Who are we, outside of the flesh-y organism we call a body? Is what makes us ‘us’ our thoughts and brains, and if so, what happens when you make a copy of them? SOMA is a psychological horror game released by Frictional Games in 2015, exploring the questions of self, brain scans, and what it means to ‘survive’ the downfall of humanity.
As Simon Jarrett, recent car crash survivor with some severe brain damage, you opted in to some experimental treatment for brain injuries, which begins with a full brain scan. You close your eyes as the scan begins… to wake up in a dilapidated underwater facility over 100 years later. And understandably, Simon freaks out at this. With psychotic nightmare machines wandering around, unknown future technology, and a shaky grasp on the situation, Simon sets out across PATHOS-II to figure out what happened, and what to do now.
Making things even stranger are the variety of robots and AI wandering around the place, fully convinced that no, they’re not robots, are you crazy? We’re people, humans, just like you, Simon. This dissociation is soon explained, as technology has advanced sufficiently to take the brain scans of different people and copy them into these robots as AI. Of course, from their perspective, they simply are human when the scan is taken, then immediately ‘wake up’ inside of their new vessel. So… are they still human? The game doesn’t have a definitive answer to this, but it’s an interesting point of debate, that both Simon and the player have plenty of time to chew over as you traverse the deep ocean, on a last ditch mission to save the vestige of the humanity’s consciousness on Earth, in the form of an AI paradise stored in a satellite, waiting to be launched.
To make matters even more confusing, the mind does an excellent job of warping one’s perception to something they can understand. Not even your own perception is infallible, as we can see some of the illusions Simon himself unknowingly made (oh, I must have found a flashlight, I guess I’m wearing a futuristic diving suit?) melt away with new information and new impossibilities presented to him, such as copying his mind into another body, and seeing his form in the mirror is not what he thought it was.
Remember, they’re not transferring your consciousness from the human body to a robot one, they’re literally copying it. So sure, copy yourself into a suit designed for the deep ocean trench you need to dive into, but what do you do with the spare version of yourself? Is it better to kill them, and spare them the loneliness of existing alone at the end of the world, or do you leave them to be, with no explanation, no closure, and no guidance in an empty world? Neither is a true mercy.
Resources are limited, and SOMA doesn’t pull its punches in showing this. Robots (people?) use up the precious energy that the base needs for communications, computers, and other functions, and you can’t continue without unplugging a few of them. And they scream. And beg. It’s an interesting concept, a debate of ethics, wrapped up in a deep sea horror bow. Would you save humanity, while dooming yourself?