My thoughts on a main tech feature in the story (SPOILER)

[Dowlphwin]

While I can accept that for the sake of showing different viewpoints the game puts the player into different copies, i.e. first moving to new ones, then eventually staying with the old one and then showing the new one, I am a bit puzzled about how Catherine was acting towards Simon and how the game seemed to deliberately add to the confusion:

While the copy of Simon into the abyss-proof body should have made it abundantly clear to the player that it is a copying, not a continuity, I still, interestingly, kept falling back into the belief he would eventually move on to the Ark, but this was abetted by Catherine not reminding Simon of how it works when it would have been advised. In the end there was that complexity where Simon asked when they should be copied and how they can operate the gun afterwards, she explained how it would be done immediately during the launch sequence, which of course also led to a moment of tension. But why was this necessary?? She could just have gone for safety and copied them both onto the Ark before that, with a time buffer, and thereby once again make it clear that savior-Simon would be left behind.
Did she maybe intentionally do it? I am thinking: Remember how difficult she was known to be and how stubborn she was about not postponing the launch so that she even got killed over it? Maybe she thought she had to semi-fool him or he might not ensure that her hope project would succeed.
It might also be relevant how she arranged her own upload before Simon's. (Who fatally killed the system then? Maybe she herself? And Simon, too? Surely she wouldn't want him to remain lonely as last survivor down there.)

Generally, to me, this story is not too vague in its message but actually quite clear about the follies of putting hopes into technology and dehumanizing ourselves by prioritizing survival by any means over anything else; how we thereby sacrifice a part of what makes us alive for mere survival.
Someone versed in spiritual matters might also derive the message that everything is conscious, i.e. a mere personality copy is self-aware, and robots made to act like humans would be to some degree, too.

[shiv]

I think it was all quite clearly explained to Simon. He even experienced the copying 'coin flip' in person and it was explained that he was the copy and the Simon unconscious in the chair was also him, which lead to the moral choice question of termination.

It was explained to him clearly what was happening.

Catherine did not continually remind Simon because she felt her explanation - AND Simon experiencing the copying process first hand - would have made it abundantly clear to Simon what was going to happen when copying to the ark.

The problem is
A: stress. It's a lot of information to not only take in but to process in a traumatic situation. He would never be able to grasp stuff as easily as we can as removed observers playing the game from the safety of our own homes.

B: Simon is brain damaged. He was in a car accident that damaged his brain, and a digital scan of a scrambled brain that was made when the technology was new and not yet perfected, leads me to believe there is a degree of degradation in his mental faculties. Also from his original life before the crash, it's likely he wasn't all that bright to begin with.


I think the story isn't so much about follies but rather about asking the player to question what humanity - and life - is, without taking a moral standpoint and saying something is right or wrong.

[Dowlphwin]

Yeah, as I said, I myself lapsed occasionally and thought he'd move on to the Ark like the player witnessed it before. I actually wished I could set my own path there, because I would probably have chosen not to do it, although it is hard because so much is not known about their abilities in the Ark. (But it could actually be especially disturbing if they can recode themselves at will.)

This game also kinda reminds me of a TV series I watched recently that deals with a closely related theme: "Upload". Maybe it was inspired by SOMA.

What I take issue with is that even in the end, in the distress moment, Catherine keeps referring to the transfer as a "coin toss", which IS misleading, because it suggests that he has a 50/50ish chance of either transferring over or staying with the old body, when in fact it is solidly implied that this never happens, but the new copy always thinks it has transferred over while the copy source always believes it hasn't. Natural for the here necessary concept of duplicating consciousness. - And if Catherine hadn't set old Simon to idle mode, this would have been clear.

But yeah, considering the overall distress situation, we can give a lot of leeway for actions taken that are not well thought-out. That could be considered part of the story theme and vibe of the setting.
I still think Catherine was at least semi-consciously manipulative based on goal-orientation.

As for Simon... That he faded out the fact that he died in 2015, most of the time with some exceptions, could be seen as demonstrating the denial that our minds practice all the time, in a normalized way, especially towards the themes of death and infinity which stare at us all the time. ... But it could also have been Catherine's strong focus on what she calls hope that was an effective distraction for Simon from those things, most of the time. - I think it is legit to examine her approach in connection to the term "gaslighting". She might have dabbled in that, on-and-off style, possibly also trying to lie to herself and maybe projecting it a bit onto Simon because it didn't work so well, so she would be seeking external validation.

[Slithersy]

Catherine was already in the ARK, she was one of the first scans for the ARK. The only reason Catherine didn't freak Simon out over the fact he will not be copied over is that then he might have gone into hysteria and refused to help her launch the ARK, or in other words, go through all the trouble to launch it. This is also why she tries to hide the fact Simon is a mere copy and not a continuation by shutting off Simon-2 at Omicron when Simon-3 awakens, yet she was too late. Fortunately, Simon still remains oblivious with the hope that he can still "escape".

To give Simon motivation to keep on going, she promised he would be transferred or in other words copied into the ARK. This promise was fulfilled at the end of the game, to ensure Simon doesn't fully catch on and goes crazy, as well as Catherine wanting her most recent self to be in the ARK. (The previous copy of Catherine is extremely outdated)
As for why the copying was done during the launch sequence is beyond me, but it could be that she didn't really want Simon to catch on until it was too late.

At the end, her cortex chip has been destroyed due to strong emotions. Her cortex chip must've not been as strong as Simon's and couldn't handle it.

[V0lth · TTV (Not Live)]

Catherine was 100% manipulating Simon, but it was out of necessity. If you remember, when Simon first sees that Catherine is also a robot in Lambda, he loses what little hope he has left.When Catherine asks him to check the computer to find info on the ARK, he says something like "What does it matter when you're a stupid robot in a stupid dead world".

At that point, Simon has abandoned and is pretty much ready to just roll in a corner and cry 'til he dies. But a few moments later, Catherine explains the ARK to him and suddenly, new hope has reemerged. They can get onto the ARK. They're not thinking about it in the same way, but they don't know, yet.

Catherine knows that the moment Simon fully understands what is really happening is the moment he loses all hope again and she fears (rightly) that he won't keep going. To her, launching the ARK is leaving at least something of humanity behind, it's about the grand scheme of things. She doesn't care one bit whether there is a version of her on it or not. For Simon, the ARK is his last hope of leaving this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and if he can't get on it (the him that he feels he is)? Well what does it matter then? At the bottom of the ocean or in space, he's not on it, so he won't care.

Catherine manipulates Simon because she knew that if she didn't, it was over.

[inovade]

simon is the no1 dumbass player character imho, that's all there is. and i really-really-REALLY hate simon. if there's a rank for the dumbest player character, it's him at 1st
and catherine already says what she needs to say, multiple times at that. of course kinda vague because she herself are not exactly people person

[Slithersy]

Początkowo opublikowane przez ᠌ ⁧⁧Inovade:

simon is the no1 dumbass player character imho, that's all there is. and i really-really-REALLY hate simon. if there's a rank for the dumbest player character, it's him at 1st
and catherine already says what she needs to say, multiple times at that. of course kinda vague because she herself are not exactly people person

I wouldn't go that hard on Simon. He just got brain damage and right after teleported 100 years into the future. Additionally, he has to crawl around dead bodies, live through an existential philosophical and moral crisis, walk around fleshy monsters and receive quite a lot of pain and fear.
Yeah, he may have not been able to think through what Catherine has been telling him, but it's completely understandable, the guy is in a lot of distress.