A ) Chronically molten lava underwater? Lack of steam? Creatures that can survive diving into lava?
- As far as I'm aware, the pressure / boiling point thing checks out. There's just no way a soft-suited human could survive at that pressure (let alone exposure to water of that temperature), nor any carbon-based lifeform that can survive exposure to magma.
- The question we should be asking is how is the lava still molten? Water of any temperature is fantastic at conducting heat away. Even air would eventually (days or weeks) turn that lava into rock unless more bubbled up from below. And if more was streaming into the chamber, the ILZ would have filled up completely in a lot less than 1000 years...
B ) Swim speeds - how is it that the player swims so fast?
- Standard Alterra "Explorer" nanotech enhancement package. Exposure to vacuum (where lung capacity is unhelpful) being more common than drowning as a hazard to spacecraft crew being the reason you don't see longer breath-holding times to go with this general strength and speed enhancement.
C ) Why do many obviously different creatures have similar features (e.g. Sea Emperor and Sea Dragon)
- First, since the Carar outbreak has decimated the whole planet's ecosystem, there are a lot of "missing links" that have gone extinct. What's left is a mere sample of the original biodiversity, making related creatures look odd because their common ancestors and the other branches of their evolutionary tree are all gone.
- Second, since we know the Precursors moved from experimenting on the Emperor to a Sea Dragon, it seems likely that the very-lava-lizard-like Sea Dragon is a chimera, spliced from the Sea Emperor and a more manageable / breedable (so they thought) local species. Doesn't the Dragon look a lot like an Emperor chassis with a Lava Lizard head, scales, flippers, and fire-breathing tacked on?
D ) How can the player survive diving at such depths?
- Standard Alterra "Explorer" nanotech enhancement package. Specifically increases resistance to damage caused by higher or lower atmospheric pressures, and mitigates nitrogen narcosis in the blood before it happens.
E) Why build a disease research facility for a water borne pathogen on a water planet rather than in a sterile space environment?
- Obvious use of the planet's gravity well as a firewall. Any moron can stumble across a derelict space station full of dead scientists and contaminate the galaxy while trying to "salvage" it. On the other hand, I'd say picking a planet in a system well populated with other bodies is foolish (as opposed to a rogue planetoid without anything near it). Sooner or later a large impactor is going to hit that planet and those are well documented as being capable of spreading bacteria and spores offworld through ejecta thrown back into space.
D) How is the computer able to translate Precursor language so easily?
- The Precursors aren't as alien as we'd like to think. Their language is related to something Humans use or have encountered before.
F) What is up with the hatches not having airlocks?
- You got me on this one. If they've got forcefield tech to keep the base from flooding when the hatch is opened... why have a hatch at all except in case of emergency power loss?
G) Are the actions of the Degasi crew plausible? What can explain them?
- If they weren't, we wouldn't be retracing their steps, now would we?
H) How did crashfish evolve?
- I gotta give the UWE writing team props on this one. They seem so video-gamey and nonsensical. But one version (not sure if it's the current one) of the PDA entry for them lays it out. It's currently nesting season. Their reproductive cycle causes those explosive compounds to build up in their body (excess nutrients that didn't go into the eggs?). Nesting fish and their eggs would make a great snack, so the ones that learned to attack (and "blow up") anything that got near their nest are the ones whose eggs survived. The plant, for its part, learned that (presumably) fish poop and egg membranes make great fertilizer, and when the fish gets agitated it better open its flaps or it will get blown up and not reproduce itself. The ones that adapted to the crashfish are the ones that lived.
I) How is the Seamoth able to dive deeper than the Cyclops? How is there non-reactive/stable lithium in the water?
- It isn't? The maxed-out crush depth of the Seamoth is much shallower than the maxed-out crush depth of the Cyclops. I'm not enough of a chemist to tell you how the lithium doesn't blow up.
J) How are the animals related?
- Like I said above, they're the cherry-picked remnants of a much more diverse ecology that has been whittled down to the bare bones by mass extinction.
K) Why does the edge of the subnautica map drop off so steeply?
- Presumably the Precursors picked an isolated seamount (underwater, kind-of-dormant) volcano for their experimental site. For isolation, for available geothermal power, at least. The map we know is basically the very peak of this seamount, in the middle of a much deeper ocean.
Also, I take issue with the assumption that the Alterra "civilization" was aquatic or more than generally prepared for an oceanic environment. Both the Seamoth and PRAWN (despite the names, which are the weird part, honestly), are designed for use in orbit and other environments. The only thing I can't figure out there is where the 'moth keeps its reaction mass.
The thing I always think about is how many gun platforms there must be on that planet in order to keep it under quarantine. Who's to say if you shut them all down, or just the one near you? And those things can shoot stuff in orbit, so when you eventually leave you gotta make sure you're over the same patch of planet until you're out of range. You don't want the rotation to bring you into the field of fire of another one of those things.
And I don't know that the pathogen was strictly water-born. Entries in the PDA hint that the Precursors had a whole interstellar civilization that was taken out by this thing.
Crashfish themselves aren't actually fish - The Crashfish plant is the REAL living organism, a sort of anemone. The Fish part of the crashfish is actually a highly developed form of nematocyst, designed to explode their prey into the water, so that the anemone part can filter the blood and parts out of the water for nutrition.
I'm posting this here because I posted it elsewhere, and I don't feel like my genius was property appreciated at the time. lol
Food cycles! ermahgerd
The ghost leviathan's diet of microlife would explain it's proximity to thermal waters, exceeeeeept at an average depth of 350m the Ghost could not be feeding on lifeforms like Krill because they require Photosynthesis lifeforms such as plankton. Alllllsssssoooo, The Lost River which is home to two known Ghost Leviathans has an average temperature of 4°C (39°F) which is two times below the Earth average for 500-1000m. If we assume that the salt content of seawater on 4546B is ~3.5% (Earth average at surface) and water temp and density is affected by PSI the same as Earth, the question becomes what life exactly is the ghost feeding on? We could assume that the average seawater density in the Lost River is substantially higher (presence of "The Brine" aka Lost River) and due to the Lost River's rather low pH the chlorine content is probably higher. This would be further evidence that microscopic life would be more sparse in that region. Alsssssssoooo, the Lost River leads directly to the Inactive Lava Zone which has an average temp of 50°C (122°F) approximately half of the boiling point of seawater which would also probably not support microscopic life, because chemosynthesis communities exist in temperatures of ~ 370°C (700°F) so once again not much in the way microscopic life.
The only apparent life for the Ghost to feed on would be macro-life such as the average fish that we find in nearly every biome, which would have to feed purely on flora.
Soooooo, in conclusion Leviathan life forms must have ridiculously slow digestive processes that are insanely efficient, which if we universe merge could be plausible because we know the Sarlacc of Star Wars takes 1000 years to digest a person size organism and can live off of this. The Sarlacc and Ghost even have comparable body sizes.
I'm posting this here because I posted it elsewhere, and I don't feel like my genius was property appreciated at the time. lol
Food cycles! ermahgerd
The ghost leviathan's diet of microlife would explain it's proximity to thermal waters, exceeeeeept at an average depth of 350m the Ghost could not be feeding on lifeforms like Krill because they require Photosynthesis lifeforms such as plankton. Alllllsssssoooo, The Lost River which is home to two known Ghost Leviathans has an average temperature of 4°C (39°F) which is two times below the Earth average for 500-1000m. If we assume that the salt content of seawater on 4546B is ~3.5% (Earth average at surface) and water temp and density is affected by PSI the same as Earth, the question becomes what life exactly is the ghost feeding on? We could assume that the average seawater density in the Lost River is substantially higher (presence of "The Brine" aka Lost River) and due to the Lost River's rather low pH the chlorine content is probably higher. This would be further evidence that microscopic life would be more sparse in that region. Alsssssssoooo, the Lost River leads directly to the Inactive Lava Zone which has an average temp of 50°C (122°F) approximately half of the boiling point of seawater which would also probably not support microscopic life, because chemosynthesis communities exist in temperatures of ~ 370°C (700°F) so once again not much in the way microscopic life.
The only apparent life for the Ghost to feed on would be macro-life such as the average fish that we find in nearly every biome, which would have to feed purely on flora.
Soooooo, in conclusion Leviathan life forms must have ridiculously slow digestive processes that are insanely efficient, which if we universe merge could be plausible because we know the Sarlacc of Star Wars takes 1000 years to digest a person size organism and can live off of this. The Sarlacc and Ghost even have comparable body sizes.
Ah, but we know there are is no plankton detected in the Void!
Could be some kind of reverse ocean 'snow'. Instead of material falling from surface plankton to the bottom one might have material rising upwards from chemosynthesizers. Fish would just be a source of vitamins.
There is a clade of creatures (tentatively consisting of the Sea Crown/Anchor Pods/Floaters/Membrane Tree). These appear to have self-contained internal ecosystems. They also appear buoyant (having to be anchored to avoid floating to the surface). Notably they also seem immune to kaaraa. So there is the possibility that some of them have proliferated in the void once the competition was removed.
This would mean the Void isn't entirely lifeless... life exists inside of these special membrane communities, but microscopic/macroscopic life can't exist outside of them (with the exception of mature Ghost Leviathans).
What do you think of this hypothesis? It'd make a might creepy ecosystem I think (all different varieties of membrane tree/floater variants, along with the occasional ghost leviathan).
Ah, but we know there are is no plankton detected in the Void!
Could be some kind of reverse ocean 'snow'. Instead of material falling from surface plankton to the bottom one might have material rising upwards from chemosynthesizers. Fish would just be a source of vitamins.
There is a clade of creatures (tentatively consisting of the Sea Crown/Anchor Pods/Floaters/Membrane Tree). These appear to have self-contained internal ecosystems. They also appear buoyant (having to be anchored to avoid floating to the surface). Notably they also seem immune to kaaraa. So there is the possibility that some of them have proliferated in the void once the competition was removed.
This would mean the Void isn't entirely lifeless... life exists inside of these special membrane communities, but microscopic/macroscopic life can't exist outside of them (with the exception of mature Ghost Leviathans).
What do you think of this hypothesis? It'd make a might creepy ecosystem I think (all different varieties of membrane tree/floater variants, along with the occasional ghost leviathan).
I remember the PDA say the void supports microscopic and leviathan class lifeforms, so I support this theory.
Comments
- As far as I'm aware, the pressure / boiling point thing checks out. There's just no way a soft-suited human could survive at that pressure (let alone exposure to water of that temperature), nor any carbon-based lifeform that can survive exposure to magma.
- The question we should be asking is how is the lava still molten? Water of any temperature is fantastic at conducting heat away. Even air would eventually (days or weeks) turn that lava into rock unless more bubbled up from below. And if more was streaming into the chamber, the ILZ would have filled up completely in a lot less than 1000 years...
B ) Swim speeds - how is it that the player swims so fast?
- Standard Alterra "Explorer" nanotech enhancement package. Exposure to vacuum (where lung capacity is unhelpful) being more common than drowning as a hazard to spacecraft crew being the reason you don't see longer breath-holding times to go with this general strength and speed enhancement.
C ) Why do many obviously different creatures have similar features (e.g. Sea Emperor and Sea Dragon)
- First, since the Carar outbreak has decimated the whole planet's ecosystem, there are a lot of "missing links" that have gone extinct. What's left is a mere sample of the original biodiversity, making related creatures look odd because their common ancestors and the other branches of their evolutionary tree are all gone.
- Second, since we know the Precursors moved from experimenting on the Emperor to a Sea Dragon, it seems likely that the very-lava-lizard-like Sea Dragon is a chimera, spliced from the Sea Emperor and a more manageable / breedable (so they thought) local species. Doesn't the Dragon look a lot like an Emperor chassis with a Lava Lizard head, scales, flippers, and fire-breathing tacked on?
D ) How can the player survive diving at such depths?
- Standard Alterra "Explorer" nanotech enhancement package. Specifically increases resistance to damage caused by higher or lower atmospheric pressures, and mitigates nitrogen narcosis in the blood before it happens.
E) Why build a disease research facility for a water borne pathogen on a water planet rather than in a sterile space environment?
- Obvious use of the planet's gravity well as a firewall. Any moron can stumble across a derelict space station full of dead scientists and contaminate the galaxy while trying to "salvage" it. On the other hand, I'd say picking a planet in a system well populated with other bodies is foolish (as opposed to a rogue planetoid without anything near it). Sooner or later a large impactor is going to hit that planet and those are well documented as being capable of spreading bacteria and spores offworld through ejecta thrown back into space.
D) How is the computer able to translate Precursor language so easily?
- The Precursors aren't as alien as we'd like to think. Their language is related to something Humans use or have encountered before.
F) What is up with the hatches not having airlocks?
- You got me on this one. If they've got forcefield tech to keep the base from flooding when the hatch is opened... why have a hatch at all except in case of emergency power loss?
G) Are the actions of the Degasi crew plausible? What can explain them?
- If they weren't, we wouldn't be retracing their steps, now would we?
H) How did crashfish evolve?
- I gotta give the UWE writing team props on this one. They seem so video-gamey and nonsensical. But one version (not sure if it's the current one) of the PDA entry for them lays it out. It's currently nesting season. Their reproductive cycle causes those explosive compounds to build up in their body (excess nutrients that didn't go into the eggs?). Nesting fish and their eggs would make a great snack, so the ones that learned to attack (and "blow up") anything that got near their nest are the ones whose eggs survived. The plant, for its part, learned that (presumably) fish poop and egg membranes make great fertilizer, and when the fish gets agitated it better open its flaps or it will get blown up and not reproduce itself. The ones that adapted to the crashfish are the ones that lived.
I) How is the Seamoth able to dive deeper than the Cyclops? How is there non-reactive/stable lithium in the water?
- It isn't? The maxed-out crush depth of the Seamoth is much shallower than the maxed-out crush depth of the Cyclops. I'm not enough of a chemist to tell you how the lithium doesn't blow up.
J) How are the animals related?
- Like I said above, they're the cherry-picked remnants of a much more diverse ecology that has been whittled down to the bare bones by mass extinction.
K) Why does the edge of the subnautica map drop off so steeply?
- Presumably the Precursors picked an isolated seamount (underwater, kind-of-dormant) volcano for their experimental site. For isolation, for available geothermal power, at least. The map we know is basically the very peak of this seamount, in the middle of a much deeper ocean.
Also, I take issue with the assumption that the Alterra "civilization" was aquatic or more than generally prepared for an oceanic environment. Both the Seamoth and PRAWN (despite the names, which are the weird part, honestly), are designed for use in orbit and other environments. The only thing I can't figure out there is where the 'moth keeps its reaction mass.
And I don't know that the pathogen was strictly water-born. Entries in the PDA hint that the Precursors had a whole interstellar civilization that was taken out by this thing.
I had a fan theory on that very subject some time ago, which I fully agree with btw.
Food cycles! ermahgerd
The ghost leviathan's diet of microlife would explain it's proximity to thermal waters, exceeeeeept at an average depth of 350m the Ghost could not be feeding on lifeforms like Krill because they require Photosynthesis lifeforms such as plankton. Alllllsssssoooo, The Lost River which is home to two known Ghost Leviathans has an average temperature of 4°C (39°F) which is two times below the Earth average for 500-1000m. If we assume that the salt content of seawater on 4546B is ~3.5% (Earth average at surface) and water temp and density is affected by PSI the same as Earth, the question becomes what life exactly is the ghost feeding on? We could assume that the average seawater density in the Lost River is substantially higher (presence of "The Brine" aka Lost River) and due to the Lost River's rather low pH the chlorine content is probably higher. This would be further evidence that microscopic life would be more sparse in that region. Alsssssssoooo, the Lost River leads directly to the Inactive Lava Zone which has an average temp of 50°C (122°F) approximately half of the boiling point of seawater which would also probably not support microscopic life, because chemosynthesis communities exist in temperatures of ~ 370°C (700°F) so once again not much in the way microscopic life.
The only apparent life for the Ghost to feed on would be macro-life such as the average fish that we find in nearly every biome, which would have to feed purely on flora.
Soooooo, in conclusion Leviathan life forms must have ridiculously slow digestive processes that are insanely efficient, which if we universe merge could be plausible because we know the Sarlacc of Star Wars takes 1000 years to digest a person size organism and can live off of this. The Sarlacc and Ghost even have comparable body sizes.
*takes a deep breath*
Could be alien plankton.
Ah, but we know there are is no plankton detected in the Void!
Could be some kind of reverse ocean 'snow'. Instead of material falling from surface plankton to the bottom one might have material rising upwards from chemosynthesizers. Fish would just be a source of vitamins.
There is a clade of creatures (tentatively consisting of the Sea Crown/Anchor Pods/Floaters/Membrane Tree). These appear to have self-contained internal ecosystems. They also appear buoyant (having to be anchored to avoid floating to the surface). Notably they also seem immune to kaaraa. So there is the possibility that some of them have proliferated in the void once the competition was removed.
This would mean the Void isn't entirely lifeless... life exists inside of these special membrane communities, but microscopic/macroscopic life can't exist outside of them (with the exception of mature Ghost Leviathans).
What do you think of this hypothesis? It'd make a might creepy ecosystem I think (all different varieties of membrane tree/floater variants, along with the occasional ghost leviathan).
I remember the PDA say the void supports microscopic and leviathan class lifeforms, so I support this theory.