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SOMA | Spoiler Discussion
- Thread starter More_Badass
- Start date
dave is ok
aztek is ok
I have no spoilers and I must scream.
FaustsBoon
Member
We can only wish this game ends up well-written enough to evoke all these Harlan Ellison references. 
Meanwhile... why couldn't this game come out a day earlier? I have an ultra high intensity, game industry job interview in three hours and could really use the distraction.
Meanwhile... why couldn't this game come out a day earlier? I have an ultra high intensity, game industry job interview in three hours and could really use the distraction.
FaustsBoon
Member
This thread isn't really hopping yet, but what an excellent experience. I will say that I predicted the vast majority of the plot from the onset, what with how richly hint-laden those early areas are.
That said, a fascinating experience, and a meaningful execution. In fact, I would argue this is the game I desperately wanted Bioshock to be, as before it launched I was sure it would be more concerned with transhumanism, and bio-ethics.
That said, a fascinating experience, and a meaningful execution. In fact, I would argue this is the game I desperately wanted Bioshock to be, as before it launched I was sure it would be more concerned with transhumanism, and bio-ethics.
SlasherJPC
Banned
So was the growth something that came from the meteor that destroyed earth? And what about the guy at the end, thoughts on him?
As far as I can tell, the growth was because the AI that controlled the base had "Preserve humanity" as a primary objective, and when the meteor hit it decided that the best way to do this was to turn them into grotesque monsters that don't need to eat or drink.
All the biomechanical stuff is because the AI somehow altered the nanomachine black goo that they used to fix everything.
I've only played through it once so they might have thought of it, but it would be awesome if Frictional had randomized which ending gets shown before and after the credits, just to further nail in that transferring results in two copies with divergent experiences.
All the biomechanical stuff is because the AI somehow altered the nanomachine black goo that they used to fix everything.
I've only played through it once so they might have thought of it, but it would be awesome if Frictional had randomized which ending gets shown before and after the credits, just to further nail in that transferring results in two copies with divergent experiences.
SoraanTribal
Member
I really have no plans on playing it (not really my type of game), so could someone type up a summary of what the story is about? It sounds really interesting from what I've heard. I don't have all the details though.
SlasherJPC
Banned
Basically the main character got in a car accident and is getting some experimental brain treatment done. He gets this device put over him and then when it's taken off, he is in a strange underwater facility in the future. You find out in the end a world ending meteor hit the earth, all human life is dead aside from the folks down below in these facilities. Your character subconscious was captured and loaded as a legacy program into a robotic body made from human and parts. At the end, the project your trying to shoot into space was a capture of humans concious, saved to file, the last of humanity on hard drive. Drifting in space via solar energy for a potential of 1000 years in hopes something or someone might find it in the universe.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I actually wasn't a huge fan of the first hour or so, but I was so relieved when they got "you're a robot dumbass" out of the way early instead of playing it like some twist, and the back half of the game was just fucking excellent. Some people said it dragged but I think it went on just long enough. From killing your old body to meeting the woman guarding the ark to the final freakout after the launch that's one hell of a one-two-three punch of moments to wrap up a game with
SlasherJPC
Banned
The end sequences were pretty rad. The game builds it up slow and by the end it's really crazy. Replaying now on the PS4 version.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
So does anyone know if anything changes if you refuse to kill the WAU? I always did the mercy killings throughout the game and I assume there aren't really any consequences for those, but I am curious what happens if I leave the WAU alive
I haven't seen anyone try to leave without doing it. The door is unlocked though. I'm guessing the big sea monster eats the other dude as you run through the door.
If you leave the room without destroying WAU the spooky skeleton dude pulls you back into the room and tells you that you HAVE to do it, before he is gobbled up by a WAU tentacle sprouting from below. After you leave the room again WAU is basically absent for the last short part of the game.
(I think I got attacked by a bio-shark walking between the WAU and the last area, maybe that one disappears if you kill WAU. There's also more human hybrids on life support, maybe those die if you kill WAU, but there are no monsters in the last area.)
(I think I got attacked by a bio-shark walking between the WAU and the last area, maybe that one disappears if you kill WAU. There's also more human hybrids on life support, maybe those die if you kill WAU, but there are no monsters in the last area.)
Actually, watching a "kill WAU" playthrough now, and it seems I misremembered - there are no hybrids in the last part of the game. But the shark-thing is there and the "health station" is still active so I think the last part is pretty much identical apart from some dialogue (and the absence/presence of a hand).
Though I just realized that the skeleton dude talks about drinking something from a cabinet - the only time I did this was back in the old world - does that mean that intro might have been a dream/fake?
Though I just realized that the skeleton dude talks about drinking something from a cabinet - the only time I did this was back in the old world - does that mean that intro might have been a dream/fake?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
He's talking about the structure gel you use to make the body usable. When you're getting those three components the screens you use will flash with "take the gel" and "kill the WAU"
What I don't know is who that guy was. One of the WAU's thalls that broke free?
Yeah i was wondering what it is. anyone knows
Story was great, predicted some of the twists but it was still excellent. Still, I have two questions, I might have missed something:
1. Who and why uploaded Simon into the first body? Was it WAU as a part of its humanity preservation plan? If so, then why all the other hybrids were hostile?
2. Karang (the AI guy who was scanned by Catherine, don't exactly remember the name) left a suicide note in his room, in which he says that right after the scan is complete he's going to swallow poison hidden in a chewing gum. But, as you learn from the conversation between Catherine and some security guy he shot himself with maser or some other thing. Now, is it possible that it was actually Catherine who killed him or am I just overthinking this?
1. Who and why uploaded Simon into the first body? Was it WAU as a part of its humanity preservation plan? If so, then why all the other hybrids were hostile?
2. Karang (the AI guy who was scanned by Catherine, don't exactly remember the name) left a suicide note in his room, in which he says that right after the scan is complete he's going to swallow poison hidden in a chewing gum. But, as you learn from the conversation between Catherine and some security guy he shot himself with maser or some other thing. Now, is it possible that it was actually Catherine who killed him or am I just overthinking this?
samueljustice00
Member
You can find the maser tool hack blueprints in one of the rooms in Theta
Yup, found the fragment on Youtube, two different dudes. Well, Catherine didn't seem very trustworthy so this kind of mistakes are entirely on her!
My understanding of this was the guy was Johan - the scientist who returned to Omikron to warn them about the danger of WAU. He was found comatose on the climber though, and was unable to tell them - I think he was sort of half alive though, thanks to WAU, and was kept in the big glass case in containment in Omikron (it breaks just as you're leaving).
Also, I'm wondering if anybody else feels like the endings could have been flipped for greater effect. i.e. Directly after launch, flash to ark, meeting Catherine, etc - fade to black - fade in with Simon in the chair of the launcher and his spazz out.
Simon was probably the most annoying part of the game (aside from poor hide and seek segments), thanks to his inability to understand the copy (fax would be a better analogy) mechanic. Even after potentially killing his own original fax he still acts like a child.
So one thing I need clarification on; the WAU is built up to be this super spooky secret project at the ever mysterious site alpha yet everyone seems to know what the WAU is and that its running the base even before it goes nuts. What am I missing here? What was so secret about site alpha and the WAU? Was there some info I missed regarding its creation or something?
In Amnesia you'd get a bit of the code from viewing the different endings. Since there only seems to be one in this game I'm guessing the code bits are found throughout the game? On that note at the very beginning of SOMA when you first go to get the scan and have to unlock the door out of the waiting room I tried climbing through the open ceiling tile (because somehow opening drawers is clearly too complex for me), while that obviously didn't work a bunch of letters and numbers did briefly appear on the HUD. Seeing as you aren't a robot at that point I'm guessing that's a good place to start.
SoraanTribal
Member
Interesting, thanks for the summary!
What were the "monsters" exactly? Why did they turn into that?
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
An AI that's grown to take control of the facility has been using basically nanobot gel that was embedded in all the walls to corrupt and take control of all of the electronics and eventually sort of hybridize flesh and machinery.
When the comet hit the earth and killed all of humanity except the people underwater. The AI of the facilities went silent for a bit and came up with its way to save humanity. So those creatures is its idea to save humanity using the gel and machinery of the place.
SoraanTribal
Member
Ah, I gotcha. Hmm. The AI could have made them a bit less creepy!
Interesting, though.Turin Turambar
Member
Finished. It was decent, but really it isn't what I hoped.
I can't recommend it strongly. The game has scaled back in gameplay since Amnesia, leaving you with the story, which is ok in places but it isn't solved as well as I would liked. It lacks the gravitas for the themes, it introduces some concepts in a very plain way, one of the plot threads isn't solved very well, they just tease about it, and the end is doh.
Why? Because dealing with the problem of consciousness (continuity of self, duplication of consciousness, etc) has been dealt before in other fiction works, from movies to books to comics, and imo in some of these works better than here. And apart from that there isn't a lot more. The game isn't terribly insightful or shows a new perspective in the issue, or makes it more shocking. It didn't make me think more than I already thought about it years ago.
The horror is also much less intense, preferring to bask in the implications of the story to give you some horror vibes.
In fact, now that I think about it, this is much closer to Amnesia: A Machine for pigs, than the first one. Both have less gameplay and more walking and hearing and reading, both have less direct horror and relay more in the plot and the meanings behind it to create something creepy.
Funnily, there is the A plot, and the B plot. The B plot is just teased in the background and it is never explained, but actually it's the more interesting part of the game.
The A plot is you meeting with Cath, and searching and trying to launch the Ark. You do it, yay! end game. Well, not exactly yay, it leaves you with the copy/continuity problem.
One of my disappointments is how I believed the B plot, this is what was the deal with WAU, Dr. Ross and your origins would be a bigger issue near the end, maybe even having some big reveal Bioshock style, but the game doesn't really focus on it, it leaves it always as a B-plot.
But now I'm thinking maybe leaving that way, just teasing the players instead of answering everything was the better choice.
Did you kill the WAU? I didn't. Because my theory is that isn't so bad. Or at least, it was really doing the equivalent of the ARK, so if we are fighting to send and activate the ark, then the WAU can't be that bad.
It was the WAU who did the first mental transfer with the control-pilot hardware, the ARK was created as inspiration of that technology, copying what WAU did first. WAU also did one of the virtual scenarios you find in one computer, called Versailles. It makes me believe that the WAU, after its first tries trying to revive people or putting their minds in robots (which wasn't a bad idea at all to survive in the new Earth, I mean you are already leaving normal humanity with the whole virtual world-AIs, and the MC seemed normal enough), is doing then a ARK-like project, and that's why you find people connected to tentacles and shit. The game tries to intimidate the player with the creepy visuals, with black ooze and tubes and all that, but that's the hardware, from what we know the "software" side is all perfect and dream-like.
Hell, its drones never kill you, the ones who can kill you are the psychotic robots. Finally, it would be a good twist and the game in fact lets you finish it without killing it.
Oh, and I almost forgot: The Carthage corp had someone in there with classified orders about the WAU, and the Alpha base where WAU resided was secret, so it may be that it was all planned by the government as the comet closed in. A submarine geothermal plat is in fact one of the better places to start anew in that situation.
So the thing helping you and talking to you was Dr. Ross. That was my main guess. But I wonder if that's the case really. Like, how he did it? It seems he got turned into a WAU-like being. Or maybe he was absorbed into WAU when it killed him, but somehow conserved his self and was interacting with the outside world.
Because, how he could provoke you hallucinations? Like him whispering words in your mind, or how he could put some info into computers. Cath mentions you were connecting to the WAU every time you connect to heal. Apart that you are partly built with the gel WAU can control so... it makes sense for the WAU being the one behind everything? That's why I wonder if he was part of the WAU and was rebelling or some shit like that.
Finally, who built you, The WAU? or Dr. Ross?
And for what purpose? Or it was just another experiment and there was no further intentions with it.
That's the part of the puzzle I couldn't solve.
I can't recommend it strongly. The game has scaled back in gameplay since Amnesia, leaving you with the story, which is ok in places but it isn't solved as well as I would liked. It lacks the gravitas for the themes, it introduces some concepts in a very plain way, one of the plot threads isn't solved very well, they just tease about it, and the end is doh.
Why? Because dealing with the problem of consciousness (continuity of self, duplication of consciousness, etc) has been dealt before in other fiction works, from movies to books to comics, and imo in some of these works better than here. And apart from that there isn't a lot more. The game isn't terribly insightful or shows a new perspective in the issue, or makes it more shocking. It didn't make me think more than I already thought about it years ago.
The horror is also much less intense, preferring to bask in the implications of the story to give you some horror vibes.
In fact, now that I think about it, this is much closer to Amnesia: A Machine for pigs, than the first one. Both have less gameplay and more walking and hearing and reading, both have less direct horror and relay more in the plot and the meanings behind it to create something creepy.
Funnily, there is the A plot, and the B plot. The B plot is just teased in the background and it is never explained, but actually it's the more interesting part of the game.
The A plot is you meeting with Cath, and searching and trying to launch the Ark. You do it, yay! end game. Well, not exactly yay, it leaves you with the copy/continuity problem.
One of my disappointments is how I believed the B plot, this is what was the deal with WAU, Dr. Ross and your origins would be a bigger issue near the end, maybe even having some big reveal Bioshock style, but the game doesn't really focus on it, it leaves it always as a B-plot.
But now I'm thinking maybe leaving that way, just teasing the players instead of answering everything was the better choice.
Did you kill the WAU? I didn't. Because my theory is that isn't so bad. Or at least, it was really doing the equivalent of the ARK, so if we are fighting to send and activate the ark, then the WAU can't be that bad.
It was the WAU who did the first mental transfer with the control-pilot hardware, the ARK was created as inspiration of that technology, copying what WAU did first. WAU also did one of the virtual scenarios you find in one computer, called Versailles. It makes me believe that the WAU, after its first tries trying to revive people or putting their minds in robots (which wasn't a bad idea at all to survive in the new Earth, I mean you are already leaving normal humanity with the whole virtual world-AIs, and the MC seemed normal enough), is doing then a ARK-like project, and that's why you find people connected to tentacles and shit. The game tries to intimidate the player with the creepy visuals, with black ooze and tubes and all that, but that's the hardware, from what we know the "software" side is all perfect and dream-like.
Hell, its drones never kill you, the ones who can kill you are the psychotic robots. Finally, it would be a good twist and the game in fact lets you finish it without killing it.
Oh, and I almost forgot: The Carthage corp had someone in there with classified orders about the WAU, and the Alpha base where WAU resided was secret, so it may be that it was all planned by the government as the comet closed in. A submarine geothermal plat is in fact one of the better places to start anew in that situation.
So the thing helping you and talking to you was Dr. Ross. That was my main guess. But I wonder if that's the case really. Like, how he did it? It seems he got turned into a WAU-like being. Or maybe he was absorbed into WAU when it killed him, but somehow conserved his self and was interacting with the outside world.
Because, how he could provoke you hallucinations? Like him whispering words in your mind, or how he could put some info into computers. Cath mentions you were connecting to the WAU every time you connect to heal. Apart that you are partly built with the gel WAU can control so... it makes sense for the WAU being the one behind everything? That's why I wonder if he was part of the WAU and was rebelling or some shit like that.
Finally, who built you, The WAU? or Dr. Ross?
And for what purpose? Or it was just another experiment and there was no further intentions with it.
That's the part of the puzzle I couldn't solve.
I'm an adamant disbelieve in spoilers (I feel knowing a narratological framework in advance gives a better understanding of media), and I'm going to pick up the game for a playthrough this weekend, but this sounds an awful, awful lot like Bioshock 2's Minerva's Den episode.
Underwater AI's mimicking human consciousness and the player's journey being to aid their escape?
samueljustice00
Member
Couldn't be further from the plot
AHA-Lambda
Member
I couldn't have said it better myself, in as many words.
I also have to agree with your questions at the end. The particulars of how you came to be left me very much in the dark. Who made you? Who out a dead body in a diving suit in to the chair?
Yeah, I left WAU alone. The ARK was a dumb project that would only delay the inevitable end of mankind but it was the only thing that PATHOS-II personel could still do so they clung to it like crazy. On the other hand, what WAU was doing was gruesome and fucked up from human perspective, but in the long run it was the only way to preserve mankind and given time WAU would probably make it more and more bearable for revived humans (like it did with revived Simon, whom I now think WAU created) since not providing its earlier experiments with at least an illusion of humanity clearly made them go insane. I don't think WAU was a mastermind behind the ARK project, I don't think WAU was a mastermind of any sorts, I think it just tried to preserve humanity by brute force and trail and error - keep the dying alive at any cost, upload personalities into new, better enviroments and bodies infinitely. I don't believe it had some kind of a plan or end goal or even a sentient thought, it was more like a force of nature or artificial evolution.
As for Dr. Ross my guess is that he was a hybrid created by WAU who somehow managed to keep some of it's sanity intact and he focused it all into rage against WAU and its creations. How he was able to communicate directly with Simon I have no idea.
As for Dr. Ross my guess is that he was a hybrid created by WAU who somehow managed to keep some of it's sanity intact and he focused it all into rage against WAU and its creations. How he was able to communicate directly with Simon I have no idea.
hypotc
Member
I totally agree with this. It would make the ending hit "harder".
Intheflorsh
Banned
What was the deal with that short scene where Simon thinks he is back in his 2015 apartment?
WAU was plugging him into a simulation I guess.
More_Badass
Member
Finished, loved the experience.
I felt the ending was kind of a letdown. Maybe that's more on my end because I guess I expected...more. Wasn't expecting a nice ending (well, a good ending for one of you)
It was nice that Catherine didn't up being a WAU construct manipulating you or something like that, which is what I had been assuming. The way she was so nonchalant about killing machines or the Dunbat screaming how "it was her fault", made me think there was something more insidious about her
But, man, there was many haunting moments in the game. Amy especially. That was a fate worse than death. Or seeing the decayed people hooked to machines and growths in Theta and Tau, their rasping breath showing they're still alive.
In hindsight, I like the opinion here that the WAU wasn't bad and that those monsters and those horrific fates for people were only horrific from our perspective, while their consciousnesses were happy and at peace. Preserving humanity and improving upon its methods across iterations, kind of how current programs and robots can develop refined methods across myriad generations. The early generations are sloppy (Amy, the creatures throughout the game) and become better (the machines with human consciousnesses, Simon, etc.)
In a way, "Catherine" was the same as the WAU. While the WAU directive was keep humanity alive, her programming was focused on launching the Ark, even if maybe the WAU's methods was a better. A technological singularity, melding of human and machine, to create sentient lifeforms that can survive at the bottom of the ocean, versus sending mankind's brain scans into space.
I felt the ending was kind of a letdown. Maybe that's more on my end because I guess I expected...more. Wasn't expecting a nice ending (well, a good ending for one of you)
It was nice that Catherine didn't up being a WAU construct manipulating you or something like that, which is what I had been assuming. The way she was so nonchalant about killing machines or the Dunbat screaming how "it was her fault", made me think there was something more insidious about her
But, man, there was many haunting moments in the game. Amy especially. That was a fate worse than death. Or seeing the decayed people hooked to machines and growths in Theta and Tau, their rasping breath showing they're still alive.
In hindsight, I like the opinion here that the WAU wasn't bad and that those monsters and those horrific fates for people were only horrific from our perspective, while their consciousnesses were happy and at peace. Preserving humanity and improving upon its methods across iterations, kind of how current programs and robots can develop refined methods across myriad generations. The early generations are sloppy (Amy, the creatures throughout the game) and become better (the machines with human consciousnesses, Simon, etc.)
In a way, "Catherine" was the same as the WAU. While the WAU directive was keep humanity alive, her programming was focused on launching the Ark, even if maybe the WAU's methods was a better. A technological singularity, melding of human and machine, to create sentient lifeforms that can survive at the bottom of the ocean, versus sending mankind's brain scans into space.
What were some of the hints?
StaffyManasse
Member
Wasn't expecting a good-ish ending either. I was fully prepared for the Ark basically being hell. Was thinking maybe Simon was going to have to mercy kill all that was left of humanity.
I actually glad the ending was a bit better. Or at least a bit less haunting one.
I actually glad the ending was a bit better. Or at least a bit less haunting one.
More_Badass
Member
I was expecting to have to make a choice between launching or not launching it. And thought that maybe you'd find the Ark corrupted by the WAU.
Did you guys kill your old body at Omicron? I didn't want to leave it to wake up alone and be stuck there in that hellhole for eternity
Which I guess is what's going to happen to the Simon at Phi
More_Badass
Member
Oh, and what was the thing that grabs you in Theta and you wake up, stuck to the flesh growth stuff?
StaffyManasse
Member
I think that was one of WAU's "lackeys", and they wanted to hook Simon into a simulation, but Simon's mind rejected the simulation for some reason.
And yeah, I mercy killed everyone I could.
So has anyone put names to the two people that respond to you at the comm center at Upsilon when trying to conduct Lambda?
When you put in Theta someone answers and says "Something is better here. Its here."
When you put in Omicron someone answers "Kill yourself. Nothing left to live for."
When you put in Theta someone answers and says "Something is better here. Its here."
When you put in Omicron someone answers "Kill yourself. Nothing left to live for."
More_Badass
Member
Now that I can finally watch the trailers, the Creature trailer is so good.
More_Badass
Member
I missed the story stuff in Tau, since I was fleeing from the monster. Was there any interesting info there or backstory for the creature?
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.