you can get through". She's talking about Ross being dead and when the ARK team went through Omicron she should know by then at least that Sarang committed suicide. Probably much sooner. In theory Carthage is wiped out so who is she trying to get through to? For everything I know about this game Dahl trying to communicate with someone makes absolutely no sense.

Her saying Delenda Est could be a sign she turned on Carthage. Of course they could've just left it open ended but the game is so damn meticulous w/everything that I personally believe there's something still there. Obviously there's an overwhelming amount of #'s and random names written everywhere.

Frictional would likely know that pc gamers will rip apart the files so they'd have to put in on a poster that is part of the level design, or even tie it back to something that has to be googled.

Is the rip on Julia Dahl’s back actually something in Chinese or Japanese?

I'm getting pretty frustrated with this though. What I'm doing is ridiculously grindy. I would love a hint from the devs that I'm not completely wasting my time but I know they'll never say anything.

[Abion47]

The tear on Julia Dahl's back just looks like a tear. I suppose with a certain mindset, though, it can look like the Japanese hiragana symbol そ (so). According to a kanji lookup, the glyph most commonly associated with that pronunciation is 祖, which means "founder" or "ancestor".

But to be honest, I think that we're starting to find things that aren't there. A lot of this stuff is fun to theorize about, but I'm pretty sure that we've crossed into territory that FG didn't even really think about. Either that, or they are the world's greatest secret keepers, even going so far as to implant a bunch of obscure Punic War references and Chinese/Japanese characters building up to a huge reveal, and then all but abandoned that game in order to move onto future titles without even a *winkwink* indication that there was something to find.

While I am convinced that this whole Carthage thing has merit, I don't think that it's a great buried secret so much as a subplot that FG intended but never really fleshed out, or had to cut for time or content reasons.

[Bigbob]

There's a tree in the Theta map? It's in a little body of water.

I wanted to try see what was behind the locked door at the end of the residence hallway. The one where you first see Akers. So I prop glitched through.

There's 3 locked doors. Richard Thabo, Peter Strasky and Nicolai Ivashkin. However if you turn to your left and go past Ivashkin's door there's a wall. You have to fall off the map to see it but it's basically on the other side of that wall. It's a blue area with a random tree.

It appears to be an area next to the room with Catherine’s pilot chair. You'd have to get through the wall where for instance you DL new scenarios for the Brandon Wan simulation.

Here's a pic. In this image I have my back more or less to Sarang's room and I'm under the floor falling.
https://twitter.com/BigBob002/status/863...61956?s=09

[Abion47]

Are you referring to this area?



That's the simulation area for the "Beach" module.

[Bigbob]

I don't think so. Not sure. From a distance it looks like the tree is on a little island, like maybe big enough to take a few steps on.

Try this:
https://mobile.twitter.com/BigBob002/sta...3776525312

Those 4 white lights I'm pretty sure are the Pilot chair room.

What I was trying to do was get back there when Akers spawns and quickly save it. I wanted to see if he can kill me and where he goes. Probably just vanishes. It's a huge pain in the ass to glitch through the doors though and I can't get it in time. The speed run videos make it look so easy.

The other thing that you can glitch is called prop hovering and maybe I could get to the tree but I'd need something back in that area to grab like a fire extinguisher or something.

Also, while I was messing around trying to clip through the door I'd occasionally hear a door opening. I'm pretty sure I turned around and saw Strasky’s door closing. It might be just my imagination though.