Sea Emperor Leviathan

The Sea Emperor Leviathan is the largest of the living Leviathan class fauna found within the crater in Subnautica. It is sapient and telepathic, but unlike most Leviathans, it is not aggresive.

Appearance
The Sea Emperor Leviathan is a colossal being, with a stocky body that is covered in armor and is predominantly pale brown with shades of blue and green.

Her head is comparatively small with a rather perculiar shape (see "Trivia" below for more), featuring two striped antennae with glowing green lures atop the snout, two large mandibles on each side of the mouth, and a glowing hollow between said mandibles. The Sea Emperor Leviathan has four binocular eyes which glow cyan in color.

Her posterior consists of seven long, yet slim tentacles, with the largest being in the center, surrounded by the six smaller tentacles. Its tentacles are adorned with bright cyan bioluminescent "bulbs."

Unlike the Sea Dragon Leviathan, the Sea Emperor Leviathan lacks true graspers; instead, her forelimbs are two massive, paddle-like arms, similar to that of turtles. It is shown to be primarily used for stabilization while swimming and possibly used for defense against predators.

This Leviathan also has an orifice in the back with an unknown purpose, most likely for creating enzyme 42 or laying eggs.

Behavior
Despite her gargantuan size, her diet consists solely of micro-organisms filtered from the water, much like real-life Baleen whales and Blue whales.

It's suggested that in the past these creatures would have traveled in small herds in the bottom of the trenches (that being the Crater Edge), occasionally coming to the surface to feast on the microorganisms in the shallower water. When the Kharaa Bacterium was released onto the planet, many creatures died, destroying the food source of her species.

The Sea Emperor specimen present in game is capable of telepathic speech, which she uses to communicate with the player at various locations within the map. Whenever she communicates with the player, the screen becomes distorted in a similar way to when a Warper teleports the player, or a Mesmer hypnotizes the player. She will first contact the player telepathically either sixty minutes after attempting to deactivate the Quarantine Enforcement Platform or twenty minutes after reaching the Disease Research Facility (whichever happens first). She will contact the player again shortly after they have obtained the Blue Tablet, and again upon entering the Lava Lakes. She will continue to interact with Ryley upon entering the Aquarium, telling him what he needs to do in order to hatch the eggs. After Ryley inserts an Ion Cube into the Incubator Device, She will speak to the player, and will move to the left side of the Alien Arch. She subsequently blows away the sand, uncovering the Arch that the player can use to access the Arch outside of the Quarantine Enforcement Platform.

Upon entering the aquarium, she will climb up onto a platform to observe and speak to the player, then descend back down. She will also watch the player intently if they are near the Incubator Device or the aquarium Arch, quickly spinning around and coming to a rest on the aquarium's floor.

Story
The captive Sea Empress Leviathan is the last remaining adult of Her species and a parent to at least seven eggs. The five eggs which still remain must be hatched at some point in the story. She is approximately two-thousand six-hundred years old, having massively surpassed her species natural lifespan. It is possible that the Aquarium has some form of life support system in place that allowed her to live to such an advanced age, as it was noted that one-thousand six-hundred was already old.

Almost all of the Sea Emperor Leviathans died when the Kharaa Bacterium was released as it killed off their food source, leaving only the one captive adult and the eggs it was discovered with. As the only source of Enzyme 42 on Planet 4546B, her and her children are the keys to cure the Kharaa Bacterium.

The Precursors studied the last surviving Sea Emperor Leviathan in hopes of finding a cure using its natural production of Enzyme 42. However, due to her weakness, possibly old age or illness, studies conducted showed that she was not a viable source of Enzyme 42 as the enzymes she produced was too unstable and only reverted symptoms temporarily. After the Precursors could not find a way to hatch her eggs naturally, they took three into the dissection room of the Primary Containment Facility and experimented on them, cutting all of them open and removing the fetus from one of the eggs. One other egg was taken to the egg lab, where it was also tested on. Still, they could find no way to cause the hatching process to trigger naturally, and juveniles born outside of the natural conditions could not produce suitable enzymes. They resorted to attaching the eggs to an Incubator Device to keep the eggs alive while they worked on more ways to hatch them. Shortly after this, the Disease Research Facility was destroyed, releasing the Kharaa Bacterium, causing all Arches to the facility to be closed and initiating the planetary quarantine.

At an unspecified time, she managed to train Peepers to use the Alien Vents to distribute Enzyme 42 to the surface. Under the her control, Peepers traveled through the Alien Vent, bringing flora seeds to the aquarium, and leaving with small amounts of Enzyme 42 which they distribute at the surface. This system allowed a small amount of life to survive on the planet.

After her eggs are hatched, she will play with its children and then direct them to the Arch leading just outside the Quarantine Enforcement Platform which they will leave through. She will begin dying shortly afterward, as she has used the last of her strength to play with her offspring.

Telepathic Contact Dialogue
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Aquarium Telepathic Contact Dialogue
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Data Bank Entries
Sea Emperor Leviathan Research Data= The Sea Emperor's Lifecycle= Specimen Research Data=

Gallery
In Game=

Trivia

 * The Sea Emperor Leviathan's dialogue suggests that the species are philosophical, if not religious. It references a concept similar to reincarnation by saying "Perhaps next we meet I will be an ocean current, carrying seeds to new lands... or a creature so small it sees the gaps between the grains of sand".
 * This dialogue also suggests a great understanding of the natural world on the part of the Sea Emperor, as it understands what an ocean current is and the roles they play in nutrient distribution in the oceans.
 * Early concept art of the Sea Emperor Leviathan 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 limbs they now have.
 * Despite being depicted significantly smaller than the Sea Dragon Leviathan in concept art, the Sea Emperor Leviathan was always intended to be the largest creature in Subnautica.
 * The Sea Dragon Leviathan was created as an aggressive reskin of the Sea Emperor Leviathan.
 * The Sea Emperor Leviathan's dialogue suggests that the Precursors were unable to "hear" its telepathy, as they did not hear its pleas to let its young go free.
 * Certain developmental notes refer to the Sea Emperor Leviathan as the "Emperor Leviathan", and refer to added animations to "bite" and "attack".
 * Various documents also refer to the Sea Emperor Leviathan as the "Grand Leviathan".
 * All Sea Emperor sound files exist within the folder "Magistrate", suggesting another developer name. This folder also contains roar sounds, which are higher-pitched versions of Reaper Leviathan roars, which further suggest that the Sea Emperor was at one point aggressive.
 * The Sea Emperor Leviathan closely shares many of its features with 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 opening sentence of the databank entry suggests that Sea Emperor Leviathans are the largest living species identified in the Subnautica universe.
 * It is possible that the Sea Emperor Leviathan attempted to communicate with Bart Torgal, as he had described seeing visions before his death, presumably the same visions that Ryley Robinson had received during his explorations.
 * It is currently impossible to scan the Sea Emperor Leviathan, and as a result, it does not have a fauna databank entry. Instead, the entry is obtained from a Precursor terminal.
 * It is also impossible to attack the Sea Emperor Leviathan.
 * The Sea Emperor Leviathan species is the only known complex fauna species on 4546B known to reproduce asexually, in contrast to other known species which reproduce by sexual reproduction as they are simultaneous hermaphrodites, excluding simple fauna species such as the Amoeboid which reproduce via longitudinal fission.