Sparse Reef Theories on Sparseness
pie1055
Join Date: 2016-12-05 Member: 224603Members
Join Date: 2016-12-05 Member: 224603Members
Hello all, pie here! Been playing Subnautica for a little over a year and I'd thought to drop in on the forums and say hello 
Anyways I did some searching and I haven't found any threads directly talking about the conditions of the sparse reef biome and of the theories I've seen here, the wiki, steam forums, youtube comments, and elsewhere I've rarely seen my take on the lack of biodiversity in this location. I've heard (whether or not it is true) that the Sparse Reef is the way it is because the devs created it as a 'filler' biome. While a biome with the defining characteristic of being bland is worthy in its own right it's always fun to speculate why that may be the case. Go ahead and add your own theories if you like. I've heard all sorts of ones ranging from the sparse reef being a prior sea treader feeding ground to the greenish brain coral eating other life out of the location and they were all interesting reads.
Theory: The nearby floater island was recently(in geological time) a part of the seabed located in the center of the sparse reef. The large floaters were initially located inside of the caves below and around the sparse reef. Once they congregated closely enough their lift began to overtake the weight of the seabed above.
Evidence:
And just to reward you for reading all of that (or skimming past it) I made a basic topographical map of the sparse reef. Lighter areas represent more shallow zones and darker areas represent deeper zones. The second map overlays the floater island above the crater, which you can note fits quite snugly into it.
Think I'm on to something? Think I'm full of crap? Have a different theory? It's all good
Anyways I did some searching and I haven't found any threads directly talking about the conditions of the sparse reef biome and of the theories I've seen here, the wiki, steam forums, youtube comments, and elsewhere I've rarely seen my take on the lack of biodiversity in this location. I've heard (whether or not it is true) that the Sparse Reef is the way it is because the devs created it as a 'filler' biome. While a biome with the defining characteristic of being bland is worthy in its own right it's always fun to speculate why that may be the case. Go ahead and add your own theories if you like. I've heard all sorts of ones ranging from the sparse reef being a prior sea treader feeding ground to the greenish brain coral eating other life out of the location and they were all interesting reads.
Theory: The nearby floater island was recently(in geological time) a part of the seabed located in the center of the sparse reef. The large floaters were initially located inside of the caves below and around the sparse reef. Once they congregated closely enough their lift began to overtake the weight of the seabed above.
Evidence:
- The shape of the sparse reef largely resembles that of a crater.
- The many spires along the north and east walls of the 'crater' are similar to the spires hanging from underneath the floater island.
- Much of the bottom of the sparse reef contains small lumps that resemble debris, both this 'debris' and the surrounding seabed are covered in sand. The reason that this looks out of place is that the seabed would normally be smoother and if the debris were boulders that were naturally occurring there would be no sand resting on top. The sand indicates that it was particulate matter that was in suspension initially during the same time as the larger objects. The larger objects would fall faster due to their girth before the particulate matter rested down afterwords.
- While not being directly above the sparse reef the floater island is still very close to the biome, when it could have been placed just about anywhere else on the map. Most notable is how far it is from the floating islands biome, which would seem to be much more suitable at first glance.
- The size of the crater is slightly larger than the island(see below image). While initially a discrepancy it can be explained by large chunks of rock falling away as the island slowly rose to the surface.
- Where would the larger debris have gone? Of note is a large mound on the southern edge of the biome that does not match the structure of the spires. Conveniently enough it is located between the crater and the current position of the floating island.
- From the northern shallows to the bottom of the crater the difference in depth comes to roughly 170 meters. The difference in depth between the bottom of the floating island to the top comes to roughly 145 meters. This means the island would fit nicely into the surrounding geography, naturally tapering off from the shallows to the deeper grand reef to the south (it wouldn't be no blood kelp levels of drastic vertical changes).
- The deeper areas of the sparse reef lack biodiversity and populations of organisms are small, supporting the fact that those areas were not habitable until recently.
And just to reward you for reading all of that (or skimming past it) I made a basic topographical map of the sparse reef. Lighter areas represent more shallow zones and darker areas represent deeper zones. The second map overlays the floater island above the crater, which you can note fits quite snugly into it.
Think I'm on to something? Think I'm full of crap? Have a different theory? It's all good
Comments
I was thinking the floater island was the reason for the sparse reef, if for no other reason than it explains the spires. The only other things I can think of is perhaps that was the testing area for the carar virus and it wiped out the life there (but didn't spread...?) or perhaps that is where the degasi landed and the radiation and/or detonation of the ship poisoned/killed everything in the area. The Degasi seems like it was a smaller ship so its area of effect would be smaller than the Aurora, and at that location it explains how the crew made it to the floater island so quickly. Of course, neither of these have any real evidence so I'm going with the floater island theory.
1. The sparse reef arrived about 2 or more updates after the floating island, and I somehow doubt they had a whole story and biome layout in mind for the island when they made it. Then two updates later they just added the sparse reef.
2. I don't understand why everyone is freaking out about the "sparseness" of the sparse reef. Most of our oceans are sparse in the same way the sparse reef is, its more astonishing how much life there is in the ocean of Subnautica more then how odd it is that there is a sparse area in the ocean.
3. While I don't know the actual physics to how fast a floating island would move, I feel like over the +1000 years its been around, it would have been moved by the currents more than a few hundred meters. As well as in 1000 years I think more life would have flurished. We know its been around for at least 1000 years because the precursors were around 1000 years ago and there are precursor structures within the floating island.
4. The Carar theory has no leeway due to the fact that we know the Carar escaped from the Disease Research Facility in the lost river and under no circumstances would the precursors be testing the carar in an open water environment. Also the fact that the Carar seems to have no effect on flora, so that would not explain why there is a lack of flora there.
5. The Degasi theory is possible, and probably most believable of any of these theories. The only problem is there is no evidence of the Degasi being there. No remains, even though the crew said they basically salvaged everything, I feel like something would have been left. But that could have deteriorated over the last decade.
While I have been bashing the theories I do like theorizing, so I have one for you all:
Precursor Caches are being placed around the world right now, currently one can be found in experimental underneath the upper area of the Sea Treader's Path. These caches hold Ion Crystals and data downloads (as far as we know based off what we can gather from the currently available one), so my theory is the possibility that a precursor cache once resided where the pit is now and one of the Ion Crystals lost stability, and since the Ion Crystals are stabilized energy with the power of a small nuclear detonation, that could mean one lost stability over time and detonated, causing an explosion that formed the sparse reef crater and would explain the lack of life in the area since it only recently became habitable again.
This would also give a reason to why the precursors built these caches around the world, for safety reasons. It would be bad to have all your ion crystals stored in one base because if one blows then bye bye base. So to decrease the chances of that happening they put only a few in their bases and few elsewhere in the world.
But I do like the Island theory, and the Degasi theory could make some sense, but I do feel its more likely the reason the sparse reef is sparse is because they needed a new, unique, biome.
The spires in the Sparse reef could be stalagmites, which were created when stalactites growing from the Floater island slowly passed over (lots of things could've happened in 1000 years)
Honestly, even if this isn't true, I'm gonna believe it is. When I was thinking of what made the biome so sparse I instantly thought "Precursors" and stayed there until now. Thanks, man
In addition, the "sparseness" is what the PDA points out about the location while the game gives no explanation for it. When the PDA tells you it detects a massive energy signature in the mountains biome there is at least an answer to be found. It introduces a bit of mystery that the current canon and game gives no direct hints to.
Lastly I think there's a notable discrepancy between a reef that is sparse opposed to it lacking biodiversity. It could be teeming with life and still be termed lacking in diversity, it would just mean most of the life is very similar.
The missing Degasi is another interesting mystery. You would think there would be at least a PDA message noting signs of a ship having gone down in an area...
Also, as much sense as your theory makes, and as much as I'd like to think that it's the real reason why it's so sparse, why would the island still be right above where it floated up to?
I mean I know that the real reason is because it wouldn't make much sense in the game to have a landmass moving around, and unity definitely couldn't handle something as insane as that, but lore wise, shouldn't the island just like, float away? I can't think of any reason why it would be anchored to a single location.
Could be the floaters affect gravity, and after they reach a certain size they create a sort of gravity anchor? I dunno.