Subnautica Part 29: Symbiosis

Okay, I can already tell I'm almost to the end of this game. First, I grab some more food, and craft 2 more Blue Tablets. There's only one thing left to do now, I head back to Primary Containment and resume my investigation. I revisited the two rooms I found in the last episode, but I wasn't able to scan anything new. I have no other choice but to use a Blue Tablet and go through the middle passage. It led me to a large room with a pool, which is obviously the containment chamber where the Emperor Leviathan is being held. I went back to get my Prawn Suit, and jumped in.

As the PDA computer explains, this area is rich with life, and the predator lifeforms are unusually passive here, almost like the creatures I hatched in our Containment facilities. It took me a moment to grasp what was going on here. Peeper fish are intelligent, and when they entered the Alien water tubes they were led to the Emperor Leviathan's chamber, and discovered that it secretes the Enzyme 42 which inhibits the Kharaa bacterium, so the fish understood that their survival depended on the Emperor Leviathan, and similarly, the Leviathan's survival might depend on a thriving ecosystem, so Pepper fish do what they can to spread Enzyme 42 to other species to keep them alive as well. This would explain why this planet is devoid of life, except in the location where the Emperor Leviathan is being kept.

But I still can't get the Enzyme from the Emperor Leviathan to cure myself. I tried to scan the Emperor Leviathan but could not, perhaps because I had already gotten a Terminal l Entry with a description of the Emperor Leviathan. I soon found a mechanism that was holding some Eggs that belonged to the Emperor Leviathan. It wanted an Ion Cube to activate or something. Scanning it revealed more information.

When the aliens found the Emperor Leviathan had an Enzyme that inhibited the Kharaa virus, they captured it to study it. But this Emperor Leviathan is too old. The Enzyme it secretes is not effective. They thought if they could get their hands on one of its young, it could produce Enzyme 42 in a potent form, so they tried to forcibly take an egg and cracked it open prematurely. This is what I saw in the last video. This did not work, they needed a baby that was hatched naturally. This led to their final attempt, trying to hatch eggs in captivity. But the Emperor Leviathan's eggs will only hatch if the eggs sense they're in their natural hatching environment. The right birthing enzyme will trigger a hatching response. The aliens were trying to figure out what combination of soil and plants would hatch the eggs, and the Emperor Leviathan would not tell them, so I guess all the aliens died or left somewhere else.

I'm paraphrasing my actions. I didn't find out all this until later. I found a Transporter Gate behind the Containment area, and was wondering if this took me to the unused Gate outside the Enforcement Structure, or somewhere else. But it just took me to the room above the Containment area, either to help people who entered without the Prawn Suit, or who didn't have the Jetpack upgrade.

Not knowing what else to do, I inserted an Ion Cube into the incubator and a console turned on. It wanted a sample of hatching enzymes, but the fungal enzymes I've been carrying with me weren't what it was asking for. The Emperor Leviathan spoke to me and said there is a Gate here which leads to the outside the Containment. It wants me to help hatch it's young and open the Gate so they can leave Containment, and when I do, it will freely give me the Enzyme 42. When I turn around, I see the Emperor Leviathan blow some sand away to reveal another Gate. This is where I spend a few moments scrambling about trying to work out everything that just happened, but afterwards, I go back to the main chamber of this place to grab another Ion Cube, and use it to power on the Gate the Leviathan had just revealed. That's when the Leviathan somehow gave me the recipe for the hatching enzyme I need to hatch the eggs.

I looked over the ingredients needed to craft the enzyme and recognized all of the plants needed. They were easy to get, especially since I already had 2 of them. I took the Gate back to the surface, went back to Alpha where my Seamoth was, and used it to gather all the plant samples I needed. I crafted the enzyme at Beta since it was closest. I went back to Alpha, got back in my Prawn Suit, and took the Gate back to the Containment. Inserting the enzyme into the incubator hatched the eggs, and I got to see a touching moment where the babies interacted with their mom. Then they went through the gate back to the surface, and I followed. They produced a potent form of Enzyme 42, and I am finally cured! Enzyme 42 will spread throughout the planet and cure the Kharaa virus in all creatures. Now that I'm cured, and I'm right by the Enforcement Structure, I go ahead and make my way to the terminal that controls the Enforcement Structure and shut it down.