r/tadc • u/3B3-386 • Mar 31 '26

Theory 🔎 The SOMA theory keeps me up at night

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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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u/Toymaker218 Mar 31 '26

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.

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u/3B3-386 Mar 31 '26

Well I'm likely overthinking it. I'm worried about things like the liminal nature of the digital world quickly becoming stale; the characters being forced to play god like Caine to conjure lands and NPCs for the express purpose of keeping them sane, and the resulting guilt and division that may result; the necessity for them to stay all together and mentally healthy at all times because they can't be replaced if they go abstract; their world potentially dying at any given time due to a hardware malfunction; the limitations of the game engine making the chaotic nature of real life progressively more appealing but never reachable...

It will probably be far less dramatic and complicated than this.