History WMG / Subnautica

It's because the game designers are setting up for a major reveal about the setting in a future sequel, that will take the sequential-gigantism patterns in 4546b ecosystems to their logical conclusion: that there ''is'' no land on the planet at all, and no "shallows" either. Rather, the ''entire setting'' experienced to date in the games has taken place on the backs of a few truly astronomical Reefbacks, drifting veeeeery slooooowly through the unbroken, thousand-kilometer-deep world ocean. The "lava" encountered beneath the apparent "seabed" is a part of these animals' thermoregulatory mechanism, the "caves" are natural pores in their sculpted mineral-encrusted backs, and the "hydrothermal vents" are excretory glands for metabolic byproducts. The various mineral deposits are cyst-like secretions from the mega-Reefbacks' skin, which explains why they keep re-growing, and '''all''' the organisms encountered are benign symbiotic endoparasites.

* Jossed, [[spoiler: The Warpers are cyborgs Frankensteined together from species native to several different planets, the Precursors made the bases before leaving/dying, and pathogen mentioned just kills.]]

** Semi-confirmed. Planet 4546B is a lab planet, [[spoiler:but it wasn't used by humans. The Precursors went there with a small team to research a cure for the Kharaa bacterium. They did find one, but only after the Sea Dragon Leviathan destroyed the Lost River base, releasing the Kharaa and effectively destroying the planet and reducing it to the state found in-game. Speaking of the Precursors, they either abandoned the planet or the crew deployed to it died with the outbreak. It eventually is left to the player's hands to finish what they started.]]

** But [[spoiler: they had a secret mission to rescue the degasi. It's likely they used an unnoticeable pod,]] but then again...

[[WMG: if there is a third subnautica, it will have the most dangerous non-leviathan enemy be called the Sharkcrab.]]

** alternatively, it will be the Sharkeel, and the trend will continue indefinitely.

** Possible, but also from a gameplay standpoint you can only reasonably ''hand''feed Peepers. Video evidence exists of people feeding Ghost and Reaper Leviathans Peepers, Oculus (Oculusi?) which haven't been shown to have the enzyme and aren't really visually similar to Peepers (though that itself could be on account of the Reaper's eyesight and it might smell similar enough, genetic offshot notwithstanding.

The PDA deduces that Sea Emperor Leviathan adults had to live in small groups to avoid exhausting their food supply, and their offspring spend only moments with their parent before parting company for shallower waters. Adopting pets would provide a comfort to Sea Emperors whose offspring have departed, as well as the potential for companionship without significant food competition. The swiftness with which cuddlefish bond with other species, despite living in a world so rife with predators, suggests their kind were accustomed to coexisting with, and being protected by, something much more formidable than themselves. The two species even share a similar body plan, suggesting that cuddlefishes' tiny tentacles may be aesthetically appealing to Sea Emperors, and could evoke parental feelings in them, much like how many toy dog breeds' large forward-facing eyes (similar to a human infant's) encourage humans to pamper them. You don't find any cuddlefish living wild, because they were too domesticated to cope once their Sea Emperor protectors were gone. Good news is that for every cuddlefish egg you can hatch, there's a young Sea Emperor you can as well, so hopefully they'll find each other and pair up after you leave.

[[WMG:Refusing the player character to land is the last straw for Alterra]]

[[WMG:Subnautica and VideoGame/HardspaceShipbreaker are set in the same universe and Riley is the protagonist of both games]]

* Jossed, [[spoiler: The Warpers are cyborgs made from species native to several different planets, the Precursors made the bases before leaving/dying, and the virus mentioned just kills.]]

* Jossed, [[spoiler: The Warpers are cyborgs made from a species native to the planet, the Precurssors made the bases before leaving/dying, and the virus mentioned just kills.]]

* Alternately, as the Warpers were cobbled together from multiple different planets' species familiar to the Architects, the Architects and Kharaa may have simply appropriated those limbs from the same as-yet-unseen or long-extinct creature.

The PDA deduces that Sea Emperor Leviathan adults had to live in small groups to avoid exhausting their food supply, and their offspring spend only moments with their parent before parting company for shallower waters. Adopting pets would provide a comfort to Sea Emperors whose offspring have departed, as well as the potential for companionship without significant food competition. The two species even share a similar body plan, suggesting that cuddlefishes' tiny tentacles may be aesthetically appealing to Sea Emperors, and could evoke parental feelings in them, much like how many toy dog breeds' large forward-facing eyes (similar to a human infant's) encourage humans to pamper them. You don't find any cuddlefish living wild, because they were too domesticated to cope once their Sea Emperor protectors were gone. Good news is that for every cuddlefish egg you can hatch, there's a young Sea Emperor you can as well, so hopefully they'll find each other and pair up after you leave.

The PDA deduces that Sea Emperor Leviathan adults had to live in small groups only to avoid exhausting their food supply, and their offspring spend only moments with their parent before parting company for shallower waters. Adopting pets would provide a comfort to Sea Emperors whose offspring have already departed, as well as the potential for companionship without food competition. The two species even share a similar general body plan, suggesting that cuddlefishes' tiny tentacles may be aesthetically appealing to Sea Emperors, and could evoke parental feelings in them, much like how many toy dog breeds' large forward-facing eyes (similar to a human infant's) encourage humans to pamper them. You don't find them living wild, because they were too domesticated to prosper once their Sea Emperor caregivers were gone; luckily, for every cuddlefish egg you can hatch, there's a young Sea Emperor you can as well, so hopefully they'll find new keepers after you leave.

It's because the game designers are setting up for a major reveal about the ''Aurora'' crash site in a future sequel, that will take the sequential-gigantism patterns in 4546b ecosystems to their logical conclusion: that there ''is'' no land on the planet at all, and no "shallows" either. Rather, the ''entire setting'' experienced to date in the two games has taken place on the backs of two truly astronomical Reefbacks, drifting veeeeery slooooowly through the unbroken, thousand-kilometer-deep world ocean. The "lava" encountered beneath the apparent "seabed" is a part of these animals' thermoregulatory mechanism, the "caves" are natural pores in their sculpted mineral-encrusted backs, and the "hydrothermal vents" are excretory glands for metabolic byproducts. The various mineral deposits are cyst-like secretions from the mega-Reefbacks' skin, which explains why they keep re-growing, and '''all''' the organisms encountered are benign symbiotic endoparasites.

It's because the game designers are setting up for a major reveal about the ''Aurora'''s crash site in a future sequel, that will take the sequential-gigantism patterns in 4546b ecosystems to their logical conclusion: that there ''is'' no land on the planet at all, and no "shallows" either. Rather, the ''entire setting'' experienced to date in the two games has taken place on the backs of truly astronomical Reefbacks, drifting veeeeery slooooowly through the unbroken, thousand-kilometer-deep world ocean. The "lava" encountered beneath the apparent "seabed" is a part of these animals' thermoregulatory mechanism, the "caves" are natural pores in their sculpted mineral-encrusted backs, and the "hydrothermal vents" are excretory glands for metabolic byproducts. The various mineral deposits are cyst-like secretions from the mega-Reefbacks' skin, which explains why they keep re-growing, and '''all''' the organisms encountered are benign symbiotic endoparasites.

The Kharaa bacterium seen in [=NS2=] is much more aggressive and much more deadly than the strain found in Subnautica, but the Warpers are ''suspiciously'' similar in build and behavior to the Fades. Not only do they both teleport around, they both have two arms ending in vicious bone-like scythes; at some point in the distant past, while the aliens were battling the Kharaa outbreak, the Bacterium successfully co-opted the Warpers and turned them into Fades.

The Kharaa bacterium seen in NS2 is much more aggressive and much more deadly than the strain found in Subnautica, but the Warpers are ''suspiciously'' similar in build and behavior to the Fades. Not only do they both teleport around, they both have two arms ending in vicious bone-like scythes; at some point in the distant past, while the aliens were battling the Kharaa outbreak, the Bacterium successfully co-opted the Warpers and turned them into Fades.

Riley, the main character of Subnautica, ends the game being indebted to the Alterra corporation for a whopping 1 Trillion credits. Being that Riley is an systems engineer who was going to be working on a phase gate he is already experienced in industrial engineering in vacuum. Being that he despises Alterra and wishes to pay down his debt by any means, he decides to enter arbitration of his debt with Alterra and manages, after some negotiation and selling off his accrued materials to pay down some of it in the meantime, to get Alterra to knock his debt down somewhat for the valuable discovery of 4546b and the Kharaa Bacterium. Finally he reaches an agreement to have Alterra sell his debts off to another company. And where does his expertise in systems engineering in vacuum land him? An industrial company based on Earth named [=LYNX=] that happens to be looking for a skilled engineer for its Cutter program. Alterra sells his debt for a Billion credits, Riley applies for the Cutter position, and so Hardspace Shipbreaker begins.

Riley, the main character of Subnautica, ends the game being indebted to the Alterra corporation for a whopping 1 Trillion credits. Being that Riley is an systems engineer who was going to be working on a phase gate he is already experienced in industrial engineering in vacuum. Being that he despises Alterra and wishes to pay down his debt by any means, he decides to enter arbitration of his debt with Alterra and manages after some negotiation and selling off his accrued materials to pay down some of it in the meantime to get Alterra to knock his debt down somewhat for the valuable discovery of 4546b and the Kharaa Bacterium. Finally he reaches an agreement to have Alterra sell his debts off to another company. And where does his expertise in systems engineering in vacuum land him? An industrial company based on Earth named [=LYNX=] that happens to be looking for a skilled engineer for its Cutter program. Alterra sells his debt for a Billion credits, Riley applies for the Cutter position, and so Hardspace Shipbreaker begins.

Riley, the main character of Subnautica, ends the game being indebted to the Alterra corporation for a whopping 1 Trillion credits. Being that Riley is an systems engineer who is working on a phase gate he is already experienced in industrial engineering in vacuum. Being that he despises Alterra and wishes to pay down his debt by any means, he decides to enter arbitration of his debt with Alterra and manages after some negotiation and selling off his accrued materials to pay down some of it in the meantime to get Alterra to knock his debt down somewhat for the valuable discovery of 4546b and the Kharaa Bacterium. Finally he reaches an agreement to have Alterra sell his debts off to another company. And where does his expertise in systems engineering in vacuum land him? An industrial company based on Earth named [=LYNX=] that happens to be looking for a skilled engineer for its Cutter program. Alterra sells his debt for a Billion credits, Riley applies for the Cutter position, and so Hardspace Shipbreaker begins.

The government which supersedes Alterra seems to be rather concerned with the safety of its citizens, given that it requires all spacecraft who receive a distress call to aid whoever sent it, regardless of the origin, and thus likely also has other individual safety-focused laws. Alterra seems to regularly abuse these; they are apparently infamous for using distress calls to get other ships to restock unnecessary supplies. Perhaps refusing a survivor of a spaceship crash to land until they’ve paid off a ludicrously large debt which they had to accrue to be able to survive is the last straw for Alterra, and they’ll soon be facing sanctions from the larger government and other governments within it for continually disregarding the needs of its subjects.

What if the cuddlefish is a baby Precursor, or an experimental hybrid of Precursor DNA combined with Sea Emperor DNA? It shares the Sea Emperor's tentacles and has fin-like forelimbs not seen on many other tentacled creatures. Maybe the Precursors were trying to modify their own genome to naturally be immune as an alternative to curing Kharaa outright?

[[WMG:The Cuddlefish is a precursor]]
The cuddlefish is a baby Precursor, or an experimental hybrid of Precursor DNA combined with Sea Emperor DNA. It shares the Sea Emperor's tentacles and has fin-like forelimbs not seen on many other tentacled creatures. Maybe they were trying to modify their own genome to naturally be immune as an alternative to curing Kharaa outright? The Cuddlefish is more intelligent than the other fauna and is observed to be uniquely capable of understanding the concept of other minds. The only other (organic) creature on 4546B that is capable of communication is the Sea Emperor.

** Also, the game engine is Unity, and under the hood, it could be all predators have a base script, and the taming mechanic got inherited code-wise onto the Reaper. Of course, you'd need to test if all predators can be fed prey fish.

** Semi-confirmed. Planet 4546B is a lab planet, [[spoiler:but it wasn't used by humans. The Precursors went there with a small team to research a cure for the Carar bacterium. They did find one, but only after the Sea Dragon Leviathan destroyed the Lost River base, releasing the Carar and effectively destroying the planet and reducing it to the state found in-game. Speaking of the Precursors, they either abandoned the planet or the crew deployed to it died with the outbreak. It eventually is left to the player's hands to finish what they started.]]

[[spoiler:Based on Trello notes and Precursor data downloads, we can tell that the one Sea Dragon Leviathan in the game became the UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom (maybe not "unwitting," though) after it escaped and attacked the Lost River Precursor base. This caused ThePlague known as the Carar to spread across the planet, killing 164 billion creatures in the process. The species that Bart Torgal noted as evolving to counter the Carar survived and thus are the ones you see in-game. But what about all the other creatures in the concept art? It's simple enough: they were simply wiped out by the Carar.]]

Possibly everyone in the future does, it could be standard procedure for Aurora crewmembers. But that's why the carar doesn't kill him like it did everything else on the planet, his immune system is more advanced.
* Or he's survived the carar for so long because [[spoiler:he's been eating peepers all along...]]

It is now possible to offer a Reaper a Peeper (and ''only'' a Peeper) and have it take the fish then leave you alone. Why would a predator that size care about such a small meal? [[spoiler:It's made the connection between eating Peepers and not dying of Kharaa.]]

* Or he's survived the carar for so long because [[spoiler:he's been eating peepers all along...]]

Possibly everyone in the future does, it could be standard procedure for Aurora crewmembers. But that's why the carar doesn't kill him like it did everything else on the planet, his immune system is more advanced.

It's mentioned in some of the PDA's that an extinction event had happened in the planet's past, it's possible that whatever this event caused either the continents to sink or the oceans to rise. It would also explain why the islands have plants on them despite the fact that they typically don't last long (relatively speaking) as they are remnants of the former ecosystem. I also think some of the fauna are evolutionary descendants land dwelling creatures. (sea dragon leviathan, lava lizard, sea treader)

* Alternately, they could just exist on far-away parts of the planet, possibly in similarly unimplemented biomes. Presumably there's lots of stuff on the planet that the protagonist never explores because it's too far from home base.