“You know what sucks about dying? The crash. Everything up till now. The brain damage, you guys, everything-it has made my life so much more real. I started thinking about all the things I was going to do. I'd never been more excited to be alive! All that hope... wasted.” that's probably one of the worst feelings in the world
6:11 She doesn't ignore it, she just doesn't see a point in caring. Being upset about it isn't going to change anything and is illogical. If anything, in her eyes it's actually a good thing because it prevents Simon from going crazy. This is the way Catherine and other people such as myself think.
Catherine's a fascinating character to me because she's all about the tech-- or specifically completing her project. In a way she probs came across her coworkers like a robot-- focused on her projects over the feelings and wants of her colleagues So her AI copy fully embodies that part of her personality-- and my own head-canon / theory is that's a side effect of being a dupe -- it makes those "parts" of her even more evident and 'seemingly unfeeling', now that there's no need for self preservation (or even self preservation of other ais) I'm not like this, but I've known ppl like this-- a lot on the spectrum and I never understood "why" -- call me corny but Soma's Catherine is so believable in her motivations that it made me kind of "understand" why lol
I think Catherine knows the cosciousness doesn't actually transfer to the Ark, she never explicitly tells people this, the people around her made up theories about how to make it happen - hence the suicides.
Simon staring at himself in the mirror is a great subtle moment, hearing the whirling of the optics, and the body language of him begrudgingly accepting his new existence
What surprised me the most is how Simon is able to feel pain, more specifically if you choose to kill the WAU he gets his arm bitten off, then he starts yelling in pain, even thought he is a robot head on a corpse. Maybe the WAU is somehow able to simulate pain.
Doesn't matter. To perform tasks of high dexterity you need a set of sensors and you need a reading from them. When the data back from sensors is either absent or mangled random you assume lost integrity. Then different "you are damaged" protocol should be used (i.e. diagnosis, functionality check, turning off lost section, repairing, return to docking station etc.) I don't think that's much different from natural organisms. There's a known condition of not feeling pain "congenital analgesia" and a lot of articles and films about people with such a condition. You can search "people who don't feel pain" and it's not very fortunate state. Not many survive childhood, many broken limbs and accidental burns during the lifetime, risk of sepsis due to rotten teeth you can't feel or late recognition of cancers.
It could very well be phantom pain. People who have lost limbs can feel their lost hand clench very painfully. Its the human brain trying to keep up the full sensations you're supposed to have.
The first clip of Simon looking in the mirror is so terrifying. The way he presses his wrists to his head, like he's trying to cover up his face. Just imagine looking in the mirror one day and you are a completely different being than you thought you were. You aren't even human anymore.
His story is not dissimilar to the IRL story of the HeLa cancer cell line. Taken from a seemingly random African-American passersby named Henrietta Lacks, immortalized through science (but better described as a series of coincidences happening under lack of ethical oversight and major business interests--it was taken without her consent). The cells are still in use in biotech practices today, of which almost no profit goes to her surviving family. SOMA is indeed a story of what happens when you don't respect human dignity, but the story is also terrifyingly real
I believe Catherine damn well knows there is no coin toss whatsoever and just tells this to Simon to 1. calm him and 2. explain it in a way he'd be able to grasp easily ( he is a stranger to this world 100 years in the future), i dont think this was done out of malice as you said, but just that she understands what copy+paste actually means
this would also be why she says nothing when Simon is talking about the second body swap, because she knows that what he's saying isn't how it works and telling him the truth would not be helpful
I am pretty sure she wanted to deactivate Simon 2 in order to keep the mind transfer illusion. But she was not quick enough and Simon 2 talked revealing the truth to Simon 3. Her stumbling over words is what sold that to me, she got caught and was nervously trying to think in a plan to get him back on board. And yet somehow he does not fully understands. She knows he is ignorant and to achieve her goals she must use him. She probably justifies thinking that a version of him will survive in the ark with another version of everyone else so it is for his own good.
@@n646n no, there is no coin toss. There is no transfer, just copying. The coin toss is a misinterpretation from Simon's part. He can only ever be who he is.
@@n646n No I'm afraid that's not how copy paste works, like there is no such thing as a coin toss, consciousness doesn't work in that kind of way even with what little we know about it. In the video game we get to play as the Simon who gets to move on but that's because it's a video game if it was more realistic while the game would end in the beginning, but we would be Simon sitting alone in that chair forever because it's not luck there is no coin toss, Like the Simon and the chair is literally that Simon that we were playing as, we just get into the perspective of this copy, but that is still Simon still alive still breathing still able to think believing that he lost this imaginary coin toss
14:20 Catherine didn't mean the one that continues on is the "true" Simon. She was just saying that's the one that gets to continue. There's no point in arguing who the "true" Simon is. He already died
Simon has gotta be my most favorite Amnesia character out of all the games I've played. He was written so well and his story feels so relatable, it's hard not to sympathize with him. *Edit: 8:23 He got the reverse Rayman treatment lol!
I think we actually have some pretty good reasons for some of the behavior we see from both Simon and Catherine in the game. During the part where we get to torture Brandon Wan for example, there's a section where we get to learn about how he feels about Catherine- she is very conflict-averse, bad at communicating, and generally a bit detached and reclusive from her comrades. She "clams up like a child" when in some conflicts, is very blunt, and Brandon says he can't stand her. In general throughout the game I think a lot of the poor communication on her part, along with her easy acceptance of her new condition, comes from her emotional status as someone who was already a fair deal detached and reclusive, something of a weirdo tech-head. A lot of the discussions and descriptions about or involving her in game paint her as someone who was already a bit separated from other people emotionally to her active detriment, though people still liked her. I almost want to say, though I am not an expert, that she seems a bit like she might be on the autism spectrum. Simon on the other hand, a possible explanation for him not getting some things is simple: unlike all of the WAU brain scans in the game, he (or at least Simon II) is a Nakijima Flat-type neurograph. It is mentioned by Catherine that the dynamic "living" scan she made of Imogen Reed using WAU technology did not "play nice" or get along with flat-type neurographs in one of her prototypical ARKs- basically, thanks to his old file format, it is possible that Simon has been mentally affected and cannot quite process information like the more 'alive' WAU scans do. I assume this would change when Simon III and IV are created, but still, it is something to consider. In any case, as always, excellent video. Looking forward to what else ya do, as well as to Frictional's next works!
wow, I hadnt really caught the implied differences of the way brain scans and the flat types. Theres lots of little disturbing aspects of the technology shown in the game that are really interesting and I like to see them explored.
catherine being autistic is actually something i’ve thought about (i am also autistic), and when playing the game i’ve related to her a lot and actually really liked her. i understood her intentions were genuine and that she was really smart as a person. if anything, i felt more bad for how she was treated but i found comfort in how she carries herself throughout the game. in my mind i seen her and thought “she’s actually really bad at communicating (i am too), but i like her! she feels simple and direct. something about her is extremely comforting.” but this was all the way before i discovered i was autistic. i never saw her as malicious and completely genuine. it just makes so much sense she’s on the spectrum. i’m not really good at sensing someone is autistic, so when you had described her that’s what i thought before i read the last sentence
If you spare Simon 2, he actually has a better fate than Simon 3. Simon 3 is trapped forever in alpha whereas Simon 2 is at Omicron free to move around and possibly get a second Omni-tool and repair it with the structure gel in the lab.
well, that is if he ever manages to get out of the Dive Room which Catherine sealed off and should he make it out he will have to deal with the erratic Robot Head Woman, I´m sure he will have a swell time at Omicron
@@umukzusgelos4834 amd lets not forget the creatures that are lurking around the facility,you want to go back and face all those horrors again? 😭😭😭 they will still be waiting for you from each corridor you shut off
They got together. Two questions: 1. Can humans procreate inside the Ark? Unlikely. 2. Catherine Chun most likely had alredy uploaded herself into the Ark, along with the rest of the Ark Crew. Was that version overwritten, or there are actually two Catherines now inside the Ark?
Catherine has been technically lying to him all this time by saying "transfer" instead of "copy", although he should've realistically known himself that it's actually a copy. It would be interesting to see a version of the story where Simon knows he will be copied, or we get to play a short story of the Simon that was left behind for the abyss as a kind of DLC.
Uh yes, the good old WAU Couldn't understand how to copy EVERY SINGLE PATHOS II EMPLOYEE (while his goal is to save them) but manages to successfully put a legacy scan of a man who became essentially a tutorial for brain scans. Bravo, WAU.
WAU doesn't know what Humans want. WAU doesn't "think" like you or I do, considering things like "existential existence." It is a problem solver, and operates to try to employ the simplest solution to a problem that satisfied the most prerequesites For it, WAU monsters are Human. They have a body, they have organs, and they are "breathing." That's a living human for it, in the same way we're featherless bipeds. A desperate measure to guarantee humanities survival. But while this strategy could SUSTAIN the remaining humans, it couldn't increase the number. That's where Mockingbirds come in. The Mockingbirds were a foray into the Warden trying to make "more" humans via duplication. Replicate a mind, put it into a body. It was the earliest experiment of the WAU, as we see in the prequel miniseries, and by WAU standards probably a desperation measure. First with robotic bodies, which the WAU left sitting around as failed experiments, but eventually culminating in the success of Simon when it managed to get a brainscan into a human body. tl;dr, Simon was a late stage experiment. The WAU was trying its own things to try to save humanity, and consistently put more emphasis on a biological definition of life over a psychological one. An understandable mistake by a machine intelligence.
When you give a non-human intelligence the objective to "save humanity" without even defining what humanity _is,_ then it's kinda your own fault if it fucks it up tbh.
At first i was shook by Simon being so bitter about being left behind... But Catherin seems like... Well i think we all know why she didn´t really make friends at work? I think both are very right, but man they could have tried with a lil more chill and relax at the end no? Great Character, great Video man.
@@dr.cheeze5382Bunker is much better in terms of gameplay, tension and fresh, unpredictable moments. I'm not saying one is better than the other, both games do what type of horror they set out to do extremely well as well as having equal grounds in terms of atmosphere, and especially sound design. Tldr: Why complain about having two cakes?
Am I the only one that found it weird that Catherine didn't immediately recognize Simon's name as a legacy scan? Catherine especially would have been familiar with it.
To be fair if you were suddenly talked to a guy showing up out of the blue calling himself Macintosh, would you assume he was _the_ Macintosh computer? Especially since Simon's legacy scan being viable for personhood was seen as likely as Clippy being turned into a conscious person. haha
@@fallatiuso Also possible that she played a bit dumb not to scare him too much. Like after the first conversation I get that she wouldn't understand what or who he was but she must have puzzled it together without expressing it.
It's weird. In the climber scene, Simon quickly and correctly points out that even assuming Catherine's coin toss premise, what she's saying is completely unfalsifiable. But he was still too stubborn and obtuse to understand that he was lied to.
@@umukzusgelos4834 I wonder if Catherine was starting to believe it herself because she said that she lost the cointoss, even though by that point she'd have no reason to keep up her lie. I also suspect that Catherine's transfer from her robot body to the Omnitool was a red herring by the developers to trick players into believing Simon's process of going into the new body would be similar.
@@HeeHungersForHoseven though the difference should be obvious as her physical storage medium is being removed from the robot and fitted to the Omnitool
The fact that Simon is not on his body and "actually in Imogen's body" when he wakes up in the future is really intriguing and fascinating but at the same time messed up, maybe the WAU did it but They didn't thought about preserving his body after the brain scam and literally buried him on a grave, If I had to die and wake up in the future, I would still like to have my own body or being full robot instead of being in someone else's carcass, You can see how disgusted he got when he learned about it in THETA
I think what makes it even worse is the fact that Imogen had no say in the matter and now her mutilated carcass is forced to move to the will of someone else long after she has departed it´s like some SciFi Necromancy
Simon, talk about a tragic character, through and through. And his traveling buddy, Catherine a very apathetic side character, I say apathetic because she does not even try to calm Simon from his existential crisis besides "Come on man, calm down, relax" as if its entirely normal as if he should be use to it. Yet in the end, alone in a strange and alien world, changed.
What an absolute, existential nightmare. Nobody should ever have to go through what Simon and Catherine had to. This is what scares me about AI, that they'd have to endure the same hopelessness and isolation. If a true AI is created, it would need to be treated human like the rest of us, and be wanted, loved.
Understood the concept pretty early on since the dialogue and notes make it pretty clear how the data transfer is just copying like with computer files. Chose not to "mercy" kill OG robo-Simon since I figured he'd be the last "human" left besides new Simon after you upload Simon no. 4 into the satellite. Just have to get back up to the facility somehow, eventually. But hey, immortality so he's got plenty of time to figure something out. All around good ending.
A scary fact is that theoretically, soma could be canon IRL (besides the fact that humanity has advanced brain scans & far more advanced AI and technology by 2015 or something lol)
You already got AI chatboxes that are made from the text messages and social media feeds of dead people. Imagine what they will do in 20 years, nevermind in 100.
Regarding the HPS model: The arms of the suit are too thin at the shoulder and elbow joints (black rubber), and its legs look too thin at the hips and thigh and knee joints. There should be rigid movable segments under the black rubber that limit the suit's mobility, but since standard animation was used on them, this is not felt, and sometimes the limbs take impossible positions for a suit of this type. In addition, the joint segments should not only be thicker, but also a little longer. The glove model also raises questions, as does their use for such a suit (although this is possible, but the phalangeal finger joints on the model are not worked out). + when the hand is torn off, the flesh should not be pink, and gel should come out of it rather than blood, considering what this body is.
@@umukzusgelos4834 you can also keep the dive room door partially up with a chair, but looking into the mirror from the new body softlocks the game (Simon instatntly "teleports" to the to dive room suit sitting location and it's impossible to do anything).
Hey, I've been having some issues getting Frictional's model viewer to work. Did you have any issues with it? Just curious, also thank you for the closer look at the animations !! :-]
it´s a bit finicky and crashes often yes, I mostly use the Viewing window of the editor since that ones a bit more stable, it differs from game to game
I remember seeing a playtrought of this game back in 2017 if i am not mistaking and i complety forgot almost everything about this game.. so if you could, can you resume the story to me? Because it looks like from the first cutscene the protagonist was in coma for almost 100 years only to see the world he know...and his body have been ruined.
the Plot goes like this: In the Year of 2015 Toronto Canada, Simon Jarret get´s ivolved in a car Accident with his Girlfriend Ashley, she dies, he lives but with severe Brain Injury that will eventually be fatal, but he partakes in a Project by David Munshi and Paul Berg to assemble a near perfect 3D Digital image of his brainstructure which in theory can be used to assemble a treatment simulation so an ideal treatment for his condition can be found alas the experiment failed and Simon eventually passed away but before dying he allowed Munshi to use his scan as a template for his Research - the Template became part of a Learning Kit of artificial Intelligence - A legacy Scan In 2105 in a subteranian Research Site called Pathos II after the Earth was hit by the Comet called Tellos - a rogue AI - the WAU in an attempt to create Live inserted one of these Simon copies into a Diving Suit containing a Corpse - only for Simon there is nothing in between getting scanned and awakening at the research site, so to him it is as if he´s time travelled After learning of the state of the world and the fate of humankind, Simon then joins forces with a woman named Catherine - another Scan - who in life - used this technology to create a digital living space for Brainscans she did of the staffmembers, to create a kind of artificial afterlife - since the planet is rendered inhosbitable and the Researchers are forced to slowly wither away at the bottom of the sea their goal is to find the Ark - as it is named and launch it into space, while also putting their own Scans on it, so they too can live on in this digital plain there is of course much more to it, but this is the long and short of it
@@umukzusgelos4834 all of this started by just sitting on a chair geez... but thanks! Will rewatch this game again now that i understand more or less what my character goes trought
Catherine knew the "Cointoss Analogy" was logical BS she was just trying to deal with Simon and how irrational he was. I realize the SOMA devs made Simon dumb on purpose to explain the plot but man he gets annoying with his crazy mood swings and never "getting it"
I think there's a big difference between "dumb" and "unable to understand". Because he has no knowledge about this concept, and has never done anything remotely close to research about the subject. because he has no understanding about the world around him, no "pleasant" rationalization for why the world is the way it is, he's just scared. I strongly believe that he, deep down in his subconscious, doesn't want to understand. It's why he deflects every time, and it's especially obvious at the end of the game. He isn't dumb, he, and the pun is fully intended, is a fish out of water. And it's heart breaking, because he wants to understand.. he just doesn't want the truth.
Either in e-mail or in the phone call Jesse says "love you, miss you, mean it". Was there something going on between them? Was this a leftover from some earlier plot development that got abandoned? It seems very genuine in a loving kind of way, not merely a friendship kinda way.
I am pretty sure it is stated at least somewhere that they were in a beginning loving relationship. That is why Simon was left so heart-broken (aside from, you know, him dying lol)
Simon at the time was sort of romantically involved with his co-worker Ashley Hall who died during the Car Crash he had so I doubt that he has romantic feelings for Jesse I think Jesse simply tried to be a Bro and chances are they knew each other for a long time for that to be an acceptable form of saying goodbye, aside from that Jesse is characterized as a bit dull, easygoing and forgetful, so possibly he just says the next best thing that comes to mind without giving it much thought It is of course entirely possible that Jesse had romantic feelings for Simon but so far that has not been confirmed
Well, you're way off, I think someone does indeed say that but it wasn't Jesse, also the mail at the beginning of the game was a draft made by Simon to Jesse about not being able to go to work because of the appointment with Munshi
@@eloi4297 Went back to confirm it. Jesse says it to Simon in his voice mail right at the very beginning of the game after Simon wakes up. "Loveyoumissyoumeanit!" is the subtitle for it.
He should be, unless the corpse was dried up first and then put into the suit or the structure gel, which has a hardening qualities in it serves as a preserving agent, either way he is actually quite disgusting
@@umukzusgelos4834 wait you actually got a point there, imgone reed died without a suit on i believe. its in the soma transmissions video. and was probably stuffed into the suit (as well as having her head cut off, as she dies of suffocation.) but the next body actually stayed in the suit at the time of death tho. my only logical conclusion to that is that herbert went to the toilet before putting on the suit. unsure when she could leave it.
Well that would work based on the assumption that the process is a transfer, rather then a duplication, alas you are not transferred, but a duplicate of you is being created inside the new Body If you apply the analogy on the procedure as it is, you will always loose the coin toss as the You that resides within the old body can never be the one that "wakes up" in the new one
no, it would be like every time you tossed a coin it created 2 coins, one head and one tails. there is always one winner and one loser, its not an either/or situation. there is no chance element to it.
![PATIENT ZERO - A Half-Life Short [S2FM]](/img/n.gif)
“You know what sucks about dying? The crash. Everything up till now. The brain damage, you guys, everything-it has made my life so much more real. I started thinking about all the things I was going to do. I'd never been more excited to be alive! All that hope... wasted.”
that's probably one of the worst feelings in the world
In this game you don't do what Simon says, you do what Catherine says.
But Wasn't Simon the one pushing Catherine to help him finish the Arche Project?
@@kabutons5966 I think Simon just wanted to find someone until Catherine gave him the motive to finish the ark project.
Simon does not have enough of any parameters do push that himself.
clever
Simon Says. Haha
Damn. the SOMA players are still here. I love it.
It's such a good game why wouldn't we
grabbing the simon makeship plush as we speak 💪
We are powered by the next gen WAO right through in our brains. Nothing is allowed to die.
I'm 38. It's one of the absolutely best games I've ever experienced.
We NEVER LEFT
6:11 She doesn't ignore it, she just doesn't see a point in caring.
Being upset about it isn't going to change anything and is illogical. If anything, in her eyes it's actually a good thing because it prevents Simon from going crazy.
This is the way Catherine and other people such as myself think.
Catherine's a fascinating character to me because she's all about the tech-- or specifically completing her project. In a way she probs came across her coworkers like a robot-- focused on her projects over the feelings and wants of her colleagues
So her AI copy fully embodies that part of her personality-- and my own head-canon / theory is that's a side effect of being a dupe -- it makes those "parts" of her even more evident and 'seemingly unfeeling', now that there's no need for self preservation (or even self preservation of other ais)
I'm not like this, but I've known ppl like this-- a lot on the spectrum and I never understood "why" -- call me corny but Soma's Catherine is so believable in her motivations that it made me kind of "understand" why lol
I think Catherine knows the cosciousness doesn't actually transfer to the Ark, she never explicitly tells people this, the people around her made up theories about how to make it happen - hence the suicides.
Simon staring at himself in the mirror is a great subtle moment, hearing the whirling of the optics, and the body language of him begrudgingly accepting his new existence
Simon is one of the most tragic horror protagonists I've ever heard of. He really lost everything.
And lost more than he could have had. Poor Simon left behind in Omicron. And poor Simon in the pilot seat in Alpha.
@@chinchilla415 Omega, not Alpha
@@natanhale7680 Wasn't it Phi now that I think of it?
What surprised me the most is how Simon is able to feel pain, more specifically if you choose to kill the WAU he gets his arm bitten off, then he starts yelling in pain, even thought he is a robot head on a corpse. Maybe the WAU is somehow able to simulate pain.
Probably a simulation, or perhaps a kind of phantom Pain because he sees it happen right in front of him and it terrifies him I would say
@@umukzusgelos4834 personally i would also start freaking out if my arm got bitten off, pain or not
@@cpi3267understandable, haha
Doesn't matter. To perform tasks of high dexterity you need a set of sensors and you need a reading from them. When the data back from sensors is either absent or mangled random you assume lost integrity. Then different "you are damaged" protocol should be used (i.e. diagnosis, functionality check, turning off lost section, repairing, return to docking station etc.) I don't think that's much different from natural organisms.
There's a known condition of not feeling pain "congenital analgesia" and a lot of articles and films about people with such a condition. You can search "people who don't feel pain" and it's not very fortunate state. Not many survive childhood, many broken limbs and accidental burns during the lifetime, risk of sepsis due to rotten teeth you can't feel or late recognition of cancers.
It could very well be phantom pain. People who have lost limbs can feel their lost hand clench very painfully. Its the human brain trying to keep up the full sensations you're supposed to have.
The first clip of Simon looking in the mirror is so terrifying. The way he presses his wrists to his head, like he's trying to cover up his face. Just imagine looking in the mirror one day and you are a completely different being than you thought you were. You aren't even human anymore.
His story is not dissimilar to the IRL story of the HeLa cancer cell line. Taken from a seemingly random African-American passersby named Henrietta Lacks, immortalized through science (but better described as a series of coincidences happening under lack of ethical oversight and major business interests--it was taken without her consent). The cells are still in use in biotech practices today, of which almost no profit goes to her surviving family. SOMA is indeed a story of what happens when you don't respect human dignity, but the story is also terrifyingly real
I believe Catherine damn well knows there is no coin toss whatsoever and just tells this to Simon to 1. calm him and 2. explain it in a way he'd be able to grasp easily ( he is a stranger to this world 100 years in the future), i dont think this was done out of malice as you said, but just that she understands what copy+paste actually means
this would also be why she says nothing when Simon is talking about the second body swap, because she knows that what he's saying isn't how it works and telling him the truth would not be helpful
I am pretty sure she wanted to deactivate Simon 2 in order to keep the mind transfer illusion. But she was not quick enough and Simon 2 talked revealing the truth to Simon 3. Her stumbling over words is what sold that to me, she got caught and was nervously trying to think in a plan to get him back on board. And yet somehow he does not fully understands. She knows he is ignorant and to achieve her goals she must use him. She probably justifies thinking that a version of him will survive in the ark with another version of everyone else so it is for his own good.
It is a coin toss though. Simon 2 lost the coin toss when he was activated. It's pure luck whether Simon is Simon 2, Simon 3, or Simon 4.
@@n646n no, there is no coin toss. There is no transfer, just copying. The coin toss is a misinterpretation from Simon's part. He can only ever be who he is.
@@n646n No I'm afraid that's not how copy paste works, like there is no such thing as a coin toss, consciousness doesn't work in that kind of way even with what little we know about it. In the video game we get to play as the Simon who gets to move on but that's because it's a video game if it was more realistic while the game would end in the beginning, but we would be Simon sitting alone in that chair forever because it's not luck there is no coin toss, Like the Simon and the chair is literally that Simon that we were playing as, we just get into the perspective of this copy, but that is still Simon still alive still breathing still able to think believing that he lost this imaginary coin toss
14:20 Catherine didn't mean the one that continues on is the "true" Simon. She was just saying that's the one that gets to continue. There's no point in arguing who the "true" Simon is. He already died
One of the best written characters.
Simon has gotta be my most favorite Amnesia character out of all the games I've played. He was written so well and his story feels so relatable, it's hard not to sympathize with him.
*Edit: 8:23 He got the reverse Rayman treatment lol!
I think we actually have some pretty good reasons for some of the behavior we see from both Simon and Catherine in the game. During the part where we get to torture Brandon Wan for example, there's a section where we get to learn about how he feels about Catherine- she is very conflict-averse, bad at communicating, and generally a bit detached and reclusive from her comrades. She "clams up like a child" when in some conflicts, is very blunt, and Brandon says he can't stand her. In general throughout the game I think a lot of the poor communication on her part, along with her easy acceptance of her new condition, comes from her emotional status as someone who was already a fair deal detached and reclusive, something of a weirdo tech-head. A lot of the discussions and descriptions about or involving her in game paint her as someone who was already a bit separated from other people emotionally to her active detriment, though people still liked her. I almost want to say, though I am not an expert, that she seems a bit like she might be on the autism spectrum.
Simon on the other hand, a possible explanation for him not getting some things is simple: unlike all of the WAU brain scans in the game, he (or at least Simon II) is a Nakijima Flat-type neurograph. It is mentioned by Catherine that the dynamic "living" scan she made of Imogen Reed using WAU technology did not "play nice" or get along with flat-type neurographs in one of her prototypical ARKs- basically, thanks to his old file format, it is possible that Simon has been mentally affected and cannot quite process information like the more 'alive' WAU scans do. I assume this would change when Simon III and IV are created, but still, it is something to consider.
In any case, as always, excellent video. Looking forward to what else ya do, as well as to Frictional's next works!
I like this analysis, some interesting thoughts in there
wow, I hadnt really caught the implied differences of the way brain scans and the flat types. Theres lots of little disturbing aspects of the technology shown in the game that are really interesting and I like to see them explored.
catherine being autistic is actually something i’ve thought about (i am also autistic), and when playing the game i’ve related to her a lot and actually really liked her. i understood her intentions were genuine and that she was really smart as a person. if anything, i felt more bad for how she was treated but i found comfort in how she carries herself throughout the game.
in my mind i seen her and thought “she’s actually really bad at communicating (i am too), but i like her! she feels simple and direct. something about her is extremely comforting.” but this was all the way before i discovered i was autistic. i never saw her as malicious and completely genuine. it just makes so much sense she’s on the spectrum. i’m not really good at sensing someone is autistic, so when you had described her that’s what i thought before i read the last sentence
Simon is death incarnate. He kills everything he sees, including the last hope humanity had to evolve out of it's underwater prison.
Becoming extinct is better than becoming an immortal wall zombie.
If you spare Simon 2, he actually has a better fate than Simon 3. Simon 3 is trapped forever in alpha whereas Simon 2 is at Omicron free to move around and possibly get a second Omni-tool and repair it with the structure gel in the lab.
well, that is if he ever manages to get out of the Dive Room which Catherine sealed off
and should he make it out he will have to deal with the erratic Robot Head Woman, I´m sure he will have a swell time at Omicron
@@umukzusgelos4834 amd lets not forget the creatures that are lurking around the facility,you want to go back and face all those horrors again? 😭😭😭 they will still be waiting for you from each corridor you shut off
I love the little conversations Catherine and Simon hold at times. I wonder how their life would be inside the ark
They got together.
Two questions:
1. Can humans procreate inside the Ark? Unlikely.
2. Catherine Chun most likely had alredy uploaded herself into the Ark, along with the rest of the Ark Crew. Was that version overwritten, or there are actually two Catherines now inside the Ark?
Catherine has been technically lying to him all this time by saying "transfer" instead of "copy", although he should've realistically known himself that it's actually a copy.
It would be interesting to see a version of the story where Simon knows he will be copied, or we get to play a short story of the Simon that was left behind for the abyss as a kind of DLC.
Uh yes, the good old WAU
Couldn't understand how to copy EVERY SINGLE PATHOS II EMPLOYEE (while his goal is to save them) but manages to successfully put a legacy scan of a man who became essentially a tutorial for brain scans. Bravo, WAU.
Just WAU!
Doing things, because it can
WAU doesn't know what Humans want. WAU doesn't "think" like you or I do, considering things like "existential existence." It is a problem solver, and operates to try to employ the simplest solution to a problem that satisfied the most prerequesites
For it, WAU monsters are Human. They have a body, they have organs, and they are "breathing." That's a living human for it, in the same way we're featherless bipeds. A desperate measure to guarantee humanities survival. But while this strategy could SUSTAIN the remaining humans, it couldn't increase the number. That's where Mockingbirds come in.
The Mockingbirds were a foray into the Warden trying to make "more" humans via duplication. Replicate a mind, put it into a body. It was the earliest experiment of the WAU, as we see in the prequel miniseries, and by WAU standards probably a desperation measure. First with robotic bodies, which the WAU left sitting around as failed experiments, but eventually culminating in the success of Simon when it managed to get a brainscan into a human body.
tl;dr, Simon was a late stage experiment. The WAU was trying its own things to try to save humanity, and consistently put more emphasis on a biological definition of life over a psychological one. An understandable mistake by a machine intelligence.
WAU had to go back to basics to see where they were screwing it up. also, WAU is crazy.
When you give a non-human intelligence the objective to "save humanity" without even defining what humanity _is,_ then it's kinda your own fault if it fucks it up tbh.
At first i was shook by Simon being so bitter about being left behind...
But Catherin seems like... Well i think we all know why she didn´t really make friends at work?
I think both are very right, but man they could have tried with a lil more chill and relax at the end no?
Great Character, great Video man.
You know what sucks about dying? waking up 100 years ago.
Man, that intro was nothing short of amazing! It felt like a game trailer, I now want to play the game again
It’s insane just how much SOMA blows Amnesia out of the water in terms of horror and storytelling.
And then they went right back to making Amnesia games...
@@dr.cheeze5382Bunker is much better in terms of gameplay, tension and fresh, unpredictable moments. I'm not saying one is better than the other, both games do what type of horror they set out to do extremely well as well as having equal grounds in terms of atmosphere, and especially sound design.
Tldr: Why complain about having two cakes?
Am I the only one that found it weird that Catherine didn't immediately recognize Simon's name as a legacy scan? Catherine especially would have been familiar with it.
To be fair if you were suddenly talked to a guy showing up out of the blue calling himself Macintosh, would you assume he was _the_ Macintosh computer?
Especially since Simon's legacy scan being viable for personhood was seen as likely as Clippy being turned into a conscious person. haha
@@fallatiuso Also possible that she played a bit dumb not to scare him too much. Like after the first conversation I get that she wouldn't understand what or who he was but she must have puzzled it together without expressing it.
I just feel so bad for Simon. Just wanna give him a hug 😭
It's weird. In the climber scene, Simon quickly and correctly points out that even assuming Catherine's coin toss premise, what she's saying is completely unfalsifiable. But he was still too stubborn and obtuse to understand that he was lied to.
Simon being high on that Copium
@@umukzusgelos4834 I wonder if Catherine was starting to believe it herself because she said that she lost the cointoss, even though by that point she'd have no reason to keep up her lie.
I also suspect that Catherine's transfer from her robot body to the Omnitool was a red herring by the developers to trick players into believing Simon's process of going into the new body would be similar.
@@HeeHungersForHoseven though the difference should be obvious as her physical storage medium is being removed from the robot and fitted to the Omnitool
Thanks for these uploads, I love this game to death
The fact that Simon is not on his body and "actually in Imogen's body" when he wakes up in the future is really intriguing and fascinating but at the same time messed up, maybe the WAU did it but They didn't thought about preserving his body after the brain scam and literally buried him on a grave, If I had to die and wake up in the future, I would still like to have my own body or being full robot instead of being in someone else's carcass, You can see how disgusted he got when he learned about it in THETA
I think what makes it even worse is the fact that Imogen had no say in the matter
and now her mutilated carcass is forced to move to the will of someone else long after she has departed
it´s like some SciFi Necromancy
Something I just noticed. How does Catherine have the ability to drain Simon's battery from the chair when he's not physically plugged in?
The body in the diving suit still has a lower jaw, doesn't it? I think that's what's shown in the scanning room.
on the X-Ray yes, but it seems this was not carried over to the actual model
A new body?
*_I will provide you with a new body,_*
*_and new troops to command._*
That intro was sick, man! Love it!
These videos are incredible, been watching through them all keep it up
Thank you, glad to hear
Simon, talk about a tragic character, through and through.
And his traveling buddy, Catherine a very apathetic side character, I say apathetic because she does not even try to calm Simon from his existential crisis besides "Come on man, calm down, relax" as if its entirely normal as if he should be use to it.
Yet in the end, alone in a strange and alien world, changed.
It looks like walle wearing a cool hoodie
Wonderful video, thank you sir
This is amazing as a huge amnesia tdd fana and soma fan i love your content
This video it's a masterpiece! 👏
this game is a masterpiece
Proto Simon looked so cool though 😮
Proto Simon looks like the one bad guy from the original Hell Boy film.
It was actually 4:02 a.m. when Catherine told me the time. Maybe it's a time zone thing?
What an absolute, existential nightmare. Nobody should ever have to go through what Simon and Catherine had to.
This is what scares me about AI, that they'd have to endure the same hopelessness and isolation. If a true AI is created, it would need to be treated human like the rest of us, and be wanted, loved.
Understood the concept pretty early on since the dialogue and notes make it pretty clear how the data transfer is just copying like with computer files. Chose not to "mercy" kill OG robo-Simon since I figured he'd be the last "human" left besides new Simon after you upload Simon no. 4 into the satellite. Just have to get back up to the facility somehow, eventually. But hey, immortality so he's got plenty of time to figure something out. All around good ending.
more or less
i preferred it when you used the creepy tracks from the game
Nice strong intro
A scary fact is that theoretically, soma could be canon IRL (besides the fact that humanity has advanced brain scans & far more advanced AI and technology by 2015 or something lol)
You already got AI chatboxes that are made from the text messages and social media feeds of dead people. Imagine what they will do in 20 years, nevermind in 100.
We need SOMA 2, right now! Please.
Regarding the HPS model:
The arms of the suit are too thin at the shoulder and elbow joints (black rubber), and its legs look too thin at the hips and thigh and knee joints. There should be rigid movable segments under the black rubber that limit the suit's mobility, but since standard animation was used on them, this is not felt, and sometimes the limbs take impossible positions for a suit of this type. In addition, the joint segments should not only be thicker, but also a little longer.
The glove model also raises questions, as does their use for such a suit (although this is possible, but the phalangeal finger joints on the model are not worked out).
+ when the hand is torn off, the flesh should not be pink, and gel should come out of it rather than blood, considering what this body is.
Proto-form of Simon looks more like Karl Ruprecht Kroene from Hell Boy ;)
Where is that mirror scene at the end of the intro from? Did I miss it during my playthrough, forget, or is it cut content / trailer content?
there are two places were you can interact with a Mirror, one in a bathroom at Site Theta and then another at Site Omicron in the Hydroponics room
@@umukzusgelos4834Thanks! I'm planning to show the game to someone, and I'll be sure to do this then. :)
@@umukzusgelos4834 you can also keep the dive room door partially up with a chair, but looking into the mirror from the new body softlocks the game (Simon instatntly "teleports" to the to dive room suit sitting location and it's impossible to do anything).
Juegazo
What music was used in this video?
I used in the following Order:
-unused Brainscan theme
-a variation of the unused Subway theme
-unused Laboratory Theme
-Conversation theme
GG..
Hey, I've been having some issues getting Frictional's model viewer to work. Did you have any issues with it? Just curious, also thank you for the closer look at the animations !! :-]
it´s a bit finicky and crashes often yes, I mostly use the Viewing window of the editor since that ones a bit more stable, it differs from game to game
@@umukzusgelos4834 arlighty, tysm!! ill check that out later!!
I remember seeing a playtrought of this game back in 2017 if i am not mistaking and i complety forgot almost everything about this game.. so if you could, can you resume the story to me? Because it looks like from the first cutscene the protagonist was in coma for almost 100 years only to see the world he know...and his body have been ruined.
the Plot goes like this:
In the Year of 2015 Toronto Canada, Simon Jarret get´s ivolved in a car Accident with his Girlfriend Ashley, she dies, he lives but with severe Brain Injury that will eventually be fatal, but he partakes in a Project by David Munshi and Paul Berg to assemble a near perfect 3D Digital image of his brainstructure which in theory can be used to assemble a treatment simulation so an ideal treatment for his condition can be found
alas the experiment failed and Simon eventually passed away but before dying he allowed Munshi to use his scan as a template for his Research - the Template became part of a Learning Kit of artificial Intelligence - A legacy Scan
In 2105 in a subteranian Research Site called Pathos II after the Earth was hit by the Comet called Tellos - a rogue AI - the WAU in an attempt to create Live inserted one of these Simon copies into a Diving Suit containing a Corpse - only for Simon there is nothing in between getting scanned and awakening at the research site, so to him it is as if he´s time travelled
After learning of the state of the world and the fate of humankind, Simon then joins forces with a woman named Catherine - another Scan - who in life - used this technology to create a digital living space for Brainscans she did of the staffmembers, to create a kind of artificial afterlife - since the planet is rendered inhosbitable and the Researchers are forced to slowly wither away at the bottom of the sea
their goal is to find the Ark - as it is named and launch it into space, while also putting their own Scans on it, so they too can live on in this digital plain
there is of course much more to it, but this is the long and short of it
@@umukzusgelos4834 all of this started by just sitting on a chair geez... but thanks! Will rewatch this game again now that i understand more or less what my character goes trought
Catherine knew the "Cointoss Analogy" was logical BS she was just trying to deal with Simon and how irrational he was. I realize the SOMA devs made Simon dumb on purpose to explain the plot but man he gets annoying with his crazy mood swings and never "getting it"
I think there's a big difference between "dumb" and "unable to understand". Because he has no knowledge about this concept, and has never done anything remotely close to research about the subject. because he has no understanding about the world around him, no "pleasant" rationalization for why the world is the way it is, he's just scared. I strongly believe that he, deep down in his subconscious, doesn't want to understand. It's why he deflects every time, and it's especially obvious at the end of the game. He isn't dumb, he, and the pun is fully intended, is a fish out of water. And it's heart breaking, because he wants to understand.. he just doesn't want the truth.
@@Crow_Mauler_ its a work of fiction so I think he is the way he is so the slowest people have a chance to "get it"
@nothingelse1520 that's very plausible too, unfortunately we'll never be 100% on what the design choice was :(
@@nothingelse1520 but thank you for taking the time to respond!!
Simon never watched or read The Prestige apparently.
Either in e-mail or in the phone call Jesse says "love you, miss you, mean it". Was there something going on between them? Was this a leftover from some earlier plot development that got abandoned? It seems very genuine in a loving kind of way, not merely a friendship kinda way.
I am pretty sure it is stated at least somewhere that they were in a beginning loving relationship. That is why Simon was left so heart-broken (aside from, you know, him dying lol)
Simon at the time was sort of romantically involved with his co-worker Ashley Hall who died during the Car Crash he had
so I doubt that he has romantic feelings for Jesse
I think Jesse simply tried to be a Bro and chances are they knew each other for a long time for that to be an acceptable form of saying goodbye, aside from that Jesse is characterized as a bit dull, easygoing and forgetful, so possibly he just says the next best thing that comes to mind without giving it much thought
It is of course entirely possible that Jesse had romantic feelings for Simon but so far that has not been confirmed
@@misterwolf3817I think you are confusing Jesse with Ashley here
Well, you're way off, I think someone does indeed say that but it wasn't Jesse, also the mail at the beginning of the game was a draft made by Simon to Jesse about not being able to go to work because of the appointment with Munshi
@@eloi4297 Went back to confirm it. Jesse says it to Simon in his voice mail right at the very beginning of the game after Simon wakes up. "Loveyoumissyoumeanit!" is the subtitle for it.
as dead bodies tend to release their bowels... isnt simon squelching around in his own dried up juices then?
He should be, unless the corpse was dried up first and then put into the suit or the structure gel, which has a hardening qualities in it serves as a preserving agent, either way he is actually quite disgusting
@@umukzusgelos4834 wait you actually got a point there, imgone reed died without a suit on i believe. its in the soma transmissions video. and was probably stuffed into the suit (as well as having her head cut off, as she dies of suffocation.) but the next body actually stayed in the suit at the time of death tho. my only logical conclusion to that is that herbert went to the toilet before putting on the suit. unsure when she could leave it.
@@darthmemeious9526 never did I imagine that that would be a worrying day in this environment of existential fear and dispair
@@umukzusgelos4834 :D :D honestly in the apocalypse, you have to worry about everything :D
Isn't the coin toss analogy accurate? I thought the entire point of it was to hope that you were the duplicate rather than the original.
Well that would work based on the assumption that the process is a transfer, rather then a duplication, alas you are not transferred, but a duplicate of you is being created inside the new Body
If you apply the analogy on the procedure as it is, you will always loose the coin toss as the You that resides within the old body can never be the one that "wakes up" in the new one
no, it would be like every time you tossed a coin it created 2 coins, one head and one tails. there is always one winner and one loser, its not an either/or situation. there is no chance element to it.
Proto simon looks so much cooler
in a way yes
Finally someone else who agrees Catherine’s analogy does not work!
@umukzusgelos4834 May i ask you what music is used in this video?
-Soma Theme
-unused Subway Theme
-unused Laboratory Theme
-Conversation theme
@@umukzusgelos4834 Thank you.