SOMA Lore: The Horrific History of the WAU

The WAU AI System is the biologically engineered artificial intelligence system in the Pathos II research facility that governs over all of the seperate stations. Originally purposed to protect and serve the scientists and other employees, the wau would have it's ideals and protocols twisted and changed by a structure gel that had been admistered to it's core transforming the construct into a living, breathing creature with both absorbing the others abilities allowing the wau to control the structure gel and for the structure gel to be used to create biological conduits that can connect to power structures and can be used to power computers and other constructs. The relationship between the two would also give birth to horrific monsters that used to be human reanimated by the gel.

In this video we will be covering the ins and outs with the wau system, going through it's appearance before and after the horrific transformation along with how the AI system had turned against it's creators it was designed to protect in the end of days.

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[aru_is_NEET]

God I could listen to 200 hours of soma lore and still learn something new

[enemyfilly]

Easily one of the most compelling narratives in the last two decades of gaming

[Hyperion-]

Soma has some pretty interesting creatures that would be good to cover in a future video.

[D_D]

I believe that the alternative, people in simulation in space are an evolutional dead end. As good as they are, WAU actually learns, and with each creation gets much better, our protagonist, Jarret being the best example of it. Wau is something that has alot of potential, and as terrible as it's first creations are, or the experiments we face later on as our enemies, it is simply somewhat of a very sped up evolution process. It will adjust and fix itself and I think that earth being repopulated with a bunch of simons and catherines is a eerily wholesome concept. True, robotic life, and only 2 characters are uhm- very limited, but it's better than just a lifeless barren rock in space without life.

[zmbis]

As Jessica Rabbit said "I`m not bad, i`m just drawn this way", same with WAU. As an AI it`s not WAU fault but specyfics of it`s programming, it`s same issue with any other AI in reality or in movies or books and most of games. If You tell AI to open a jar it can literaly throw it on ground as it will perform asked task in most fast 01 way possible - jar is opened, but if You program it in details, to open a jar - grab it with one arm with other arm carefuly unscrew the lid till it pops, remove the lid, place the jar on table then AI will know what to exactly do and in what steps. In case of WAU simply saying "protect human life" or "protect humanity" or "save human life" is not specific formula, so WAU probably got confused and started to perform it`s task but in ways of learning till he achives best (in his aAI ways of thinking) solution to asked task, so he experiments with lots of strange ideas we see all across the game. By this logic i think WAU is preventing launch of ark as he calculates chances, if You calculate chance of some civilization finding arc, knowing technology to even read what it is (it`s also a good argument for Voyager golden discs) and how to use it or how to download human brains scans from it is small, way smaller than chances of WAU success with his current experiments. Also WAU does not kill humans unless he is in danger or could be prevented from doing his programed goal, he attacked Chun robot as she wants to fire the ark, he killed personel by overcharging their blackboxes because they were talking about shutting him off.

[xBINARYGODx]

Calling the WAU either bad or good is simplistic at best. given that the other option is no life whatsoever on earth, possibly forever - I will take its experiments on the bottom of the ocean.

Even just the fish/etc life that was changed is good to have around - let it evolve to whatever it does.

[reaper]

Glad to see another SOMA video. Keep 'em up! I'll be waiting for the next episode :D

[conwaysquest]

It's a computer, It doesn't do what you want it to do, It does what you tell it to do.

[angryponyvulcanm]

The Wau, I believe is the perfect blue and orange Morality.

[silent_stalker]

It’s odd we keep referring to the WAU as ‘the WAU’ we keep forgetting it’s Simon Jared. :/ remember he was the template for AI design?
Also the WAU did have a voice originally, or I remember such dialogue and it sounding like Simon.

Some of this stuff was a bit off.
For a example the WAU didn’t intend initially to infect ocean creatures with structure gel.

Go to the Curie ‘how did it even get in here?’
To Ross ‘it’s bursting through the walls’

Now imagine if the Curie went off before the WAU got to it.

We can also see it’s making ‘flesh coral’ to likely make arms and so on for it to make bodies out of- Simon being a prototype of this in a way.
This theory is based on the demo of beta being a future part of the series. The fleshers in the demo probably come from the harvesting of the tumor like flesh growth in Theta.

So now back to current soma.

Since the fish seemed more aggressive given the WAU was seeking ways to control them like with the rat they later became likely influenced by it to serve its goals in a passive way however like the robot head woman it did not have full control over them and they likely acted on instinct to a way such as the leviathan did after it removed the threat of Ross.

[cappedminer]

thanks for making these videos. btw will you make these kinds of videos for movies too ?

[hunterhinojosa]

Moral of the story; Sometimes doing or being too much of something can cause more harm than good.

[TheHookBoy]

What about being “2 Legit 2 Quit?” 🤣
On a serious note, I’m glad you are covering this one.

[AndroidFerret]

This is such a horrible story.. so sad.