AI Summary
5 min readIn 2015, the Swedish developer Frictional Games released Soma, a first-person sci-fi horror game set at the bottom of a dead ocean. The player character, Simon Jarrett, is a brain scan—a copy of a man who died in 2015—who wakes up a century later in an underwater research station called Pathos-II. A comet has wiped out all life on the surface, and the last humans have devised a desperate plan: scan their consciousnesses onto a hard drive called the ARK and launch it into space to live forever in a digital paradise. The game’s central horror is not a monster but an idea—the “coin flip” problem of consciousness transfer. When you copy a person, which version of them is the real one? The copy that wakes up in the new body, or the original that gets left behind? Soma forces the player to sit with that question, and in 2025, it feels less like science fiction and more like a warning.
The Copy and the Left-Behind
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:04) **Episode Intro & Kirk's Jury Duty Scam Story** - The hosts banter about identity and copies before Kirk shares a detailed personal account of nearly falling for a sophisticated jury duty phone scam.
- 2 (11:42) **Introducing Soma: The Game and Its Context** - The hosts transition to the main topic, providing background on Frictional Games' 2015 sci-fi horror title and its upcoming spiritual successor.
- 3 (14:01) **First Impressions: Safe Mode, Monsters, and Initial Reactions** - Jason and Maddie share their experiences playing the game, highlighting the impact of its "safe mode" on enjoyment and their general impressions.
- 4 (21:48) **The Core Horror: Copying Consciousness & Modern AI Parallels** - The hosts identify the game's most terrifying idea—being a copy left behind—and connect it directly to contemporary anxieties about AI and corporate data ownership.
- 5 (29:14) **Game Plot Summary: The Coin Flip and the Ark** - Kirk provides a detailed synopsis of Soma's story, explaining the brain scan technology, the apocalypse, and the central philosophical dilemma.
- 6 (37:35) **The Ending: The Horror of the Ark and Cosmic Loneliness** - The hosts break down the game's infamous ending, where Simon is left behind, and debate whether the Ark is actually a desirable outcome.
- 7 (46:37) **The WAU Choice and Environmental Storytelling** - The hosts discuss the game's major moral choice regarding the WAU (the AI) and praise the game's mature, non-manipulative storytelling.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
The Triple Click gang talks about SOMA, the 2015 sci-fi horror game that tells a riveting story about brain scans. They talk about the game's strengths (the story!) and the flaws (the voice acting...) as they prepare to send their consciousnesses into space.
One More Thing:
Kirk: Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Maddy: Savant-Garde (podcast)
Jason: Heather (Caitlin Mullen)
LINKS:
A recent (fairly harrowing!) WSJ article about the “jury duty” scam
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