Subnautica Theory Sharing...
AnomalyDetected
Alterra Housing District: Planet Vicaron Join Date: 2017-04-19 Member: 229741Members
Alterra Housing District: Planet Vicaron Join Date: 2017-04-19 Member: 229741Members
Heya!
I know, this game's story is pretty well rounded. But there are still many questions that boggle our minds.
Let's find answers!
Share all your theories, like the one below!
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So, a while ago, I saw some people wondering how a planet of that sized orbited 4546b, which was recently seen from space to be a lot smaller than we may have thought. So I looked into it and found a theory I think is the most legitimate one. So, have you ever noticed the "B"? Some people think the "B" in 4546b means its planet B orbiting around the star and that the Galaxy number is 4546. While this could be true, I think the correct answer would be a binary system. What is this? A binary system is when two space objects of similar mass orbit each other. They both rotate around each other, all-the-while orbiting the sun of that galaxy.
An example of a Binary System:
This would explain the "B" in the name, and also give us a name for the red planet. 4546a. This means, if believed, we are currently on planet 4546b, a planet in a Binary System with 4546a.
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Comment your theories and replies below!
I know, this game's story is pretty well rounded. But there are still many questions that boggle our minds.
Let's find answers!
Share all your theories, like the one below!
========================================================================================================
So, a while ago, I saw some people wondering how a planet of that sized orbited 4546b, which was recently seen from space to be a lot smaller than we may have thought. So I looked into it and found a theory I think is the most legitimate one. So, have you ever noticed the "B"? Some people think the "B" in 4546b means its planet B orbiting around the star and that the Galaxy number is 4546. While this could be true, I think the correct answer would be a binary system. What is this? A binary system is when two space objects of similar mass orbit each other. They both rotate around each other, all-the-while orbiting the sun of that galaxy.
An example of a Binary System:
This would explain the "B" in the name, and also give us a name for the red planet. 4546a. This means, if believed, we are currently on planet 4546b, a planet in a Binary System with 4546a.
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Comment your theories and replies below!
Comments
Try checking out this post, if you haven't already.
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The Kharra in NS2 was suggested to take place after Subnautica. This idea comes from many sources of evidence, and I will show a few. I also went off AwesomeCrunch's theory.
1) The Hydra is a plant that shoots spikes at the soldires. This is very similar to the tiger plant, yes? It even looks like it.
2) The gorge plushy is found in the game, suggesting humans knew of the creatures and loved them before the Kharaa.
3) It would make sense that either the Kharaa was attached to the space shuttle, or carried off the world after the gun was disabled. Maybe since the gun was disabled, Alterra or some Mongolian Colonies began scavenging for resources.
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I do kinda thing the Gasopod Pooping guy might share quite a bit of DNA with the Gorge though, maybe it's poopball tail is now the Gorge's Belly to spawn Kharaa structures. The Kharaa is known to absorb living matter into it's biomass and modify it's DNA.
While it could be an easter egg, it's way too much of a story mix-up.
Along with your idea, they may have known about Gorge. Maybe the Plushie depicts a non-infected version, which is much cuter. The mutated version may have appeared after the infection reached the species, which could have happened after the events of Subnautica.
Hmm, never thought of it that way. You could be on to something, maybe they've got them in a zoo somewhere. The cute little piggies at the petting zoo or something!
Yea. Maybe, in Alterra space, there's a planet that reserves the un-infected organisms of the Species: The Gorge Zoo.
While that is true, that would mean the other planets guns could still be active. This would restrict planetary travel. But then, we come in and disable one of the planets quarantines. This could mean the specific strain or mutation could, theoretically, be the Subnautica version, just mutated.
As seen, the image says this peepers infection is DORMANT. Not gone, DORMANT.
That means, theoretically, it could still spread, just that un-infected being is now a carrier. This would explain as to how the infection escaped the planet and infect others even though the player was cured.
So the player didn't bring kharaa off the planet.
I'm actually kinda glad you countered that cause I didn't want to blame Markus and Shawn for it in my story lmao.
Cutefishes are just precursor doggos, that we’re indeed imported from offworld and modified into sea creatures for while they were on 4546B.
Reaper leviathans are actually much more mammalian than they seem, and they breathe air. They are unrelated to most Subnautica creatures, and didn’t share the common ancestor most Subnautican life do. They have no living relatives and give birth to live young, and do not lay eggs.
Stalkers are actually almost as intelligent as cutefishes are, they just are extraordinary aggressive, like orcas.
There was once some form of terrestrial life on the mountain island besides cave crawlers and skyrays, it was just hunted to extinction by the precursors. Some form of life once existed on the mountain island as well, as something must have transferred bulbo tree seeds from one island to another.
This creature is likely the Large Skyray creature seen in concept art. It probably transferred bulbo seeds from one island to another by flying, and was the largest terrestrial herbivore on the volcanic crater we are stranded on. It was highly frugivorous, and possibly ate eggs.
While skyrays do play a similar ecological role they’re supposedly not good at flight over long distances, and without the Aurora as a rest stop, they likely couldn’t complete the journey between islands, and the two island populations had been isolated for thousands of years.
Well, ordinarily, any A-B-C letters with a system name reference the system's stars rather than planets. It's how we have Alpha Centauri A and B; it's a binary system. When the location for Subnautica was named, well...UWE screwed up. It's a minor screwup, and one that anyone not deeply invested in exoplanetary study would probably miss. And, for what it's worth, @AnomalyDetected, a mistake that you very conspicuously did not make: while stars are given capital letters, exoplanets orbiting those stars are given lowercase letters. So, as you correctly wrote, we should have 4546a, 4546b, et cetera.
In which case, you're quite potentially right. In another post, someone else is exploring possible orbital models of the planetary system, and while it's a three-body problem instead of a boring old two-body, there's no reason why the World of Water Misery (4546b) couldn't be in a three-body orbital system with 4546a (which I tend to call the Red Moon) and 4546c (or the White Moon). Or the "a" and "c" designations could be flipped. All are equally valid.
Give that fellow a cigar! I do believe that's an excellent explanation, given what we have to go on.
That said, I have one of my own for you. I'd posit that, originally, the Mountain Island and Floater Island were much, much closer together, possibly practically on top of each other. I base this on how close the Underwater Islands are to Mountain Island, the fact that the UWI and FI are made buoyant by the same mechanism, and that large floaters - and floaters in general - are not in evidence anywhere near FI's current location. How FI made tracks is open to debate - tidal movement (although that's a hell of a lot of mass), the Precursors just shoved it out of the way, a reefback just got confused and kept ramming into it like it does repeatedly to Lifepod 5...not that I'm bitter - but a situation where FI and MI were close together would explain how species found on the two islands are almost 1:1 but not quite.
so, um, ok, like the floater island is actually like the sunken city of Ry'leh, the sea emperor is actually Cthulhu, the precursors are actually the um like dudes on the moon who made humanity, Gorge is a moonbeast, the cuddlefish is secretly Neolarthotep in his creepy little disguise, Ryley Robinson is like um Ryl'eh in space an' the Kharaa is secretly Cthulhu because the city Ry'leh rose from the oceans while Cthulhu was in his dormant hibernation phase and so yeah the um Kharaa will someday awaken from its dormant phase within Ryley and cleanse the world of human kind.
Ok; that was supposed to be as stupid as possible, but the last bit almost spooked me. Heck, maybe Ryley becomes the hivemind behind the Kharaa instead of the interstellar profit who shares a body and mind with the lord of the sea that I expected him to become. Ya' never know. But probably not.
It is physically impossible to out nerd scifiwriterguy.
He does consistently impress me.
<h1>The Sunken Island</h1>Mind you, those "sunken" floater islands could be the result of some of those smaller floaters perhaps dying off after being infected by the Bacterium. So less floaters, less buoyancy. I'm still confused about the volcanic activity on the biggest sunken island though. It's mostly hollow with a solid core. So what is inside that core, able to produce enough friction or pressure to fuel those thermal vents on top of it?
The floating island with Degasi bases is showing signs of stress which might be caused by the floaters eating the island, with peaces breaking off. So on the sunken island, could there be a huge floater much bigger than we've seen, which has been growing inside that inner core or somehow it got trapped. And because it's still growing and pulsating is creating friction and pressure for those vents to spawn on top? To me it seems they could be capable of surviving only on devouring rock without sunlight...
It's just, as observed from the outside, it makes absolutely no sense for there to be volcanic activity on a relatively small mass such as the sunken island.
ALSO and this makes it even more suspect to weirdness. There are rocks floating around the sunken island without ANY floaters on them. Suggesting there is some kind suspension field in place acting on something in those rocks. Allowing them to float around the sunken island in that circular pattern. How come our Bitching Betty hasn't picked up on some kind of "unidentified power source"
Something strange is up with that sunken island, it's a very weird object in any case...
Tides should allow for some powerful currents around the game map, if it was present.
Yet tidal movement tend to display circular patterns, one moment it would be pushing, the next it would be pulling. Net transport is usually small.
I've never noted it. That is really weird. I can't fathom what would drive a thermal vent on a piece of rock not connected to the underground.
Maybe the floaters ingest water and expel it at much higher temperatures. It could be some sort of cooling system, or byproduct of chemical reactions. If it is friction, then water should be acting as a coolant.
Aren't there some rocks anchored in place by blood vines? Like it was some sort of blood vine cave system that got ripped apart?
Looks like your mind is already lost. Happens to the best of us, when looking through mirrors.
Another theory I have is this:
Deep underwater, I believe there are more biomes.
Now, this theory could easily be broken by pointing out the Void is called the "Dead Zone" but I have a new idea. What if, past the PDAs scan range, there is land. Downwards of about 3000m down or more, there are different biomes with deep fish and plant life. The Mariana Trench, the deepest point on earth we know of, has life, and it's located downwards of about 10,994 meters. If it can support life, I feel like the "Dead Zone" can too.
What type of life could it support? Probably fish that glow and radiate light, or fishes that hide in the darkness. It could easily support life.
Now, people might claim that the bottom of the Dead Zone is empty due to the infection. I feel this could easily be repelled if we consider where the Aliens set up. They clearly have been near the void to get the Emperor Eggs, but how far? They claim it is the last known ancestor of the species, but who's to say they searched the "Dead Zone?" Maybe on the planets Dead Zone, there are Emperors found deep down. We would never know, as we can't normally traverse that deep.
If we could, what would we find?
It really depends on what you think is possible.
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While true, my point still stands.
Maybe...maybe not. I do so like the challenge.
Kinda. Wave action tends to be a net-zero system because that's how waves work, and I very foolishly used the word "tidal," which was wrong. Currents, however, are circular in the macro but over short ranges (and the game map definitely qualifies as short range), there are distinct, linear movements. The North Atlantic has a clockwise current overall, but along North America, the dominant flow is northward (the Gulf Stream) while going past Europe and Africa, it's largely south. Large objects like, say, a floating island, would be affected by macro-level currents and predominant winds, so you could chart their likely track.
Of course, the other explanation is the apparently violent weather 4546B apparently gets from time to time. A strong cyclonic system (like a hurricane or typhoon on Earth) that lingered for long enough would move even that mass, and storms striking again and again would, over time, shove that island pretty hard. Combine that with dominant currents in the region and you could have significant movement of the landmass over time. It wouldn't take a week, month, or year, but over the span of decades? It's plausible.
Plausible and implausible at the same time. Since we see Cave Crawlers in shallow water from time to time, an infested Aurora is pretty much unavoidable; that much food and decay is going to attract every scavenger within sniffing distance (and underwater, that's a good distance). But there's no plausible reason how they could be there so quickly after the Aurora blows itself apart. It should take days at a minimum and weeks realistically. But if that were the case, exploring the Aurora would be straightforward and far less stressful...and who wants that?
Absolutely, almost 100% probable.
It's important to acknowledge that oceans - at least as we know them - have several distinct layers, and the organisms that live in each layer are defined by them. Quick and dirty, the deeper you go, the darker it gets and the higher the pressure goes. Likewise, the deeper you go, the less pigment organisms have, the smaller they get (well...mostly), the simpler they get, and the weaker they get.
Less quick and dirty:
Go deeper and the light starts getting dimmer. Once available sunlight drops to 1% or lower of surface energy, you've officially crossed into the aphotic zones. The topmost aphotic layer is the mesopelagic, starting around 200m down, also called - no joke - the Twilight Zone. There isn't enough energy for photosynthesis, so the autotrophs aren't found here. As a result, you get a lot less life at this depth, and much of what you do find are organisms that live in the photic zone diving deeper for various reasons (like hunting), and a lot of detritivores - organisms that feed on the wastes and remains of organisms from the photic layer. The creatures that live here range from the "normal" to the "weird, but still kinda normal," so swordfish, lots of eels, squid, and similar are found in this layer. From its start at 200m down to its end at 1000m down, the temperature drops at least 16*C, from 20 near the top down to a very chilly 4*C at the bottom.
Past the mesopelagic is the bathypelagic. Starting at 1000m depth and ranging down to about 4000m, the bathypelagic is also known as the Midnight Zone - there's zero light at these depths. Organisms get smaller and decidedly "weirder" to our surface standards. The most "normal" are things like giant and colossal squid, along with deep-diving sperm whales that hunt them. Beyond those, though, are real nightmare fish. Sloane's Viperfish is a perfect example of a fish that's pure nightmare fuel, fangtooth fish are scary but kinda goofy looking, and gulper eels look like something that H.R. Giger dreamed up. But there are some interesting changes you see at this depth. There's no light, and as a result it's a novelty; some fish use bioluminescence to signal one another or as a lure for hunting. Fish have little to no color, tend toward being thin and flat, and are comparatively weak; since hunting by sight is impossible, the ability to juke and throw off a pursuing predator really isn't necessary, so muscles of these deep fish aren't as twitch-strong as shallow-water fish. The waters are frigid, with an average of only 4*C (39*F). This is why the crews of deep research subs like Alvin or the long-gone Trieste bring sweaters, hats, and gloves; it gets damn cold in there.
Once you cross the 4000m line, you've entered the abyssopelagic zone. Now, technically, "abyss" does mean "bottomless," which is kinda ironic; the abyssopelagic is actually where you find the bulk of the ocean floor on Earth. And, boringly, most of that is: mud. Featureless, fine, very, very boring mud. Life is even more sparse here - overall. The little life that's found down here subsists on what trickles down from above, usually from the photic zone. This trickle-down nutrient material is called marine snow; it's fine, truly snow-like in appearance, and is composed of flakes of algae remains, chips and scraps of fish that have died (usually by being eaten), and...fish crap. Lots of it. As a result, the mud of the abyssal plain has shrimps (not the kind you'd eat), sea slugs, and some crabs. There are two areas, however, that teem with life.
The first is the regions surrounding hydrothermal vents, black or white smokers. Here, you can find something that otherwise is only found where there's the Sun: primary producers. But rather than using sunlight to drive their production of energy (photosynthesis), these organisms use chemical energy (chemosynthesis). Vents feature mats of chemosynthetic algae and bacteria, along with a variety of shrimp and fish that feed on them. When the vents go cold, as they eventually will, these ecosystems die.
The other place full of life is a whale fall. When a whale dies, it's not like a goldfish. It doesn't bob around on the ocean surface upside down. It sinks, all the way down. Where the whale lands on the abyssal plain becomes unusual: it's a massive food source. Isopods, shrimp, lobsters, sea cucumbers, and bacteria of a wide range of types colonize the dead whale, creating a micro-ecosystem that thrives for decades in stages. Hagfish and similar scavengers strip upwards of 100 pounds off the carcass every day for about two years before squat lobster, shrimp, and sea cucumbers take over. They take another two years, stripping off what the initial scavengers didn't take. Then, finally, sulfophilic bacteria colonize the bones, slowly converting the lipids that are left. This continues for up to a century. So while it's largely a dead zone, there are pockets of thriving life. Small pockets.
Once you pass 6000m, though, you're in the basement. That's the hadopelagic zone, named after Hades, ruler of the bloody Underworld. Worldwide, there are 46 hadopelagic areas, a combination of trenches and troughs. The most famous is the Marianas Trench mainly because it has the deepest spot on Earth (the Challenger Deep), but there are hadopelagic zones spread all over Earth's oceans. If you're in the US, the closest is near Jamaica, the Cayman Trough. (Sometimes erroneously called the Cayman Trench.) While its 7686m maximum depth is peanuts to the Challenger's 10916m, it's still plenty deep.
Trenches were long thought to be dead zones. They're not, and that was found out on the first dive into one. Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh dove the Challenger Deep in the Marianas in 1960, and they discovered small shrimp, sea cucumbers, and a handful of other organisms. Life is sparse, small-bodied, and strange to us, but life there is.
The interesting take-away from this is that any depth should have life to encounter, and it is extremely reasonable that it would have actually been shielded from Kharaa infection rather than ravaged by it. The bacteria that live in the depths are not interchangeable with those that live in the shallows; their environments and energy sources are entirely incompatible. As a result, unless Kharaa represents an entirely novel form of bacterial life, it's unlikely in the extreme it could have survived in the deep ocean.
A noteworthy aberration of the "smaller with depth" rule is a phenomenon called deep sea gigantism. That is...
...some organisms which are ordinarily much smaller in shallow depths buck the size trend and are actually found in very large forms at great depth. Think giant squid are the limit? Heck no. The Japanese Spider Crab, which really does look like the unholy offspring of a king crab and a spider, grows to a maximum arm-width of six feet. Or the Oarfish, which can grow up to 11m long (there's a famous picture of an oarfish that washed up near San Diego being held by sixteen Marines). Giant ostracod, which are usually tiny crustaceans about three hundredths of an inch (~1mm) long, grow up to 1.3" (3.2cm). Or, one of my personal favorites, the giant isopod. An isopod most people know is a woodlouse or pillbug (also known as a roly-poly, but that's inaccurate). A quarter inch (half centimeter) or so is about their limit on size...unless you grab one from 2100m down. Imagine a pink pillbug up to 14 inches long with shiny silver eyes and thick armor - that's a giant isopod. I named the one I worked with Ernie.
Net-net, that means that we not only should find life deep down, but it can be pretty unusual. If you ask me, Anomaly brought up the basis of the second DLC.
The clockwise current (ocean gyre) that revolves around the North Atlantic is forced, in its majority, by a combination of winds and the Coriolis Force, particularly the trade winds (which flows from east near the equator) and the westerlies (which flows from west between 30-60 degrees of latitude).
What I meant when I compared the island with an iceberg is that, despite similar sizes, the later will respond, mostly, to wind currents (the flow of surface waters induced by the wind) while the former will tend to behave crudely like a sailing ship, being pushed by the wind itself. It seems like I'm talking about the same things here (and in a sense I am).
It would have been easier if I just stated that it behaved like an iceberg.
Since I didn't, I'll try to elaborate further.
An iceberg, drifting with surface currents, moves with a small deflection to the right (in the northern hemisphere, to the left in the south) in comparison to the prevailing winds. That's due to the Coriolis effect. Meanwhile, a crude ship should move almost exactly in the direction of the wind. A ship would also react faster to winds, albeit currents needs more stable winds to form.
Both modes are likely ways of locomotion to the Island.
We have to bear in mind that this is a disease which decimated countless worlds, acting on the most varied lifeforms. In the game it is present on creatures living in extreme habitats, so it must be very resistant to environmental changes. Following your outstanding! explanation regarding the energy flow to the deep ocean, it is possible (not necessarily probable) that the Kharaa could reach the deeps through marine snow or dead infected leviathans.
I think... that for like one sentence... for one glorious instant... I came within a meter of doing this. Also, it should be 'mentally' impossible to do this as there is no physical law ruling that he can't be out-nerded. Just some crazy fluke of the human's geek cortex.
Another stupid thought of mine:
Tardigrades have been shown to frequent open space in the Unknown Worlds universe, as the PDA's tell us; in such quantities as to be ground up into nutrient bricks. And since Tardigrades are Xenomorphs as well as the Kharaa from NS2, the bacterium themselves might be some far relative of the Tardigrade. This would make sense for how the Kharaa can travel from ship to ship seemingly out of nowhere where no bacteria should be able to survive.
For those who might not know, 'xenomorph' doesn't only describe the monster from Alien. This misconception is due to these monsters being what scientists refer to as a xenomorph. Xenomorph, the word, means literally 'strange-form' or 'foreign-form'; which makes sense for The Alien because of its DNA structure changing with its host before birth. Tardigrades are the only real-world examples of xenomorphs which I know of; being microscopic creatures which can survive in space and pretty much anywhere on earth due to their miraculous ability to enter a hibernation state in which they shed themselves of their genes, wall off all of the important parts and completely dehydrate themselves. When their stasis has ended, they will re-stitch their genes and put themselves back together again. However, the xenomorph bit comes when they accidentally stitch in the genes of other microorganisms into their own DNA; causing the average tardigrade to have only 5/6ths of their own DNA.
-Isummon_Durt