Soma: The Theory of Continuity

Source: Frictional Games

While Soma's ocean floor setting contributes a large amount to it's overall sci-fi affect, easily the most ambitious (and most talked about when the game released) element of the experience is the body-swapping narrative experiences by the protagonist Simon Jarrett. This is going to spoil the entire game thoroughly, so if you haven't already played Soma yet I really recommend it if you're at all interested in sci-fi or horror.

Early on in the game you encounter some audio logs from one of the people who worked at Pathos-II named Mark Sarang. Unlike most of the other crew members who had their minds scanned for the ARK project, Sarang had a strangely reverential view of the situation due to his belief in two phenomena he called "continuity" and "the coin flip". Whereas most of the scanned personnel considered the copy of their mind placed on the ARK as an entirely separate existence, Sarang and the handful of other crew that subscribed to his theory of continuity believed that they would carry on living in the ARK if they ceased existing directly after the scan was completed. At first blush this idea seems...pretty crazy. What's interesting, though, is that the player, despite better logic, has to give the theory a bit of credence because until now, Simon has "won" the coin flip every time. It's a trick, but an effective one since the player has never had the experience of "losing" the flip - as Catherine says, we came "Directly from Toronto" via the memories of the original Simon. It's only later on that we learn about what happened to the real Simon after the scan, and if the scans on the ARK never learn what happened to their previous selves (and how would they?) the "continuity" would seem to be perfectly preserved from their point of view. The way Soma sets up the coin flip situation throughout the game is really quite clever, as it's much easier for the player to forget that they're actually playing as a copy of a long-dead person since we go "directly" from Toronto to Pathos-II via the unbroken narrative of the game itself. Part misdirection from the developers and part willful ignorance the part of the players, just like Simon's character in-game, helps the game deliver it's powerful ending punch.

Soma also differs from other games that want to "say something" by not allowing the preferences of the developers to bleed into the game and affect the player's own natural arc of experience. Choices are presented, some of them incredibly poignant and difficult to make, like whether or not to turn off Sarah's life support, or euthanize Amy and Robin, and some seem easier (and some aren't really choices at all). In all cases none of them are referenced in the ending or are really brought by the game at all once you move past them - they're yours to think about, and you're always given as much time as you need to come to your decision. In the end, you just have to live with it and hope you did the best you could as Soma never really paints the two main focal points of the game, the ARK and the WAU, as hands-down better than the other option. It might not seem like a huge innovation in narrative technique, but when combined with the atmosphere of the rest of the experience it can be surprisingly affective. Few games trust you enough to let you think for yourself about what you're doing, and Soma shows how it can be done to greatly enhance the staying power of a story.

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More thoughts on Sarang's continuity: it actually does make some sense from the way he describes it, in a weird roundabout way. Since the Sarang that gets scanned will have all the experiences of "Sarang prime" up until after the procedure, there would be a continuity chain to an outside observer. Of course, the scanned Sarang would probably be aware he's just a scan of the original once he's in the ARK, but he wouldn't feel any different, presumably. Oi. It's been suggested that Sarang was pushing his continuity theory for the benefit of his fellow crew members, but that seems doubtful since everytime we hear him speak or read what he wrote about the subject he's consistent about his belief. Whether or not he actually believed that the Sarang that he was, Sarang-prime, would actually experience literal continuity or was aware that it would be another "him" that would be "winning" the coin toss and he just figured that was so obvious he didn't bother mentioning it, isn't ever really addressed. I like to take what the game presents at face value so to me Sarang was actually buying this stuff. It's not total bullshit since in his own mind, any entity with all of his experiences and personality would seem to just be another copy of himself, and to anyone else it would just be like Sarang teleported onto the ARK. I think I need a drink.