Life on 4546b is in many ways convergent to life on Earth. While many animals we encounter seem to share the most features with fish and various invertebrates, some appear to be more reptilian. It's even possible that their ancestors were once land dwellers, returning to the water as planet's geography changed making it mostly oceanic.
I present a speculative evolutionary tree of Subnautica's parareptiles!
Being mobility impaired is like swimming in subnautica when you're oxygen meter runs low and you start taking physical damage. I can only stand or walk with my cane so long before the pain hits.
When I get home from work and have to pee I have to make a split second decision hobbling to the restroom door with my cane-- do I piss standing or sitting? I weigh the calculated risk, just like when I have to grab another bladder fish before drowning. I choose the wrong one and my HP falls, next thing I know I wake up in my base.
Subnautica au where instead of everything being water, everything is air/ high mountains.
More under the cut
In this au 4546B is a floating island above the void, held up by the large amount of magnetic rock inside the island. Most of the fauna are birds/ flying animals (and they all have 6 limbs instead of 4).
Also due to the high altitude the oxygen content in the air is low, so you would still need o2 tanks to do anything. There would be ‘lakes’ of places with high oxygen content on the mountain (safe shallows, kelp forest, grassy plateau, dunes, ect.) where you can refill o2.
Technology-wise instead of a seaglide there would be a normal glider (kind of like the one in Nausicaä and the valley of the wind) to travel, and instead of a seamoth there would be a small solar-powered plane.
I haven’t decided exactly what the different biomes will be like, but heres some of the ones ive come up with so far:
Safe shallows:
A mountainous area with o2 puddles for air and large amounts of fauna. Most of the flora is the same except for that there is no coral, and that there are ‘trees’ on the mountainside.
These are some of the fauna in the shallows.
Peeper: pretty normal; four legs and big eyes but otherwise pretty average bird. It is a herbivore.
Bladderbird: inspired by the irl frigatebird, it has a large throat for keeping in o2 for longer periods of time; it has four wings for longer and more precise movements when flying. It has long bioluminescent feathers to attract mates. It is a herbavore
Boomerangbird: once again pretty average. It has 4 legs and a long tail, with a large glowing feathers at the end to attract bugs for food.
Gaseopod: inspired by the irl mountain goat the gaseopod is a mammalian animal with fur, six legs, and the same poisonous pod things as the og, although it rarely releases them in favor of using the gasses released by it to keep most predators (and other gaseopods) away from it.
Mountains/ web zone:
The ‘mountain biome’ is not actually a mountain, There is a mountain but this is not it. Instead the mountains are thin strings of rock between 1-30 meters wide connected to each other. Inside the rocks are where the local fauna of reapers and bonesharks live and nest. (Ik bonesharks don’t actually like in the mountain biome but they do now)
Reapers: the reapers run through these rock strings and are often not seen coming until they are either in your face or diving from hundreds of meters away to hunt you. Reapers are the reason no other major fauna live there. The reapers have two pairs of wings and two legs, with sharp beaks. They are around 40 meters long. They hunt their prey by getting 100-300 meters above them before diving down, then slowing down at the last moment to grab their pray and fly off with them. It is thought they used to just crush things normally but due to the bonesharks evolving stronger shells to survive they now just grab them to bring them higher up (600 or so meters) and then dropping them to get past their shell.
Boneshark: bonesharks are nine meter long insectoid animals with anger issues that live in the web zone, bulb zone, craig fields, and floating islands. They have a strongs shell and attack on sight, although the species that inhabit the ‘mountain’ biome has a thicker shell to avoid reapers they remain mostly the same to the other bonesharks. They have six legs that they use to run around their environment and chase their prey.
Sadly no drawing for reapers :(
Edit: made one
This is more of a concept drawing cuz idk whats going on in the deep grand reef, but i made four drawings and y’all are gonna see all of them
Had to finish the art of my other 3 most recent hyperfixations before Pikmin 4 came out or else. Or else I wouldn't finish it. and it was already mostly done so that would've been a shame.
Anyway girl help I drifted out to sea
Because of what Blathers has to say about Umbrella Octopus and Gulliver was an astronaut that one time.