Subnautica – The Shallows and the Deep

Chapter 1: Marooned (Part 1)

 
Day: 001 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 12:28 PM 
 
They said we’d be safe. They said it would be calm. A beautiful 96-week cruise around the galaxy, all the way to the Ariadne Arm. Well, not a cruise, but it was important. They said that we were going to build a phasegate that would allow ships to move billions of miles in the blink of an eye. Like hyperspace, but better. And faster. And it would also save billions of dollars in fuel. 
 
So, who wanted to build a phasegate you ask? The company known as Alterra. Alterra pretty much rules the solar system, as well as 19% of the phasegates around the galaxy, one on which we were going to install on our “important mission”. 
 
Here’s a quick fact about Alterra: They are full of themselves. Too confident, not careful… I guess you could say… dangerous. And in this case, they really showed their flaws. Alterra said that the Aurora was the best ship they had. Made from the strongest titanium, and able to outrun any threat. I think I’ll give that to them, being that the ship’s top speed was 59% the speed of light. Unfortunately, some things can go a little bit faster. 
 
Guess they didn’t think of that. Well Alterra, in case you one day come to this god-forsaken planet, and you don’t get shot down like your “best ship” I think that this will give you a front-row seat to everything that’s happened. And you can count on the one and only Blake Vasquez to tell you it all. 
 
So, it started off with our stupid captain making something I like to call, an Alterra Decision. Now, another fact about Alterra is that they like three things: Money, Fuel, and Time. The main thing that they like to do with these things is to find ways to conserve them. 
 
To give you an example, they care more about saving ten credits than they do about saving their crew’s lives. That’s the whole reason they sent us out here, to save billions of dollars of fuel and to save weeks of travel time. Well, thanks to our captain’s decision, that’s not gonna’ happen anytime soon. 
 
Our captain’s decision was to use a gravity slingshot to conserve fuel and time. And get this: He said that the officers were gonna’ come with him in a shuttle to “explore the surface of the planet”. Now don’t get me wrong, the planet looked pretty from the atmosphere, but I hope that wasn’t the reason they went down. Sadly, their little vacation didn’t happen as planned. I was sitting in my cabin when it happened. 
 
At first, I saw a flash of green light and I was wondering if we had fired off a flare or something, but ten minutes later I was running for my life trying to find a lifepod. I guess I should feel lucky: lucky that I wasn’t in the area of the blast, lucky that I found a lifepod, lucky that Alterra put lifepods in the ship at all, and lucky that I was smart enough to think that something seemed fishy about exploring the surface of the planet. 
 
Well, here I am, on the planet that we were only gonna’ maneuver around, not crash into. And if the captain somehow survived all this and is able to find this PDA I just want him to know that he got his wish, only I’m on this planet with him… and this isn’t gonna’ be a vacation. 
 
________________________________________________________________ 
 
Day: 002 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 6:53 AM 
 
OK, so I’ve cooled off a little and I’m ready to talk again. I’m still mad at Alterra, but right now I think that I’ve got far bigger problems to deal with. I’ve made the decision that I’m not gonna’ die on this planet, even if I have to eat my own arms and legs off. Since yesterday I did some calculations, and I think I have enough rations to last for about 5 days, and that’s only if I eat half a ration bar per day. 
 
I also found out that the Aurora didn’t burn up in the atmosphere, which wasn’t that tricky to find out because right now it’s a burning wreckage that I’d say is about 1.4 kilometers from my lifepod. And not only is it not burning, but it’s actually intact. The only difference from when it was in space is that it has a giant hole in its side. 
 
I have a theory about how it got knocked down: I think it was a giant asteroid that slammed to the side of the ship and disrupted it’s coarse so that it hit the planet. Although, that doesn’t explain how it doesn’t have a giant dent or where the light came from. Maybe we heard it coming and fired off a flare to try and see it? 
 
However, that doesn’t matter right now, because I’ve got something else to worry about: food and water. Now, since the Aurora is intact, I’ve got an idea: if I could get inside the ship I’d be set for my entire time on this planet. When we crashed, we were in the 38th week of our trip, which left 58 more weeks’ worth of food 
 
There were 169 people on the Aurora, and as far as I know, I’m the only one alive. The ship also had at least 7 more weeks of food in case of emergency, so if by some miracle all the food on the ship survived, we are looking at almost 200 years of food on the ship! However, a large portion of that food probably burned (no pun intended) in the fire or was blown into space after the ship got hit. 
 
Another problem is that there’s no way for me to get into the Aurora, and that’s because the entire ship has no entrance point. The only way to get in is the entrance, but I can’t use that, because it’s at the bottom of the ship, which is currently blocked by what seems to be a giant sandbar. 
 
The holes, made by whatever hit the ship, are way too far off the ground to get into. So, this gives me only on option: I’m gonna’ have to find another food source. 
 
________________________________________________________________ 
 
Day: 003 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 5:51 PM 
 
It may sound weird considering that I’ve been on this planet for 3 days now, but until today, I haven’t gone into the water…and I should’ve gone for a swim sooner. The fish that live on this planet are like nothing you would find on earth! One of them has an eyeball that covers half of its body surface, and another has a hole in its head! 
 
I was also able to find some titanium and copper inside of little outcrops made of limestone. I’m not sure what I’m gonna’ use them for, but I’m gonna’ keep them in my pod’s storage, just in case I need them. If I could figure out how to make batteries, I might be able to create some useful tools. 
 
As it turns out, I was a lucky one. My pod ended up landing in a shallow area that’s only a few meters deep, and so far, I haven’t found any creatures that seem hostile. However, there is some bad news: I’ve run out of food, and I’m about to run out of water. I thought that those nutrient bars would last me for 5 days… I thought wrong. 
 
________________________________________________________________ 
 
Day: 005 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 8:23 PM 
 
Good news, I solved two of my biggest problems last night! Last time I wrote in the log, I said that I was out of food. Well, because of my gluttony and my eating of all my food, I now have a way to survive much longer! 
 
You see, last night I woke up when it was still dark because I was very hungry. In fact, I was so hungry that I decided that I needed to find some food, or else I was gonna’ go mad. Now, I decided that the easiest way to get food would be harvesting plants. So, I went out and searched, and I found three different plants that looked edible. 
 
When I got back to my lifepod with a few plant samples in hand, I analyzed exactly what they were. The first one was a weird type of kelp that I had scavenged from a small forest of plants. After I bit into it, I realized that it was edible, but extremely disgusting. The second plant was some sort of tentacle that was blue on the bottom and lime green on the top. It didn’t taste like anything, but mere seconds after swallowing I felt nauseous, and vomited. 
 
 

Chapter 1: Marooned (Part 2)

 
Day: 005 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 8:25 PM (Continued) 
 
The third plant was a weird type of mushroom that was pink on the top and purple on the sides. The second that I bit into the mushroom, I felt a terrible pain in my jaw. After I spit the mushroom out, I discovered that it had acid on the inside! I decided to keep the mushroom, just in case I end up getting chased by a creature that wants to kill me. 
 
Anyway, after my failure with the plants, I decided that the solution would be animals. After all, humans have survived for practically their entire history by eating other animals. I decided to go and scavenge to see if I could find nutritious fish to eat. In the end, I caught 4 different types of fish before I went back to see if they were any good. 
 
Thankfully, the fabricator that’s on board my lifepod was able to cook the fish, and within a minute, I had already bitten into another one of those big eyeball fish. I expected that it would taste like nothing I’ve ever had before, but for some reason, it vaguely reminded me of Pork Loin! The second fish I tried was a really weird one: it looked like a vertical boomerang with a mouth in the middle, but the best part about it was the meat around the fins, that tasted like Venison. 
 
The third fish turned out to be disgusting: it felt spongy and hollow, and it tasted sour. It was a very interesting type of fish, one that had evolved a type of ballast system: it could squeeze water out of two bladders in order to go up, and bring water into the bladders to go down. The last fish I tried had barely any meat on it, and that was because of the hole in its belly. The hole seemed to be lined with cartilage that was as tough as leather and wasn’t edible. 
 
As it turned out, the fish with the bladders was pretty useful. You know how I said that it would squeeze water in and out of its bladders? Well, in the process, it purifies the salt water and creates fresh water! I think the reason it does that, is actually because it’s harder to float in fresh water. Anyway, I had been fortunate enough to realize this before I cooked the fish, so I went out into the ocean to find more. However, this proved to be trickier than I thought. 
 
So, the main problem was that I could only catch them if they were descending, because that’s when they have the fresh water in their bladders. They were also pretty good at maneuvering around, but after about 40 minutes, I was able to catch a few of them. I didn’t have any sort of water container, so I just squeezed the water out and into my mouth, and let me tell you, it was great to know that I had discovered water on an alien planet! 
________________________________________________________________ 
 
Day: 006 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 10:38 AM 
 
The stuff I gathered that I couldn’t eat, turned out to be pretty useful. 
 
Back when I was gathering plants, I found a cluster of seeds that was attached to the weird kelp. The inside of the seeds was pulpy, and contained a large amount of silicon, and could be turned into some sort of rubber! After a bit of tinkering with my fabricator, I used the rubber and some titanium to create a knife! Now if any of the creatures try to harm me, they will feel the cold metal of my blade! 
 
That one mushroom that I had found, turned out to contain something very interesting: the acid inside it contained the chemicals that can hold chemical energy, and thus, I may be able to make batteries with them! If I can find some more titanium, and make a few batteries, I may be able to create some tools. 
 
Here’s another thing I found out: when the Aurora crashed, the impact sent pieces of metal flying all over the place. And since I was able to find a large section of the hull that was lying in a small trench filled with kelp, I think that there may be many pieces that are still intact, that may hold important resources like food or supplies. 
 
So, you may be wondering: Why can’t I just build a big rocket, and get out of here? Well, there’s two reasons why. 
1. I don’t have the blueprints to build one. 
2. I don’t know how I would power a rocket, even if I could build one. 
 
So, for now, it looks like I’ve got no way off this planet. Fortunately for me, I won’t have to worry about that for a while, as I’ve got more important problems to deal with. And besides, I think I’ve done pretty well in the past few days. I’ve got food and water, and I’m starting to find how to make more complex things out of stuff I find on this planet. Who knows what’ll happen next? 
________________________________________________________________ 
 
Day: 008 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 4:53 AM 
 
Well, remember when I said that there was no way to get into the Aurora? Turns out, there is… an irradiated, long, and very dangerous way in. Best I can figure, the crash must have destabilized the Aurora’s reactors, and eventually resulted in a quantum detonation! The explosion occurred while I was sleeping, and when I peeked out the top of my lifepod to see what happened, I saw that the entire front section of the Aurora had been blown apart! 
 
Unfortunately, when I tried to swim out to get a close look at the damage, I felt like I had a headache, and started feeling nautilus. Thankfully, I realized that I had radiation sickness before I went any further, and I was able to swim back to my lifepod before it got any worse. 
 
So yeah, I’m still stuck out of the Aurora for the time being, but I think that I may be able to create some sort of radiation suit if I can find some lead. 
 
Also, I’ve made a scanner tool with some titanium and a battery, which is gonna’ come really useful. I probably should’ve mentioned that when we crashed, almost 80% of the blueprints in my database were removed, because only one of my PDA’s memory chips was still functioning. However, If I can find the blueprints or wreckage of something that isn’t in my database, I can scan y it, and immediately get the blueprints to build it! I actually scanned something already: a seaglide that I found near a large piece of wreckage. 
 
However, my PDA couldn’t gather all the technical information from this one broken seaglide, so in order to get the blueprints, I need to find another one, that hopefully has certain pieces partially intact, that this one didn’t have. 
 
I do have one problem with my scanner: once it runs out of power, there’s no way to recharge it…yet. So, until I can find a way to, I must to conserve my power, or make more batteries. 
 
Geez’, I sound like Alterra! 
________________________________________________________________ 
 
Day: 009 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 10:24 AM 
 
From what I’ve wrote so far, you may think that this planet is like a tropical getaway. Well, to put it simply, it’s not. As I found out yesterday, there are indeed creatures that can kill you as easy as blinking an eye. So, picture this… you’re exploring a cave that may have some outcrops with titanium or copper in them, and then you hear this weird squeal. Next thing you know, a weird fish is swimming toward you really fast, and it looks mad. You try to get away from it, but suddenly you feel an explosion, and the whole world goes dark. 
 
Well, that’s what happened to me today. When I woke up, I was surrounded by weird shark-like creatures, that had very long teeth. From what I could tell, they probably were gonna’ have me as their main course. Had I not woken up, I would have been digested by now, but sadly for them, it’s gonna’ take more than an exploding fish and some intimidating teeth to kill me. Anyway, when they saw that I was alive, they tried to kill me, but I fought them off with my knife. 
 
 

Chapter 1: Marooned (Part 3)

 
Day: 009 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 10:28 AM (Continued) 
 
Anyway, I think I need to be more careful. I only have one life, and I need to use it to escape this planet, and I almost wasted it just because I’m not careful. Now that I think about it, there’s probably a one-in-a-million chance that I’m gonna’ escape: I could starve, drown, dehydrate, get eaten, die of natural causes, or get a disease. 
 
I suppose, in a way, I could be considered lucky. I survived a massive ship crash, just happened to land on a planet with lots of lifeforms and water, and landed in a place where there are no animals that want to kill me, at least not for half a kilometer. I honestly couldn’t choose a better place to be marooned on, I mean, sure there’s no one here…I think… but it’s a rather peaceful place, with lots of edible creatures. 
 
Speaking of creatures, I wanted to find out where that one fish had come from, so I returned to the cave in which I saw the fish. I didn’t see any more of them, but I did find out that the one fish had been hiding in a plant. The plant that it had been hiding in, had created some seeds that had been coated in a sulfur like substance. Since I hadn’t seen any sulfur anywhere else, and since sulfur is a necessary component for making tools, I decided to return it to my lifepod, and then search for more. 
 
That turned out to be a big mistake. I had forgotten that the exploding fish had taken refuge in those plants. And so, my day ended off, with me getting chased out of a cave system by combustible fish, with rotten smelling seeds in hand. 
 
I’ll bet you’ve never heard that before! 
________________________________________________________________ 
 
Day: 010 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 7:06 PM 
 
I should’ve realized sooner that in order to dive deeper and get all the things I need without making multiple trips to the surface, that I needed an air tank. After all, compressed air was a major breakthrough with the world of diving, and it would be a major breakthrough on a planet that was covered in water. 
 
Building an air tank was easy because there was a blueprint for one on my PDA. The required titanium was also easy to find, because I had figured out how to turn tiny pieces of the Aurora’s titanium shell, into the great materiel that I really needed. And compressing the air was also very easy, as I found out how to use my lifepod’s oxygen purifier to compress enough air into my tank to last me about 10-20 minutes. 
 
I also decided to repair my lifepod’s broken mechanisms with a repair tool that I made, and since I repaired the radio, I can now receive distress signals from other lifepod’s. Although, I think that it may be a little late to try and rescue anyone. I hope that they turned out as well as I did… wherever they are, and that they didn’t get eaten by sea-monsters. 
________________________________________________________________ 
 
Day: 011 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 3:55 PM 
 
Ever since I made an air tank, I’ve been able to dive deeper and search places that I couldn’t before. Today, while chasing a fish for food, I stumbled upon a chunk of wreckage, and I found another broken seaglide and scanned it to get the blueprints. I also scanned something called a mobile vehicle bay, which was probably gonna’ be used to create construction vehicles for building the phasegate. 
 
Unfortunately, even though I found the blueprints to build a vehicle bay, the rig itself didn’t come equipped with the blueprints for any vehicles. I guess for now, I’m gonna have to keep my eyes peeled, and my scanner charged. 
 
Since I found out how to build a seaglide, I started gathering materials, and making new batteries. Remember those seeds that I used to make the rubber? Well, they can also be used to make lubricant, which is crucial to making vehicles with lots of moving parts. And what I didn’t realize until now, is that the rubber from the seeds can be used to make swimming fins! Obviously, I made myself a pair, just in case my seaglide runs out of power right next to a hungry carnivore, and I need all the speed I can get. 
 
Anyway, once I got all the materials, I built a seaglide with my fabricator, and took it out for a spin. As soon as I turned the propeller on, I felt as if I was moving as fast as a bullet train. Of course, I was only moving about 20 miles per hour, but since I hadn’t gone more than walking pace for the last week and a half, I felt like I was traveling in a spaceship. 
 
I also made a tool that can build little bases called habitats out of titanium or other metals. I think I’m gonna wait until I have more resources to build a habitat. In the meantime, I think that I should find out what happened to the rest of the crew, and If any of them are still alive. I haven’t received any distress calls yet, but I’m gonna’ keep listening just in case they really need help, and fast. 
 
Until then…we just have to wait. 
 
 

Chapter 2: Speeding Up (Part 1)

 
Day: 012 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 6:29 PM 
 
If there’s anything bad about not having explored this ocean, it’s that I never realized how beautiful this planet is. Since I made a seaglide, I’ve been exploring more than ever, and I have been amazed with every inch of it. There are tubes of coral the size of a habitat compartment, vines of kelp that are 40 feet tall, and fish that glow in the dark. 
 
Today, I decided to go south, and see what I would find. I ended up finding a weird underwater plain, that was filled with red grass as far as I could see. I went down to get a closer look, but I ended up getting too close, and was ambushed by something. It was a weird type of shark, one that had a fin on top of its head, and seemed to hide itself in the sand in order to ambush any unsuspecting creature like me. I was able to scan it, but I had to swim away after I did, otherwise it would’ve eaten me. 
 
I found another type of fish out in that plain, and it was weirder than all the fish I’ve seen so far. It only had one eye, and was shaped like an arrow, and my PDA concluded, that this was designed for speed and vision in dark places. I meant to grab the fish, but before I could, the shark I had seen before got it and ripped it apart. Frankly, I’m happy he went for the fish and not for me. 
 
After that, I decided t go home and see if I could find out how to make a map, when all of a sudden, a massive shadow appeared on the ocean floor. I looked up and saw a massive creature swimming my way! And when I say massive, I mean massive, because it looked to be almost 180 feet long if you include the tentacles that were dragging behind it. Thankfully, it didn’t seem harmless, and even if it was hungry, I don’t think I would prove a very filling meal. When I got a closer look, I saw that plants had been able to grow on it’s back! Man, the creatures on this planet are amazing! 
 
On my way back from the grassy plain, I saw a weird thing at the ocean floor. It looked rounded on the top and had two floppy tarps at the bottom. When I got closer, I realized that it had a huge gash on its side, along with what appeared to be bite marks… it was a lifepod. 
 
The inside was completely trashed: The fabricator had broken off of the hull, the storage compartment was wide open, the top hatch had blown off, and the flotation devices had been torn to pieces. I ran a quick scan of the wreckage, and the PDA confirmed that something had attacked it. Judging by the size of the bite-marks, the creature was probably much bigger than all of the carnivores that I’ve seen so far. And whatever had attacked the pod had made short work of the crew: There were no bite-marks inside of the pod, no blood, and no creatures in sight. 
 
Somehow, one of the crew’s PDA’s had been left in the pod, and it was still in working order. Turns out, the guy in the pod had left a voice log of what happened after the crash on his PDA. From what I can tell, the pod was attacked by some giant snake creature, at least according to the guy’s log. It seems that the snakes had come from the cave that was about 100 feet from the pod, but I didn’t think that going there would be a good idea, since the snakes would be huge and would kill me just as easy as they killed the lifepod’s crew. 
 
I decided to search around the lifepod to see if there were any more PDA’s, and it was a good decision, because I ended up finding a piece of a broken vehicle. I scanned it, and my PDA told me that it was called a seamoth. I ventured a little farther west, and I found a massive piece of wreckage that must have been over 150 feet tall and over 200 feet long. When I went inside the wreckage, I found, and scanned, a ton of things that will become very useful, including a battery charger, a laser cutter, a bioreactor, a propulsion cannon, and best of all, more seamoth pieces! 
 
But, the most interesting thing that I found, was a PDA that talked about some kind of search and rescue mission. It was talking about some lady named Marguerite Maida, and that she and a few other people had gone missing on a ship that was heading to some deep space station. 
 
Anyway, although I was a little interested in whoever this Marguerite was, I wanted to try and build a seamoth, so I started gathering materials. In order to build a seamoth, I need the following things: Titanium ingots, lots of glass, some lead, a power-cell, some lubricant, and a mobile vehicle bay. I had already gathered enough titanium to build some ingots, and I had some lubricant leftover from when I was building my seaglide, so I crossed two things off my list at the start. 
 
Making the glass was actually pretty easy. Back when I was in the giant grassy plain, I had found pieces of quartz on the seabed. After a little fabrication, I was able to turn them into a crude form type glass, and I crossed off another item on my list. After that, I gathered some mushrooms and copper, and built a power cell, and so I crossed another item off my list. 
 
This is when I ran into a problem. See, the only thing left on my list besides the vehicle bay, was lead. I had no idea where or how to find lead, and I couldn’t go searching because the sun was setting, so I decided to stop for the night, and here we are. 
 
I’ll find some lead tomorrow. 
________________________________________________________________ 
 
Day: 013 
Location: Planet 4546B 
Earth Time: 8:52 PM 
 
When exploring an alien planet, you need to be careful where you go, as you have no maps and no idea what awaits you. For example, today I went searching for some lead, and I almost got killed by radiation. I guess I thought, that if I went far enough, I may have found some source of lead? Well, it was a stupid idea, and when I came back to my lifepod, I had burned through another battery on my seaglide. 
 
That got me thinking: why not recharge the batteries I’ve already made? I mean, I’ve got a blueprint for a battery charger, and I have lots of available resources, so why not give it a try? Well, I ran into a problem immediately: in order to build a battery charger, I need a wiring kit. 
 
Now, being a professional electrician for the alterra corporation, I know a thing or two about wires, and I know that a much needed material would be silver. So now, I needed to find lead and silver. I thought, maybe if I went in an unexplored direction, I’d be able to find some source? Well, I did, just in the strangest place you could imagine. 
 
I was exploring the grassy fields, when one of the massive creatures swam over me. I wondered what it was doing and if it was okay, because it seemed to be moving back and forth very rapidly. Just then, it let out a massive scream, which underwater sounded like a squeaking door. I realized, that something was very wrong with it, and I quickly swam over to see what. 
 
Eventually, I found the culprit. It was a weird type of barnacle that had latched itself t the top of the creature. But when I stabbed it with by knife, I saw something glitter inside… It was silver! I didn’t know how or why there was silver inside a barnacle, but I was very grateful. It was almost as if the creature had rewarded me for stopping it’s pain. 
 
However, my job wasn’t quite done, as there were many other barnacles on the creature’s back. It took me nearly an hour to kill them all and remove the silver from inside. A couple of them also had copper inside, and I was more than happy to accept it. I also came up with a name for the creature: a reef-back. 
 
While I was at the plain, I decided to gather more quartz, just in case I need more glass in the future. After that, I decided to head home, and I was very excited. Once I had gathered all the pieces and built the wires, I was ready to make the charger, when I ran into another problem: I needed a way to power it. I’d better find a way, and soon. 
 
 

Note: This story is still early in development, so keep checking in! I Will try to update it as much as I can