Scrimshaw Ramblings 2: Ecological Notes about Killer's species
I love subnautica to death, but a lot of the PDA scanner notes come down to "This is a big thing that wants to kill you personally." And that just...isn't how animals work? Anyway, thinking about that is a good chunk of what led me to writing Scrimshaw in the first place, but I haven't had a lot of chances to input some of my ideas since the Reader has no way of knowing most of them.
I was going to try and write these as actual official research logs from either an alien or Reader perspective, but in the end just went ‘screw it’ and decided to type up my list of notes as far as what his species is/was like. For the sake of things we’ll still be calling them ‘Reapers,’ even though that name won’t ever come up in Scrimshaw.
Also please note that while I love learning about and sharing this kind of speculative ecology stuff I am absolutely NOT a scientist and may be inaccurate on some of my details. They’re all aliens anyway, so earth laws don't necessarily HAVE to matter that much, right? ...right?
(Some small hints of future plot elements in Scrimshaw, I put everything below the cut because it's long.)
Reaper leviathans are the most social species of leviathan in the crater of 4546B, which makes up for them being the smallest predatory species in the area. Pods usually consist of anywhere from 10 to 20 members on average.
There were two separate pods of reapers in the vicinity prior to The Outbreak. Killer’s pod was the largest and lived around the Mountains and what we now have as the “Crash Zone,” since the Aurora’s wreck. He’s the only one remaining, and the Dunes pod appears to have died off as well.
Like most species on 4546B, they're sexless* but require two participants in order to lay eggs. Mating only takes place every few decades; leviathans mature slowly by nature and have rather low fertility rates. Mates don’t usually stick together after the season even if they lived in the same pod originally.
Traditionally, only one (maybe two in the larger pods) Reaper pair(s) will reproduce each cycle, and will spar with others of their species to establish their right to do so. Spars are usually performed by locking mandibles together and throwing each other around until one is declared the victor. Eggs are laid in a “creche” near the center of their respective territories and protected aggressively by all members of the pod.
Baby reapers are raised communally by the entire pod rather than by their individual parents. This is essential as babies are very curious and prone to wandering off if not under close watch by their families. Given their territories border the Void, that tends to be a very bad thing. There's a good chance of a young reaper swimming too far and never being seen again.
Part of why the Reapers fared so poorly against the bacteria is their high-stress lifestyle. The constant internal squabbling and dangerous hunts left them much less prepared to deal with the bacteria.
Group dynamics: I compare them a lot to orcas as far as intellect and hunting methods, but they might be more akin to African wild dogs. There’s not really a strict hierarchy among them other than the older and stronger reapers teaching the younger ones.
Reapers typically stick with their pods their entire life unless something goes REALLY wrong. Mating season is an exception in which case both pods will intermingle peacefully for a while to find and bicker over partners, lay eggs in each territory, and then separate. The rest of the time the pods will fight over territory and prey.
When they sense that they’re close to death from illness or (rarely) age-related complications, most reapers will swim out into the void rather than linger in their territory. It seems to be some instinctive burst to try and protect their pod mates from whatever is killing them.
(Killer watched a lot of reapers swim away and never come back, which is part of why he gets so upset when the Reader tried to leave in chapter 5.)
Despite having versatile arms and hands, reapers tend to rely more on their mandibles for interactions. Their natural eyesight is poorer than some other leviathans, but their sonar roars cover vast distances and their mandibles additionally serve as sensors similar to a cat’s whiskers. Hands are usually used for close grooming behaviors, investigating new “toys,” and grabbing juveniles that are getting into trouble.
Sparring is a common behavior among reapers even outside of mating season; they’ll spar over a high-value treat, an interesting plaything, or just for the fun of it. Babies will occasionally get their mandibles stuck while wrestling with one another and need to be separated by their parents. Spars within the pods themselves rarely result in injury, but with outsider reapers they can get VERY violent. Most reapers are already covered in scars by the time they reach maturity.
Close-range communication makes up primarily of clicks and whistles, with more guttural growling vocalizations occurring when agitated, and purring when especially happy or affectionate. Long-range communication is made up of exceptionally loud roars, which also serve as a territory indicator and a method of sonar to seek out their larger prey in the open ocean.
Their ‘signal’ on their chest is their only source of bioluminescence; as the reader theorizes in the story, it’s because they can see red light better than most other marine creatures, so it’s a method to keep track of one another in murky waters when they need to remain quiet. The shape varies with the individual and serves as a mood indicator; pretty good way to tell if your companion is biting you affectionately or because they’re genuinely pissed. Killer’s naturally sticks with the familiar bullseye-heart fluctuation we all know and love, but others may have a variety of different shapes.
Hunting: Reapers are opportunistic predators and won’t hesitate to snap up smaller prey, but they’ll take down other leviathans to feed the whole pod. A dozen or more Reapers could take down a full-grown Ghost leviathan but would certainly lose a few pod members in doing so, so it's not really worth the risk.
Their preferred prey are sea treaders, as their mandibles are ideal for cracking through the carapace, and young reefbacks for a similar reason. In other territories they would likely go after chelicerate leviathans and glow whales, but none of those species are present in the Crater at this time.
Reapers are apex predators and have only one known natural predator: The Sea Dragon. This is unchanged from the game proper in that every few years the dragon(s) emerge and drag a reaper or two down into the Lava Lakes to be boiled alive and eaten. While a pod as larger as Killer’s could fight back against a solo adult dragon, the body count would be far higher than it’s worth and leave them far worse off in dealing with other threats.
(Yes, Horror has eaten a few of Killer’s former pod mates. Neither of them really holds a grudge about it, but I do imagine that in their language there’s a lot of morbid banter about that fact. Mostly Horror casually “reminding” Killer of what he’s capable of when the other’s being a little bastard man.)
Things specific to Killer: Killer is the last reaper remaining in the Crater. He was a young troublemaker that regularly swam out to the Void even as a juvenile, much to his pod’s distress. This allowed him to meet Nightmare early on, who was able to strike up a rapport with him and treat some of his symptoms, though the efficacy of the treatments has gotten worse over the years.
Nightmare did try to aid other members of his pod, but most of them were too wary to allow it, or too far gone by the time they could be convinced.
Ghost leviathans and reapers traditionally do NOT get along due to the ghosts’ highly territorial behavior, so Killer and Dust typically avoid each other out of habit. When they do interact they often bicker, but don’t usually get into physical brawls due to Nightmare insisting the local leviathan species not continue killing each other off, and because the stress hormones exacerbate their illness. Killer was the one who introduced Dust to Nightmare, though. He could at least recognize another miserable lonely leviathan when he saw him.
Killer was quite young when he lost the last members of his pod; about the equivalent of a 14–15-year-old kid in human years. He’s a mature young adult at the time of the fanfic. Leviathans age very slowly, so it’s been a very long time; anywhere from a few decades to a little over a century.
He’s not in the best health; losing his pod has done a number on his psyche, and even with Nightmare’s treatments and companionship he’s been dwindling slowly. Hell, even if he WASN’T infected he would be fading by now.
Without the Reader, he probably wouldn’t have much time left. But for them, he’s putting a little more effort into living.
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*I became aware after writing this one and my previous post about pronouns/names that according to canon they'd more accurately all be one sex that is capable of laying AND fertilizing eggs, but I felt like going into detail was going to be a bit much for a fic about skeleton mermaid leviathans cuddling a tiny human :P So I'm sticking with inaccurate terminology for my version of things.
Scrimshaw ramblings 3: Ecological notes about Dust's species
Like with Killer, we’re sticking with calling them “Ghost Leviathans” even if the name doesn’t come up in the story proper.
This one is interesting because we know more about ghost leviathan development than any of the others in game! It’s part of why they’re my favorite design 😊 So I got a liiiiittle bit carried away with this one.
As before, hints to future parts of Scrimshaw under the read more along with mentions of poor coping mechanisms and death.
Ghost leviathans are far more solitary than their smaller counterparts. It’s rare to see more than one at a time in the crater zones, as they’re a highly territorial species. They usually prefer to live in deep dark waters and are built more for low temperatures than excessive heat.
Ghost leviathans spent most of their adult life out in the Void beyond the crater, swimming in wide open water and feeding off of microplankton and other species. They need absolutely massive amounts of this food to feed them, and grow according to the amount of food they have available. Truly large specimens can even match the Sea Dragons in size, though there aren't many that can reach that size these days.
Ghost leviathans typically only breed one or two times throughout their lifetime, and will stick with the same partner every time. Traditionally the leviathans will return to the Crater and the Lost River, laying their eggs in the safety of the Tree Cove before promptly abandoning them. Each adult will lay only one egg, and while they’ll tolerate the close vicinity for those purposes they do sometimes fight if there’s not enough space in the cove that year.
Each egg contains multiple embryos and usually hatches multiple baby ghost leviathans. The babies already have a territorial streak and will almost immediately fight one another for the best prey and territory. Infants don’t really develop into filter feeders until they’re young adults.
Because of this hatching brawl, very few leviathans will survive long enough to enter the river from the cove, and even fewer will make it to adulthood. Like if 3 eggs are laid with a dozen babies each, it’ll be a miracle if 1 baby from each egg survives.
Social dynamics: As mentioned, ghost leviathans don’t really care to spend time around each other. They’re perfectly fine remaining solitary for 90% of their lives, and interactions between adults out in the void range from a wary greeting to outright hostility depending on temperament, prey quantities, etc.
It’s possible this innate wariness comes from their rough start in life having to fight their own species desperately for survival, but at this point it’s a cycle so ingrained in them that it would be difficult to convince them otherwise.
They have exceptional eyesight and can pick up on small amounts of light from far away; a handy skill to have when you spend most of your life in the dark open ocean. Most close interactions are avoided by simply seeing another ghost from 3 miles away, screaming out a warning and then switching directions if they react aggressively.
Ghosts will rarely fight with each other directly. Most of the time they’ll square up, circle around with a few posturing screams while flashing their lights, and the smaller/weaker one will back off and go elsewhere. They’ll often charge after other void-dwelling leviathans though, particularly Void Chelicerates that they share a territory with.
(Nightmare had to deal with his fair share of them getting aggressive in the Void when he was much younger. It’s been a long time since he was small enough for that to be a problem. They usually avoid him now.)
They’re mostly defensive and would much rather intimidate or bluff charge rather than risk serious injuries. They also don’t pay much attention to smaller creatures without reason, unlike in the game. In the fanfic proper, Dust first got agitated by the Cyclops thinking it was a new rival leviathan to deal with. He might not have noticed the Reader at all if they were just zipping around with their Seaglide, though the lights may have eventually caught his attention…
Vocalizations consist mostly of hisses and raspier growls or groans at a close range, with their trademark ear-splitting shriek as a “you are going to die” warning right before attacking or chasing something off. When happy, they’ll hum quietly.
They’ll hold grudges like you would not believe, but can be quite affectionate with their mate. Even if they meet up only rarely, they stick with a single mate for life. Often they'll even “sing” to one another, much like humpback whales on Earth, as both a courting method and a way of staying in touch after parting ways.
(Nightmare quite liked hearing their songs. The void is a lot quieter these days…)
Hunting: As infants and juveniles, ghost leviathans will eat pretty much anything they can fit into their mouth. Which is the majority of other creatures in the Lost River, actually. As they grow larger and the caverns grow more claustrophobic, they eventually leave the river to feed off of even larger prey in the darker Grand Reed and Blood Kelp zone.
(They COULD exit through the Mountains, but that’s historically been Reaper territory, and the two species don’t particularly get along. So the reef and blood kelp it is!)
Once they reach their late adolescence, close to adulthood, they switch to being primarily filter-feeders. Their jaw structure and throats are built more for swallowing small prey whole rather than ripping and tearing chunks the way the other leviathans are, so it becomes more efficient to feed off of highly nutritious microorganisms as they grow larger.
They can and often will still occasionally swallow a larger stray fish, but they no longer put energy into hunting them down for that purpose. I'd say they behave more like whale sharks or basking sharks than baleen whales, if we're going to compare to earth species.
Things specific to Dust: Dust and his brother hatched from the same egg. Through something of a fluke, there weren’t any other hatchlings that year. The other eggs present just…didn’t work out. This has become more common over the past few decades; likely a side-effect of the bacteria affecting fertility rates.
Either way, with much less chaos and competition, they didn’t have any need to fight and ended up sticking close together. They were quite literally together from day one.
Since they weren’t scrapping for survival from day one like most baby ghost leviathans, they weren’t as driven to eat, grow, and swim out into the void as fast as possible like most of their kind. With no competition they were free to take things a bit slower, play around and explore the old ruins in the river. That was good, because Dust’s brother was rather nervous about the dark open waters.
…unfortunately, the Kharaa still took its toll. Dust has been able to handle the illness better than his brother did. I don’t really have a good reason for this, it may just be a fluke of genetics or it could be related to their differing personality types. Dust was always a lot more sedentary and relaxed than his more high-strung and excitable sibling. But when it got to the point of being unmanageable...
He didn’t let him suffer.
For a normally solitary species that was Dust's one real connection and he doesn’t really know what to do without it. He certainly doesn’t have any interest in going out into the void alone. It feels a lot more daunting when you’re used to companionship. He spends a lot of his time collecting glowing objects and things that his brother would have found interesting, especially lights since he got nervous in the dark.
He usually chases away scavengers and sometimes even ‘grooms’ the bones to clean up any obvious decay. He KNOWS his brother is gone, he just doesn’t know what else to do with himself.
He gets along best with Horror since their travel routes often overlap. Horror is the only one who met Dust’s brother when he was alive and he remembers him fondly. Their interactions are briefer nowadays, as Horror can’t stand the cold of the river and usually takes faster routes that don’t cut as much through Dust’s current haunts. But they usually give each other a friendly greeting if nothing else.
Dust’s growth has been stunted by his poor diet and habits, exacerbated further by his brother’s death. Most adult ghost leviathans are almost twice the size of Killer, while Dust is only about 30% longer and not much bulkier. I imagine (when translated) that Killer would tease him with the equivalent of ‘runt’ or ‘kid’ being nicknames, despite himself being both smaller and younger than Dust.
Funnily enough he would be considered downright extroverted by his species’ standard for being able to tolerate being around another living being for more than a few hours at a time.
(He tries not to think about the fact that, if they had gotten up the courage to swim into the void a little sooner, they might have found Nightmare out there before Killer introduced them. That maybe his brother could have…)
