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Wow... really? I didn't know that :))
Humanity is dead, nothing will fix that. Sarah and Amy, the only two humans left alive, are at a point where any attempt at nuturing them back to health is impossible. The WAU would, rather than letting us die peacefully, force us to suffer and watch in horror as corrupted constructs of our friends die off as the structure slowly collapses around them, until either they run out of power or end up like Strasky, with water flooding them and having them drown.
Killing it is just a "mercy kill" on every human left on the station.
Yeah Sarah and Amy are the only two humans who are actual organic human beings alive. And Yeah WAU tries to keep them alive even if that means suffering for them. Keeping humans alive was part of it's actual job.
When the comet hit and wiped out the surface, WAU imediately enetered a low power state to preserve power through the station but keeping all the functions running that were needed for the survival of the people inhabitting Pathos II
But at the same time WAU was the one bringing back Simon Jarett to life using his brainscan, and Imogen Reed's body. It did this without any obvious purpose. It did that just to give life.
But even if we would not agree with it's practices... Why does it matter? In the story Catherine is trying to save a part of humanity by launching the ARK in space. WAU does NOTHING to stop that. As we know the Vivarium from which the ARK was based as a project was also built by WAU.
So if the part of humanity is saved based on Catherine's wishes, why would you kill WAU? Out of some morality that died anyway together with humanity?
We see at the end that power is shut down at the space cannon. WAU coud have done that way before all this. That's why it cut the power on most functions of PATHOS II to preserve power. Yet it somehow understood Catherine's wish to launch the ARK and not only brought her back, but we were there to help her do it. The power is cut soon after launching the ARK successfully.
In the long run the question really becomes, who is better off. Those in the care of the WAU that is trying it's best not to be bad at preserving humanity or those on the ARC who are left to drift in space with a bunch of nutters who where all essentially a cult before they where scanned.
My guess is Quality of life (while initially pretty bad) with the WAU was only going to improve as it learned. While quality of life on the ARK is going to go downhill fast. As systems start to fail and the crazies who got their scans on board start to canabalize themselves and the virtual world.
So yeah by the end my money was solidly on the WAU for being humanities best hope or surviving in some form. I mean heck you even had a brief glimpse of the virtual world the WAU was storing people in, which was arguably pretty pleasant. Essentially the ARK but the WAU might actually get to a point where it could create new forms to allow people to interact with the real world.
it is not just a game, its a game with phylosophical story, that supposed to make people think about existancial questions.
As for a subject - i dont think people got the point of game.
Have you see that scenes where our character was left on chair 2 times without any value of his life?
Point is that all the arks - just an illusion, sort of Matrix, world that was made to make blind and prevent seeing the truth - they are already dead.
Ark did not save any human, whole project was just a "snake oil" or "placebo", sort of religious stupidity, people forced themselves to believe that once they are digitized they will be kept alive, when in fact they are all going to die, and ark will just have virtual AI copy that simulates original human mind and will mistakenly think that they are real and living persons.
Point of this game was about value of real biological life, and that transhumanism ideas of immortality via digitalisation and transformation into machine - is placebo and dangerous idea that will wipe out humanity and will replace it with fake machines that simulate humanity.
WAU did not value biological life form, it did not value life, it only valued the idea "preserve life" by any means, and the only mean it was aware - turn people into machines, even despite their lifes will be a misery. Remember all the robots scattered around with essence of human mind uploaded into them? Most of them was not even able to move, and has cognitive disfuncion, they was dellusional and suffered. Just imagine if you mind was transfered into plant. Now imagine this plant was not even organic. What kind of existance is that? Its worse than death, its a hell.
Also, remember those uncapable to sustain human mind and crazy monsters and machines? They was human too, but they gone crazy and turned into mindless drones that purely exist as basic instincts of preservation of their lives (this is why they attacked you, they did it because they wanted to live). The only one monster who actually kept part of his mind was that doctor (dont remember his name, played a while ago) who wanted to destroy WAU. WAU saved him from death, but in fact it did not, it saved a copy and turned that copy into a monster who suffered from such form of existance.
Whole point of the game - VALUE YOUR BIOLOGICAL NATURAL LIFE! You are alive while your biological body and its mind alive, they are one and same, they cant be separated, cant be transfered, only copied into machine but that copy would not be you and it would not be even alive or human, it would be just a machine simulation, surrogate, fake that pretends as you and believes it is you, but it is not you and is not even a human.
WAU stands against this point, WAU does not understand value of natural life, it does not understand the concep of life itself, WAU is not alive, its machine that runs simulation of mind, and everyone WAU "Saved", is not alive and machine that runs simulation as well, and even this simulation is suffering and goes crazy.
ARK is also a placebo, agony of dying people. It did not save anyone, even AI simulation will not live long.
Guess how many years this tiny ARK will exist in space until it elements will be damaged by space trash, overheat, overcold, and natural degradation of electronic elements or until it will star falling on earth and will be destroyed during crash with all the simulation gone? "People" on ark dont even have robotic bodies to get out and fix something that broken outside, they are totally cut away from real world, and their existance will come to an end shorty.
Remember the last alive human who died in front of us? That was the real ending of humanity, real ending of game, rest was just a dellusion or illusion, blind faith in existance of humanity in form that neither human, nor alive, just a simulation.
WAU and ARK in its core are same, except that maybe in WAU this simulation would be able to exist longer, but in much less human and much less comfortable form, which will drive "survivors" crazy of will make them suicidal and after some time, there is nothing but basic animal instincts would be left of humanity.
Choice to spare ot destory WAU is not really about humanity, its about biological life as whole, or whats left of it. By trying to preserve it WAU actually killed it and replaced with re-animated "nanomachines powered" (or whatever this gel was) corpses which was more machines, than biological life forms. While humanity is dead, some species could still be alive deep underwater and could evolved after many years and get back to land. If you would not stop WAU it will spread accross whole earth like cancer and will terminate all remaining real life forms and replace them with mindless suggorates, in the end whole earth would just one solid WAU and some mindless drones, who would not be even alive, tha would not value a life, just a simulation of life, that mocks its.
Guess why 1st monster in a game is some sort of mocking bird? It was a foreshadow of whole point of game - this is not life, its a parody of life, WAU is mocking life.
Its better to terminate this cancerous WAU to give some chance for real life form to repopulate earth and evolve. Attempt to save humanity by saving WAU is selfish dellusion that will destroy remaining non human life forms with this "nanomachine\structure gel" cancer.
Thiking of religious symbolism in this game, ARK represent the concept of heaven, while WAU represents concept of hell, in ark people living happy lives as people above the earth, in wau people living miserable live as some abominations at the deepest bottom of the earth... but both heaven and hell just a dellusion, none of them is real, none of them preserves lives, none of people will end in heaven (ark) or hell (wau), everyone is dead and any deviation from understanding of this, is dellusion.
I think our protogonist realised this at least twice - 1st time, when he was left on that chair after he copied himself into another body, that left one realised whats really going on, while copy was still dellusional, then this copy realised same thing as well in the end, when it was left alone on chair in darkness. This was kinda the most important showcase of this dellusion of life and why its worse than death - just imagine that your mind keeps existing in endless darkness and lonlyness, unable to move and unable to end this pointless existance. When human dies vision and hearing and all senses fades out and turns into silent darkness (phenomen of white tunnel some people who was almost dead saw is actually description of process of how senses fades out and vision turns into darkness and tunnel of light that fades out as well) and mind fading out its cognitive functions until its stop realising its existing... but lets say, that while you cut out of your senses, cant see, hear, feel, move and do anything, some "cheat" allows you to still think and realise your existance. This is basically what happened in the end, except that it was not alive or human, it even worse than hell and heaven, its literally a limbo or void, and there is no one to put him out of his misery.
That was the scariest moment of the game when you realise what happened, and it was a strongest message of this game, that such dellusions of heaven may end up in void, which is worse than hell and death.
Actually our hero, the one in begining of game, was the happiest and luckiest of all incarnations, because he died, and did not stuck as simulation in some void.
Indeed. The ARK is not a second chance, and not a prospect of a new life. Even if it does survive for thousands of years in space, after that it will be gone forever. The program is also compensating by adding AI life to it in form of children. But in time the difference will be zero. WAU however never tried to meddle with creation of AI or even change the existing scans to believe something different. WAU wanted to preserve humanity in their inteligent form the way they are. Stealing scans and uploading people into machines was just a way of trying to preserve human life in a real world. The ARK doesn't contain anything. The digital life inside it will never have a chance to return to real world. That is basically a dream machine flying in space untill it expires. Life is more than that.
And even if some would question the actions of WAU, it is doing everything it can to keep a part of humanity. Well some people tried to destroy WAU, which means destroying themselves and the last sign of human life. This turned WAU defensive and fought back.
In reality no single human has the authority to decide in the name of all the humans, and WAU simply ensured that they will not.
Catherine however had this ARK project that didn't affect the human life on Earth. And WAU didn't stop her doing that. Perhaps even helped her reach her goal.
But as far as I am concerned, I don't have the right to speak in the name of humanity (or what's left of it) to define what means to be human, and by saying that humanity expired, and it should die, destroy the only thing that is atleast capable of doing something. I have no right deciding that. I just don't have that right. Nor Imogen Reed, nor Ross
Very beautiful story, and indeed leaves you thinking. No one can really be blamed, the world died in natural disaster, not a human-caused catastrophe. The last people left tried every possible method of keeping some semblance of humanity (even if it is not "real", in WAU and the Ark) existing, but it's eventually doomed.
At the ending (of Simon stuck in darkness, alone) I kind of wished I had kept WAU alive, even a diseased AI is better than having no one to talk to at all. But apparently it doesn't make a difference to the story.
Why? Because humans saw the comet coming. Humans prepared. The game even tells you catherines parents went to a bomb shelter.
Sure all the info you get ingame is that the surface is screwed up, but let's be honest most of that info comes from a single ship. And honestly the info suggest the damage wasn't worse then the dinosaur comet.
Realistically, it's very likely small pockets of humans survived around the globe. As long as they weren't idiots and took some basic precautions they could have adapted to life after the comet, especially with their level of technology.
It's also reasonable to assume that the WAU would eventually reach the surface, it's already infected the local plant and animal life at pathos 2. Eventually it would find life, plants animals and humans, struggling to make their way in the new world.
It would try to help them. And that help would destroy organic life.
No. The surface IS completely screwed. And you can't live outside for more then a couple of hours. You should read those short stories on their website, which provide very cool background stories. There was this character who actually climbed the space gun up to the surface.