Talk:Dead Zone/@comment-32439345-20170730003910/@comment-31189012-20170922171141

Wrong, WublinWalker- the carar did not kill off life in the dead zone. The dead zone is just naturally "devoid" of life because of the abscence of light and nutrients. The only things able to live there are microscopic plankton, like the bloom plankton, and large filter feeders able to eat that plankton, like the ghost leviathan. (this would be a good biome to see plenty of bloom plankton in a future update.) Anyone who has taken a course in marine biology can tell you you see very simmilar circumstances in the deep ocean, or at least something simmilar- an ecosystem populated by only the biggest and the smallest lifeforms. the only difference is that oceans on earth are surrounded by areas of dense population, while the oceans of 4546B are mostly devoid of live save for the small craters of enormous, dormant, aquatic volcanos, like the one where Subnautica takes place. In fact, the crater of subnautica may be the only spot of diverse life left on 4546B, as it is the only one with a cure-producing Emperor.

As for the Canonicity of the Dead zone, yes. Sure. Im not a Dev or storyboard guy, but as far as I can tell, the Void (present in most games as a blank area outside the map, see Minecraft) was present due to the Devs wanting to stay away from procidural generation. They wanted the ocean moon of 4546B to be realistic, but of course had no way of making a map that big. So they left the edges unfinished, but then realized they could make it into a biome. So they added a floor after a bit, added player detterents, and worked a natural problem with map developement into a cannonical part of the story. They changed it from a homogenous ecosystem to a large sea with small, volcanicly supported islands of life.