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It's true that the version asking that question was always going to be the loser. So there was really no "toss" but you can consider all coin tosses the same way, you flip a coin and the result you get is always going to be the same one because there's no result in your experience that ever landed a different way - you'd still call it a coin toss though wouldn't you?
The result is predetermined because after the toss has happened you will never experience a different result - you may argue that it's different because you can't know going into it that you'll be the one that wins or loses and he should have known but that's subjective.
Most likely, Catherine was willing to do essentially anything to complete the mission. She didn't wan't to upset Simon, but also needed his help or she never could complete the mission. I don't think there was a simon robot before the one you where initialy in, that doesn't make sense narratively.
The entirety of the game (except for post-credits sequence as Simon-4, unless you believe Simon-3 dies at the end of the game and also believe in Sarang's continuity premise), you are playing as Simon-3. Waking up as a human in 2015, finding yourself in Upsilon post-brain scan, all of the game up till the end of Omicron, are just the memories fresh in the mind of Simon-3 as he is loaded into and started up in the new body. Thus you the player are made to experience them in order to maintain the players sense of what Simon-3 feels, despite these actions being in the "past" - its the same as playing 2015 then jumping to Upsilon - in order to have that experience, the player was never "actually' 2015 human Simon, the player was -always- playing as a copy. The moment Simon-3 is started, he is thinking that all these events happened to him (when in fact they happened to Simon-1 and Simon-2). The mind is fooled by the presence of the memories.
Thus, the "coin toss" is that at the moment of the brain scan, you will immediately either find yourself in the next place the scanned copy is initialized (i.e. you were actually a copy all along, and what happened at Omicron) or find yourself completing the scan (i.e. you're the original, but this then means you won't be experiencing what the copy experiences, what happened at the space gun).
This is exactly right.
(The only thing I might take issue with is the "The mind is fooled by the presence of the memories." line, since you could argue that when I wake up tomorrow my "mind will be fooled by the memories of my past that it's the same entity", because you could hold that we're different entities from day to day or moment to moment as our brains rewire and rejuvenate themselves (when we learn and cell death occurs). So it's not being fooled by memories, it's just that's how identity works.
But that's pretty nitpicky and getting into semantics.)
Loose memory and your perception of things around you will change basicly making you a different person. Some core memories from our childhood defines our character.
A coin toss ALWAYS implies that you could end up in one of two states. It never is the case in this context. The Simon would never ever possibly wake up in the Ark. He will in every case be the one that operated and launched the Ark.
The problem players are having is their own perception of time, overlaid with how Simon-4s memories would work. Players can't accept that they're actually just experiencing the past from Simon-X's point of view.
Again, I posit that the "player" is actually Simon-3 throughout the entire game. And indeed, it could of been a coin toss. The player -could- of been Simon-4 the whole game, and immediately upon the completion of the scan in the Omega pilot seat they could of experienced themselves within the Ark. The actual memories of doing anything as a human in 2015 and any actions in Pathos-2 just simply memories, that, like the player having felt they actually "did" those things, would be just as real to Simon-4.
The "coin toss" is determining which Simon you ever were to begin with. Obviously the story dictates that the player is Simon-3, as that gets the intended effect across to the player most dramatically and distinctively. If players did experience going from the omega pilot seat to the Ark, then it would have been fairly difficult to explain to them that "they" are merely a copy, that Simon-3 is still stuck in Pathos-2, and that they didn't actually do anything, functionally having started "living" just moments ago.
Realize, from Simon-4's perspective, he too had been in the pilot seat of the Omega space gun, he to felt that he experienced everything leading up to that point. It would be exactly how the player felt after the copy to finalize Simon-3.
Basically this is my conclusion too, Catherine sells the player (the most recent Simon clone) the chance of getting into "paradise". But she knows that the process is not an actual transfer, but a cloning.
Therefore the current Simon clone is stuck on earth no matter what. With that in mind, it would make more sense for him to spare and side with the WAU.
It was Simon, while descending on the climber, the one who made the coin toss analogy.
If you were somehow stop time in that moment, and ask both minds whether they were the original or the copy, neither would know. They would possess exactly the same knowledge to that point, and you may as well toss a coin. The brain scans reinforce this somewhat, by being recordings over time. Albeit, the time seen, as short as 3 ns, is far too short for cognition -- the brain's "frequency", if there can be such a thing in a neural net, is on the order of a hundred hertz. Hundreths of a second to think, billions of a second to capture the mind state.
So that scan is so fast it literally captures synapses as they are building and losing charge, in the middle of firing, and when that map is rebuilt, those chains of action carry all the way out until the long lanes of neurons from the eyes and ears and elsewhere can transfer electrical signals all the way to the brain, which rumbles down channels that aren't even used for thought, until the new cause-effect inputs roll over to the cortex and conscious mind.
Point being, for every copy, very shortly, the original and the copy are the same. It might take a tenth of a second to differentiate up at the cortex. Which one are you the instant before? Good luck.
If they had the player start the game as Simon-2 is being initialized in Upsilon, it would remove the effect of the stress the apparent jump from 2015 to 21xx would cause. It doesn't serve what the devs are trying to do. You aren't "playing" as Simon-1, and then observing a time-lapse, then playing as Simon-2; rather, you're observing Simon-2's mindset at the point of activation.
The "coin-toss" in this case was that as far as we're aware, 4 Simons have experienced Simon-1 going in for the brain scan in 2015. 3 of those Simons later found themselves in Upsilon, and 1 experienced the end of the scan, and lived out the rest of his life. These are, arguably, 4 "distinct" individuals who, while having many shared experiences, do have points where their experiences diverge.
Take this to Inception-level storytelling when the player is at Omicron (more than halfway through the game), and they initialize Simon-3. The player observes the "jump" from Simon-2 to Simon-3. In effect, the player actually was always Simon-3, and again, as with the "jump" from Simon-1 to Simon-2, it turns out the player never actually was Simon-2, but rather the game has allowed the player to experience things as Simon-2 in order to establish Simon-3's starting mindset.
Again, the "coin-toss" in this case was that 3 Simons have experienced Simon-2 having the scan at Omicron. 1 of those Simons (Simon-2) remained in the pilot seat, one was Simon-3 in the power suit, and the other was Simon-4, who was later created when Simon-3 was copied into the Ark. As it turns out, the player is at least Simon-3 or Simon-4, as they clearly are not Simon-2.
And then at Omega, there is another scan. 2 Simons experienced the scan at Omega, 1 being the heavy dive suit wearing Simon-3, the other being the copied into the Ark Simon-4. Both of them experience this. The coin-toss is that the player is Simon-3, not Simon-4. The player is the Simon that continues on at this point, and doesn't "get" to have actually been the Simon that is in the Ark.
I'd say its really more a matter of how you perceive time. Obviously, yes, at this moment I feel that right now is the present. Obviously, in the present and going forward, it is easy to tell that "you" won't get to experience what a diverging you might experience, but if you examine your past, at any given moment (if you view your life in a sort of moment to moment way) you don't really have any way to verify that "you," the conscious mind we are told operates in that armoured orb atop your shoulders, are actually the one that experienced those memories. For all you know some outside force is tweaking around with your memories, toying with your synapses to some end and making you think those are memories of things that actually happened.
Both Simons experience the scan at site Omega. The point is the player is only "playing" as one of those Simons. The coin toss is that moment by moment, until that scan occurs, you can't really say if you're the original or not. It could be you were just playing out moments in the past to establish the mindset of Simon-4, or you are experiencing Simon-3. The game, in its mercy, allows you to experience both sides of that.
Arguably, the game could of done well if it indicated the events we were being shown were in the past, establish the success of the protagonist of doing "something," and allowing the player to draw conclusions from there; surprising them at the end that it was actually a Simon-3 that had come to terms with his condition that was narrating things.
As far as Catherine "tricking" Simon or "selling" him on some idea, I'd say its far more a matter of someone having a pretty set world-view, and using vague terminology that conflicts with someone elses world view. To Cath, she doesn't view a copy of someone with diverging experiences as "someone else." To
I hope that all made sense because I kinda got lost in thought.
The player in this game is a kind of omnipresent force that is allowed to jump between versions of Simon due to narrative needs. What in fact happens is this - original Simon "lost the coin toss" because he was purely human and gravely injured, Simon-copy no. 1 lost it because there was a need for a different suit, Simon-copy no. 2 lost it cause he had to launch the Ark and there was no way of uploading him, only copying. Finally, we have Simon-copy no. 3 who logically, due to where he is and why, won every coin toss. It can be said that every specific conciousness that found itself on Earth lost the coin toss.
It's all about luck. It is pure luck/accident that for example I am experiencing life as a white male in a developed country in XXI century, right? It might sound quite abstract, but I might as well have been "put" into Dark Ages as some poor peasant in Ottoman Empire.