Sea Emperor Leviathan

This article is about the Sea Emperor. You may be looking for the Sea Emperor Juvenile.

This seems new This article contains information that is updated for the latest Experimental Version of Subnautica. Players using stable mode may find this information inaccurate.

Of the specimens on record, only one survived infection with the bacterium. The closest translation of their symbol for this specimen would be 'emperor'.

― PDA, Data Downloads

The Sea Emperor is a life form belonging to the fauna category. It is still under development, and is only spawnable by using the Debug Console Commands.

Once fully implemented, the Sea Emperor will be the largest creature in the game.

Appearance

The Sea Emperor is colossal in size, having a stocky body entirely armored and predominantly pale brown in color, with a few shades of green. Its tentacles are adorned with bright cyan bioluminescent spots.

The creature's head is small, and quite peculiar in shape (see "Trivia" below for more), featuring two glowing green-tipped antennae on top of its snout, two large mandibles on each side of its rather small mouth, and a glowing hollow in-between these mandibles. It seems to possess four binocular eyes.

The Sea Emperor's posterior consists of seven long, yet slim tentacles ending with large tentacular clubs, with the largest being in the center, surrounded by the other smaller ones.

Unlike the Sea Dragon Leviathan, the Sea Emperor doesn't have true graspers; Instead, its forelimbs are two massive, paddle-like arms.

Behavior

Despite its gargantuan size, the Sea Emperor's diet consists solely of micro-organisms filtered from the water. 

It is suggested that in the past these creatures would have traveled in small herds, occasionally coming to the surface to feast on the microorganisms in the shallower water. When the Carar bacterium was released onto the planet, billions of creatures died, destroying the food source of the species. 

Story

The captive Sea Emperor is the last remaining adult of its species. and a mother of five eggs. These eggs must be hatched at some point in the story. She is over one thousand years old, and is suggested to have far surpassed her natural lifespan.

Almost all of the Sea Emperors died when the Carar was released, leaving one remaining adult which was later discovered to be pregnant and laid five eggs. As the only source of Enzyme 42 on the planet, the Sea Emperor and her children are the key to curing Carar.

When the Carar was released, the Precursors captured the only surviving Sea Emperor and contained her in the Primary Research Facility due to the life forms' immunity to the virus. The last surviving Sea Emperor was studied by the Precursors in hopes of finding a cure using her natural production of Enzyme 42. However, due to her age, studies conducted that she was not a viable source of Enzyme 42 as the enyzme she produced was too unstable. Precursor documents state that she had "grown sick", and is later revealed that she was pregnant. After the Sea Emperor gave birth to five eggs, the Precursors took her eggs and attached them to the Precursor Egg Incubator, as the conditions of the aquarium were not suitable for her eggs to hatch, and the juveniles may be a better source of Enzyme 42. Later, creatures indirectly brought seeds from Flora and terrain into the aquarium, transforming the aquarium into a thriving ecosystem. With the Sea Emperor producing enough Enzyme 42 to keep the creatures inside immune. In turn, the creatures learned to protect the Sea Emperor, and she began thriving off of them. 

Data Bank Entries

<tabber> Data Bank Entry=

SPECIMEN SIZE CATEGORIES HAVE BEEN ADJUSTED UPWARD TO ACCOMMODATE THIS SPECIES 1. (Feeding & Digestion) Despite its size this species subsists entirely on microorganisms it filters from the water. The mere presence of these microorganisms in such a restrictive environment is highly unlikely, depending as they do on a complicated ecosystem of plant and animal life. 2. (Reproduction) Since just one adult specimen of this kind has been identified, it may reproduce asexually, but it may equally be the last of its kind. Large ovary-like organs are carried in the middle section, suggesting that like other species on this planet it produces eggs, however internal scar tissue indicates probable infertility. 3. (Stomach Enzyme) The emperor is the only known source of a unique, complex enzyme which seems to play a pivotal role in protecting the ecosystem against the impacts of the bacterium. The indigenous creatures appear to have adapted to consume the enzyme in its natural form, when the emperor emits its stomach gases. However, the enzyme's structure is unstable, and they require a constant supply to stave off uncontrollable genetic mutation. 4. (Health) Comparative analysis of size and metabolic rates indicates this specimen is more than 1,000 years old. Extensive internal and external scar tissue suggests it has lived well in excess of the peak lifespan for its species. Assessment: Enzyme too unstable for cure. Enzyme synthesis impossible. One possibility left open: fully cure an individual with a more stable concentration of the enzyme, produced by a healthier specimen.

|-| Life Cycle=

Available biological data has been used to synthesize the effects of the alien bacterium on the sea emperor's natural lifecycle. This creature likely lived and moved in small herds around the planet's ocean trenches, coming to the surface to feed off the huge volumes of microorganisms in the shallower waters. Family size would be strictly limited by available food supply. Offspring would likely split off at a young age to form their own herds elsewhere. Given their sparse population, mating and egg-laying was likely infrequent, perhaps a once in a lifetime event. The species likely had a preferred environment for egg-laying - in fact successful hatching may depend on such conditions. There is no evidence to support the assumption that all members of the species were immune from the alien bacterium. Even if this is so, there is evidence that introduction of the bacterium decimated life on the planet, and this would have had catastrophic effects on the emperors' food supply and survival rate. The symbiotic relationship between this specimen and other lifeforms likely developed as a direct result of the bacterial infection. Those lifeforms which learnt to keep the emperor alive survived with its help. This may explain the vast tracts of lifeless ocean in a rough perimeter around the emperor's location.

</tabber>

Future Plans

• Juvenile Sea Emperors and Sea Emperor eggs will be added in the future.
• The Sea Emperor will produce Enzyme 42 which will cure fauna and the Player of Carar
  • Given this, it is most likely that the Sea Emperor is immune to the Carar.
• The Sea Emperor may communicate telepathically with the Player about why they need to hatch her eggs.

Gallery

<tabber> In Game Screenshots=

• 

  Front view

• 

  Dorsal view

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  Side view

• 

  Bioluminescence

• 

  Ditto, side profile

• 

  Rear view

|-| Videos=

• Emp leviathan idle 01

  Idle animation

• Emp leviathan fixes and additions 03

  More animations

|-| Concept Art=

• 

  Concept Art

</tabber> For a more complete gallery, visit Sea Emperor/Gallery

Trivia

• The Sea Emperor currently uses the AI of the Boneshark and lacks certain animations. It can attack, inflicting 80% damage to the player's health.
• Once fully implemented, the Sea Emperor will be upscaled to be larger than the Sea Dragon Leviathan and it will become the largest life form in the game.
• Certain developmental notes refer to the Sea Emperor as the "Emperor Leviathan".
  • Various documents refer to the Sea Emperor as the "Grand Leviathan".
• The Sea Emperor closely shares many of its features to real life animals: a head shape slightly similar to that of many hammerhead sharks, and paddle-like arms, resembling those of the green sea turtles.
• The databank entry suggests that the last surviving Sea Emperor was kept alive well beyond its natural lifespan using unknown technologies, leaving heavy internal and external scarring (possibly even having led to its suggested infertility).
• The Sea Emperor is named after the closest translation the PDA could find for a Precursor symbol. This technically makes it the only creature not named by the Player/PDA.
• The captive Sea Emperor is a female.
  • This was teased before being revealed on a Trello card, with Scott "Obraxis" MacDonald jokingly referring to it as the "Sea Empress"
• Despite being a female, the captive Sea Emperor is referred to as "Sea Emperor" rather than "Sea Empress" .
  • This is because the species is named the Sea Emperor, the last one happens to be female.
• The opening sentence of the data bank entry suggests that Sea Emperors are the largest identified species in the Subnautica universe.