[SPOILERS] SOMA unsolved mysteries thread

[Mudbill]

What the game doesn't explicitly tell you is that when you step in the chair to be scanned as Simon-1, the gameplay changes to another entity. It's almost like it's changing the main character, the protagonist, to a completely different person, except it's still the same character because it's the same persona in the mind.

After Simon gets scanned, he steps out of the chair with Munshi still in the room, and life goes on for a while. But the game's focus has placed you into the mind of another copy of Simon 100 years into the future. What this Simon (whom we refer to as Simon-2, although he could be any number) perceives is that he steps into the scan chair, gets scanned and then wakes up in Pathos-II. Why? Because his perception is a continuation of where it left off.

The scan created a point in time where the two Simons split into different entities and different minds. This is the same as when you copy yourself again in Omicron. The only difference is that the original scan put into Simon-2 was suspended for 100 years before enabled, but Simon-2 never experienced this rift in time (just like Catherine in the Omnitool) so to him it seemed instant.