The Subnautic Technical commentaries (call all ye science nerds)
Avimimus
Join Date: 2016-03-28 Member: 214968Members
Join Date: 2016-03-28 Member: 214968Members
Hello everyone,
List of things that need explaining (work in progress):
A ) Chronically molten lava underwater? Lack of steam? Creatures that can survive diving into lava?
B ) Swim speeds - how is it that the player swims so fast?
C ) Why do many obviously different creatures have similar features (e.g. Sea Emperor and Sea Dragon)
D ) How can the player survive diving at such depths?
E) Why build a disease research facility for a water borne pathogen on a water planet rather than in a sterile space environment?
D) How is the computer able to translate Precursor language so easily?
F) What is up with the hatches not having airlocks?
G) Are the actions of the Degasi crew plausible? What can explain them?
H) How did crashfish evolve?
I) How is the Seamoth able to dive deeper than the Cyclops? How is there non-reactive/stable lithium in the water?
J) How are the animals related?
K) Why does the edge of the subnautica map drop off so steeply?
L) How are orbits arranged? What tidal forces should exist?
List of sources for rationalisations:
A )
Discussion of underwater Lava: https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/148354/the-inactive-and-mostly-active-lava-zone-should-look-more-active#latest
Further proposal: https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2340373/#Comment_2340373
B )
- Option 1: Genetically engineered population of starfaring aquatic humans (also explains the Seamoths/PRAWN bays)?
- Option 2 (SCIFIWRITERGUY): Speeds are actually on the high end of the plausible range
C )
- Option 1: The common ancestor had tentacles, the vertebrate/invertebrate characteristics evolved later...
D )
- See: https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2340376/#Comment_2340376
F)
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/149430/realistic-hatch
G)
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/149608/degasi-survivors-were-really-dumb
H)
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2351794/#Comment_2351794
I) https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/151970/shouldnt-the-seamoth-be-able-to-go-deeper-than-the-cyclops
J)
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/152649/deduced-evolutionary-relationships-of-subnautica-fauna
K) https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/152640/do-the-events-in-subnautica-take-place-on-a-floating-platform/p1
L)
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/154302/subnautica-orbital-patterns-explained
Also https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/153472/understanding-4546-and-base-construction-aethstetic
Let me know what issues you spot and explanations you have! I will update the first post.
List of things that need explaining (work in progress):
A ) Chronically molten lava underwater? Lack of steam? Creatures that can survive diving into lava?
B ) Swim speeds - how is it that the player swims so fast?
C ) Why do many obviously different creatures have similar features (e.g. Sea Emperor and Sea Dragon)
D ) How can the player survive diving at such depths?
E) Why build a disease research facility for a water borne pathogen on a water planet rather than in a sterile space environment?
D) How is the computer able to translate Precursor language so easily?
F) What is up with the hatches not having airlocks?
G) Are the actions of the Degasi crew plausible? What can explain them?
H) How did crashfish evolve?
I) How is the Seamoth able to dive deeper than the Cyclops? How is there non-reactive/stable lithium in the water?
J) How are the animals related?
K) Why does the edge of the subnautica map drop off so steeply?
L) How are orbits arranged? What tidal forces should exist?
List of sources for rationalisations:
A )
Discussion of underwater Lava: https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/148354/the-inactive-and-mostly-active-lava-zone-should-look-more-active#latest
Further proposal: https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2340373/#Comment_2340373
B )
- Option 1: Genetically engineered population of starfaring aquatic humans (also explains the Seamoths/PRAWN bays)?
- Option 2 (SCIFIWRITERGUY): Speeds are actually on the high end of the plausible range
C )
- Option 1: The common ancestor had tentacles, the vertebrate/invertebrate characteristics evolved later...
D )
- See: https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2340376/#Comment_2340376
F)
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/149430/realistic-hatch
G)
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/149608/degasi-survivors-were-really-dumb
H)
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2351794/#Comment_2351794
I) https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/151970/shouldnt-the-seamoth-be-able-to-go-deeper-than-the-cyclops
J)
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/152649/deduced-evolutionary-relationships-of-subnautica-fauna
K) https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/152640/do-the-events-in-subnautica-take-place-on-a-floating-platform/p1
L)
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/154302/subnautica-orbital-patterns-explained
Also https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/153472/understanding-4546-and-base-construction-aethstetic
Let me know what issues you spot and explanations you have! I will update the first post.
Comments
It's a Game.
Plus, it takes place in a universe where we are the "Aliens" invading other planets.
And has technology so far advanced from anything we have today, that trying to make rational factoids, is akin to tossing a pair of D&D dice, then makin' chit up.
Yeah, but it is an art... like rationalising Star Wars or arguing that Legolas in the LOTR movies is completely physically possible assuming everything is happening in 1/20th scale etc.
So poetic license.
There is only One True Legolas...
The Angry One.
It was meant to be more of a 'tongue-in-cheek' kinda response...
Subtly is definitely lost on the internetz.
oh well...
As for the lava biomes... meh, I think sometimes rationalisation isn't really needed. I would like to see steam, but I can excuse the fact that they didn't have realistic underwater magma. It could be cool in the Inactive Lava Zone, but it goes against the name so I don't really think it could fit. As for the active lava zone I don't think it would look as cool if it were realistic; a dragon swimming over a field of lava is badass enough. If you want a proper head-cannon answer, how about it isn't underwater magma but a pocket of lava that was left deep in the crust? I don't know, that's the best I've got.
Why do many different creatures have similar features? Common ancestors, most likely, and throw in a bit of Carar mutation for good measure.
I'm about to get into some real head-cannon and just typical me-ramblings so I'm gonna spoiler it for all your sakes.
This is, to me, what Subnautica's all about. I don't play it for the survival, I don't play it for the story, but I play it for the history, and the environment. I like seeing how every animal pieces together in the grander scheme of things, and to me I feel like the story when you look at the environment is a sad one.
The Carar wiped out an entire planet of creatures, leaving only one animal still alive, much like the comet wiped out the dinosaurs leaving only crocodiles and rodents alive. The difference in Subnautica, however, is that the creatures that survived the Carar live in a changed world. They can't thrive like they used to. The Sea Dragon is (in my mind) a Carar mutated creature. There's only two left, and they're separated by an enormous slab of rock. The Sea Emperor will die, but leave its offspring defenceless and without hope.
In my eyes Subnautica's about the transition from the old world to the new one. There was a time when prehistoric creatures swam the seas, and the Precursors were on the planet. Soon in the future there will come a time when an entirely new batch of animals are around, and humanity will have colonised.
That's what it's all about for me, though, that's what's running through my mind as I survive in this game; whether I live or die is insignificant, for the millions of years before me had seen monsters come and go by the thousands. I'm but a speck in the grander picture.
So, what you're saying is that we actually died in the crash and everything we experience is actually our own personal purgatory.
More that you've had enough experience back home to be able to swim relatively fast.
As for the aquatic life on that planet - we just have to look at the diversity on our own
Lies! I was told he was legless.
B ) The player has flippers, and flippers allow you to move surprisingly quickly if you know how to use them.
C ) Because evolution is a thing that exists?
The real question here is how the player can even SURVIVE at depths of 120~ meters or greater without just be being crushed.
Given that the suit you're wearing is nuclear powered (note radioactivity icon on right leg), and the reactor is small enough to fit in a wetsuit, humans have probably figured out how to counteract pressure.
Without a helmet? You can dive pretty deep without every having bought a helmeted diving suit...
I normally like these kind of things, but for Subnautica, it just is what it is...
Because it is a video game?
Part 1: The lava zone is at great depth; with great depth comes great pressure. As water pressure increases, so too does its boiling point. Effectively, the vapor pressure has to exceed the ambient pressure in order for vaporization to occur. At 1500m, water pressure at 1G with a sea-level pressure of 1 atmosphere is about 149 atm (15,179 kpa) - resulting in a boiling point of roughly 180 degrees Celsius (359 degrees F). If the seawater is denser than Earth average (which seems likely), the pressure and temperature rise; if the atmospheric pressure is higher than 1 atm, the pressure and temperature rise still further. If gravity is higher than 1G (definitely possible), pressure and temperature could soar as the previous two variables combine with high gravity to spike the pressure at depth. Average lava on Earth is about 700 degrees C, but can vary due to composition. Assuming relatively "thin" lava (low concentrations of basalt and silica), the effective temperature of the lava falls, potentially to the point where its temperature does not pass the vapor pressure at depth.
Bottom line: If the seawater on the planet is more dense than Earth, atmospheric pressure higher than Earth, and magma composition favorable, you could end up with intensely hot yet not vaporizing water. (This is the principle by which a pressurized-water reactor works: the coolant is above boiling point but does not vaporize because of the high pressure of the coolant system.)
Part 2: Organisms able to survive in molten rock are not presently known to science. You'd need an organism that is extremely heat and pressure resistant, whose constituent materials have melting points above the temperature of lava, and which do not utilize proteins (as the denaturation temperature of all proteins is WELL below 700C). The current record holder for protein thermostability is CutA1, and it freaks out at a mere 150C.
Bottom line: Eh...no. Space magic to the rescue!
B ) Swim speeds - how is it that the player swims so fast?
Fins are remarkably efficient at propelling a diver/swimmer. Dolphin monofins can move a trained and fit swimmer at 30mph (13m/s). A trained bifin swimmer can reach speeds of 3.5 m/s. Water density will affect speed, so that's another contaminating variable. Thus, the swim speeds in Subnautica aren't out of alignment with reality.
C ) Why do many obviously different creatures have similar features (e.g. Sea Emperor and Sea Dragon)?
Why do so many fish look so similar? Thus far, as much as I'm aware, while the Emperor and Dragon are separate species, it hasn't been established that they're in separate genera. Thus, they can be closely related - certainly enough so to share many phenotypical traits - without being the same species.
Quarts and silicon both have a much higher melting point then carbon and there has been a recorded species of creature with a silicon based DNA structure.
Warning: Long answer
Actually, it's not that big of a deal. The current freediving record is 214m - that's being towed to depth by a weight sled and then surfacing, all on one breath of air. (No breathing gas at depth removes the risk of dissolved blood gas and the subsequent problem of decompression.)
The record for technical diving was set by Ahmed Gabr in 2014 for a depth of 332.35m, and yes, he survived. The thing is, in order to dive to that depth from the surface and return to the surface in the same dive, you need to take at least three different gas mixes with you: air for the initial descent phase, then Trimix (helium/nitrogen/oxygen) for the deep transition phase, then hydrox (hydrogen/oxygen) for the big deep. You end up a human being surrounded by gas cylinders. (Google Image search "technical diver." Those guys you see wearing eight and ten cylinders? Either staying deep for a long time...or going really, really deep for a little bit.) Now, if you can pressurize the interior of your Seamoth or Cyclops to equal the depth pressure you're at (effectively turning it into a saturation chamber), then that's a completely different story.
Functionally, the human body isn't keen on crushing from static pressure; we're made of pretty stern stuff - and a lot of water - so the threats from raw pressure are limited to preventing movement of the chest wall (necessary for breathing) or collapse of the very few air voids in the body (your lungs, mainly).
The deepest anybody's ever gone without a sub or atmosphere suit around them was 534m as part of the COMEX test dives in 1988. (Hydra 8 if you're taking notes.) However, another COMEX experiment showed a diver could survive at a depth of 701m - in a dive simulation using a hyperbaric chamber, a diver did everything he'd have to do to survive at depth and, amazingly, is still three-dimensional.
Realistically, though, it's not crush that you have to worry about at great depth, nor even decompression (as with proper equipment, you can take care of that with relative ease). No, the problem is the pressure itself. The human nervous system just doesn't like high pressure for long spans of time. At high pressure, you start having all kinds of problems, most seriously HPNS - High Pressure Nervous Syndrome - (which The Abyss did not invent; it's real) wherein you start having allllll kinds of fun: altered perception, twitching, the characteristic "HPNS shakes," dizziness, nausea, inability to concentrate on complex tasks, neural function aberrations... All of these are bad enough, but if they happen when you're a diver in the ocean, they're deadly. You can't understand your alarms or even what your depth gauge is telling you; you start getting manic, then sleepy; your fine motor skills are shot, but that doesn't matter because you can't remember how to do anything that requires fine motor skills anyway. You're feeling nausea - if you puke in your regulator, you choke and drown on your own vomit. If you pass out, you're at the mercy of the water - if your BCD is still set for descent, you keep going down and you're gone; if you're set to ascend, you rise until outgassing kills you...assuming you haven't let go of your regulator and drowned already anyway.
When you get right down to it, in the big deep, death has thousands of faces, but crushing isn't really one of them; you died a long time before that point.
Thank you for clearing that up, I didn't know any of this at all!
Well, you can't have "quartz based" life because quartz isn't an element. It's silicon dioxide. This means that, in that form, it can't be used as a carbon replacement.
Silicon-based life, where silicon replaces carbon in otherwise organic molecules, is theoretically possible, as silicon and carbon support the same number of bonds. However, the emphasis on "theoretically" isn't an accident; while the math checks out, we've no proof that it'd actually work, let alone have ever witnessed it. Lab studies to produce pseudo-organic molecules that replace carbon with silicon have been attempted, but none have succeeded so far - and producing a silicon-based molecule falls far short of silicon-based life.
Beyond that, there's a practical problem with silicon-based life, at least in Earthlike conditions: silicon is heavy. At more that twice the weight of carbon, silicon makes for a very...quirky material when it comes to life as we currently understand it. So, while silicon-based life is certainly plausible, it would almost definitely exist in conditions quite unlike those found on Earth or an Earthlike planet.
Regardless, the melting point of individual elements that make up an organism are irrelevant when it comes to determining whether an organism can survive in a particular environment. Calcium melts at 842*C, while carbon sublimes at 3,642*C - but a carbon-based human is dead after spending a few days at 70*C...or an hour or two at 120*C. It comes back around, in part, to a previous statement: if you're going to have a pyrophilic organism, it can't have organic proteins; they simply structurally fail at too low a temperature. Proteins are extremely delicate - even if they're not torn apart at a molecular level, their folding shape is critical to their function. That shape is maintained by very tenuous hydrogen bonds. Heat the protein too much and you overcome that bond energy - the protein changes shape because the hydrogen bonds are no longer "tethering" it into the correct shape. The protein now doesn't work as it's needed to. It's part of why a high fever will kill you: if your core temperature goes too high, you start screwing up enzymes and proteins you need for life processes.
Biologically speaking, lava-dwelling creatures are stuck firmly in the "space magic" category.
No sweat, @CaptainFearless! It's a fun subject, if somewhat unsettling.
Lol that sounds hilarious.
This is inspiring, and basically sums up some of the best reasons why I play Subnautica. Thank you, @Jamezorg. Additionally, if the Sea Dragons are ever added to the void as a player deterrent, the "Sea dragon is a caraar mutation" theory would be significantly less plausible. Personally, I think they are merely related to the emperor, and (as of right now) are both critically endangered species. ADDITIONALLY additionally, you talk as though the caraar extinction has already happened, in the past. What's to say it isn't still going on during the events of the game? Many creatures in-game obviously have Caraar, so it's obvious they still aren't immune to it... There was a new(ish) data download that mentions biodiversity from several thousand years ago being much higher than present. If the timespan between pre-extinction (assuming, from the data download, that the time when biodiversity was high was pre-extinction) was a mere few thousand years ago, then couldn't the extinction still be happening? It would certainly make for a much more compelling plot if you could reduce the effects of the extinction by developing a caraar cure, or even stop the extinction entirely.
@scifiwriterguy, I have a question: How does the Pompeii worm fit into all of this? That lives in relatively hot environments, correct? Could there be any correlation between that organism and how Subnautican lava-dwelling creatures could (hypothetically) survive? Warning: I have not done significant research on the pompeii worm, I merely remembered it and its habitat in passing.
Okay, so the coldest erupting lava is natrocarbonatite lava from Oldoinyo Lengai and it runs at 500-600 degrees centigrade. Incandescent light emissions can be perceived at this temperature range, although the colour would be a duller red.
The Pompeii worm has a tail that is capable of prolonged exposure to 80 degrees centigrade (however metabolic activity happens at around 22 degrees centigrade).
So we're still talking a 420-580 degree gap!
What about temporary exposure with some type of insulated (e.g. asbestos?) skin? The core body temperature never actually has to climb! That might solve the problem for our little dolphin things...
...rationalising the Sea Dragon might be another challenge!
(this is just as "rational" as the creatures in this game)
Silicon, not silicone. Massive difference.
Heh...
I stande corrected.
@subnauticambrian, that was a great catch, and one well worth looking at!
While @Avimimus is essentially correct, I would add two key elements.
1. The Pompeii Worm doesn't reach full-body temperatures of 80*C - only the tail. The head-end is at a considerably lower 72. While this doesn't seem like much, it's enough to keep it from cooking itself. (Essentially, it runs its own cooling system.) It's really a marvel of biology that a complex organism of any degree can survive in those temperatures, but the simpler the complex organism (which isn't an oxymoron) the easier it is to do.
2. The Pompeii Worm also has a symbiotic bacterium that helps it survive. If you Google an image of Alvinella pompejana, you'll see that it looks shaggy. This isn't the worm, but rather the bacteria that have colonized it. They secrete a pretty durable mucus that helps insulate the worm. The massive amounts of surface area formed by the bacterial "fur" you see is believed to function as a radiator, dissipating heat so that the organism's temperature doesn't rise to a deadly level.
As for asbestos skin or something similar to it...
It's not a bad idea, really. Asbestos transmits too much thermal energy (it's fireproof, but not heat-proof). However, we can hypothesize a body covering that might do the job.
Since we can infer Planet 4546B to have high concentrations of silica (evidenced by extensive quartz formations even in temperate waters), it's likely that the biology of the planet would have evolved to make some sort of use of it, at least under some conditions. A likely result being that rather than chitin, which forms the carapace of most exoskeletal creatures on Earth, is replaced with a silica-bearing compound on 4546B. (This is all the more likely if the organisms there are silicon-based.) Since all evolution is a matter of mutations that give a survival advantage, it's not inconceivable that a foam-like carapace would evolve. If this mutation was followed by another that resulted in a borosilicate exterior coating, it's essentially become a biological Space Shuttle tile.
There are three problems here, though:
1. The Lava Lizard doesn't have a carapace, it has skin. Silicon foam and borosilicate are not flexible.
2. Every gap in the structure would allow the infiltration of molten rock. Even a symbiotic insulator like that found in the Pompeii Worm won't work, since it would be incinerated.
3. Any exposed structures - the eyes, those snaggleteeth, and the webbing on its fins - wouldn't be able to withstand the temperature and would be destroyed the instant it hit the lava.
So, while with the proper (if unlikely) skin the lizard's core temp might stay in a survivable range, it would still be maimed as soon as it did a lava dive; delicate structures like eyes and fins just couldn't shed heat fast enough to avoid damage.