Why are the robots crazy?

[Bogdan]

I mean yeah, they're humans inside the robots. But why do they act like monsters?
They act nothing like humans.
I know it had something to do with WAU, since it's what put them in the robots in the first place, so why do they act so crazy?

[Colen Bardbarian]

Cause they still belive they are human and have been there for a long time. Going mad?

[Bogdan]

Originally posted by WylieC0y0te:

Cause they still belive they are human and have been there for a long time. Going mad?

Hmm, maybe. I just saw in a gameplay Catherine talking about how you can go insane if you know you're a robot and you think too much about it. Makes sense.
Now I'm curious what's up with the teleporting robot, how does that work? I mean since you're a robot, I guess it can mess with you more easily, so it's not really "teleporting", right?

[wizardovoz]

Crazy robots are controlled by WAU via corrupted biogel - those are monsters. They are not really crazy, more like mindless
Those that think they are human are brainscans put inside robots - they are truly human minds going insane.

[dnrob7]

The teleporting aspect still confuses me too.. Like it seems Ross is almost omnipresent and capable of physically interacting with his surroundings yet he can't go get the gel and kill WAU himself?

Also that monster in the sunken ship almost gave me a heart attack with his teleporting.. Christ, the situation I was in only happens in movies.
It had spotted me as I was trying to get past it on my way to sabotage the ship and I frantically ran around till I ended up cornered in a kitchen. I was grabbing the sliding door to close it but it felt stuck like something was pulling it back open. I tried again and again as the thing got closer till finally it closed..
I hadn't let go of the door before I heard the screaming right behind me!
I had just closed the door as it teleported in there with me.. It was so pathetic it was glorious xD
"4UCK NONONONOOO!!! OPEN OPEN!!! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!!"

What a brilliant game.

But yeh.. some ideas on the whole teleportation would make for nice trivia now that that's over :D

[Bogdan]

Originally posted by dnrob7:

The teleporting aspect still confuses me too.. Like it seems Ross is almost omnipresent and capable of physically interacting with his surroundings yet he can't go get the gel and kill WAU himself?

Also that monster in the sunken ship almost gave me a heart attack with his teleporting.. Christ, the situation I was in only happens in movies.
It had spotted me as I was trying to get past it on my way to sabotage the ship and I frantically ran around till I ended up cornered in a kitchen. I was grabbing the sliding door to close it but it felt stuck like something was pulling it back open. I tried again and again as the thing got closer till finally it closed..
I hadn't let go of the door before I heard the screaming right behind me!
I had just closed the door as it teleported in there with me.. It was so pathetic it was glorious xD
"4UCK NONONONOOO!!! OPEN OPEN!!! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!!"

What a brilliant game.

But yeh.. some ideas on the whole teleportation would make for nice trivia now that that's over :D

Well frictional games are well known for making crazy-interesting characters that are always unpredictable. I never played the game, my computer can't even run it on low graphics (yes you heard that, my pc is REALLY bad). I only watched it online...

[Kore]

It is said by Cat that staring at the monsters cause a disturbance in vision, and just being around screws your sensors. Regardless of having a human mind, Simon is still a robot and thus is vulnerable to emp, which the monsters seem to be putting out. Thus, with creatures like Ross and Mr. Lightbulb, they aren't teleporting anywhere, just stunning you for a few seconds. It's like what happens to Catherine every time you plug/unplug. She merely resumes existence with no sense of time.

[Bogdan]

Originally posted by Orvo:

It is said by Cat that staring at the monsters cause a disturbance in vision, and just being around screws your sensors. Regardless of having a human mind, Simon is still a robot and thus is vulnerable to emp, which the monsters seem to be putting out. Thus, with creatures like Ross and Mr. Lightbulb, they aren't teleporting anywhere, just stunning you for a few seconds. It's like what happens to Catherine every time you plug/unplug. She merely resumes existence with no sense of time.

So basically you sit there motionless 5 seconds while that thing comes to you and it seems to you like it took an instant to move there? That's crazy man xD.

[Kore]

It's also frightening as hell to think about. That you're just rendered helpless and defenseless. I realized that it was emp the minute it happened and I was overwhelmed with fear!

[dnrob7]

Originally posted by Orvo:

It is said by Cat that staring at the monsters cause a disturbance in vision, and just being around screws your sensors. Regardless of having a human mind, Simon is still a robot and thus is vulnerable to emp, which the monsters seem to be putting out. Thus, with creatures like Ross and Mr. Lightbulb, they aren't teleporting anywhere, just stunning you for a few seconds. It's like what happens to Catherine every time you plug/unplug. She merely resumes existence with no sense of time.

Sure, I can totally buy that for LED face but with Ross.. There's too much going on for it to be simple EMP.

[Kore]

How so? If you mean for him to be speaking into Simon's mind, then it can probably be a short-distance communication over a wireless transmission. It could be as complex as a voice call or as simple as binary code being read by Simon's computerized mind. Also, emp doesn't have to be generated through a light source. An emp is just a burst of electro-magnetic current, thus being invisible. It is possible that, through his mutation, Ross is able to perform through abilities held only by computers naturally. Unlike lightbulb, Ross can choose whether to burst an EMP or not as well as communicate to Simon telepathically through radio waves or wifi.

[AKnGirl]

Originally posted by Orvo:

It is said by Cat that staring at the monsters cause a disturbance in vision, and just being around screws your sensors. Regardless of having a human mind, Simon is still a robot and thus is vulnerable to emp, which the monsters seem to be putting out. Thus, with creatures like Ross and Mr. Lightbulb, they aren't teleporting anywhere, just stunning you for a few seconds. It's like what happens to Catherine every time you plug/unplug. She merely resumes existence with no sense of time.

This is the first post I have read which makes sense on this issue. Thanks :D

[PopCornFlakes]

It's not teleporting , it's duplicating your mind , your soul ...

[LtKillPuppy]

Yeah, I figured the teleporting/blinking/futzing was caused by EMP knockouts and lapses in consciousness.

Pretty clever way to have teleporting/vision-futzing monsters in a science fiction game, I thought.

There's a lot of subtly to the story telling here. I was wondering why Cath made it a point to bring up the lapses of consciousness caused by power-down.

[Q2]

Originally posted by Orvo:

It is said by Cat that staring at the monsters cause a disturbance in vision, and just being around screws your sensors. Regardless of having a human mind, Simon is still a robot and thus is vulnerable to emp, which the monsters seem to be putting out. Thus, with creatures like Ross and Mr. Lightbulb, they aren't teleporting anywhere, just stunning you for a few seconds. It's like what happens to Catherine every time you plug/unplug. She merely resumes existence with no sense of time.

Aw nice, that possibility hadn't occurred to me.

It could even be worse than that. I'm reminded again of how one of the aliens in Blindsight remains invisible by taking advantage of Chronostasis due to eye saccades (basically, you can't see very well while your eyes are making the tiny flickering movements they often do) and by reaching into your head for the timing and moving at the right moments, Ross could be dancing a jig right in front of you and you'd never know. With a well-tuned (and probably hypothetical) nMRI machine (or a human made almost entirely of structure gel), you could probably do the same to an entirely organic human.

If you want to freak yourself out about how your brain, right now is lying to you about what you can see, and also hiding the fact that it's lying to you then read up on Saccadic masking[en.wikipedia.org]. From a related article (emphasis added):

Originally posted by Wikipedia-Saccade:

Due to saccadic masking, the eye/brain system not only hides the eye movements from the individual but also hides the evidence that anything has been hidden.

All that said, I think that in the Soma/Ross case you guys are right about the temporary loss of consciousness.
Does anyone remember any instances of it where anything else is happening that could disprove it? Perhaps something falling off a table just before the 'teleport'? If it's still falling when Ross is in his new position, it would disprove the theory (or at least show that the game engine is taking shortcuts). Similarly with ambient fish - they should teleport too when Ross does.

[LtKillPuppy]

Q2, if you've ever played with -- ahem -- certain mind altering substances, you will realize how much active filtering your brain performs.

Heck, when you talk your whole head is moving up and down due motion of your jaw and neck muscles. And that's completely filtered out so that our vision appears 100% steady at all times.

There's always been a difference between perception and seeing. 70% of the neurons in our visual cortex come from other parts of the brain, after all. What we see is a virtual-reality construction already.