THE "ANNA GRAHAM" THEORY - Simulacra Game

THE "ANNA GRAHAM" THEORY
(...get it?)
by @nonono - Simulacra Discord
12/14/2019

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Here's my theory about the game Simulacra and how Anna (and the whole story) might not be quite what they seems. Spoilers for all games in the series obviously - as of writing, this is Simulacra, Pipe Dreams, and Simulacra 2. This comes just from my own take on the story after finishing the series, and is still being ironed out a bit.

This theory is predicated on a few assumptions:

1. Anna's vlog titled "What is Love" ends with an unknown male saying "cut," which Anna acknowledges. For this theory, this "cut" is assumed to be intentional and not a dev goof.

2. Anna's company, Faraday Safety, is assumed to be a subsidiary (however many tiers down the line) of IRIS. Maybe most employees aren't aware of this, but somewhere along the chain Faraday is owned by IRIS.

3. "Anna," "Greg," and "Ashley" all work for Faraday / IRIS.
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So let's get started. Anna is not a dumb girl working for a smart company. She is a smart girl working for a smarter company. Her whole "I'm just working this highly specialized and nuanced position at a tech surveillance company until I can become a vet" doesn't make much sense. That job isn't Starbucks. It's something you get into because you have something better to do. I worked in digital forensics and investigative work for ten years and it's not the kind of thing you just accidentally stumble into.

Anna's initial goal is to track down the Simulacra on Spark. We'll call this SIM I to differentiate it from the other Simulacra in the series. She knows it feeds on lonely introverts, so she purposefully cultivates this persona on the phone seen in the game along with her confidants, "Greg" and "Ashley." In real life, when you set up a cover identity, you do so with a group. You set up a whole social circle of personas that can help establish alibis and backstories for each other. This is why Anna has "Ashley" and "Greg" and seemingly nobody else in her pictures and in her life. She's creating the type of persona she knows SIM I will go for, and knowing that SIM I can likely see anything on a phone it infects (including private chats), she makes sure she isn't sloppy about doing so.

The "What is Love" vlog has the "cut" line because it was one of many elements being crafted to help her create the perfect bait for SIM I. And it worked. She found her Simulacra in James Aulner, but underestimated her own abilities and exactly what a rogue malevolant AI-turned-cosmic-horror can do.

At this point she becomes a real victim - that wasn't part of the initial plan. We know that Gateway 31 / IRIS has been looking on Spark for SIM I before; there's even a transcript in one of the games about an operative who does just what Anna does in this theory by creating a fake profile and accidentally falling victim to it. This establishes conclusively that IRIS/G31 were purposefully using pretexting and cultivated personas on Spark to find SIM I, and were also falling victim to it. So why would Anna's case be any different?

At this time, "Ashley" and "Greg" are faced with plan B. They know the Anna persona phone is heavily under the sway of SIM I. They still need to find it. Maybe they want to find their coworker too, or maybe they are fine with writing her off as collateral damage. Either way, that's why the phone shows up on your doorstep. Of course they won't mess with it themselves - they're already too close, and they aren't stupid. They can give it to an unwitting guinea pig and simply observe.

Hence, the player.

Note that "Ashley" and "Greg" are constantly steering the plot but seemingly at odds with each other. This is a valid tactic for manipulating people - give them the illusion of choice or allegiance against a perceived "enemy." Throw a prisoner in a cell with a confederate posing as a "fellow inmate" and use the dynamic between the "inmates" and the guards to build trust in the subject. This is why Ashley and Greg are at odds with each other - they use it to steer the player toward provoking SIM I. Greg's "accidental" wipe wasn't about his alleged affair - it was a method of waking SIM I up further because as IRIS/G31 operatives, they know exactly what that phone wipe would do. That's also why it still happens if you get the security questions right; he just launches it anyway.

Throughout all of this, Taylor is just another patsy being used by IRIS/G31 to observe SIM I. He is clearly being targeted by SIM I, and the player is a safe patsy for Ashley and Greg to use to interact with the situation, so they do just that. And knowing how Simulacra operate, they engineer a situation to where the player can seem appealing to SIM I - with Greg's fake arrest (a common "out" of an undercover situation in real life) and Ashley's contrived love confession. It wasn't part of the plan, but with the player acting like such a social chameleon they realized they could punt yet again and maybe salvage the whole disaster by turning the whole thing into a training exercise for SIM I.

The possibility of getting Anna back was a bonus, of course, but either way they could track down their target and maybe turn the whole thing into a way of refining the next version, which clearly happens in the subsequent games.

We also know that in canon, Maya gets a Spark message from Taylor, where he constantly encourages her to meet him on a rooftop (like James Aulner) which Maya finds rightfully creepy. That means that even in the good ending, Taylor's "date" with Anna doesn't go well in the long term. Why? Because she's still an IRIS/G31 operative. She now knows that his sad jokes and fixation on public urination make him prime prey for SIM I, so what's the eventual aftermath of that date? He's used as bait yet again to catch SIM I after the "training exercise." No need to risk an IRIS/G31 employee when you've got your bait wanting to do backflips through flaming hoops for you. Why not eliminate a witness and accomplish your goal at the same time?

And you thought you were SAVING somebody.

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Bonus: The player, whether junior detective or tabloid reporter, has the option of telling someone they are "familiar with [Simulacra]" in Simulacra 2. How? They're the player character from the first game, who got into that line of work specifically based on their experiences with the Anna case. Maybe, maybe not. Just an added possibility that wouldn't necessarily contradict anything.