Simon Jarrett

“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

Simon Jarret
Born	July 16, 1988 Canada
Died	June 1, 2015 Aged 26 Toronto, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Residence	47 McCaul Street, Toronto, Canada
Friends	Dr. Catherine Chun Ashley Hall † Jesse †
Mother	Marie Jarrett †
Actor	Jared Zeus

Simon Jarrett is 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, about Simon.

Simon is an average Caucasian male with brown eyes and hair. 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.

Throughout SOMA, Simon has existed in four different forms. The first was his original human body from 100 years in the past. The second and third bodies he has occupied were the remains of Imogen Reed and Raleigh Herber (wearing a Haimatsu Ductile Suit and a Haimatsu Power Suit, respectively) after his consciousness is transferred to their respective suits via Pilot Seats. The fourth is a virtual recreation of his natural body on-board the ARK. Canada Before he was injured, Simon enjoyed watching television and playing video games. He worked at The Grimoire (a bookshop), with at least two friends (Ashley and Jesse). He's not very health-conscious, typically stocking his fridge with nothing but left-over takeout foods and frozen dinner meals. His apartment was somewhat cluttered but not outright messy, suggesting that he did clean but not thoroughly.

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's 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, 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 resultant treatment outright fails as the brain-scan model was not as desired, 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 then kept in storage, becoming a great legacy for Munshi's work. This version of Simon will gain a 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.

He wanders throughout the Upsilon facility, meeting several robots called Mockingbirds, brain scans in robots that cause the robots to "believe" they are the human that received the brain scan. He soon meets the Construct, who tries to kill Simon. After escaping the robot, Simon meets the brain scan of Carl Semken and can choose to pull a switch, which causes great pain in the robot, or turn off the power, resulting in a quick death of the robot and the Construct chasing after Simon. After he gets to the comms center, he talks to Catherine, a supposed human, and the room floods soon after. Catherine quickly gives directions to Site Lambda, where she is located. As the room floods, it is when Simon first sees what his mind, up to that point, refuse to acknowledge: he was not in his own body but within a kind of suit, allowing him to breath under water.

After Simon meets Amy Azzaro and a Scavenger he soon meets Catherine Chun, herself a brain scan on a Cortex Chip attached to a robot. Simon learns she is not human and is disappointed that she is another mockingbird. Simon learns, to his disgust, that he's inhabiting a Cortex Chip attached to deceased PATHOS-II employee Imogen Reed in a Haimatsu Ductile Suit; the chip and the necessary components for personality simulation were simply "shoved through the skull" and bound to Reed's corpse using Structure Gel. The resulting body is humanoid but has a pair of swivelling robotic cameras inside the helmet instead of a face.

A site-wide AI, the WAU, was responsible for Simon's resurrection. Humanity is nearly extinct, and the WAU's attempts at preservation are mostly generating aggressive, zombie-like monsters. Catherine tells Simon she has a better idea, and a way to escape: a project called the ARK, a virtual utopia where scans of human minds can survive, floating in space and powered by solar energy. Simon transfers Catherine's chip to an Omnitool he carries and the pair attempt to reach the Abyss, where the ARK is stored.

Mind transfer at Omicron

Simon and Catherine eventually find a Haimatsu Power Suit in the Omicron complex, with Raleigh Herber's corpse inside of it. 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 structure gel, Simon is forced into a confrontation with the Robot Girl, 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 to live a doomed life inside Omicron. 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 Dr. Johan Ross who suddenly climbed down in all fours 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 will find several corpses while traversing the dark and harsh terrain illuminated with only lights used to repel the mutated marine animals, like the Anglerfish, the Viperfish, and Leviathan. When Simon is nearing Tau, his vision starts to glitch after seeing a shadow of a WAU monster. It seems to be able to teleport; quickly disappearing out of sight only to reappear closer, thus making it quite a threat, though it will not follow Simon after he arrives in front of Tau.

The site is quite dark and has narrow halls, with air-locked doors installed in some places. Opening the first of the air-locked doors will find Simon suddenly facing the mutated body of Jin Yoshida in a Haimatsu Power Suit. It's quite strong and has keen senses, making Simon can't hide for long. After successfully escaping the monster, Simon will find a spacious room housing the staffs' quarters; one of them belonging to Johan Ross who has info pertaining site Alpha in his room. Simon could find the re-animated body of Nicolai Ivashkin, and the dead body of Ian Pedersen in some of the other rooms. Later, Simon find the Infirmary where Sarah Lindwall, the supposedly last human alive, has been guarding the ARK. She is seemingly surprised, and later becomes suspicious regarding the intention of Simon coming to Tau. After Sarah has given the ARK to Simon, she will ask for death. Simon can either accept the request or ignore it. With the ARK on hand, Simon would be able to transfer it to Phi using the crane for the cargo transport system located in the Dive Room. After that, Simon could exit site Tau, heading into the tunnel while following the crane carrying the ARK.

Finding Alpha

Along the way into the tunnel heading to Phi, Simon faces an obstruction, thus he has to retrace, and find an alternate route. Suddenly, Johan Ross appears while standing near a hole in the tunnel's wall. It leads to a long narrow tunnel made of rocks which actually contains the classified site Alpha. Ross then explained that humanity's mistakes starts from here, meaning the creation of WAU which core has grown humongous, with deep seated roots taking over the site. After arriving at the big room housing the heart of WAU, Johan physically appears again, and implores Simon to destroy it with the modified Structure Gel inside the Haimatsu Power Suit, ending it once and for all. If Simon does so, he needs to stick his left forearm inside WAU's mouth which then proceeds to devour the limb, becoming amputated after the process. If Simon refuses, Ross will try to force him to do as he is told. In any case, Ross is eaten by Leviathan shortly thereafter, killing him.

Arrival at Phi

After arriving in Phi, Simon has to locate the ARK after its arrival from Tau. He needs to use a battery pack to open several air-locked doors within the site, including the one which has the ARK. The battery later will be used again to operate the room containing the Space Gun's shell and the dead human body of Catherine Chun. Simon found out that the original Catherine was killed by her colleague, Ian Pedersen, who claimed that it was an accident, after an escalating debate between her and the others in regards of launching the ARK. Catherine insisted in launching it while the others decided to delay the launch, especially Ian, in fear of the ARK getting damaged going through the Earth's atmosphere. The current Catherine was in disbelief, believing that her teammates didn't like her, thus they were able to kill her and leave. Simon thinks that it was more of an accident, trying to calm Catherine down. Not long after, they decides to just focus on putting the ARK inside the shell.

Before launching the ARK, Simon has to use a Pilot Seat in the Launch Dome to manually transfer the shell, loading it into the Space Gun. After that, Simon will be asked by Catherine to launch the shell, though he will ask the process of the scan transfer first. Catherine then explains that while launching the shell, the Pilot Seat will scan and copy their data from their cortex chip and upload them to the ARK immediately. After Simon's confirmation, Catherine begins uploading both of their brain scans into the device and prepares the ARK to be launched into space via the Omega Space Gun. The brain scan uploads finish just in time for the successful launch, but Simon is confused to find that they're both still on Earth. Catherine explains that - much like what happened at Omicron - their minds were copied to the ARK, not transferred. This time, he is the consciousness that lost the "coin toss" and got left behind, same as the former Simon.

Furious, Simon berates, also curses Catherine for not having fully clarified that this would happen, and a frustrated Catherine berates him for his "ignorance" and refusal to accept reality, even though she has explained time and again. The stress of the argument overloads Catherine's Cortex Chip and destroys it, leaving Simon alone and desperately pleading to her to not leave him, even though only a black screen answers him back. His ultimate fate is left unknown.

On the ARK

Meanwhile, the copied Catherine and the blissfully unaware Simon brain scans who are uploaded to the ARK meet each other, rejoicing as the ARK leaves Earth. The ARK can be seen slowly disappearing into the space, getting smaller and smaller until it is no longer seen.

Related Achievements

	A New You
	Changed body at Omicron

Behind the Scenes

Simon is extremely sensitive toward electromagnetism generated by various entities and objects but most notably by WAU-creatures. It both distorts visual and auditory senses. This sensitivity can explain various phenomena, such as Johan Ross' invisibility and the Flesher's teleportation, due to the serious impact on Simon's systems.

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.

Gallery

Pre-release

Concept art of Simon's Haimatsu Ductile Suit form.

Simon's early robot appearance.

SOMA

Simon's reflection in a rear-view car mirror. Note the visible brain haemorrhaging.

Simon's hands on the steering wheel as he's driving, right before the crash.

A photo of Simon and Ashley in front of The Grimoire bookstore.

Simon, reincarnated in 2104 in Imogen Reed's body

Simon as he appears on one of the player death slides.

Simon Jarrett - Unconscious at Omicron.png

Simon's Haimatsu Ductile Suit form sitting unconscious at Omicron, seen by Simon after he's copied over into his Haimatsu Power Suit form.