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[More_Badass]

You mean the one in the Power Suit, the one you have to run away from before you reach Living Quarters with the girl keeping an eye on the Ark?

There's nothing solid I've found. Before you encounter him, you can view Suit Access logs in the Dive room. All the suits seem to be accounted for except Suit #3, which has two last entries in the logs: the first one is gibberish like "/4subjWAUdd/", the second one, the day after, is by some Japanese dude. That's it.

The tentacle-faced one before you reach the living quarters. Read on the steam forums that reading the terminals in that area provides info on who he was

 

[More_Badass]

Edit: oops, double post

 

[slash213]

The tentacle-faced one before you reach the living quarters. Read on the steam forums that reading the terminals in that area provides info on who he was

That's the one I'm talking about. Well if there's more info then I've missed it.

By the way, the first teaser for Soma (October, 2013) shows Imogen Reed getting the first ever supervised scan with the help of WAU-infected Vivarium, which in a couple of weeks will lead Catherine Chun to create ARK.

 

[Cheesewheel]

Was there a reason behind all the decapitations in this game? Seemed like every corpse in all the buildings was missing its head.

 

[More_Badass]

Was there a reason behind all the decapitations in this game? Seemed like every corpse in all the buildings was missing its head.

Really? I only noticed it in Omicron. I specifically recall thinking, "Great...decapitated bodies, that's not a good sign"

 

[slash213]

Was there a reason behind all the decapitations in this game? Seemed like every corpse in all the buildings was missing its head.

Actually all the corpses you were able to "datamine" (recall their last memories) had their heads somewhat intact, because they had "blackboxes" in their skulls. Everybody at Omicron had their heads literally blown because of WAU trying to put all the resources in resurrecting Ross.

You can find audio records about that in the Dining Hall, in the laptop next to the body of Julia Dahl I presume, the undercover operative providing support for the Alpha research (this is referenced in Mark Sarang's documents).

Also, the very beginning of the game, when you have a dream about your girlfriend, shows you getting "a bleeding from the brain damage" - and Dahl's records says everybody at Omicron were getting similar bleeding when WAU started acting out. I wonder if there's a connection.

 

[Maximo]

Kinda wish the enemies were used alittle more, I thought they were really well spaced out I never got tired of a single one. Just towards the end they felt alittle rushed especially the weird crying ones with a pincher for a hand, I thought they were the coolest and I wanted another encounter or two.

Also the weird fish creature at the end sorta felt like a little take back to their previous enemy from Penumbra the Rock Worms or simply *Worms*

 

[Glitchesarecool]

So Simon is probably the most idiotic character in recent memory. Catherine explains the deal with how transferring consciousness works and he straight up sees it in front of his face--twice, as a matter of fact, when you consider his initial scan--and yet still gets pissy at Catherine when the Ark launches. I'm really glad her last words to him were so scathing.

Secondary, I guess I don't understand the motivation behind Continuity. When your scan is going to be stuck in a probe that's going to last thousands of years long after you, why kill yourself so quickly? It's more or less an inactive/semiactive backup. And why was Catherine always at fault when it happened? Why not station guards or something in the scanning room to keep people from blowing their brains out?

Hopefully the wikis can get cataloging everything quickly so I can start piecing together what I might have missed.

 

[SJRB]

Yeah Simon seems to be in a perpetual state of denial, even though he frequently seems to claim he has accepted his new "fate".


I also like that the game didn't go for the predictable gut punch with the ending and do the happy end before the bad end.

 

[luca_29_bg]

Complex story but totally really irrealistic from a human point of view, instead to preserve real life and real humans, they choose to preserve digitalized version of them. Yeah sure...really!

Ridiculous!

 

[Perfec7_]

Complex story but totally really irrealistic from a human point of view, instead to preserve real life and real humans, they choose to preserve digitalized version of them. Yeah sure...really!

Ridiculous!

How would they have preserved their human selves with monsters contantly attacking them, a broken environment/living space, and a dwindling food supply? No one on Earth was coming to help them any time soon, so they went with their next best option of preserving themselves in space. That was their only hope. Staying alive just because you're the last human beings was pointless to them if they had no future.

 

[More_Badass]

How would they have preserved their human selves with monsters contantly attacking them, a broken environment/living space, and a dwindling food supply? No one on Earth was coming to help them any time soon, so they went with their next best option of preserving themselves in space. That was their only hope. Staying alive just because you're the last human beings was pointless to them if they had no future.

In hindsight, WAU had the better idea to preserve and save humanity. A technological evolution of mankind into bio-mechanical beings that could sustain themselves on the ocean floor. The early attempts were fucked up and/or horrific, but Simon and the human consciousnesses in machines that still thought they were human showed that it was improving its methods.

Now I wish I hadn't killed it.

 

[StaffyManasse]

In hindsight, WAU had the better idea to preserve and save humanity. A technological evolution of mankind into bio-mechanical beings that could sustain themselves on the ocean floor. The early attempts were fucked up and/or horrific, but Simon and the human consciousnesses in machines that still thought they were human showed that it was improving its methods.

Now I wish I hadn't killed it.

Welp. So Simon might actually have been the first iteration that was a pretty close to a human. And he went and killed his maker.

 

[luca_29_bg]

How would they have preserved their human selves with monsters contantly attacking them, a broken environment/living space, and a dwindling food supply? No one on Earth was coming to help them any time soon, so they went with their next best option of preserving themselves in space. That was their only hope. Staying alive just because you're the last human beings was pointless to them if they had no future.

They could destroy WAU, monster problem solved, but yeah i should believe that in the future no weapons were available to destroy these monsters, no weapon at all, and i should belive too that only them are the only humans on the earth because of an meteor accident ? No maybe other submarines bases around the world with people involved in other project. Only them ? Really ? And for the last, digitalized consciousness ? Really, really ? Maybe this is what is commonly used to define sci-fi, but for me this is a very good fairytale!

 

[Perfec7_]

In hindsight, WAU had the better idea to preserve and save humanity. A technological evolution of mankind into bio-mechanical beings that could sustain themselves on the ocean floor. The early attempts were fucked up and/or horrific, but Simon and the human consciousnesses in machines that still thought they were human showed that it was improving its methods.

Now I wish I hadn't killed it.

I don't know. Like Mark (I think that was his name?) said, WAU really didn't know what it meant to be 'human', or to even be alive. What if WAU's versions of these humans were the best they were going to get? Would you want to be kept alive like Amy in the transport tracks? I'd prefer to be dead in Pathos II and 'alive' on the ARK, especially if being alive on Pathos II meants having tubes jammed into my body keeping me 'alive'.

 

[luca_29_bg]

And of course, in 2104 humans are still incapable to live in space, build space stations and something like this. But they can "digitalize" the consciousness of an human being. Yeah sureeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

 

[More_Badass]

I don't know. Like Mark (I think that was his name?) said, WAU really didn't know what it meant to be 'human', or to even be alive. What if WAU's versions of these humans were the best they were going to get? Would you want to be kept alive like Amy in the transport tracks? I'd prefer to be dead in Pathos II and 'alive' on the ARK, especially if being alive on Pathos II meants having tubes jammed into my body keeping me 'alive'.

That's what I mean. Those early iterations of "preserving humanity" are horrific, but still done with good intentions. It's like the evolving AI that can learn how to do actions across generations. The early generations are messy and uncoordinated (the glowing head corpse enemies, AMY unable to die, the people in Omicron and Theta with machine parts or integrated with machines, etc.), but then the iterations improve over time. Transferring consciousnesses into immortal mechanical bodies, making the consciousnesses still see themselves as human, etc.

And as another poster pointed out, the moment in Theta when you get fused with the flesh growth and see a "flashback" might have been WAU trying to integrate you into a simulation, just like the Ark.

Maybe all those people we see - rasping breath, mummified bodies, fused with machines - were actually mentally in pleasant simulations. The WAU was preserving humanity, both physically and mentally

Maybe it was only horrific from our perspective

 

[Perfec7_]

That's what I mean. Those early iterations of "preserving humanity" are horrific, but still done with good intentions. It's like the evolving AI that can learn how to do actions across generations. The early generations are messy and uncoordinated (the glowing head corpse enemies, AMY unable to die, the people in Omicron and Theta with machine parts or integrated with machines, etc.), but then the iterations improve over time. Transferring consciousnesses into immortal mechanical bodies, making the consciousnesses still see themselves as human, etc.

And as another poster pointed out, the moment in Theta when you get fused with the flesh growth and see a "flashback" might have been WAU trying to integrate you into a simulation, just like the Ark.

Maybe all those people we see - rasping breath, mummified bodies, fused with machines - were actually mentally in pleasant simulations. The WAU was preserving humanity, both physically and mentally

Maybe it was only horrific from our perspective

I think that's my biggest problem with the game. WAU's intentions and motivations should've been explained further. I'd be fine with them keeping that in the dark for most of the game (as WAU was the main antagonist), however, they should've fleshed it out much more towards the end.

Also, there's something that doesn't make sense about your theory. Not everyone had an ARK scan. For every person that was being kept alive through horrific tubes and wires, only a fraction of those people had the brain scans that would allow them to enter the possible simulated environment. I'm sure those who were alive without their consciousness in a simulation were in massive pain, and likely would've preferred death. Yet, WAU was keeping them alive against their will.

 

[NoPiece]

I definitely think it is a better strategy to go bio-mechanical over all digital. The first time the tiniest thing goes wrong on that satellite, they all die because they have no physical manifestation to fix anything. If they all turned into immortal biomechanical robots, they could eventually return to the surface, and rebuild the world. WAU's strategy was a little overboard, unfortunately. Simon robot was a better option.

 

[More_Badass]

I think that's my biggest problem with the game. WAU's intentions and motivations should've been explained further. I'd be fine with them keeping that in the dark for most of the game (as WAU was the main antagonist), however, they should've fleshed it out much more towards the end.

Also, there's something that doesn't make sense about your theory. Not everyone had an ARK scan. For every person that was being kept alive through horrific tubes and wires, only a fraction of those people had the brain scans that would allow them to enter the possible simulated environment. I'm sure those who were alive without their consciousness in a simulation were in massive pain, and likely would've preferred death. Yet, WAU was keeping them alive against their will.

On the Reddit discussion, someone mentions this

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.

I can't remember if the Vivarium was explored in the game's logs or is if he's just speculating

 

[StaffyManasse]

this is (a) very good

Of all your posts in this thread, that's the part I can agree with.

 

[slash213]

On the Reddit discussion, someone mentions this

I can't remember if the Vivarium was explored in the game's logs or is if he's just speculating

It's mentioned in Chun's logs found in her room.

What was the deal with that short scene where Simon thinks he is back in his 2015 apartment?

That happens right after one of the Proxies grabs you when you climb out of an elevator shaft at Theta.

I think that's the biggest hint that WAU is actually trying to do "the right thing" and to execute the same ARK-like project, simulating pleasant experiences for humans, preserving them for possible restoration in the future. It even brought his dead girlfriend back to life and put them in Toronto again - something that is impossible for pre-configured ARK environments.

Still, I pretty much shut everybody down (including WAU core at Alpha). WAU's plan was probably more solid and more feasible than Cath's, but for me humanity involves ultimately making choices for yourself, even if those choices aren't the most optimal. ARK is basically a prison for consciousness, but it's still better than surrendering your right to choose.

 

[Corpekata]

The reason Omicron staff are all headless is because their heads all literally exploded. Most of the diaries in there have lots of medical complaints regarding headaches, nosebleeds, eyes bleeding, etc. And in the hallway to the final confrontation with the WAU, Ross says the WAU called to them, but they could not understand, or something along those lines. Basically it killed them all Scanners style, though it appears not on purpose, at least at that point. That's why even the power suit you hijack is missing its' head.

You can actually hear it happen to one of them in their logs.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Password to the supersecret file in the game's folder is 19PzQ8arc11rkdv

They made it a lot harder to get this time, the code has five steps to do it, one of the parts of the passcode you get by flushing the bobhead down the toilet, one you get from checking the ceiling in the office room before the brainscan, probably the most convoluted one you get is if you reach the ending and meet Catherine in the ARK in a playthrough where you never once put your hand in one of the cancerous 'flowers'.

Lot of interesting stuff in there though, includes design documents, alpha screenshots, a 20-30 minute video of differences in the game back in the 2013 version of it (there's a lot), lots of concept art, some scrapped music, and some really dumb stuff.

What was the deal with that short scene where Simon thinks he is back in his 2015 apartment?

Looking at the stuff in that secret folder, it seems an idea earlier in development was that Simon would have weird flashes to Toronto in dream-like states, and the people he knew would become monstrous. There's one where the Dr. who brainscans you turns into a zombie-like monster, and your dead wife crawls out of a grave with a maggot-infested face. These were scrapped, but shown in the secret folder, and interestingly the models for these things (the zombie Dr., the maggot wife) are still in the game and accessible with the modding tools, and can be put in custom campaigns.

Kinda wish the enemies were used alittle more, I thought they were really well spaced out I never got tired of a single one. Just towards the end they felt alittle rushed especially the weird crying ones with a pincher for a hand, I thought they were the coolest and I wanted another encounter or two.

Also the weird fish creature at the end sorta felt like a little take back to their previous enemy from Penumbra the Rock Worms or simply *Worms*

I agree, but also think it means Custom Campaigns should be interesting. Also, I was also thinking the last enemy was a reference to their Penumbra Worm monster. XD; The way it eats the strange dude is almost exactly how the Penumbra Worm breaks out of walls.

 

[Maximo]

I agree, but also think it means Custom Campaigns should be interesting. Also, I was also thinking the last enemy was a reference to their Penumbra Worm monster. XD; The way it eats the strange dude is almost exactly how the Penumbra Worm breaks out of walls.

I can't fucking wait for Custom Stories some from Amnesia were seriously amazing, hopefully some creative people can create something to itch my horror scratch.

 

[Deleted member 30609]

super impressive. I can't believe Frictional is only 15 people.

 

[Stiler]

Just finished the game tonight and the ending was perfect. So bittersweet.

Multiple times the game tugs at you, from the moment you choose between the "helper" Robot or the one that has obviously lost it's mind, to the moment you know the Simon that you've been playing most of the game is just left behind in his chair and will wake up a while later to realize he's there, all alone to the final moment when you and the Cathrine on the omni tool lose contact.

Absolutely loved this game.

 

[FaustsBoon]

So I mentioned the "hints" earlier... but stuff like the newspaper article regarding your crash stuck with me.

If you "flip" the article, the way it was torn out of the paper frames a few headlines so that they read, "Game ends With a Twist". ;-)

Stuff like that.

 

[Atrophis]

So I mentioned the "hints" earlier... but stuff like the newspaper article regarding your crash stuck with me.

If you "flip" the article, the way it was torn out of the paper frames a few headlines so that they read, "Game ends With a Twist". ;-)

Stuff like that.

Heh I noticed that

I thought the ending was perfect. Switching the good and bad bits may have had more impact but I understand why they did it this way. It's to emphasise the continuity of consciousness, the Simon stuck at the gun has no way to really know if the ark makes it and if the simulation works correctly. Then we see that it does. Makes the powersuit Simons predicament seem worse. If it was the other way round that emphasises the loneliness of being left behind but not his uncertainty of continuity.

 

[johntown]

Has anyone tried a play through without putting your hand in the WAU? I don't mean at the end either. Throughout the whole game.

I wondered if that would affect anything.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Has anyone tried a play through without putting your hand in the WAU? I don't mean at the end either. Throughout the whole game.

I wondered if that would affect anything.

At the end of the game, you get a password piece for the supersecret file in the game when you meet Catherine if you don't stuff your hand in a single flower the whole game.

 

[Stiler]

I wish I had known that.

I used them (even though I didn't need to) at first because i thought they'd have something for you sticking you rhand in all of them.

Then when I realized WHAT they were and you make the "Switch" to a new body I never used a single one and hoped that'd have an impact but it didn't.

 

[Shredderi]

Just finished it. Super impressive game overall and one of the highlights of 2015 for me. The moment I had to decide what to do with Simon_02 was one of the, if not the most difficult video game morality choices I've made. I mean he was "me", the one who went through all of those things with Catherine and had hopes for the future and would be furious at the thought of just dying there or be left alone. It was the character who had been the protagonist up until that moment and seeing his fate was just harrowing to me. I also feel so sorry for Simon_03 who didn't make it to the ARK. Definitely the best game from Frictional so far to my tastes. Good horror scifi is hard to find these days so I really appreciated the experience.

 

[MotionBlue]

They did a fantastic job with Catherine. She was a perfect red-herring, everyone suspected her. When she was just a weird and meek shut-in. Felt bad for her at the end, her flesh person was murdered by her 'friends', and Simon constantly abuses her verbally.

In hindsight, WAU had the better idea to preserve and save humanity. A technological evolution of mankind into bio-mechanical beings that could sustain themselves on the ocean floor. The early attempts were fucked up and/or horrific, but Simon and the human consciousnesses in machines that still thought they were human showed that it was improving its methods.

Now I wish I hadn't killed it.

Read all the entries by Dr. Ross. They let WAU take control of the facilities, to manage and care for them as long as possible. It started self-editing, and misinterpreted its main directive. When they found WAU resurrecting dead rats, he realized they needed to stop it. WAU considers any facsimile to humanity to be mission accomplished. The horrible monsters we encounter are the old staffs corpses reanimated with AI, or still conscious humans driven mad.

WAU tried to "edit" Ross and put him in a coma. Ross somehow survived the experience and tried to warn everyone, but WAU used the black box implants and made everyone's head explode.

At the end of the game, you get a password piece for the supersecret file in the game when you meet Catherine if you don't stuff your hand in a single flower the whole game.

You also get them throughout the game by finding secret areas. While at the clinic in Toronto, try to jump into the sub-ceiling gives you part of a code.

 

[vladdamad]

Loved a lot about the game, especially the morality choice 2/3 of the way in where you have to choose what to do with your original body. I really didn't like the ending though, thought that it could have been done a lot better. I really don't think there was any need to show the aftermath of the Ark launch. You can simply cut to black after the timer reaches 'Zero', have the title card appear, and credits roll. We know how the system of copying works at the stage, we know that one copy will stay in the ocean and one will go with the Ark, It is more powerful to imagine what happens to the characters and their copies, no need to show it.

For a while I thought that it was being hinted that life inside the Ark feels shallow and unreal somehow, which is why that guy from whom you were trying to get the password in Theta Labs kept freaking out. So what I thought would happen was you would test the Ark and see that it is a miserable, torturous experience for everyone involved, and you would have to choose whether or not to send the last of humanity into space to suffer for an eternity or to delete them all and let the species become extinct.

Still, fantastic game, and along with Spec Ops: The Line it has some of the most interesting and genuinely difficult morality decisions I have had to play through.

 

[Shredderi]

They did a fantastic job with Catherine. She was a perfect red-herring, everyone suspected her. When she was just a weird and meek shut-in. Felt bad for her at the end, her flesh person was murdered by her 'friends', and Simon constantly abuses her verbally.

They really did. I really liked having her around. I can't help but think about the game all the time after finishing it. I was so invested in Simon's ordeal.

I just keep wanting more SOMA now. Can't do another playthrough yet though. Bad for my heart.

 

[StaffyManasse]

Look how different this old trailer from 2013(!) makes the game look.

Almost like they were first going for "horrific stuff happens to you" kind of horror, but chose to went for a more thematic and philosophical direction. If this is the case, I'm happy they did.

 

[NightShift]

Almost like they were first going for "horrific stuff happens to you" kind of horror, but chose to went for a more thematic and philosophical direction. If this is the case, I'm happy they did.

Looks like they were literally going for the whole put a human brain into a machine thing instead of a transfer of the subconcious. Definitely prefer what they did instead but I want to know what the original story was like.

 

[More_Badass]

At the end, when Catherine "dies" and it goes dark, does that mean the power went out there or just a fade-to-black ending?

 

[StaffyManasse]

At the end, when Catherine "dies" and it goes dark, does that mean the power went out there or just a fade-to-black ending?

In my headcanon she comes back on and they reconcile and keep eachother company.

 

[ced]

At the end, when Catherine "dies" and it goes dark, does that mean the power went out there or just a fade-to-black ending?

Didn't the omni tool pop and fizzle like an electrical death?

 

[Wind's Howling]

Just finished it.

The moral decisions you have to take does make the better game in terms of narrative and pacing, but I guess I kind of saw the ending happening one way or another.

There sure is this kind of moral dilemma whether it is a good thing to make copies of yourself to preserve humankind, but in the progress you make the original you die in a lonesome death.

Definitely 8.5/10 in my book. It is not even close to perfection but the storytelling was so well done that I just could not put it down.

 

[Shredderi]

In my headcanon she comes back on and they reconcile and keep eachother company.

Yep. I choose to think that it's just a little technical hiccup and she comes back on, and then they decide that it's still worthwhile to continue existing for the foreseeable future and they go back up and fuse Catherine's cortex chip with a robo body that she can control and then they go to roam the surface of the now destroyed earth, hand in hand for as long as the structure gel allows them.

 

[CHC]

I can't be the only one who found the ARK ending just as depressing as the initial one, right? The way it zooms out and it's just this cold, faceless machine that drifts off into the darkness of space... Not to mention how totally fake it seemed inside. A total cliche utopia housed in a machine drifting through the darkness, destined to be found by no one and lose power thousands of years into the future.

Creepy.

 

[vladdamad]

I can't be the only one who found the ARK ending just as depressing as the initial one, right? The way it zooms out and it's just this cold, faceless machine that drifts off into the darkness of space... Not to mention how totally fake it seemed inside. A total cliche utopia housed in a machine drifting through the darkness, destined to be found by no one and lose power thousands of years into the future.

Creepy.

I would love to see a story with that setting, of a bunch of digital humans stuck in a timeless utopia. How long would it take for them to go insane? It's like that Twilight Zone episode where the guy realises he is in hell - even things that seem pleasant will become agonisingly boring after centuries of existence.

 

[Dusk Golem]

I don't mean to ruin headcanon, but going but what we know of the Omnitool, it's almost 100% sure she is dead, and since that was the only known chip of her and a unique AI persona, I do think that leaves Simon all alone... Unless he left other people alive through the game ironically, I don't think they would of died in the day or so he was gone, so ironically the people he left alive during the game may be his only company if he can reach them.

Though obviously the big point of the ending is consequences in such a system and heroics. Simon, as we play him, is actually the third Simon of four we play as (since we play his human memories at the start, then play the first diver suit, then the second diver suit, then the Simon in the ARK), but from his perspective he's gone through the whole journey, to save humanity, and clings to a dream that he'll live in a perfect world at the end of this nightmare, and loses his lid when he realizes that, for him as he is now, there's no escape. But as he takes it all out on Catherine, she stresses out too much and dies due to being linked to too simple a virtual system (as we see earlier how that's calculated in virtual space through the puzzle involving the man who stresses out too quickly), and Simon comes to realize the last thing he ever said to her made them end off badly, and now he is all alone at the bottom of the sea. It's a dark ending, but I think that's the point, he worked hard for this and he made ARK, the last 'living' trace of humanity, to go on to survive thousands of years, but he himself, from that perspective, as that self, as well as the Simon before him, is unrewarded. He did a good thing, and the sacrifices he took was for this good thing, in the end he himself gets no personal gain out of this. I think personally judging off of Simon's personality and how he thinks of things he likely commits suicide, he has quite a personality that overthinks and dwells on things, and I don't think he could cope being alone at the bottom of the ocean with no hope.

Meanwhile, the other Simon is the definition of ignorance is bliss, to him the procedure worked without a flaw, and now he gets to be rewarded and live a dream life along with Catherine, who he's bonded with. They succeeded, they were rewarded, and they get to live out the rest of their lifespan happily (probably).

I admit I've thought about this sort of thing before, if such things as alternate realities exist, then there's thousands to millions of moments that we die at any moment from any method of possibilities, in some branched 'what if' possibility, we were killed brutally in some incident, but we ourselves as we are know nothing of this and could live blissfully in that fact where other 'versions' of ourselves have died.

 

[Wind's Howling]

I can't be the only one who found the ARK ending just as depressing as the initial one, right? The way it zooms out and it's just this cold, faceless machine that drifts off into the darkness of space... Not to mention how totally fake it seemed inside. A total cliche utopia housed in a machine drifting through the darkness, destined to be found by no one and lose power thousands of years into the future.

Creepy.

It is creepy because you witnessed the story of mankind and that its dying hours were on the bottom of the ocean.

What if they do not write up this history and have mankind start anew? They'll have children, people will continue their lives as nothing has happened because they simply do not know any better.

Aging still happens. You will still die. Natural progression will always exist.

You'd simply would not know any better. Kind of like The Matrix.

I kind of picture it that way.

 

[CHC]

I would love to see a story with that setting, of a bunch of digital humans stuck in a timeless utopia. How long would it take for them to go insane? It's like that Twilight Zone episode where the guy realises he is in hell - even things that seem pleasant will become agonisingly boring after centuries of existence.

Yeah exactly, that's what I thought of as well. Definitely not a healthy environment for the human psyche, and given the failure rate of the machines back on Pathos-II, I really don't see the whole affair ending well at all.

 

[More_Badass]

I don't mean to ruin headcanon, but going but what we know of the Omnitool, it's almost 100% sure she is dead, and since that was the only known chip of her and a unique AI persona, I do think that leaves Simon all along... Unless he left other people alive through the game ironically, I don't think they would of died in the day or so he was gone, so ironically the people he left alive during the game may be his only company if he can reach them.

Even if he did leave those people alive, he'd still be trapped there in the abyss forever, because the Omnitool is shorted out and he'd have no way to open airlocks or activate the crawler

 

[Dusk Golem]

I can't be the only one who found the ARK ending just as depressing as the initial one, right? The way it zooms out and it's just this cold, faceless machine that drifts off into the darkness of space... Not to mention how totally fake it seemed inside. A total cliche utopia housed in a machine drifting through the darkness, destined to be found by no one and lose power thousands of years into the future.

Creepy.

This said, I think the ARK would be boringly depressing and I was thinking that as I was writing. Which I think is why the poll is there, it does seem in the ARK they're allowed to 'check out' at any time, though, so I guess if they choose it's not for them, they're free to 'die' when they're ready. And while virtual, the actual Earth is no longer inhabited by humans and overrun with monsters, so I think most would take the virtual 'fake' world to being the last 'human' on a world no longer supporting their living style and overrun with new natural predators.

Even if he did leave those people alive, he'd still be trapped there in the abyss forever, because the Omnitool is shorted out and he'd have no way to open airlocks or activate the crawler

This is true, though I guess theoretically he could find some way out as it's filled with water so there must be sme sort of exit somewhere to the ocean, and someway the space shooter can shoot him out to space.