Sea Emperor Leviathan

The Sea Emperor is an in-development life form belonging to the fauna category.

The Sea Emperor is the largest living species of fauna in Subnautica.

The Sea Emperor is voiced by Lani Minella.

Appearance
The Sea Emperor is colossal in size, having a stocky, entirely armored body and is predominantly pale brown in color, with a few shades of green. Its tentacles are adorned with bright cyan bioluminescent spots.

The creature's head is small, and quite peculiar in shape (see "Trivia" below for more), featuring two glowing green-tipped antennae on top of its snout, two large mandibles on each side of its rather small mouth, and a glowing hollow in-between these mandibles. It seems to possess four binocular eyes.

The Sea Emperor's posterior consists of seven long, yet slim tentacles ending with large tentacular clubs, with the largest being in the center, surrounded by the other smaller ones.

Unlike the Sea Dragon Leviathan, the Sea Emperor doesn't have true graspers; Instead, its forelimbs are two massive, paddle-like arms.

Behavior
Despite its gargantuan size, the Sea Emperor's diet consists solely of micro-organisms filtered from the water.

It is suggested that in the past these creatures would have traveled in small herds, occasionally coming to the surface to feast on the microorganisms in the shallower water. When the Carar bacterium was released onto the planet, billions of creatures died, destroying the food source of the species. The Sea Emperor is capable of telepathic speech, which it will use to communicate with the player.

Upon entering the aquarium, the Sea Emperor will climb up to observe the player, then descend back down. It will also watch the player intently if they are near the Incubator Device, circling around until they come to a rest on the aquarium's floor.

Story
The captive Sea Emperor is the last remaining adult of its species. and a parent to five eggs. These eggs must be hatched at some point in the story. It is approximately one thousand six hundred years old, and is suggested to have far surpassed its natural lifespan.

Almost all of the Sea Emperors died when Carar was released, leaving one remaining adult which was later discovered to be pregnant and laid five eggs. As the only source of Enzyme 42 on Planet 4546B, the Sea Emperor and its children are the key to curing Carar.

The last surviving Sea Emperor was studied by the Precursors in hopes of finding a cure using their natural production of Enzyme 42. However, due to their sickness, studies conducted showed that they were not a viable source of Enzyme 42 as the enyzmes they produced were too unstable. Precursor documents state that they had "grown sick", and is later revealed that they were pregnant. After the Sea Emperor gave birth to five eggs, the Precursors took it's eggs and attached them to the Incubator Device, as the conditions of the aquarium were not suitable for it's eggs to hatch, and the juveniles may be a better source of Enzyme 42. Shortly after this, the Disease Research Facility was destroyed, releasing Carar, ending the Precursors' operation and initiating the planetary quarantine. The prison was originally all inorganic, sometime after the Precursors' operation failed, creatures indirectly brought seeds from Flora and loose sand and mud into the aquarium via the teleporters that led to the facility, transforming the aquarium into a thriving ecosystem. With the Sea Emperor producing enough Enzyme 42 to keep the creatures inside immune. In turn, the creatures learned to protect the Sea Emperor, this system kept a small amount of life on the planet living. The Enzyme 42 that it produces is not stable enough for a permanent cure, however, the cycle within the aquarium keeps the Sea Emperor healthy and continuously producing the substance.

After its eggs are hatched, the captive Emperor will play with its children, and then escort them to a teleporter, which they will go through. However, the captive may stay behind, as it is too large to leave the facility. This is currently undecided.

Data Bank Entries
Sea Emperor= Life Cycle=

Future Plans

 * Juvenile Sea Emperors and Sea Emperor Eggs will be added in the future.

Gallery
In Game=

Trivia

 * Early concept art of the Sea Emperor depicted it with large, clawed graspers on the ends of its arms, resembling those of a Sea Dragon Leviathan. This idea was later replaced by the paddle-like arms they now have.
 * Certain developmental notes refer to the Sea Emperor as the "Emperor Leviathan".
 * Various documents also refer to the Sea Emperor as the "Grand Leviathan".
 * The Sea Emperor closely shares many of its features to real life animals: a head shape slightly similar to that of many hammerhead sharks, and paddle-like arms, resembling those of the green sea turtles.
 * The databank entry suggests that the last surviving Sea Emperor was kept alive well beyond its natural lifespan using unknown technologies, leaving heavy internal and external scarring (possibly even having led to its suggested infertility).
 * The Sea Emperor is named after the closest translation the PDA could find for a Precursor symbol. This technically makes it the only creature not named by the Player/PDA.
 * The opening sentence of the data bank entry suggests that Sea Emperors are the largest identified species in the Subnautica universe.