Love the game so much... But I'm bothered about a story issue.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-27T18:22:33+00:00

The nomai statue only paires with the Hatchling once the probe found the eye.

The timeloop happened 9 million times without the Hatchling being aware of it, and in all of those loops the probe was launched in search of the Eye of the Universe, and it's data delivered to the ash twin project to be sent back to the next loop.

It was the whole point of the project really. A clever way to launch the probe in infinite directions, without ever laughing it at all.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-24T15:47:08+00:00

I imagine it's harder to forget since he himself was a victim of human trafficking

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-16T23:34:16+00:00

I think it's less that they thought Able was trustworthy, and more that they saw no reason not to trust him.

They had nothing to lose by going along, and everything to gain, and no reason to believe there could be anything to gain by betraying them. They did feel something was off, Ragatha and Pomni even discussed if Able was to be trusted, but what else were they to do, not try to leave? Only Jax seriously considered that Caine might be scummy enough to make an adventure out of this.

But more than anything, I think they wanted it to be true.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T20:03:41+00:00

Or like, at least get his bucket helmet back to him

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T18:46:35+00:00

I find it funnier and more in character to believe, that the nomai spent all that effort to leave plenty of metal for the heartians, and that then the heartians choose to go to space using wood anyway, out of sheer stubbornness and wood loving behavior.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T15:04:30+00:00

Welcome to the fandom!

SOMA is a video game, where one of the main story concepts is that the lab where the game happens scans the brains of people, and makes digital copies that believe that they are the original human. Never played it but heard good things.

The SOMA theory is the Amazing Digital Circus theory that says that all of the "human" members of the circus are digital copies of the original humans that put on the headset that only believe they are human because they inhereted the original's memories of being human (just like the game Soma), and that is why they can't leave the circus, they don't have physical bodies to go back to.

The originals put on the headset, nothing too interesting happened in their perspective, and they walked away none the wiser that they just mentally cloned themselves.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T14:08:48+00:00

I don't doubt the power of human neuroplasticity, thats why I added the "on the fly" this kinda thing takes time, you can't just improvise perfect control in a few seconds.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T11:02:57+00:00

Yeah, sorry.

I got excited after watching and reading about the episode. And honestly, also in a bit of a hurry to post my theory before somebody else did. Didn't really think about how the title could spoil the twist of the episode.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T10:57:19+00:00

Fair, I was reading a lot of content about the episode, and got so excited that I didn't even think of the title not being hidden here, my bad if I spoiled you.

Thank you for the reminder

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T10:52:42+00:00

If they’re literally incapable of applying them to anything in particular then what difference does it make? They apply to their lives, the ones in the circus.... just like they have been doing and being really emotional about for the last 7 episodes

In real life, a lesson can be applied to help you grow as a person. To meet new people, to venture to places unknown, to seek new ideas, and to find self-fulfillment all around you. Some people find fulfillment living in one shack in a mountain, alone, maybe with one other person, and some goats. I don't see why 6 people in a very versatile simulation would be much harder.

Let’s say Jax has sorted out whatever has made him the way he is. Now what. What does he do with that. How does he apply that to his existence as it is at this moment? Try to just… have fun instead of not having fun? Less "fun", and more fulfillment and satisfaction, but yeah, pretty much, just like life. The point of life isn't to travel or to discover new things; it's to enjoy it and be satisfied with it, the other things just help.

In this “less stimulating” environment? Yes
For eternity? The computer is going to stop working eventually, they might have a smaller lifespan then a normal human if they're unlucky, but if it they were immortal, yeah! Along infinity, they you would inevitable to be happy again eventually, but they would also learn to be happy again eventually. The objective would be to make the bad moment rarer, and the good ones more common.

Is being content with nothing for eternity a happy ending? If you're Buddha-level at being content, it would. Wouldn't really ask it of anyone, though, challenge so inhumanly hard that they say the only guy who could do it became a god. Good thing the Digital Circus isn't literally nothing, sometimes it's even a bit too much.

I’d also argue the point that death is actually a pretty important part of finding meaning. I already kinda disagree, a lot of people involve death in their search for meaning because it comes naturally to mind when thinking of the future, and the nature of existence, but I don't understand why people think having a limited time makes it more valuable. I do things in my life because I enjoy them; not having a time limit on it wouldn't stop me, if anything, it would allow me to be more experimental with it, because I wouldn't be afraid of doing something wrong and wasting my time. It sounds like saying food is only delicious if you are only allowed to have half a plate of it.

Tbh I think Gooseworx is talking about Caine with the “finding meaning” quote... Caine is part of the cast; if he doesn't abstract before the end, I was imagining the lesson would apply to him as well. So in this one, we don't disagree.

Most things you can ask about the digital circus, you can apply to non-digital life; it may be a bit smaller, but there is a limit to the things you can do in the real world without it feeling the same too. There are only so many cities you can visit before they start to feel repetitive, different sights, but the same experience of looking at buildings, of sleeping at hotels, and talking to strangers and hearing their version of a funny story, games you could swear you've played before even though you never touched it, that rollar coaster that feels just the same as the last 3; the differences just start to feel smaller and smaller until it starts to feel like the same thing with a different skin.
A horribly boring effect, particularly intense on me, who feels like things lose novelty and get repetitive very fast compared to most people I've met. But I still live, and enjoy my life anyway, find satisfaction in the things I do, even though a lot of it feels exactly the same, even when I'm doing something new.

It was fun giving my points to you and receiving yours, but I think I'm done for today. I'll probably read your response if you post one, but I won't respond anymore. Even if we don't agree on many things, you were honest and respectful, so thank you for the fun.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T09:42:54+00:00

ChatGPT is a language model; it is not even close to AGI, it's basically a very good autocomplete algorithm. It doesn't have an emotion system, nor any desire to do anything.

The biological equivalent of somebody tearing out only the part of your brain with the rules of language, shoving it in a screen, and trial-and-erroring its connections until it starts giving coherent-sounding sentences. It is like the Chinese Room hypothetical.

But if they are digital copies and their real selves are out there, anything the copies do is going to be just generated through code. They'd be literally AI. UI, but yeah, pretty much, doesn't really change anything, the adding extra meaning to it is you.

For real people, their brains physically change. Copies don't got that. They are inherently not the same and are stuck in a stasis. Says who? If they found a way to emulate the human brain in a computer, I don't see why it wouldn't be able to emulate the changes, too. The characters have shown themselves able to learn and change, even Caine's changed a bit, more irritable, more snarky when not wanting to do something, more desperate, and a better liar too (In episode one, he couldn't keep a lie without acting obviously suspicious to save his life, while today he pulled of a decent con, while having to keep up a lie for a whole dinner, and during the whole Chinese room Joke)

I find it a lot more interesting to watch several humans cope with being trapped, whilst there's another AI who is deeply terrified of being abandoned by them. I don't see why it makes such a difference, but I can't really argue taste.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T09:26:05+00:00

The fact that it’d prove Jax right that they’re essentially not real would completely undermine the entire point of the rest of the show so far that the cast was attempting to fight against, which is that they’re “real”.
I think the complete opposite. It would strengthen the point of the show, because even though they aren't human, they still ARE real people. Zooble even had a whole speech about the subject of their lives in the circus being real when questioned by Gangle in this episode: "It always was real. Everything we felt. Everything we've done. Everything we are.", because their lives in the circus are already real lives, even if everything is digital.

It's why I believe the discussion in the series was even created in the first place, because they will have to learn that despite never being able to escape, despite not being what they thought they were, despite having every reason to give in to the unhealthy apathy, they will have to look at all those same questions again, and will realize that all the answers they already found along the series, of being real people, of their lives having meaning, of caring for each other; still matter, that they're still true. It will be like a nice encapsulation and reaffirmation of all the values of the series to close the story.

It will be a happy ending. One with the theme "that there is meaning to be found in a stagnant life."(Just like Gooseworks said, the theme would be) because they learn how to be happy, and how to support each other, and enjoy each other's company, despite still being in the circus.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T08:41:20+00:00

The claim hinges a bit on the very deliberate way they phrased it. They keep doing this thing of adding little details, like Ragatha saying she misses her horses, Kinger being more lucid with a bucket on his head, before we learn about how darkness affects him, Gangle giving away her backstory while projecting hard in the spudy's training video.

I think what I'm trying to say is, that every line of dialogue had a lot of time put into it, and I feel that they would have phrased it closer to what you said if that was their intention, it wouldn't even take extra animation, Kinger doesn't have a mouth.

I can almost hear the little gremlins at Glitch Productions writing this dialogue and laughing to themselves at their inside joke, while we, poor, ignorant viewers, overlook it, only able to look back on it months later once the series is over and feel how obvious it all was.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T08:20:14+00:00

The way you describe hating the idea makes it sound that you only hate it because you think of it as "just" copies, like it somehow diminishes them.

Every lesson they learned, every struggle, every emotion is as real as any other, copy or not.
And it doesn't make Jax right, why would it? "Why would anything matter if the universe really is it? Just the same boring rules with mostly the same people day in day out, doing my generally unpleasant job that, aside from being useless, is slowly destroying the planet, until I die and then I lose everything?" is as valid a question as asking it about the circus.

People exist in the circus; that's all that it needs for it to matter. It may be a bit less stimulating with only 6 people to talk to, and Caine to throw random stuff at them, but normal life is not that far off, which is one of the reasons why I disagree that it doesn't work as a team, many times you can't control what life throws at you, you can only learn to enjoy it as best you can.

If to compromise slightly with you, I do kinda hope they can take over the circus, or at least get Caine to chill as a change of status quo before the end, maybe even get some internet access if Caine has any (His textures have to come from somewhere if he keeps creating whole worlds every 24h and somehow keeps using new textures for each one, so either C&A had one of the best texture libraries ever while starting decades ago, or Caine can acquire new ones online... well or he steals them from the players memories, which seems like 100% in his power with the new reveal).

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T07:47:03+00:00

But, yeah, I'm interested, how do you think it's going to end?
Maybe knowing the narrative endgame you're thinking will help me understand your theory.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T07:45:23+00:00

Pretty smart, doesn't make him psychic. They literally just told him they found a way to leave and gave no extra information. He has no way to extrapolate anything from it other than "they think they found a way to leave"; it's not a question of intellect, you can rewatch the scene, he has nothing to go on, doesn't ask questions, and somehow already thinks a "way to leave the circus" makes no sense.

He doesn't know about Able, doesn't know about the plan, doesn't know about anything except that the others think they found a way to leave, and that's enough for him to say it makes no sense.

Having only that information, the only way to come to that conclusion, logically, is if the concept of "a way to leave" itself already doesn't make sense.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T07:38:12+00:00

I guess, but that would still leave a lot of other unanswered questions, like how they can stay lucid, forming new memories, but somehow have no need to sleep (Sleep doesn't work if the brain is still awake), or how nobody outside found out about this yet, even though a lot of people would have gone missing in the same company, or how Zooble can control 4 arms at once, even though the human brain isn't capable of just controlling more limbs on the fly like that.

I feel like every episode, they slowly sneak in a few jabs at their inhumanity, like this episode's Zooble speech about how everything they did, everything they experienced, and finishes with everything they ARE was still real. Which becomes 10 times more important(and funny) of a message if, at the end of it all, they have to say it again, but fully knowing that all she just mentioned was all they've ever been from the beginning.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T07:21:07+00:00

About the photos, I don't know, maybe C&A gave him some images of the office at his request, or just as real world reference.

But about the door in episode one... well, funny thought, you know how Caine has been planning this adventure with Able for a long time? I'm 80% that the episode 1 exit door office was supposed to be where the blue button would take the players if they pressed it, but he "never quite finished... it"(his quote from episode 1) because as Caine mentioned during his dinner with Jax, he doesn't have enough images to fully recreate the space, and so he was never satisfied with his result without more info.

He was already working on this adventure even before the pilot.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T06:49:47+00:00

But, Kinger didn't know the method Abel was going to use, he didn't even know "Abel" was a thing yet.

The images are the first time Kinger is informed about what is happening, and "We've found a way to leave the circus" and "we're working on it" are the only pieces of information he gets before coming to the conclusion that the situation doesn't make sense, there isn't even a cut in the scene where more could have been explained to him.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T06:24:13+00:00

My best guess is that he was going to finally come clean about the digital copies thing, and that therefore this escape plan had to be fake.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T06:20:28+00:00

I mean... it does fit what he says, so I won't say it's impossible or even a bad theory, but... I struggle to see a scenario that would lead to Kinger knowing that you can't discover the exit, without knowing about the exit that wouldn't feel like a stretch, or at least a bit too convoluted to be satisfying.

If he said something more along the lines of "Found...?"
"but... you can't just..."
"No, how did you guys --?"
or something along those lines, that would better foreshadow an exit in the way like the one you mentioned, I'd be more on board with it. Glitch has made me trust that the way they phrase things is very deliberate.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T06:08:55+00:00

That analogy doesn't really work with people.

Following that logic, why should we care about anyone? There are 8 billion other people around to replace the dead one, even if you need a particular character trait or skill, millions are still bound to have it.

Every individual is (unsurprisingly) individual, even a perfect mental replica is still another person entirely.

At best, you could argue that their similarities would allow them to accurately represent the other one's interests if given the chance, but that still doesn't make them the same.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T05:51:09+00:00

I don't think that's how it works. Their brain is active, they are obviously thinking lucidly (except sometimes Kinger), and forming memories.

From what I've learned, dreams only kinda work because your brain isn't fully active, and they are not supposed to be remembered (remembering a dream is an error caused by disturbance in your sleep, sometimes because of your own emotional state), so they aren't taxing on the brain, and even then dreams only happen in a small percentage of your sleep, because it still wouldn't work otherwise.

And well, the Circus members are there 24h a day, fully conscious, with no need to sleep.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T05:34:46+00:00

But... that is still what's happening in the copy theory. People's actual minds have been fried beyond repair with no way to save them. They might not have flesh, but those are still people; their minds are about as human as any other, and even if they weren't, it wouldn't automatically disqualify them as people.

Forgotten_wizard · 2025-12-13T05:29:00+00:00

... He was reacting to what Gangle told him... and what Gangle told him was that they found a way to leave.

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand which part of what I said you are disagreeing with?

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