It was the only hope and chance that humanity had to live on, and Catherine dedicated her life to it, giving her own life in the process. It's higher-order thinking. Catherine was motivated to serve and protect mankind, and not selfish and self-interested pursuits of greed or gratification. If you weren't a Black person you'd understand.
>the only hope and chance that humanity had to live on
Can it really be considered "living"? And wouldn't it have been better to have the minds be aware of the situation and look for a new world to live, instead of being coddled and placated inside a simulation that would eventually fizzle out too, thus only postponing the inevitable extinction of manking?
It was the only practical option available to a small group of people stuck in the bottom of the ocean with infrastructure that was failing. It was one of the sub-plots and major themes in the game about whether being placed into the Ark was really "living", but what else could they do? Nothing - and some, for their own reasons, guided by their own values and moral compass, chose to die instead of being "uploaded" to the Ark.
>And wouldn't it have been better to have the minds be aware of the situation and look for a new world to live, instead of being coddled and placated inside a simulation that would eventually fizzle out too, thus only postponing the inevitable extinction of manking?
and what would that achieve? They're a bunch of brainscans inside a metal box drifting through space, the situation is already hopeless
Worthless.
At best they have maybe a couple hundred years until they lose power or some meteorites destroy the satellite. They will never be "alive" in the flesh again, if the ark survives it'll float around aimlessly forever.
And then you also have to consider the living conditions inside the ark. Realistically they only have like 50(?) people in there that will never change and limited space to move around. That's eventually going to cause tensions.
And it should be the case that when the copied constructs create new memories those memories will take up hard drive space on the arc, which will eventually be full. Then they either have to purge their own memories if possible or maybe it happens automatically, but essentially they would lose themselves over hundreds or thousands of years.
In some ways thats more horror than the game itself.
>Realistically they only have like 50(?) people in there
Yeah, this. The lore makes a point that the computer will astroturf the simulated society with literal AI bots that mimic human behaviour, but I can't help but think the real humans could tell that something is off.
Either way the whole thing is just living in a re-run of humanity's hayday. No future, no evolution, just stuck in a groundhog day loop of the nostalgic past.
>Either way the whole thing is just living in a re-run of humanity's hayday. No future, no evolution, just stuck in a groundhog day loop of the nostalgic past.
Yeah, I would rather transfer everybody minds to robot bodies and try to kill the mutants, at least people would be free this way. Not sure if there was enough robot bodies left though.
>Realistically they only have like 50(?) people in there
Yeah, this. The lore makes a point that the computer will astroturf the simulated society with literal AI bots that mimic human behaviour, but I can't help but think the real humans could tell that something is off.
Either way the whole thing is just living in a re-run of humanity's hayday. No future, no evolution, just stuck in a groundhog day loop of the nostalgic past.
Thank god I'm not the only one who thought that, I thought I was crazy by no one else ever mentioning that being stuck with the same 40 people for all eternity in a small beach would be hell. Also using AI to replace actual people scanned minds just contradict the entire game message.
I get that the writers wanted a bittersweet ending but I really think it should be a few hundred people instead.
Honestly, if they ever had a SOMA 2 or something, this would be such a fantastic idea to explore and setting to make a game out of. Like, you play as a normal person in the simulation, but start noticing things seem, "off," or limited in strange ways. It would be like a horror version of 13 Sentinels in a way. If a writer could pull it off, it could be one of the most kino horror games ever.
That would be a great idea, but dont call it SOMA2. Market it as an entirely new IP, and entirely new game, and don't reveal that it's actually a sequel until like 90% of the way through the gane
[...]
Thank god I'm not the only one who thought that, I thought I was crazy by no one else ever mentioning that being stuck with the same 40 people for all eternity in a small beach would be hell. Also using AI to replace actual people scanned minds just contradict the entire game message.
I get that the writers wanted a bittersweet ending but I really think it should be a few hundred people instead.
I assumed the small beach was just an example of the paradise they could create inside the ark. As everyones just an uploaded brain in a computer I assumed they could just start imagining whatever scenario they wanted like a shared lucid dream. It could be an actual heaven where they can do anything for a very long amount of time. In any case yea its all worthless because theyre stuck in the machine just waiting to die. Maybe if they delete their memories of the real world itll be much easier to enjoy
There is a part where Simon and Catherine are testing the program and there was simulations of other places but there was no memory left to download everything, they are stuck in the beach for all eternity.
[...]
Are you really siding with the crazy computer whose big plan was to turn everybody into zombies?
Turning people into zombies was the immediate solution to keep them alive, with time both it and them would evolve and rebuild civilisation.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>with time both it and them would evolve and rebuild civilisation
Based on what? WAU could easily just transfer people minds into robots or just give them immortality but it choose to lobotomize everybody instead or turn them into fishes and they are all clearly in pain, there is no way they would recover their sentience or be happy after that, WAU was clearly not a rational AI it was just a very limited program following a "preserve life" order.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>lobotomize everybody instead or turn them into fishes and they are all clearly in pain
Iirc creates a simulation from their memories when their minds are put into a coma. They don't feel physical pain. >there is no way they would recover their sentience
Did you forget it was the WAU that created Simon? It is actively looking for a way to bring humanity back.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>Did you forget it was the WAU that created Simon?
It was an accident, the WAU was clearly not sentient nor it was "changing it's mind", there was no plan for it, Catherine made it clear, it was a simple program following a simple order, "preserve human life", the program didn't care about how they are doomed to be mindless zombies for all eternity because it can't think, it's not an AI with feelings or sentient it was a program that can only follow whatever they wrote it to follow.
9 months ago
Anonymous
Still, if it continues one of those accidents may save humanity one day.
9 months ago
Anonymous
No matter how you try to form it, you can't create a vase from just sand, anon.
9 months ago
Anonymous
Bold claims from someone who hasn't cummed on anything nearly enough to solidify it.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>
9 months ago
Anonymous
If WAU could monkey with a type writer a properly sentient machine in such a short time span then there's a decent chance it could make more until life stops being so shit.
9 months ago
Anonymous
It's not "making" sentient beings though, it's just copypasting already existing brains into robots.
9 months ago
Anonymous
Given the right minds, it could still work. You get enough together that can actually function where they can manage a thought, and from there you can start working towards actual solutions. Brick by brick, one step at a time, permutation by permutation until you end up with positive results by raw persistence.
9 months ago
Anonymous
You're reminding me of the manga where humanity dies out but the AI keeps the repository of genetic samples safe for thousands of years till earth is less shit again then gets to work reviving everything
9 months ago
Anonymous
That was Horizon Zero Dawn
9 months ago
Anonymous
Actually it was bothering me so I checked it was called "Hotel: since A.D. 2079" read it back when people storytimed entire manga in threads RIP those days
9 months ago
Anonymous
You sound like a moron. WAU was a system capable of understanding, but it was failing to do so due to its own limitations. All it needed was direction, and Simon was the first decent attempt it made at creating a conduit to achieve understanding.
Instead, the game is about Simon the moron destroying any hope humanity ever has of surviving through WAU, so he can send a fricking toaster into space so a few brain scans can larp as if they're in "heaven" and not a tiny metal prison.
9 months ago
Anonymous
There was no reason to think WAU would eventually turn sentinent or change it's ways, it was a simple program that would continue to follow it's instructions, through the entire game it shows no signs that it's slowly changing, in fact Simon looks like another poor random accident that ended up conscious like so many other poor robots. WAU killed all humans and turned them into walking bodies, it corrupted all the animals and it's going after all the sentient machines.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>But that life wouldn't be human.
Yes, and? Humanity is over. The mockeries the WAU is creating sure as hell aren't human.
>Most importantly WAU is the only option with a future.
This the methods may have been crude but my buddy WAU has only been at it for what like 1 year tops and already has succeeded in preserving human life at the bottom of the ocean
give it a few years for the surface to stop being on fire and they will literally walk out of the ocean and start digging up seeds from the ashes to replant
with the human genomes on record even a small industrial civilization could remake them and after a caretaker period hand over governance to the revived humanity
meanwhile the SSD on the ark ran out of writes and the copies can only live in RAM in a state of permanent dementia never able to form new long term memories
>start digging up seeds from the ashes to replant
Not even necessary, plant life will regrow on their own.
Wildfires are perfectly normal in nature.
9 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah but the WAUbots could certainly help it along with optimal spacing between seeds, irrigate and fertilize the plants though the global saturation of potash will do that anyway
9 months ago
Anonymous
Or you could just put yourself to sleep for the next 5000 years and wake up to a planet full of plants and insects and animals and why are we being attacked by bipedal cats?
9 months ago
Anonymous
I can buy insects maybe surviving but cats or any mammal re-evolving in only 5000 years? nah
9 months ago
Anonymous
The WAU's abominations had no capacity for anything but mindless aggression
9 months ago
Anonymous
Simon and Catherine were made by WAU
9 months ago
Anonymous
they got lucky. Akers was made by the WAU, as was that pressure suit fricker, and the meatball in the server room, and everything else down in that miserable place.
Are you crazy? WAU was literally turning everything left into zombies, they clearly had no other plan after that because they can't think, they are not a propet AI they are a basic mindless program.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>WAU was literally turning everything left into zombies, they clearly had no other plan after that because they can't think
WAU itself was a dummy but plenty of the zombies had at least some self awareness and the chance of one of them fixing or upgrading the WAU to not be a dummy is greater than the ark ever leading to anything but an even worse horror scenario where the solid state storage runs out of writes
No, it's method corrupt the genes, and it's monsters were immortal and hostile to anything that moved not even sparing the animals. WAU was a threat to life itself. If anything it possibly fricked up organic life to the point that it will not recover and evolve like it did in the previous 5 extinction events
Imagine thinking the arc is a better chance than the WAU
The only reason they did it was because they literally had nothing else to do. By the time of the game, the arc was a gravestone rather than a lifeboat
Why didn't Simon 3 just team up with Simon 2 and manually implant 3's chip into the Ark? They don't have to make another copy and Simon 2 can launch the Ark into space
Honestly might have made for a better if more convoluted third act for the story to go. It'd be the exact same ending with Simon 2 in the shit seat with Catherine but at least the Simons wouldn't be so collectively dumb right until the end. They could even flip a coin to decide who goes on the arc.
I thought they seemed awfully quick to assume there were no other living humans outside the underwater shithole
The asteroid clearly would frick things up, but it didn't scour all life from the planet, other national efforts would have been made to have people survive etc.
The comet made the atmosphere toxic for humans and every continent is covered in wildfires
it's also mentioned that one of the workers went up to the surface and only survived for an hour
it's over for humanity
The only thing I got from this game is that Canadians are truly the most entitled, selfish homosexuals on earth and recent history has only re-enforced that assertion.
>the rocket that has to be shot into literal space has to launch from deep within the ocean, with a gun, punching through literal kilometers of water
what was the political implication of this
This.
The whole reason why he buys the coin flip stuff is because he literally has brain damage.
The fact that so many people irl also buy the coin flip stuff is a real cause for concern.
>and thats the problem.
There is no problem. You believe there is a problem because you don't want to play as Simon, you want to play as yourself.
Unfortunately for you, this is a story about Simon's experiences, not yours.
kek, so what's the real reason you're so angry?
Did you just find out the coin flip wasn't actually a coin flip, making you feel intellectually inferior?
9 months ago
Anonymous
meds, now
9 months ago
Anonymous
You're the one who came I to this thread about a game you don't like and sperged out. He's not the one that needs meds.
Imagine having no time to process anything, coping with existential questions and having your progress of cope being stalled by a manipulative copy of an autist who only cares about the arc. That is Simon
>Gets laid with comicbook store girl >She immedialtly dies in a car crash >Have brain damage that will kill you in a few months
Simon's life really was shit. The robot had way better luck
I don't think the last Simon was capable of getting back to the upper levels of Pathos, perhaps not even capable of leaving the launch area after the last short-out
Similarly the one they left behind is probably not even able to leave the room he was left sleeping in
I don't think the last Simon was capable of getting back to the upper levels of Pathos, perhaps not even capable of leaving the launch area after the last short-out
Similarly the one they left behind is probably not even able to leave the room he was left sleeping in
They can't leave without the tool chip, both Simons are stuck
I think Soma didn't have the right mindset. They present two endings to you and ask you a question about existence, but I don't agree with what they present.
On one end you have the WAU, which is just a program which turned life grotesque, and then you have Catherine's vision, which is just an isolated finite simulation.
As I saw it, the WAU is just a program to retain life, and Catherine's heaven was just blissful suicide that doesn't interact with the world or living. But there was a third option, why didn't Simon and Catherine continue humanity? Humanity did in fact survive. Sure, barely, and they lost their bodies, but humans did survive in the form of digital consciousness. They had Simon, Catherine, and then all the other brain scans still saved in memory on the base, plus any other survivors around the world. All they had to do was secure themselves robotic bodies, revive everyone else, rid the base of WAU cancer, and then... They're set. They can live in the ocean, slowly develop science, hopefully one day remake their flesh bodies (or just transfer everything to a digital world, using Catherine's tech). They could explore the surface, even seek to rebuild that.
Boom, third and happy ending. Humanity survives, it adapts like it always does, and civilization is rebuilt. I think the ending of Soma is forced doom and it doesn't really let you out of that message it wants to force on you. The question of, "are you the real you" just isn't an important one because it hinges on something that we don't understand that well mechanically.
I thought that as well, I saw no reason to not simply try to build a robot army to beat the monsters and rebuild civilization, the machines would easily thrive in the new world.
The game tried to make it look hopeless for those in the robot bodies in the real world because everyone but Simon was either crippled or insane.
You're a disembodied being that can only barely interact with your physical reality.
Said physical reality is slowly but surely collapsing in on itself while the WAU is turning almost everything it touches into hostile zombies.
You have but a singular companion with you; a moron with brain damage who is constantly on the verge of refusing to work with you.
Now you can either work with the moron and try to fix everything OR you can just escape it all and live forever in an ideal environment (with an added bonus: you regain your body!).
nta but you would have a point if you weren't able to destroy WAU, if it was untouchable like AM from I have no Mouth but I must scream it would be better to just run away but in this case you can actually get rid of it
The thing is, if you're escaping anyway, why destroy the WAU?
Might as well let it continue on refining on the concept of humanity while you're drinking digital margaritas on the space station.
Maybe one day life will become advanced enough again that they'll come and rescue you.
>The thing is, if you're escaping anyway, why destroy the WAU?
Because first unlike Simon the player is not moronic and know they are stuck on earth and the machine will copy their for the third time rather than transfer it to the ark, second it would be better to destroy the planet than allow WAU to keep turning people into miserable mindless deformed creatures that will be doomed to get more and more mutated over the next centuries or maybe even thousand of years. There is no future under WAU rule because it turns every surviving creature mindless, undead and dependent on the machines to survive.
>dependent on the machines to survive.
big talk for someone dependent on machines for 99.99% of your caloric intake
and they aren't mindless a mindless being doesn't hunt you while making spooky noises they clearly retain some humanity
Alright morons, ponder this: the coinflip isn't a coinflip, obviously, since a copy of your consciousness isn't you. But what if you slowly, over time, replaced parts of your organic meat brain with computerized brain parts, until your brain was 100% computer, then took the data out of that computer and uploaded it somewhere else? Do you still die? If so, when?
The concept of death means the cessation of a continuous process.
If you were to take a snapshot of someone and froze it, that person can be considered to be dead.
If you were to unfreeze that snapshot at a later time, the person resulting from that is not the same as before the freeze.
What you're talking about isn't death.
Every continuous process in existence is constantly replaced by a newer version of themselves.
Even if that change happens artificially, the process doesn't die; it merely changes.
So to answer your question: death does not occur at any point. Replacement does.
When and where you've changed during the transformation is a philosophical question.
The concept of death means the cessation of a continuous process.
If you were to take a snapshot of someone and froze it, that person can be considered to be dead.
If you were to unfreeze that snapshot at a later time, the person resulting from that is not the same as before the freeze.
What you're talking about isn't death.
Every continuous process in existence is constantly replaced by a newer version of themselves.
Even if that change happens artificially, the process doesn't die; it merely changes.
So to answer your question: death does not occur at any point. Replacement does.
When and where you've changed during the transformation is a philosophical question.
Brains don't work like that, there is a specific part that deal with your consciousness whose cells are not replaced over the years, at some point you will replace the vital part of your brain that makes you "exist" basically killing you and putting something else to wear your body.
yes, pretty much, every part of your brain do something specific rather than being parts of your consciouness, you can replace several parts of your brain without changing much but a few parts are straight up "you"
Black person, we still have absolutely no idea what "consciousness" is, nevermind how it's formed in the human brain.
Get your popsci bullshit out of here and embarrass yourself elsewhere.
Anon, entire parts of the brain can be destroyed and the person will still be conscious, this "slowly replacing small parts of your brain for machines so you are technically still you" bullshit makes no sense at all, it's just a delusional way to think you will not be replaced by a robot wearing your skin.
9 months ago
Anonymous
Is this how you cope with the fact that the you from years ago isn't the same as the current you?
9 months ago
Anonymous
I killed myself yesterday to do it again today.
9 months ago
Anonymous
Brain cells don't get replaced like other cells, I'm sorry anon but slowly replacing your brain for machine parts until you are 100% a robot is just dying so a skinwalker brainwashed to think they are you can wear your body like a costume.
9 months ago
Anonymous
I find it quite interesting to see someone claim that they are more knowledgeable than most neuroscientists.
You don't see moronicness of this level that often.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>most neuroscientists
Views on what? What are you talking about? Post sources.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>Post sources.
And there it is.
Let me guess, you're vaccinated?
>SIMON PLEASE YOU HAVE TO TRUST ME, SEE WE'VE UPLOADED PEOPLE'S CONSCIOUSNESS INTO THINGS CALLED "NFTs". >IT'LL GET REAL POPULAR SIMON, PLEASE, YOU NEED TO BUY THIS NFT OF YOURSELF.
If I was just getting a blow job 24/7 for hundreds of years in that simulated Arc environment, and it felt real - I would have been very thankful to my other self that uploaded me.
Don't care about that obliterated planet with no organic life besides a few crabs...
I'm sure everyone has at least a small private space where they can conjure up anything they wish.
And if only the main system has that power, you'd have all the time in the world to teach it the concept of blowjob supremacy.
People calling Simon moronic dont realize the human possibility for self-deception in extremly hopeless scenarios. Same thing as Sarang and "continuity". But yes he was also moronic
wasn't the ark getting dripped on my structure gel before it launched???????? or am i remembering wrong, like either the ark unit itself of the shell simon places it in
you got a better idea, moron?
Fippy bippy why did this thread even continue past here
The alternative is do what, sit and stare at the walls?
It was the only hope and chance that humanity had to live on, and Catherine dedicated her life to it, giving her own life in the process. It's higher-order thinking. Catherine was motivated to serve and protect mankind, and not selfish and self-interested pursuits of greed or gratification. If you weren't a Black person you'd understand.
>the only hope and chance that humanity had to live on
Can it really be considered "living"? And wouldn't it have been better to have the minds be aware of the situation and look for a new world to live, instead of being coddled and placated inside a simulation that would eventually fizzle out too, thus only postponing the inevitable extinction of manking?
It was the only practical option available to a small group of people stuck in the bottom of the ocean with infrastructure that was failing. It was one of the sub-plots and major themes in the game about whether being placed into the Ark was really "living", but what else could they do? Nothing - and some, for their own reasons, guided by their own values and moral compass, chose to die instead of being "uploaded" to the Ark.
>And wouldn't it have been better to have the minds be aware of the situation and look for a new world to live, instead of being coddled and placated inside a simulation that would eventually fizzle out too, thus only postponing the inevitable extinction of manking?
and what would that achieve? They're a bunch of brainscans inside a metal box drifting through space, the situation is already hopeless
Then just
the indomitable human spirit would like to have a word with you
Worthless.
At best they have maybe a couple hundred years until they lose power or some meteorites destroy the satellite. They will never be "alive" in the flesh again, if the ark survives it'll float around aimlessly forever.
And then you also have to consider the living conditions inside the ark. Realistically they only have like 50(?) people in there that will never change and limited space to move around. That's eventually going to cause tensions.
And it should be the case that when the copied constructs create new memories those memories will take up hard drive space on the arc, which will eventually be full. Then they either have to purge their own memories if possible or maybe it happens automatically, but essentially they would lose themselves over hundreds or thousands of years.
In some ways thats more horror than the game itself.
>Realistically they only have like 50(?) people in there
Yeah, this. The lore makes a point that the computer will astroturf the simulated society with literal AI bots that mimic human behaviour, but I can't help but think the real humans could tell that something is off.
Either way the whole thing is just living in a re-run of humanity's hayday. No future, no evolution, just stuck in a groundhog day loop of the nostalgic past.
>Either way the whole thing is just living in a re-run of humanity's hayday. No future, no evolution, just stuck in a groundhog day loop of the nostalgic past.
Yeah, I would rather transfer everybody minds to robot bodies and try to kill the mutants, at least people would be free this way. Not sure if there was enough robot bodies left though.
Thank god I'm not the only one who thought that, I thought I was crazy by no one else ever mentioning that being stuck with the same 40 people for all eternity in a small beach would be hell. Also using AI to replace actual people scanned minds just contradict the entire game message.
I get that the writers wanted a bittersweet ending but I really think it should be a few hundred people instead.
Honestly, if they ever had a SOMA 2 or something, this would be such a fantastic idea to explore and setting to make a game out of. Like, you play as a normal person in the simulation, but start noticing things seem, "off," or limited in strange ways. It would be like a horror version of 13 Sentinels in a way. If a writer could pull it off, it could be one of the most kino horror games ever.
That would be a great idea, but dont call it SOMA2. Market it as an entirely new IP, and entirely new game, and don't reveal that it's actually a sequel until like 90% of the way through the gane
I assumed the small beach was just an example of the paradise they could create inside the ark. As everyones just an uploaded brain in a computer I assumed they could just start imagining whatever scenario they wanted like a shared lucid dream. It could be an actual heaven where they can do anything for a very long amount of time. In any case yea its all worthless because theyre stuck in the machine just waiting to die. Maybe if they delete their memories of the real world itll be much easier to enjoy
There is a part where Simon and Catherine are testing the program and there was simulations of other places but there was no memory left to download everything, they are stuck in the beach for all eternity.
evrything you said was either wrong or stupid
>It was the only hope and chance that humanity had to live on
Not humanity, but a mockery of it.
Don't get me wrong: might as well let it be considering there are no more humans around, but it ain't humanity.
More human than brain scans in metal boxes. Most importantly WAU is the only option with a future.
>Most importantly WAU is the only option with a future.
Not really.
Give it a few hundred millions years and new live will have evolved.
But that life wouldn't be human.
Turning people into zombies was the immediate solution to keep them alive, with time both it and them would evolve and rebuild civilisation.
>with time both it and them would evolve and rebuild civilisation
Based on what? WAU could easily just transfer people minds into robots or just give them immortality but it choose to lobotomize everybody instead or turn them into fishes and they are all clearly in pain, there is no way they would recover their sentience or be happy after that, WAU was clearly not a rational AI it was just a very limited program following a "preserve life" order.
>lobotomize everybody instead or turn them into fishes and they are all clearly in pain
Iirc creates a simulation from their memories when their minds are put into a coma. They don't feel physical pain.
>there is no way they would recover their sentience
Did you forget it was the WAU that created Simon? It is actively looking for a way to bring humanity back.
>Did you forget it was the WAU that created Simon?
It was an accident, the WAU was clearly not sentient nor it was "changing it's mind", there was no plan for it, Catherine made it clear, it was a simple program following a simple order, "preserve human life", the program didn't care about how they are doomed to be mindless zombies for all eternity because it can't think, it's not an AI with feelings or sentient it was a program that can only follow whatever they wrote it to follow.
Still, if it continues one of those accidents may save humanity one day.
No matter how you try to form it, you can't create a vase from just sand, anon.
Bold claims from someone who hasn't cummed on anything nearly enough to solidify it.
>
If WAU could monkey with a type writer a properly sentient machine in such a short time span then there's a decent chance it could make more until life stops being so shit.
It's not "making" sentient beings though, it's just copypasting already existing brains into robots.
Given the right minds, it could still work. You get enough together that can actually function where they can manage a thought, and from there you can start working towards actual solutions. Brick by brick, one step at a time, permutation by permutation until you end up with positive results by raw persistence.
You're reminding me of the manga where humanity dies out but the AI keeps the repository of genetic samples safe for thousands of years till earth is less shit again then gets to work reviving everything
That was Horizon Zero Dawn
Actually it was bothering me so I checked it was called "Hotel: since A.D. 2079" read it back when people storytimed entire manga in threads RIP those days
You sound like a moron. WAU was a system capable of understanding, but it was failing to do so due to its own limitations. All it needed was direction, and Simon was the first decent attempt it made at creating a conduit to achieve understanding.
Instead, the game is about Simon the moron destroying any hope humanity ever has of surviving through WAU, so he can send a fricking toaster into space so a few brain scans can larp as if they're in "heaven" and not a tiny metal prison.
There was no reason to think WAU would eventually turn sentinent or change it's ways, it was a simple program that would continue to follow it's instructions, through the entire game it shows no signs that it's slowly changing, in fact Simon looks like another poor random accident that ended up conscious like so many other poor robots. WAU killed all humans and turned them into walking bodies, it corrupted all the animals and it's going after all the sentient machines.
>But that life wouldn't be human.
Yes, and? Humanity is over. The mockeries the WAU is creating sure as hell aren't human.
>Most importantly WAU is the only option with a future.
This the methods may have been crude but my buddy WAU has only been at it for what like 1 year tops and already has succeeded in preserving human life at the bottom of the ocean
give it a few years for the surface to stop being on fire and they will literally walk out of the ocean and start digging up seeds from the ashes to replant
with the human genomes on record even a small industrial civilization could remake them and after a caretaker period hand over governance to the revived humanity
meanwhile the SSD on the ark ran out of writes and the copies can only live in RAM in a state of permanent dementia never able to form new long term memories
>start digging up seeds from the ashes to replant
Not even necessary, plant life will regrow on their own.
Wildfires are perfectly normal in nature.
Yeah but the WAUbots could certainly help it along with optimal spacing between seeds, irrigate and fertilize the plants though the global saturation of potash will do that anyway
Or you could just put yourself to sleep for the next 5000 years and wake up to a planet full of plants and insects and animals and why are we being attacked by bipedal cats?
I can buy insects maybe surviving but cats or any mammal re-evolving in only 5000 years? nah
The WAU's abominations had no capacity for anything but mindless aggression
Simon and Catherine were made by WAU
they got lucky. Akers was made by the WAU, as was that pressure suit fricker, and the meatball in the server room, and everything else down in that miserable place.
Are you crazy? WAU was literally turning everything left into zombies, they clearly had no other plan after that because they can't think, they are not a propet AI they are a basic mindless program.
>WAU was literally turning everything left into zombies, they clearly had no other plan after that because they can't think
WAU itself was a dummy but plenty of the zombies had at least some self awareness and the chance of one of them fixing or upgrading the WAU to not be a dummy is greater than the ark ever leading to anything but an even worse horror scenario where the solid state storage runs out of writes
>might as well let it be considering there are no more humans around
WAU was creating untold suffering
It is only through suffering that harmony can be born.
Are you really siding with the crazy computer whose big plan was to turn everybody into zombies?
zombie = genetic material
given enough time they could potentially reach the surface and produce new humans
No, it's method corrupt the genes, and it's monsters were immortal and hostile to anything that moved not even sparing the animals. WAU was a threat to life itself. If anything it possibly fricked up organic life to the point that it will not recover and evolve like it did in the previous 5 extinction events
Imagine thinking the arc is a better chance than the WAU
The only reason they did it was because they literally had nothing else to do. By the time of the game, the arc was a gravestone rather than a lifeboat
>that humanity had to live on
There was no life left. The last human died on earth and what was send into space was just humanities legacy.
Humanity didnt really live on, it was closer to evangelion ending where the arc served as a proof we really existed
soma dick
coin flip
I love the coin flip meme because it feels like it was included solely for the purpose of being able to filter the morons.
It would be more accurate to say you have a 0% chance of transferring your consciousness when a copy is made.
Why didn't Simon 3 just team up with Simon 2 and manually implant 3's chip into the Ark? They don't have to make another copy and Simon 2 can launch the Ark into space
Honestly might have made for a better if more convoluted third act for the story to go. It'd be the exact same ending with Simon 2 in the shit seat with Catherine but at least the Simons wouldn't be so collectively dumb right until the end. They could even flip a coin to decide who goes on the arc.
why would simon 2 help?
>that one guy who thought if he bit a cyanide tablet during his brain scan he would cheat death and live on somehow
Such a goofball
>pajeet “””””””””””philosophers””””””””””””
I thought they seemed awfully quick to assume there were no other living humans outside the underwater shithole
The asteroid clearly would frick things up, but it didn't scour all life from the planet, other national efforts would have been made to have people survive etc.
The comet made the atmosphere toxic for humans and every continent is covered in wildfires
it's also mentioned that one of the workers went up to the surface and only survived for an hour
it's over for humanity
The only thing I got from this game is that Canadians are truly the most entitled, selfish homosexuals on earth and recent history has only re-enforced that assertion.
bro she's literally a founding member of the team that worked on the ark of course as an AI copy would have launching it as her primarily motivation.
It's better than sitting under the sea and doing literally nothing at all and allowing the walking mind virus to wipe out everything
>the rocket that has to be shot into literal space has to launch from deep within the ocean, with a gun, punching through literal kilometers of water
what was the political implication of this
the end of the barrel is on the surface anon
>Whole story hinges on the protagonist being moronic
When the player is smarter than the person they are roleplaying as you know you fricked up.
I just assumed it was more he was blocking shit out to cope and persevere
my headcanon is that he was in denial due to shock just like the other robots
He canonically has brain damage, it the whole reason he got the brain scan in the first place.
This.
The whole reason why he buys the coin flip stuff is because he literally has brain damage.
The fact that so many people irl also buy the coin flip stuff is a real cause for concern.
The player does not have brain damage and thats the problem.
If he was a side character this would be a non issue but you are the one in control.
>and thats the problem.
There is no problem. You believe there is a problem because you don't want to play as Simon, you want to play as yourself.
Unfortunately for you, this is a story about Simon's experiences, not yours.
Maybe they should have made a fricking movie then instead of pretending to be a video game.
90% of the game is non gameplay anyway.
kek, so what's the real reason you're so angry?
Did you just find out the coin flip wasn't actually a coin flip, making you feel intellectually inferior?
meds, now
You're the one who came I to this thread about a game you don't like and sperged out. He's not the one that needs meds.
Silence, bot
LMAO are you the same kind of homosexual who gets butthurt about Walker being a bad person in SOTL?
>self-insert gays
Dramatic irony is a real narrative device used in several classical works anon. You should really read more.
Imagine having no time to process anything, coping with existential questions and having your progress of cope being stalled by a manipulative copy of an autist who only cares about the arc. That is Simon
>OH N-
>Gets laid with comicbook store girl
>She immedialtly dies in a car crash
>Have brain damage that will kill you in a few months
Simon's life really was shit. The robot had way better luck
Do you think the two Simons engaged in hot zombie cyborg lesbian sex after the game?
I like to think so. They have a literal eternity (or whenever their parts wear out), you might as well try every type of experience.
>you might as well try every type of experience
Degenerate outlook.
Asking the real questions
they both went catatonic until their batteries ran out
I don't think the last Simon was capable of getting back to the upper levels of Pathos, perhaps not even capable of leaving the launch area after the last short-out
Similarly the one they left behind is probably not even able to leave the room he was left sleeping in
They can't leave without the tool chip, both Simons are stuck
Not much else they can do given their situation
Could've just patched the WAU with a better definition of human life and a proviso to alleviate suffering amidst constant improvement,
You can't "patch" a biological being
You'd have to kill it and replace it with a new WAU
I don't think it would work because it was such a limited program that it would never understand what should be done.
I won the coinflip
I think Soma didn't have the right mindset. They present two endings to you and ask you a question about existence, but I don't agree with what they present.
On one end you have the WAU, which is just a program which turned life grotesque, and then you have Catherine's vision, which is just an isolated finite simulation.
As I saw it, the WAU is just a program to retain life, and Catherine's heaven was just blissful suicide that doesn't interact with the world or living. But there was a third option, why didn't Simon and Catherine continue humanity? Humanity did in fact survive. Sure, barely, and they lost their bodies, but humans did survive in the form of digital consciousness. They had Simon, Catherine, and then all the other brain scans still saved in memory on the base, plus any other survivors around the world. All they had to do was secure themselves robotic bodies, revive everyone else, rid the base of WAU cancer, and then... They're set. They can live in the ocean, slowly develop science, hopefully one day remake their flesh bodies (or just transfer everything to a digital world, using Catherine's tech). They could explore the surface, even seek to rebuild that.
Boom, third and happy ending. Humanity survives, it adapts like it always does, and civilization is rebuilt. I think the ending of Soma is forced doom and it doesn't really let you out of that message it wants to force on you. The question of, "are you the real you" just isn't an important one because it hinges on something that we don't understand that well mechanically.
I thought that as well, I saw no reason to not simply try to build a robot army to beat the monsters and rebuild civilization, the machines would easily thrive in the new world.
The game tried to make it look hopeless for those in the robot bodies in the real world because everyone but Simon was either crippled or insane.
You bring up a valid point, but consider this:
You're a disembodied being that can only barely interact with your physical reality.
Said physical reality is slowly but surely collapsing in on itself while the WAU is turning almost everything it touches into hostile zombies.
You have but a singular companion with you; a moron with brain damage who is constantly on the verge of refusing to work with you.
Now you can either work with the moron and try to fix everything OR you can just escape it all and live forever in an ideal environment (with an added bonus: you regain your body!).
Not really a hard choice to make.
nta but you would have a point if you weren't able to destroy WAU, if it was untouchable like AM from I have no Mouth but I must scream it would be better to just run away but in this case you can actually get rid of it
The thing is, if you're escaping anyway, why destroy the WAU?
Might as well let it continue on refining on the concept of humanity while you're drinking digital margaritas on the space station.
Maybe one day life will become advanced enough again that they'll come and rescue you.
>The thing is, if you're escaping anyway, why destroy the WAU?
Because first unlike Simon the player is not moronic and know they are stuck on earth and the machine will copy their for the third time rather than transfer it to the ark, second it would be better to destroy the planet than allow WAU to keep turning people into miserable mindless deformed creatures that will be doomed to get more and more mutated over the next centuries or maybe even thousand of years. There is no future under WAU rule because it turns every surviving creature mindless, undead and dependent on the machines to survive.
>dependent on the machines to survive.
big talk for someone dependent on machines for 99.99% of your caloric intake
and they aren't mindless a mindless being doesn't hunt you while making spooky noises they clearly retain some humanity
>forced doom
>artificial demise
Alright morons, ponder this: the coinflip isn't a coinflip, obviously, since a copy of your consciousness isn't you. But what if you slowly, over time, replaced parts of your organic meat brain with computerized brain parts, until your brain was 100% computer, then took the data out of that computer and uploaded it somewhere else? Do you still die? If so, when?
The concept of death means the cessation of a continuous process.
If you were to take a snapshot of someone and froze it, that person can be considered to be dead.
If you were to unfreeze that snapshot at a later time, the person resulting from that is not the same as before the freeze.
What you're talking about isn't death.
Every continuous process in existence is constantly replaced by a newer version of themselves.
Even if that change happens artificially, the process doesn't die; it merely changes.
So to answer your question: death does not occur at any point. Replacement does.
When and where you've changed during the transformation is a philosophical question.
Brains don't work like that, there is a specific part that deal with your consciousness whose cells are not replaced over the years, at some point you will replace the vital part of your brain that makes you "exist" basically killing you and putting something else to wear your body.
>there is a specific part that deal with your consciousness whose cells are not replaced over the years
lol
lmao, even
yes, pretty much, every part of your brain do something specific rather than being parts of your consciouness, you can replace several parts of your brain without changing much but a few parts are straight up "you"
Black person, we still have absolutely no idea what "consciousness" is, nevermind how it's formed in the human brain.
Get your popsci bullshit out of here and embarrass yourself elsewhere.
Anon, entire parts of the brain can be destroyed and the person will still be conscious, this "slowly replacing small parts of your brain for machines so you are technically still you" bullshit makes no sense at all, it's just a delusional way to think you will not be replaced by a robot wearing your skin.
Is this how you cope with the fact that the you from years ago isn't the same as the current you?
I killed myself yesterday to do it again today.
Brain cells don't get replaced like other cells, I'm sorry anon but slowly replacing your brain for machine parts until you are 100% a robot is just dying so a skinwalker brainwashed to think they are you can wear your body like a costume.
I find it quite interesting to see someone claim that they are more knowledgeable than most neuroscientists.
You don't see moronicness of this level that often.
>most neuroscientists
Views on what? What are you talking about? Post sources.
>Post sources.
And there it is.
Let me guess, you're vaccinated?
I used to be angry about the ending but now I'm just feel happy people still talk about it.
we need a lot more unique stories like this in vydia, Soma threads are always fun unless they start with the coin flip question
We did it reddit bros! We launched chatgpt into space! We saved mankind!
>SIMON PLEASE YOU HAVE TO TRUST ME, SEE WE'VE UPLOADED PEOPLE'S CONSCIOUSNESS INTO THINGS CALLED "NFTs".
>IT'LL GET REAL POPULAR SIMON, PLEASE, YOU NEED TO BUY THIS NFT OF YOURSELF.
>took one of the greatest environments for horror and fear (deep-sea)
>turn it into shitty high-school drama narrative
soiled it
If I was just getting a blow job 24/7 for hundreds of years in that simulated Arc environment, and it felt real - I would have been very thankful to my other self that uploaded me.
Don't care about that obliterated planet with no organic life besides a few crabs...
Perma blowjobs is a main condition though.
I'm sure everyone has at least a small private space where they can conjure up anything they wish.
And if only the main system has that power, you'd have all the time in the world to teach it the concept of blowjob supremacy.
>she keeps sucking and never lets go
>for an eternity
heaven or hell?
Heaven for me
I cant see the issue with giving the WAU Earth
soma deez nuts
People calling Simon moronic dont realize the human possibility for self-deception in extremly hopeless scenarios. Same thing as Sarang and "continuity".
But yes he was also moronic
wasn't the ark getting dripped on my structure gel before it launched???????? or am i remembering wrong, like either the ark unit itself of the shell simon places it in