Without the WAU, every creature controlled by the WAU will eventually die off (Including Simon). The dilemma here is - the WAU could theoretically learn one day to make more people like Simon, and it may be possible to rebuild society using it. Just a new generation of society - more robotic.
Theoretically it may also be possible some of the people "revived" will have the expertise to remake humanity using biotechnology.

Ross is against this possibility and is more worried about the WAU infecting the natural ecosystem and causing more trouble than it already has, so he wants to destroy it once and for all, even if it means that humanity will not get a chance to survive afterwards (on earth).

The reason Ross wanted to kill Simon from what I remember is that Simon is sort of like a walking corrupted structure gel that tries its best to live (as the structure gel in the new suit from Omicron is exactly that, which is why it helps poison the WAU at the end). Simon can theoretically help the WAU indirectly develop a tolerance to the corruption, restoring the WAU.

Originally posted by Slithersy:

the WAU could theoretically learn one day to make more people like Simon, and it may be possible to rebuild society using it. Just a new generation of society - more robotic.

Is this ever implied in the game? To me it seemed like the WAU was following its primary directive the whole time, and wasn't even trying to remake humanity, just preserve it no matter how.

Because if that was the case then sure, it does actually sound like a better alternative, having robots with human minds walking around is definitely more real than having a simulation like the ARK.

I guess I didn't connect those dots while playing the game. As soon as Ross started hacking the terminals and asking me to destroy the WAU, I was on his side. At no point I felt like the WAU could be redeemed.

Originally posted by Eourist:

Originally posted by Slithersy:

the WAU could theoretically learn one day to make more people like Simon, and it may be possible to rebuild society using it. Just a new generation of society - more robotic.

Is this ever implied in the game? To me it seemed like the WAU was following its primary directive the whole time, and wasn't even trying to remake humanity, just preserve it no matter how.

Because if that was the case then sure, it does actually sound like a better alternative, having robots with human minds walking around is definitely more real than having a simulation like the ARK.

I guess I didn't connect those dots while playing the game. As soon as Ross started hacking the terminals and asking me to destroy the WAU, I was on his side. At no point I felt like the WAU could be redeemed.

It's not implied in the game but it's a fan-base speculation of the theoretical events after the game. The game kind of leaves you with the thought of why not to kill the WAU (other than to sacrifice a hand), instead of explaining it to you.

To be honest I do wish it was more talked about to the player so it would've been a more significant decision to most players. Killing the WAU is a no-brainer without this theoretical outcome.

@Eourist I am kinda curious what you thought when killing the WAU. Why could the WAU not be redeemed?

Originally posted by 0x2A:

@Eourist I am kinda curious what you thought when killing the WAU. Why could the WAU not be redeemed?

Honestly, I was expecting the game to go in a completely different direction. I though we would get to choose whether to launch the ARK or not, with the WAU being an argument against preserving humanity at any cost.
Essentially, I started seeing similarities between the WAU and the ARK, both desperate attempts to keep humanity alive, depending on your definitions of "humanity" and "alive".
The game kept asking the same question "can a machine be alive?" and in my opinion, and given what we see in the game, the answer is either no, or yes, but that's a terrible thing and we should avoid it. So I expected the final choice to be whether to launch the ARK or not, and our decision with the WAU (destroying it or keeping it on) would somehow affect the ending.

I still liked the ending though, the only thing I didn't get was this choice about killing the WAU or not, hence this post.

*warning, spoilers*

Originally posted by Slithersy:

Theoretically it may also be possible some of the people "revived" will have the expertise to remake humanity using biotechnology.

This is a good point, and going through the logs, I got the idea that the WAU had actually reached a point of homeostasis.

That said, I'm a big scifi nut, and have been for decades, I was first introduced to some of the concepts here with the "known space" series, which involved the duplication of people.

Also, being familiar with satellite technology and everything, the satellite launched at the end would be lucky to last a couple centuries, not eons. Not much of an extension on humanity's legacy.

I decided against killing the WAU explicity for this reason. The WAU, not the satellite, is more likely to leave a lasting legacy.

That said, with enough processing power and intelligence, the ARK could provide a reservoir of people (even if not human) that, removed from the daily grind of trying to live under the sea with dying infrastructure, could figure out something to *fix* the WAU, even if it has to be done via radio command.

Though I'd still prefer that the ARK met up with some sort of space station with some manufacturing capacity. There should be some up there if we went through the effort of building a subsea railgun to launch satellites, right?

The WAU corrupted everything it touched. Its creatures were clearly suffering. It posed an existential risk to the remaining natural world. Without the WAU, the earth still has millennia of natural peace and potential evolution ahead of it.

Leaving a cancer to eat and corrupt nature until the end of the planet is a fitting legacy for humans, but it isn't a good one. I don't see any justification for leaving the WAU alive.

I agree that point of the game felt really weird, because the choice felt so obvious and then it was barely acknowledged afterward. But it's nice that it was given, because the ending feels super hopeful to me, that the world might eventually return to how it was before humans.

Some people might have missed this but the wau is super advanced, it's not just a cancer. It actually created the ARK in the first place. You can find it in Catherine's locker, in her room at theta. She copied the wau's prototype to make the ARK. it's actively trying to remake human beings physically. Its easy to miss stuff in the darkness. Turn your brightness to max. The wau is not just trying to make robot humans. It's trying to make real flesh and blood humans. The fish in the abyss near the wau (angler, giant squid, and schools of fish) all have human faces and limbs growing on the sides of them.
Right at the start of the game. The robot that does the first jump-scare, has a wau created human-like hand, neck, and legs. The robot hanging from the ceiling in that same room, has a fleshy organic human-like face that looks like its perpetually screaming, it even has a nose and eyeballs. I never noticed until now. At theta and delta, you can see animations of the wau growing. It looks like the roots of a plant going through the earth. I think it would eventually take over the entire earth Dead-Space style.