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| “ | Where is the line drawn for what is human and what is not? Would walking corpses do? Would a group of machines thinking they're human be acceptable? We can't trust a machine to know, to understand what it means to be. | „ |
| ~ Johan Ross |
The Warden Unit, commonly referred to as WAU, is the main antagonist of the survival horror game SOMA, as well as its prequel mini-series Transmissions. The WAU is a powerful, controlling AI during the events in both the game and mini-series.
The creation of WAU was meant to automatically oversee maintenance of an underwater complex known as PATHOS-II. Its primary operator was Johan Ross. The AI is capable of making brain scans and replicating human intelligence into robotic bodies, but because the AI couldn't understand the nature of what it means to be human, it ends up creating hostile, undead entities that act as the game's enemies.
The true catalyst of the WAU's ever-spreading corruption is the result of a substance known as Structure Gel. Because of this, the WAU acts as a "heart" that spreads the chemical all over PATHOS-II, corrupting and mutating everything in its path.
History[]
On March 7, 2012. Johan Ross was mentioned in a letter regarding the man to be able to control the WAU without interference. A catastrophic, world-ending event known as the "Impact Event", which was Earth suffering from the impact of a comet, wiping out all biological life on the planet. Because of this, WAU's objective became to preserve humanity in any way it could.
WAU is seen as a suspended sphere made of white organic matter, but was modified with a substance known as "Structure Gel", a self-repairing technological gel that can repair electronic damage, but can cause severe damage to biological life that's exposed to too much of it.
In WAU's effort to preserve humanity, it created brain scans and placed that intelligence into robots known as "Mockingbirds", but as mentioned before, WAU has no definition of what it means to be human, and therefore created robots with cognitive dissonance who are confused and not fully aware of the nature of their existence.
Some unfortunate workers in the underwater complex are seen in a comatose state.
In Transmissions[]
Taking place before the events of SOMA, the beginnings of WAU's sadistic nature is seen emerging. It causes complete destruction of the Lambda Crew, either by directly killing crew members or by reanimating/possessing them and having them kill each other.
Imogen Reed attempts to eliminate WAU by shutting down a geothermal generator, only for WAU to power itself back on some time later.
In SOMA[]
Once the game begins, the genocidal damage done by WAU is seen across the complex; far worse than what was seen in Transmissions. Some crew members are seen long dead, in a trapped and comatose state or malformed into one of the enemies of the game. Those who are comatose are seemingly in a pleasant mental state, as if having good dreams. The WAU's creations also extend to aquatic creatures, as many malformed fish are seen when the player walks the open waters. These fish are that have the same metallic tentacles and glowing blues lights as the WAU's other creations, with nearly all of them having animate human faces on them. These creatures also act as enemies throughout the game. The most striking change is done to a large squid, completely reshaping it to that of a giant worm and increasing its hostility. This creature is known as the Leviathan.
The main protagonist of the game, Simon Jarrett, is a brain scan of his original self before the Impact Event, but placed in a robotic body (based on that of Imogen Reed). Though Simon is created by WAU, he isn't controlled by it, nor does he have any of the negative or grotesque effects that Structure Gel brings. Towards of the end of the game, a phantom-like apparition of Johan Ross begins to appear to Simon, telling him he must destroy the WAU and that Simon's body contains a chemical, poisonous composition that can permanently destroy the WAU.
When Simon reaches the very core of WAU, it is the player's decision to stick their arm inside WAU's core and destroy it. If the player chooses to do so, Simon will violently lose an arm in the process. Either choice does not dramatically affect the plot or ending of the game. Although this is not seen during gameplay, killing the WAU would likely kill off anyone that was previously left comatose by the WAU.
Personality[]
| “ | No no, it's not like that. The A.I. isn't a persona, it doesn't feel or think like we do. It's more like... it's more like a cancer. | „ |
| ~ Catherine Chun on the WAU's nature. |
The Warden Unit is very enigmatic, as it never communicates or speaks directly to anyone in any way. Whether it realizes it's causing harm or not is never touched upon, due to it not understanding the fundamentals of what it means to be human. It also does not directly interact with anyone, instead using systems it gains access to, as well as creating deformed monstrosities that attack anyone nearby. All enemies created by it are mindless, uncommunicative and extremely hostile.
In Transmissions, the WAU appears to be much more active and malicious. An example of this is that it lures a crew member closer to it by taking the form of his deceased daughter, hinting that WAU intentionally manipulates others with its knowledge of people, likely using the brain scans of people to get this info.
There is no concrete evidence that the WAU has any malicious intent of any kind, and the reason that its creations are hostile have to do with the end result of how they're created, rather than what the WAU is intending to create. The negative effects of the structure gel are the driving factor in the enemies' mutations and behavior, as there are many creations from the WAU that are not hostile.
Catherine Chun explains that the WAU has no form or concept of thought, but simply tries to follow a set of instructions. Given the corruption of the structure gel, its influence becomes increasingly warped and spreads throughout many areas of the game in a grotesque and disturbing way. Despite Chun's claims, there does seem to be evidence of the WAU having some form of sentience, as it deliberately finds ways to achieve its goals and even kill people. One example of this is when (before the events of the game) the WAU purposely overloads a group of Omicron staff members' black boxes with a powerful electromagnetic interference, causing all of their heads to explode. This happens when the WAU finds out that the leader of these particular staff members had the intention to destroy the WAU.
Another example is in the Transmissions series, when it releases a gunfire-like blast from a wall right when a staff member's head was right up against it, nearly killing her. The AI also creates an image of a staff member's daughter in an attempt to lure him to his death.
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