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You know what sucks about dying? The crash. Everything up till now. The brain damage, you guys, everything—it has made my life so much more real. I started thinking about all the things I was going to do. I'd never been more excited to be alive! All that hope... wasted.
Simon Jarrett[src]
Simon Jarrett
Simon Jarrett
Born
July 16, 1988
Unknown, poss. Canada
Died
June 1, 2015
Aged 26
Toronto, Canada
Nationality
Canada Canadian
Residence
47 McCaul Street, Toronto, Canada
Height
198 cm (6′ 6″)[1]
Weight
82 kg (180 lb)[1]
Blood type
AB[1]
Friends
Dr. Catherine Chun
Ashley Hall
Mother
Marie Jarrett[2]

Actor Jared Zeus
Face
Philipp Zimmermann

Simon Jarrett was a Canadian literature and film enthusiast. He is the protagonist of SOMA.

Description[]

All those simplistic minds we've run into. Just reviving a dead person doesn't seem to work that well. A robot body seems to make people a bit... unreliable. You are the best of both worlds. A sound mind in a sound body.
Dr. Catherine Chun

Simon Jarrett is a white-skinned Canadian man with brown eyes and brown hair. His height and weight is 198 cm (6′ 6″) and 82 kg (180 lb), and his blood type is AB.[1] We see Simon's face at two points in the game—once in an introductory flashback, and once in a photograph found in Simon's Apartment depicting him and Ashley Hall.

Prior to his brain injury, Simon enjoyed watching television and playing video games. He worked at a bookshop called The Grimoire with his friends Ashley and Jesse. He may not have appeared particularly health-conscious, with his apartment being primarily stocked with fast food; from left-over takeout to frozen dinner meals, but this may be a result of the crash, and he makes a comment that he'll buy something healthier on the way home from his scan appointment. His apartment was somewhat cluttered but not outright messy, and the clutter could again be excused with the crash.

Simon used to be very easygoing at the beginning of the game. He was only slightly subdued and cautious due to his injury, which caused him headaches and pain, and could make him pass out if he got too stressed. If his stress was prolonged, he ran the risk of dying due to the swelling of his brain and the resulting bleeding, so he tried his best to limit the stimuli he was exposed to. He refused to turn his television on, and did not seem to keep a radio in his apartment, other than the one attached to his clock.

Biography[]

Simon Jarrett was a young man who lived and worked in Toronto, Canada; being a Canadian native, possibly even have grown up in Toronto. Not much is known about his upbringing, although he seems to have a loving and caring mother if the get well soon card on his desk is any indication. It's likely that he's an only child, as no mention of siblings is ever made, even when he brings up his past and friends from Toronto (Jesse, Sean, and Kevin), and a father is never mentioned.

He worked at a comic shop called The Grimoire with several friends and appeared to be in charge or at least in a managerial position, able to take days off with little notice other than word-of-mouth and a late email.

Before the game's events, Simon and a co-worker, Ashley Hall, were in a car accident caused by a mother of three running a red light and crashing into Simon's car due to being distracted by her children. Ashley died on the scene, suffocated by the blood that had flooded her lungs, and Simon was severely injured; he suffered brain damage and occasional bleeding from the head (typically along the frontal hairline), caused by his brain swelling and pressing against his skullcap. Due to this condition, his life expectancy was measured in months without treatment.

In SOMA[]

As a result of his brain damage, Simon was contacted by Ph.D. student David Munshi, who asked him to take part in a brain scan that could assist him in his project on brain reconstruction, hoping that it could benefit people with brain damage and would help Simon expand his limited monthly life to years and even decades. Simon then volunteered and had his brain scanned by Munshi; however, the resulting treatment fails, causing Simon's brain to weaken and his body falls under a critical condition a month later. While on his death bed, Simon suggested that Munshi could use his brain scan for his research. Munshi took in Simon's suggestion, and so the scan was kept in storage, becoming a great legacy for Munshi's work. This version of Simon will gain consciousness 100 years later in a largely abandoned facility called PATHOS-II, with no memory of the intervening time and no understanding of what or where he is.

Upsilon and Lambda[]

Disoriented, Simon wanders from the scan room to retrieve an Omnitool which he uses to bypass a security lock, allowing access to the rest of Upsilon. From there, he encounters his first Mockingbirds, a WAU node, which must be interacted with to progress. After exiting to the vents Simon enters the control room for the Thermal Power Plant where Vigdis Jonsdottir's Mockingbird rests, seemingly unaware of its surroundings. Simon disconnects the Mockingbird from the control board who pleads with Simon to reconnect it before dying.

Now able to power up the Thermal Power Plant, Simon is contacted by a woman, later revealed to be Catherine Chun, who tells him to look for the comms center. He soon meets the Construct, who tries to kill Simon. After escaping the Construct, Simon meets Carl Semken's Mockingbird and can choose to pull a switch which electrocutes Carl, or turn off the power, resulting in Carl's death and another encounter with the Construct.

After he gets to the comms center, he talks to Catherine, and the room floods soon after. Catherine quickly gives directions to site Lambda, where she is located. As the room floods, Simon first sees what his mind had refused to acknowledge up to that point: he was not in his own body but within a kind of suit, allowing him to breathe underwater.

Simon traverses the seafloor and enters the shuttle station at Upsilon B. There he meets Amy Azzaro, kept alive by the WAU, the AI warden of PATHOS-II. He can choose to leave Amy alive or unplug her from the WAU, killing her. Simon then rides a shuttle, which crashes near Lambda, so he walks the rest of the way. In Lambda he meets Catherine Chun, who to his disappointment is a robot containing a brain scan of her. Simon learns, to his disgust, that he is a robot himself.

Catherine explains that a comet wiped out the surface of Earth, and the only surviving people were the PATHOS-II crew members. In an attempt to save Humanity, Catherine created an AR capsule called the ARK, containing the brain scans of most crew members. The Catherine that Simon meets in Lambda is the result of an early scan Catherine performed on herself. As such, she has no knowledge of any events following the scan.

Catherine discovers that the ARK hadn't been launched into space, as she had hoped. Instead, it is located at site Tau. Catherine and Simon decide to travel to find the ARK and launch it into space at site Phi. Simon takes Catherine's cortex chip and inserts it into his Omnitool, allowing him to carry Catherine with him.

After leaving Lambda, Simon finds an emergency vessel from a ship called the CURIE. He plans to travel to site Theta with the vessel, but finds out that it's broken. Simon finds and explores the CURIE in search of a working vessel, avoiding a Flesher. He is extremely sensitive to the electromagnetism generated by it and other creatures mutated by the WAU, distorting his visual and auditory systems. This may explain various phenomena such as the Flesher's teleportation.

The ship is being held together by the WAU, so Simon destabilizes the reactor in order to release the vessel. Catherine pilots the vessel toward Theta but the CURIE explodes, pushing it off the plateau. The vessel lands near site Delta.

Theta[]

At Delta, Simon calls a zeppelin which he and Catherine ride to Theta. Upon arrival they find the DUNBAT, a submarine they plan to use to reach site Tau, located deep within the Omega Sector. However, the DUNBAT is quarantined and requires a security cipher. Simon and Catherine find a brain scan of Brandon Wan, a member of the Theta security group. They activate a simulation containing Brandon's scan several times to persuade him to tell them the cipher, but to no avail. They finally learn the cipher when Catherine impersonates Alice Koster in the simulation.

The quarantine is lifted, but when Simon attempts to activate the DUNBAT, it is revealed to be a Mockingbird. The vessel panics and disappears into the ocean. Simon crawls through the vents and finds himself in a laboratory. There, he scans his body. Simon's robot body is revealed to be Imogen Reed's corpse in a diving suit containing some electronics.

In Theta's laboratory area, Simon must activate an elevator leading down to Theta Maintenance. He reformats a chip taken from Brandon Wan's body, all the while avoiding a heavily mutated Terry Akers. He manages to ride the elevator, but at the bottom he is attacked by Akers, rendered unconscious.

Simon briefly has a vision of Ashley Hall, but soon wakes up and finds himself stuck to some mind coral. He manages to free himself and traverses the rest of Theta Maintenance, encountering several Proxies. Eventually, he flushes himself out of Theta using a sewer leading to just outside Omicron.

Mind transfer at Omicron[]

Simon attempts to enter Omicron but finds it quarantined. In Omicron Substation 3, he is sent a code by Johan Ross, which Simon uses to lift the lockdown and enter the site.

In the dive room, Simon and Catherine find a Haimatsu Power Suit containing the corpse of Raleigh Herber. Catherine informs Simon that they need to transfer his mind from the Haimatsu Ductile Suit into the Power Suit so they can safely traverse the Abyss; Simon reluctantly agrees. The suit is heavily damaged, and Simon must scavenge Omicron for the parts needed to repair it. While searching the site, Simon begins suffering several hallucinations involving Johan Ross, who is attempting to subliminally persuade Simon to stop the WAU.

After acquiring a Cortex Chip, an Energy Pal S.3, and some uncalibrated Structure Gel, Simon is forced into a confrontation with the Robot Head, who chases him back to the suit station. Catherine shuts the door behind Simon at his urging, trapping the monster outside the room.

The brain scan is successful and Simon wakes up in the Haimatsu Power Suit, but he quickly realizes he's a copy. To his horror, there are now two Simons, one in the Haimatsu Ductile Suit and another in the Power Suit. The Simon in the Power Suit must choose to either deactivate the Ductile Suit and kill the version of himself inhabiting it or to leave it alive. Either way, Simon and Catherine head to the Climber and to the Abyss inside the Haimatsu Power Suit.

Descent to the Abyss and Arrival at Tau[]

While riding the Climber down to the Abyss, a power surge takes place and Simon is confronted by Johan Ross, who climbed down from the ceiling of the machinery. Ross expresses delight at Simon's progress, saying that he will prepare for Simon's arrival in Tau.

After arriving in the Abyss, Simon traverses the dark and harsh terrain illuminated by only lights used to repel the mutated marine animals. After encounters with Viperfish and an Anglerfish, Simon reaches the entrance to site Tau.

In Tau, Simon finds a reanimated version of Jin Yoshida in a Haimatsu Power Suit. It pursues Simon relentlessly, but he manages to evade it and enter the staff quarters. There, he finds Sarah Lindwall, possibly the last living Human on Earth. Lindwall has been guarding the ARK, and lets Simon take it. She asks Simon to deactivate her life support; Simon has the choice to either accept her request or ignore it.

With the ARK finally found, Simon leaves Tau. He uses the cargo transport system to transport the ARK to site Phi.

Finding Alpha[]

In the tunnel heading to site Phi, Simon's way is blocked by some rubble. He turns back, and Johan Ross appears in front of him, having somehow created a hole in the tunnel's wall. Simon enters the hole, which leads to the classified site Alpha.

Ross explains how the creation of the WAU was a mistake. He leads Simon to the center of Alpha, containing the heart of the WAU. He pleads with Simon to destroy it by pushing his arm inside it and infecting it with the uncalibrated structure gel. Simon can choose to follow Ross' instructions or simply leave the site. If he chooses to destroy the WAU, it rips his arm off and he is knocked unconscious. If he chooses to leave, Ross teleports him back.

Either way, Ross attempts to attack Simon; if he destroyed the WAU, Ross claims that Simon is the only robot still immune to the new structure gel. If he refused to destroy it, Ross tries to force him to. However, he is interrupted by the Leviathan, who kills him and gives Simon an opportunity to escape to site Phi.

Arrival at Phi[]

After arriving at site Phi, Simon locates the ARK and loads it into a shell. In the same room, he finds the dead body of Catherine Chun, accidentally killed by Ian Pedersen after she chose to launch the ARK into space.

Before launching the ARK, Simon uses a Pilot Seat to move the shell into the Omega Space Gun. Catherine scans her and Simon's brains, while simultaneously beginning the launch process. The scans upload just in time. The launch is successful, but Simon is confused as to why he is not on the ARK. Catherine explains that like at Omicron, he was copied, not transferred.

Simon is furious and lashes out at Catherine for not fully explaining what would happen. The stress of the argument causes Catherine's Cortex Chip to overload, destroying it. Simon is left alone at Phi, desperately pleading with Catherine not to leave him. Simon's ultimate fate is left unknown.

On the ARK[]

Meanwhile the copied versions of Catherine and Simon, blissfully unaware of what happened on Earth, rejoice as they meet each other in person on the ARK. The ARK can be seen slowly disappearing into space, becoming smaller and smaller until it is no longer seen.

Related Achievements[]

A New You A New You
Changed body at Omicron

Behind the Scenes[]

Simon Jarrett is voiced by Jared Zeus, who has most notably played in Star Wars Battlefront 2015, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Anthem alongside Nell Mooney (Dr. Catherine Chun).

A post on the Official blog of Frictional Games was published on July 16, 2018 "Celebrating the 30th birthday of Simon Jarrett," being a compilation of fan-created content dedicated to Simon and referencing his birth date mentioned in the game.[3]

Gallery[]

Pre-release[]

Photos[]

In SOMA[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Tracer Fluid prescription label Prescription label on the bottle of Gadutan-755.
  2. From the name of the gravestone for Simon's dead mother, which was originally going to appear in the dream sequence that occurs in the lower levels of Theta.
  3. "Celebrating the 30th birthday of Simon Jarrett"
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