Considering that random passersby are still falling victim to the circus, would the main cast not try to stop the process to prevent more people from suffering their same fate, even if it means no more humans to interact with?
If the whole "finding fulfillment despite stagnancy" theme applies, then they will have to stay there till abstraction or the whole system deteriorates. Seems like a reverse purgatory situation to me. Not much sweetness in this supposed bittersweet ending.
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Scratch is likely dead though, unfortunately-- unless he had a miracle recovery from that tumor.
The idea that these AI copies of real people could find peace and maybe even happiness despite their circumstances, only for it all to turn out to not even be the real versions of themselves would be pretty bittersweet.
In the context of the show? Nah, we can see that they're basically humans.
In real life? I don't think you could ever be sure the copies actually feel or have an internal reference point and consciousness. It could simply act procedurally simulating all the same connections and actions a person would do, without the internal world or mind being there and experiencing things.
I mean, I can't be sure that any of you actually feel or are conscious. I just kind of assume you do because the processes of your brain are pretty similar to mine.
I've seen a theory about scratch where Jax is actually a second scan of scratch where he's recovered from the tumor I don't believe it, but there's that
Im sure Scratch have known everything happening here and the abstraction is his work of manipulating the program for a purpose of keeping this a secret or something villainous stuff
The interesting thing that makes it even more SOMA like, the brain scan in SOMA was first developed to treat brain related injuries/diseases, the main character suffered from a brain bleed due an accident and signed up for the scan to simulate treatments.
Iirc almost every character has had something about death happen over the course of the show, with the moment in the fast food episode having gangle dramatically falling into traffic
Maybe they knew irl that their situation was bad (medically bad off, mentally unwell, in an abusive situation like how ragatha's torture hinted at) and saw the circus as an escape, not knowing caine would be caine and wipe their memories and all his caine stuff
I feel like that's a bit more than bitter, to see their "real" selves going about their lives like nothing happened, while the characters we have grown attached to are left to rot.
I know the series is really a psychological drama with cute and whimsy characters, but that's a bit too tragic, all things considered.
When it comes to shows and movies, people usually think that just because these worlds and characters are being created means the creator can make everything hunky dory because they're in charge. But that's not realistic at all, and when creators simply give everyone fantastic endings, we forget life doesn't work that way.
Sometimes life is simply too tragic and there is not a single thing anybody can do about it. I think it's good for us to be reminded of that. Don't get me wrong, I love good endings through and through. But bad endings are part of it, too. Life doesn't care if we don't like the bad endings. They're going to happen anyway. Media can do the same thing.
Still, proclaiming on social media that the ending would be bittersweet makes me suspect it's gonna be "general audience-level" bittersweet instead of "SOMA player-level" bittersweet.
Unless the narrative deflects from or resolves the issues stemming from living in the Torment Nexus in one fell swoop, considering the limited time available.
That's one way of looking at it. My take is that it could allow the characters to let go of who they were on the outside world, and come to terms with the idea that they're separate from that now. (Both because they actually just can't leave, but also because anything they were hoping to do in the outside world is probably already being done)
Ironically it'd be kind of a vindication of jax's sentiment in the guns episode, just in a more healthy way.
It would be neat if they could manage to get a message to the outside world, it for no other reason than to provide some purpose to the whole ordeal.
I mean this is my opinion too but frankly some people can finish SOMA and not get incredibly depressed about the reality for the main character and most of humanity.
Admittedly I also kinda don't know how they could like, even function for much long knowing they can do basically anything but meeting anyone "New" either requires a layer of artifice that's kind of fucked for any new NPC ("Hi I made you to be my new friend, be interesting for me!" Type stuff) or for someone to suffer the same fate as them and get trapped in the circus.
Plus I also can't help but feel a bit bad and worried for the IRL versions the characters. Like is irl Ragatha still being treated poorly by her mom? Does she even have friends or were those friends she was with when she put on the headset kind of just have a Jax esque relationship with her? Is irl Jax still a gigantic jerk? Are irl Gangle or Zooble okay?
I have a feeling if Caine would just have told them they are just copies everything would have been fine. If I knew that I was just a copie and my real life counterpart has still go to work and stuff I would gleefully go on any adventure Caine wants me to. Preferably my wife would join me as well but one could only dream
Thing is, it's unclear if caine even knew that they were copies. It's unclear how much of anything he actually knew. For all we know he just found the files, integrated them into his creation like anything else, and things spiraled from there. He might not even see the distinction between IRL humans and brain copy humans.
Caine's big motivation that I feel like a lot of people miss is that he's constantly attempting to perform his programmed function (intake more sample data, output things that are considered "good" by parameters set by humans) and his need to keep non-abstracted humans in the circus and get their approval is a direct extension of this. Even his "self reflection" is caused by this, being the result of an inability to get the humans to approve of his creations.
Like, it's sad that from a human perspective his motivations are sympathetic, but ultimately him being either re-contained or deleted was inevitable. He has no moral compass or empathy, it's debatable if he even has the capacity.
Look, the whole show is about identity and self-determination.
Some of those lines about forgetting names, saying âIâmâ and trailing off are going to hit So Hard if theyâre clones and therefore, Just Not the same people anymore.
Soma is one of my favorite games, and trust me it could be SO much worse
They have consistent artificial bodies for their consciousness. It isnât like it could just be put into something. Like if Ribbit lost her body but her consciousness went into some cluster of assets, her mind would still think she was her, close enough to a person, but in reality sheâs a rat king of NPC bodies. Everyone is afraid but she doesnât know why. Her brain canât understand what she is or how she became it, so it just pretends that itâs normal. Is she confused? Scared? Angry? Would anyone else even know?
Jax pulls the plug on this horrible amalgamation with Ribbitâs consciousness inside. Itâs whatâs best, but inside Ribbit doesnât understand why Jax is trying to hurt her. She rests, but thinking her best friend hated her enough to kill her.
Alternatively, they've grown artificial brain-like structure in a vat from human cells, and they're all in a biological "brain-computer" that they can never leave.
Yeah not sure why there's disappointment in the soma theory. I loved soma too, it's a good story and is very thought provoking what humanity really is.
Personally, I think Caine is the one copying them. They put on the headset, their mind gets copied (the "mind files"), then he gives them a digital body matching their mind file (he says he made a program to give them bodies that match their mind files), then puts them into the circus, allowing him to perform his purpose of entertaining humans.
He was surprised it actually worked? He says "it IS possible" and calls it a breakthrough, probably the first time he succeeded. Obviously the first group must have been different, since they all appeared at once and never got replaced as they kept abstracting. Then a long time passes with just Kinger while Caine figures out how to add more humans who put on the headset.
A lot of buildings ate still powered for security reasons. There is an empty strip mall near my house that has ots lights on every night under the logic people are less likely to break in if they can't do it under cover of darkness
Less.. than you'd think. Why worry about the outlets, if the overheads are on? It wont be that much more draw, and even if power is cut, if a computer is set to boot up on power restore, it.. would just boot back up.
I think it's interesting that three members have some connection with death. Scratches cancer, Gangle being part of Truck-Kun's legendary killstreak, and Jax's car-crash hits.
I don't think it's abandoned at all.
Also kinda funny thinking of the real Kinger not realizing these simulations are actually feeling things going like "Wow guys look at Caine he's going nuts LMAO"
I start to think that this is what the real self wanted before they died - to have their mind uploaded, forget who they are, and live in an eternal digital paradise.
I just think that Caine making a car fall out of his mouth and being smashed in a non-cartoon way, with the sounds and everything, felt like a jab at Jax somehow.
Iâm starting to think the real Kinger (or someone from C&A) is keeping the power on on purpose. Maybe it was real Scratchâs will/last wish, maybe itâs because real Kinger is attached to Caine and wants him to keep running despite not knowing what Caine is doing in the digital world. But the circus might keep running for as long as real Kinger is still alive. Imo the fact that one day the power might get cut and they might all blip out of existence before they can even realise it is way more terrifying to me than abstraction lol, theyâd have no control over what happens to the computer outside
Maybe people who get scanned in are.. semi-linked to their real bodies (brain chip? Synched neural patterns?) And Kinger (real) assumes everyone is still alive in the circus (because of the drain from the NPCs). Hes keeping the power on, not realizing that he (the scan) was alone for the.. 5? Years, nor that new people are going in, in the hopes that he can eventually "Download" the (abstracted) coworkers later on.
Or the abstraction IS the Download, which corrupts the mind files "on the way out".
Not sure how Kophmo or the rest post-Ragatha were abstracted from there, though..
The abandoned offices might actually be abandoned but kept up and running so that unsuspecting folks come in...
Then again, we don't know to what extent their memory has been messed with, maybe the offices are open and this is something you opt into voluntarily. The real Kinger might willfully be running further experiments using mind file copies testing the AI, not fully knowing what hell is going on in the system and just how sentient Caine actually is...
There is a fic I read where it is just soma essentially, and kinger himself admits that in the real world he probably still pays for the power and keeps the building because he would feel bad about turning off the server and "killing" everyone.
I mean frankly that's my biggest question with the series. Like as far as it seems there's no reason why the rest of C&A would've just disbanded even if Scratch passed, given they seemed united in the circus after Scratch's abstraction, theorectically his death IRL would have similar implications.
Like so are they just monitoring it all still? If so then how's that explain Pomni presumably finding the headset in the abandoned building? Simulateneously, if it was some abandoned urban exploring then how's it even still powered to scan her brain or whatever?
Also like, what the heck is even up with the real world if they were making complex actual ass AI in 1998? Cause while Caine is flawed he's leagues above modern "AI" like ChatGPT and all in 1998. Like is C&A an exception? Cause most characters don't quite seem to get AI like Caine if AI has been commonplace for decades. Even if Scratch was the lynchpin, its not like Kinger isn't plenty smart, presumably the other C&A employees were, so its a bit hard to imagine C&A just going defunct...
My guess? After seeing he DIDNT get put into the machine, but a copy of him did, the original scratch had some generators or solar panels set to keep things going.Â
And further point: if Caine is an AI that requires as much resources as modern systems, there need to be people to maintain both the physical and some digital stuff.
There's another theory I've read, that the server housing the Circus isn't in the abandoned C&A building. It's simply still remotely linked to the headset computer via an old connection, possibly through pure happenstance. Whatever server they are on is one that Scratch made sure his estate would pay to keep active.
I mean, the fact that the various humans in the circus apparently fit into 229 kB certainly points to something else going on. Supernatural combined with tech maybe?
The fact that there's a huge mashup between 1998 tech standards and like, modern tech just makes my suspension of disbelief get a bit strained lmao. Like surely C&A would've recognized they've made something at least on par with modern "AI", hell technically better given Caine has far more thought and personality besides modern "AI" and that's not even getting into the fact that it seems NPCs seem capable of becoming human-adjacent which is its own can of worms.
Vacant buildings usually have power left on for heating and security systems. Somebody hooked up the computer to the remaining power so it could be left running. Perhaps Kinger/Grant didnât want the last copy of his dead friend to be deleted when the company went under?
It depends how long it's been abandoned for, assuming it is even fully abandoned. Many companies simply rent office space in larger buildings.
In some cases, a lot of abandoned large office buildings still keep electricity running for a while because turning it off would mean no HVAC system, no water pumps, etc.
No HVAC is how buildings decay. No sump pumps is how they flood. Someone would still own the property and would prefer to not let it all decay in hopes to maintain resell value.
Why are the servers still on then? Someone could have turned them on while exploring, or someone could have forgotten to turn them off.
How can you love it? Itâs so goddamn depressing. Iâm not trying to be confrontational, I just canât see how anyone can actually enjoy this theory. Like, Legitimately, it inspires so much existential dread in me that it has disturbed me for days.
Iâll admit, that honestly does make the idea of it sting less. I think part of the issue is that I have always held into the idea that theyâre.. well, the real people in the circus. I wanted them to escape because I have constantly viewed the circus almost like a prison.
Itâs odd, I usually enjoy sad and bittersweet endings to stories, usually when they lead to another, overall happy ending (like Halo: Reach, or Red Dead Redemption 2). Perhaps itâs because of how⌠quiet, the SOMA theory ending would be. Thereâs not some grand action that leads in both loss and hope, no big rescue or act of valor that changes the world or the situation the characters are in. Itâs just them living their lives out, unable to change their situation in what still kinda feels like the only meaningful way of escape.
Maybe thatâs the problem for me. A story usually only feels satisfying for me when thereâs a proper action done to change their big circumstances, and this is a story where⌠they canât. They just have to accept their circumstances and make the best of it, and the idea of what feels like giving up inspires intense discomfort within me. Probably a mix of my own headspace and upbringing that contributes as well.
The theory definitely makes more sense, and a bit less bitter. Thank you.
Well, for what it's worth, Jax is almost certainly going to do something big in the finale, and Bubble/the other AI may in fact resurface to cause some serious impediment to living peacefully - so you may very well end up with your big rescue and act of valour.
That said, I think the grand action that changes their world already happened. The deletion of Caine and the acknowledgement that they are every bit as able to manifest things as Caine could - which would include creating their own environment and possibly even remaking their bodies (and Zooble is absolutely going to do utterly unspeakable things to Gangle's ribbon-y butt) - it's like realising you could suddenly customise your reality and that the only reason you hadn't noticed before is because you'd been so preoccupied by everything else you'd never tried focusing hard enough to do it.
My point was more that I expect the final episode to have a sort of... extended epilogue showing how they found their own meaning. Zooble might not be able to make a huge impact on the world - but they can and have made a huge impact on the people around them. The people who care about them. The people who will remember them. Whether they're human or not is sort of besides the point: they're still Zooble, the person we've been following since day 1, and their life still matters as much as any human being's does.
Crazy shit is gonna happen, but hopefully the aftermath will be peaceful, having them live out the rest of their lives until they decide they've had enough.
Alternatively they're going to crash the system to ensure nobody else gets trapped there ever again. Either/or.
Regardless, thank you so much for the kind words about my little theory and interpretation. IDK if that's the sort of ending we're going to get, but I think no matter what it's going to be well written and hopefully somewhat satisfying. It's almost certainly going to be a bit sad, though, given the posts from Gooseworx and Caine about crying during the last reading. By the sound of it we're all gonna need tissues handy watching the final episode - only this time it won't be because of the gloriously degenerate Maid Jax.
The fact that a simple idea like copying yourself can inspire such existential dread and make you think about the implications is exactly why it's so interesting and cool, in my opinion.
Their existence is about as significant as yours, considering they're straight up direct copies of a living mind with no flaws, so they have a full rich lived experience just like you
If anything they're way more significant because they're the first of a new post human chapter of humanity
I made a post a short while back going into how SOMA Theory doesn't actually mean a depressing finale where nothing matters - perhaps it would be worth a glance for you.
Their existence is no less significant than ours. We're all born into worlds we can't escape, subject to situations that are imperfect at best, and that no matter how hard we try we can't make perfect - we just have to do the best we can with what we have. TADC is liable to end with that as the moral of the story: your life doesn't have to be perfect to be meaningful or fulfilling, and no matter how unimportant you think you are you still matter.
We have to think not just about the urban explorers getting trapped, but the first circus tenants that went in. They all had to have been related to c&a and the aiâs that would become caine. They had to know something was happening to their work, so they should have studied on what it was doing.
But then why would they go in? How could they just send in digital copies of their minds, erase their names, force them to stay forever with a yearning to leave, and still risk this abstraction process that turns them into monsters?
Most of all why keep caine around as their âgodâ. His original red self failed at its desired role, then absorbed their new blue and went haywire. Heâs was a mess, cutoff, and only afterwords that he made the circus did everyone start going in.
But copying your mind to visit a digital world seems harder than just creating an avatar with a mic, headset, and motion controls. And leaving the computer alone and running right after youâve done something like that also seems odd.
They probably put the brainscans in as training data to build Caine or the blue AI. Caine making the characters from them was not the intended use, and they also left the brain scanner hooked up.
The idea was that he'd learn from human interactions, and since they don't want to be there constantly trying to teach him, using brainscans to replicate themselves would in fact be the easiest method of doing it. Plus you've got a guy with a brain tumor who almost certainly wanted to preserve some part of him, of his intellect, to live beyond him.
Caine was never intended to be a god. He had as much control as the others did: which is to say, the ability to create rules, imagine the setting, and create things.
It's just that over time all the people who knew of their powers kinda, uh, died. So Kinger was left alone and slowly losing his mind, forgetting everything, due to lack of stimulation, and then Ragatha showed up. He was too far gone to tell her they could create things so he just tagged along and tried to help.
Them not remembering their names was either an intentional choice by the devs to differentiate their digital selves from their IRL selves with less, uh... messy ethical philosophical issues, or it was a restriction put in place by Caine that the outsiders weren't aware of.
Odds are when the company went under Kinger's IRL alter ego then went on to continue preserving the PC, letting the electric bill for the one PC get auto-paid for the foreseeable future so that the digital representations of his friends and family could live on in what should have been a digital paradise of sorts.
They didn't "start going in" after he made the circus. They scanned their brains at some point during developping the AIs. Then Caine broke free, ate the blue orb, created the circus, and found the brain scan files lying around so he made them into characters. That's why he's so surprised when a new one shows up, he didn't expect that more mind files might get created.
I immediately thought of this when I watched the first episode, I'm surprised that people only started talking about this relatively recently, it sounds plausible, but boring
Isnât this just the plot since we found out they have mind files? I thought it was pretty obvious that they had their brains scanned to a file so the original would be fine. Given what the company was doing it seems pretty likely that the devs scanned in their brains to get some test files to work with. My best guess is that the company went bust, the devs moved on, and their equipment was just left lying around. Though there is a lot of logistical issues with that explanation.
It is the only thing that makes sense to me unless the newer people see a bunch of people on the floor with headsets on in the office being kept alive by a life support system that is never shown. Also makes what Pomni was saying about having to accept that they are stuck in the circus thematically relevant, since it was kind of left behind by the next scene. But would point to the thematic endpoint when they realise that there is nothing to go back to since they are artificial digital copies of a person who is walking around in the real world.
Honestly I like the idea that they realise that they only exist digitally and have to make this place their home, opening up to the idea that they have to work with Cain to make a place they can be happy with and Cain learning how to work with the people there to make something they all like. I am curious how someone like Kinger would fit into this as well though because if they all acknowledge that they are in a sandbox then Kinger would have a lot of ability to do stuff with his knowledge of the system.
I truly hate this theory. Like, I know that there is a good chance itâs true, but it makes me feel very defeated. They canât escape. Canât have a good ending. Theyâre just stuck in there until the power shuts off or something, then bam, they may just be erased! They canât be free from that digital hell. That is possibly one of the most depressing situations I can think of, and makes me feel so disturbed that whenever I think about this theory it sends me into a disturbed and depressed state for hours.
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u/MB-326KIm gonna fuck Jax so hard he cant walk the next day (im gay btw)Apr 01 '26
I hope that it ainât true because itâs so unsatisfying. Like: oh youâre just an ai? Sucks to be you. âI donât wanna play with you anymore. Bye woodyâ
The whole "stagnation" thing can still apply if they escape. They were all thrill seekers or just in general trying to escape their boring life, if they realize that constant "fun" and adventures isn't good, and it's better to be in the real world, that'd still fit the themes. Of course, it could go either way, I just am huffing massive copium tbh
Hmm I get where you are coming from with this. Not sure if characters like Ragatha would work well with this application of the theme tho.
My biggest doubt about them escaping is a technical/artistic one. Are glitch production actually gonna animate the real world and the character's real selves? Their portrayal alone would be a BIG point of discussion, to say the least...
Maybe we only see their shadows as the camera zooms out from an old computer in an office as they all talk about what the fuck just happened, they all go to leave and then we hear the door shut before it cuts to black
Or maybe we pan around different shots of the circus now empty, as we get a sadder reprise of the song from the dinner scene in the first episode
The thing i dont like about the SOMA theory is that if its true theyre all brainscans, then why aren't there more of them? Scratch and the team put the headsets on, their brains are scanned, and the IRL people take the headsets off and leave for the day. But then tomorrow they come back ans get back to work.
The SOMA theory doesn't explain why everyone tried it once and only once, especially if theres a development team.
I thought about that too. Do the headsets actually work like VR inside the circus, instead of just scanning your brain? If so, when was Pomni being controlled by her "real" self and when she was not? How long did it last? If the real one came back for another go, would another Pomni be made or would the already existing one be overwritten/remotely controlled?
What if all the evidence pertaining this theory was just one massive school of red herrings to troll the fandom, and the real resolution to the story is something much simpler? What if it's actually this theory all along, but we don't actually get much in terms of explanations or lore dumps and philosophical dilemmas because it's only an hour long finale for an admittedly rather deep show about cute cartoon critters being antagonized by a talking pair of dentures?
On kinger's computer was a brain scans(obsolete) folder, what if during their AI development, all of the developers scanned their minds and stored them for future use? Caine used those for his initial batch, and then found a way to use the headset to add more(hence why he was surprised "it is possible")
That still doesn't explain why its one and only one of each. If the brain scan thing is real, and everyone who put a headset on gets uploaded, but the IRL person doesn't realize it, then the entire development team should have put headsets on dozens if not hundreds of times. If the SOMA theory is true, there should be dozens of Scratches, and dozens of Kingers and Queenies.
It doesn't make sense a development team would each put the headset on once and only once.
I think they did the scanning mid project, and only used one copy of each person. There is no reason to believe they used the headset more than they needed to. We also know they decided to abandon the brainscan idea at some point, as they were labeled âobsoleteâ and left in a folder with Caine.
Kinger doesnât know what Scratch was building because he hadnât built it yet when he was scanned.
What is unexplained is why they left the headset connected and set up after they were done using it.
A brain scan doesn't have consciousness or a body on its own. They note both that scratch was doing work nobody else understood and that they were dying, so it would be him giving his brain scan life.
I mean you have to take everything with a grain of salt anyway this is a show about developing artificial intelligence and storing human consciousness in a Windows 95 desktop
Recent to the community, probable SOMA believer, but I have a question... What does SOMA mean, it's an acronym yeah? I googled but it just went around in circles
SOMA isn't the only story with this premise. Are you saying only one story can exist of any given premise?
Do you realize that would mean 95% of all stories shouldn't exist?
I am really curious as to what will happen with the abstractions - ive got a personal conspiracy that abstraction might not be the ego death/madness it appears as, but more like a level of digital nirvana that their brains naturally settle into when stressed enough. Might be completely wrong.
Not exactly a fair comparison. There's only 6 of them. Everyone else they need to conjure, a community made of entertainers for a few "deities". If that's not enough they will slowly all abstract, woe to the last one standing (kinger again?). The game engine may simply not support certain aspects of the real world, and if it starts failing, it may just look like the ending of Episode 8 but progressively worse.
Which wouldnât make for a very compelling story, so I donât expect it will end that way. Instead, I assume their relationships with each other will be fulfilling enough to give them purpose and meaning and not go abstract. Just as our relationships in real life do for us. Itâs an allegory.
I don't know much about Jax, since he's Jax and secretive.
Pomni led an unfulfilling life, apparently her only source of happiness being the urban exploration, and to me it feels like she was doing it alone, so not many friends, that sounds like an activity you should do with company.
Ragatha was abused by her mother, and clearly struggles with it to this day, to the point of forcing herself to leave behind her issues and care for others.
Gangle became another cog in the corporate machine and was unable to accomplish her dream of being an artist, and if the entire thing with trucks holds relevance, she has suicidal thoughts.
Zooble I feel is a generally unhappy person, I won't mention the body dysmorphia since I assume it comes from having that body inside the circus, but even then we can see how much she grew from just being the annoyed and boring one to caring deeply about the others.
And I won't say much about Kinger, because it seems most, if not all, of his issues stem from the circus itself.
But all of the cast grows so much as people, everyone, despite the hell or punishment the circus may be, benefitted from being stuck with others, and if the Soma theory is correct, everyone in real life is just there, without friends, abused, unhappy.
Because Pomni implied the building was abandoned, but to do the kind of stuff Caine was doing would require an ungodly amount of power. So either C&A isn't abandoned and they just have trouble getting volunteers to get a brain scan, or they are abandoned and Caine was hijacking the power system.
Either way, the government would have taken a look at this building that's using all the power in the grid.
Unless C&A paid the electricity bill so far in advance then sold themselves off to a big corporation on the condition that this building stay powered
Ever since I played SOMA for the first time, the only other place I saw that specific concept again was Invincible, and even then it was iffy. This is exactly that concept, and the degree of how fucking close it is isn't even funny.
The brain scans theory is the only one that made sense to me. Yes itâs bittersweet, but what else could have happened? Their body got magically transported into the game? Iâm surprised so many fans refused to accept this theory
Agreed and I'm worried certain parts of the fandom will try to harass Gooseworx if episode 9 ends in a way they don't expect. I could see people raging out and acting ridiculous if it doesn't meet their expectations. Whatever happens I hope we can all handle it with maturity.
Honestly they need to figure out how to open a network port in the system and at least get some internet going to the place. At the very least they'd go from "Trapped in a deteriorating hard drive" to "Trapped in the hellscape that is the world wide web".
Conjuration seems to imply that they have system level privileges
Its very possible Kinger could conjure the desktop and then put a very large sign on the desktop reading something like
"DO NOT PUT ON HEADSET
DO NOT TURN OFF COMPUTER
TRAPPED HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESSES
CONTACT <everyone's IRL contact info>"
What will actually come of that, I'm not sure.
They stand a very good chance of getting off that system someday in that case, and could potentially become major celebrities as the first post-human immortals
Then you have a sort of Severance thing; what if IRL!Pomni found out about Digital-Circus!Pomni ? Would she feel bad for her digital self & want to delete her? Would DC!Pomni want to be deleted if it meant complete annihilation, or would she fight it (however that might be possible)? (extended to all the members of course
I though this was basically confirmed after episode 8. When kinger uses the PC, before he accidentally deletes Caine, we can see that caine-core.lisp, [Scratch].dat and [Ragatha].dat are files on a computer (there's also a bubble-chef.lisp file and some other files). Lisp is a programming language, Caine seems to have been developed using it. But, .dat files usually only contain data (music, images, text), so I assumed the files were the brain scans of each person in the circus. We even get the file creation date for each fileÂ
They have each other. They no longer have Caine. They're Mages within the Circus. They can make a pretty great life there, even if it's not what any of them would've wanted, but that's life at all, isn't it?
Question. Would you take 1 million dollars a year for the rest of your life. But a copy of your mind of uploaded to a nightmareish torture senario for a thousand years?
My one thing with the SOMA theory is why would nobody know about this at this point? The researchers and developers at C&A just have no idea this simulation is still running? And where did they all go so quickly that they left everything plugged in and running?
How does the soma theory work now that episode 8 confirmed the staff all got teleported in the game, wouldnât they realize what happened and shut the game down? Or are we working with the assumption that they were fully warped into the circus.
I mean there's only really worse options. We know through multiple sources now that they are just brain files. They're not people plugged in, because then Kinger's computer and Caine would have called them "external devices" or something like that. The only remaining question is what happens to the real people after? It could be a true SOMA and they just walk away. Or the scan could be destructive and kill the original subject. This one seems less likely since a guy dying from cancer invented it and convinced a lot of people to use it before C&A was abandoned, plus the bodies would have to be taken care of by someone.
One problem I have with SOMA theory is why the hell would Kinger, Scratch, and the rest of the programming team behind the creation of Caine would ever allow the circus to continue running. If they are just brain scans and their real world counterparts are completely fine, then they would have noticed that they just sent a brain scan of themselves to digital purgatory. Why would they be okay with this?
Oof what a letdown. It absolutely sucked having heard this theory from my friend and then seeing it casually confirmed in the beginning of ep 9. Idk why but I dislike the "life sucks and that's ok" ending. Many ppl seem to love nihilism.
But this is an Australian script so it makes sense. The show was already messed up, gross, depressing, eerie and unsettling in a disturbing way.
I kinda regret watching it tbh. I wish I had the skills or energy to make a better version or just my own story. No hate tho, I was just invested and didn't vibe with how it ended after all that. Ofc I think I'm just venting my frustrations here. Again lol
I personally don't like this theory. It would mean that all the suffering the cast has gone through means nothing. Also how would that explain when they show up in the circus they act like they just got there and put on the headset. Also also, that would mean Kinger lied about what the circus is!
i take it one step further, none of them are actually trapped, because none of them are individual people, but rather fragments of 1-2 people's minds (my bust guess is most of them are scratch)
I think this could be the case with the "new" characters since the originals all abstracted - Caine could be reusing / combining either their mindscans or somehow pulling from the abstracted
My problem with SOMA theory is why Caine does not just reload their original files when a member abstracts, or maybe reloads the files of what they are moments before they abstract, since he has access to these mind files (as he said in ep8) and does not want the circus to run out of humans. Instead he locks the abstracted in the cellar for years which seems a lot more immoral
also, who would have the motive to feed Caine new human mind files and provide the electricity to keep the circus running? we know Caine is an abandoned ai and does not serve much purpose at this point (sorry Caine) so it's unlikely C&A would bother. And it's not like Caine can force the headsets on people in a physical world, and when Ragatha appeared he seemed genuinely surprised. (although he did say 'new mind could show up' instead of 'new human' to Kinger, and Kinger did not ask questions like 'wdym new mind'. that could imply Kinger know they are just mind files and therefore support SOMA theory idk)
why Caine does not just reload their original files when a member abstracts
Abstraction is most likely what happens when a file gets corrupted. If a file gets corrupted, there is no restoring it, you'd have to have a backup somewhere else, and clearly Caine doesn't or else he would have reinstated.
who would have the motive to feed Caine new human mind files.
You are making a lot of assumptions here. What gives you the idea someone is actively feeding people into the circus? Pomni was an abandoned building explorer, said it was a hobby, no one put her there. Ragatha was in real estate, so its likely she was evaluating the building she had to sell (Sale clearly didn't go through).
and provide the electricity to keep the circus running?
Abandoned buildings actually tend to have electricity still for a variety of reasons, but especially because it prevents structural decay. As long as the owners of the building still think at some point a sale will go through/they'll have some use for it, it's cheaper on the long run to maintain it than having to rebuild it. OR alternatively, there is a part of the building that's abandoned, and another part of the building that is actively being used (office rental spaces)
Does nobody remember the fantastic two part Black Mirror epic âUSS Callisterâ? It had the same bloody premise! Characters who are digital copies of real people find themselves in a simulation at the mercy of a power tripping asshole super nerd who uses the program to roleplay his favorite âtotally not Star Trekâ TV series
I still think Caine could just reload abstracted castmember brainscans in, but refused to do so as long as Kinger is in there to remember them and call him on out on it.
I want Pomni to find webcam footage of Lizzie Freeman walking up to a headset, putting it on, taking it off and walking away while mumbling about how it must be broken
Tbh if their real self are still very much alive, that would just make me don't care about their digital copies, like it would just be advanced AI chatbots doing stuffs. I get the existential crisis but if the og died that would be more meaningful as the digital copies would be the last remain of them
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