Frictional Games Forum (read-only)

SPOILERISH!!!!
So i recently read the book Brave New World for my english class and it talks of soma as a drug that causes people to be happy but the happiness is artificial so my idea is maybe they called the game soma because of either A:everyone AI and its artificial and stuff or B: the ark and the fake world provides artificial happiness too

anyways this is just a thought i had if anyone know exactly why its called soma let me know!

(10-09-2015, 06:40 AM)Cuub Wrote: [ -> ]SPOILERISH!!!!
So i recently read the book Brave New World for my english class and it talks of soma as a drug that causes people to be happy but the happiness is artificial so my idea is maybe they called the game soma because of either A:everyone AI and its artificial and stuff

Hi,

According to Thomas Grip, this is the meaning they went for:

Quote:What you have is a word that stands for both the physical body and the immaterial mind.

[Source]

In an older interview, Thomas said that it's not related to the fictional drug from Brave New World:

Quote:KG: While there’s a lot of different fictional and real world references to “SOMA,” I have to ask since it was the only one I knew: does it have anything to do with Aldous Huxley’s fictional drug?

TG: Interesting how much this has been brought up! I have read the novel but the name of the drug never stuck to my mind. Afraid there is no real connection between the two.

[Source]

I had wondered if there was also some in-universe double meaning where it was an acronym for something but I guess the caps are just a stylistic thing?

Soma is also the cell body of a neuron (brain cell).