Wow, I haven’t been here in ages! I probably don’t know anyone here and no one here knows me most likely. But I decided to make a Subnautica AU thanks to some support from some friends and here ya have it!
Tell me your story.
“Honestly, where to begin? I suppose it all started on the Aurora. The Aurora was launched to begin construction of a phasegate in the Ariadne arm. I was the non-esssential systems maintenance chief. If our mission was successful, I’d finally get that promotion to essential systems I’d been working for. Anyway, at this point, all that anyone knew, anyone at my rank that is, was that we were going to perform a slingshot maneuver around a planet called 4546B in order to get us going in the right direction.
“The next thing that EVERYONE knew… was that we were falling out of the sky.”
Alarm bells. Voices shouting. Explosions. Pandemonium. This was all that Riley Robinson registered around him as he ran through the decks of the Aurora. He passed countless other people running to-and-fro amidst the chaos. He didn’t care about the others. All that mattered was the sign above him. Lifepod Bay. He looked around madly for an open pod. There! Lifepod 7 was untouched. Lucky number seven! He thought.
Lucky number seven indeed.
“You haven’t the faintest idea. Let me continue.”
Riley dashed for the Lifepod hatch. He slid down the ladder like a fireman and sat in one of the seats, buckling himself in. He looked at the Lifepod hatch, waiting for only a moment before yet another ship-wide warning went off. Time to go! He punched the commands into the control panel under his hand and lurched as the Lifepod entered free-fall. It would really suck to land on land on a 90% water planet. He thought. He looked up at the hatch, his only window to the outside world, and watched as the Aurora exploded for the final time. He knew that anyone that was left inside were likely dead. He hardly finished the thought when the shockwave from the blast hit the Lifepod, the Lifepod shaking and starting to spin. He could hear the rattle of loose components. He looked back down just in time to get a face full of metal plating that had dislodged from the fuse box, and everything went black.
That had to hurt.
“Hurt like hell. I can feel my face bruising just THINKING about it. Thank god I didn’t have a mirror in that Lifepod.”
*chuckling* be glad you don’t have a mirror now!
“The audacity! How dare you! You’re one to talk, you-“
Please, continue.
“Oh, alright.”
Riley awoke to two very unpleasant sensations. A massive throbbing headache… and smoke inhalation. He groggily opened his eyes to the sight of half the Lifepod on fire. Shit! He struggled out of his seat and quickly extinguished the fire with the nearby fire extinguisher. Thankfully it was on his side of the Lifepod.
Lucky break number one, I assume.
“Lucky break number one? That was lucky break five at least! First, I actually got ON a Lifepod, my Lifepod actually LAUNCHED, the fact that I actually survived the “minor head trauma” that metal sheet gave me, the fact I landed in the one place the Warpers and leviathans couldn’t get me-“
You’re getting off track.
“Yeah, sorry… sometimes I just think about how ludicrous it was for me to have survived against all those odds… especially when no one else did…”
Do you need a moment?
“N-no, no. I-I’m fine. I’ll start going over things a bit faster now.”
Riley quickly took stock of his supplies. Luckily the Lifepod was stocked with enough food and water for him to get his bearings and decide on a course of actions. However, there was damage to several systems and he was unable to utilize his fabricator, not that he had anything to fabricate. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his PDA. The Alterra logo greeted him as the PDA intoned: "You have suffered minor head trauma. This is considered an optimal outcome. This PDA has now rebooted in emergency mode with one directive: to keep you alive on an alien world.” Minor head trauma? Optimal outcome my-
Language.
“Shut up. Anyway, basically my Lifepod had nothing but some food and I didn’t have the supplies to make more. Luckily the atmosphere was breathable. I finally decided to pop my head out of the Lifepod and assess my surroundings. I wished I hadn’t.”
Riley stood shocked on the top of his Lifepod. Around him was nothing but water. He could see some reefs under the water below him. It was remarkably clear. But what had his attention now was what stood in the distance: the burning remains of the Aurora. His PDA intoned: “The Aurora suffered orbital hull failure. Cause: unknown. Zero human life signs detected."
That must’ve been a hard shock for you.
“Yeah. Funny thing is, I didn’t even know half the guys, just the bros at non-essential systems. But I felt the loss as if I had known every person on that ship personally. It didn’t get easier from there. I started scavenging. Got my basic necessities, fixed up the Lifepod. Can’t remember when I figured it out, but I’d been out for 8 hours. Back then, I hadn’t known that the distress calls I’d received on the radio were from dead men.”
You were the last.
“I was the last. It became a cycle for awhile. Get materials, find some blueprints from scattered pieces of the wreck, make some tools and build a base. Answer distress calls, locate the wrecked pods… half of them never even launched, Yknow. Learned that when I went to fix up the Aurora after it exploded.”
You were indeed fortunate.
“As we’ve been saying. The real blow came with the promise of salvation…”
Riley Robinson, former non-essential systems maintenance chief of the former intergalactic starship Aurora, was tired. Day after day of the same routine. Gather materials. Eat the same weird-looking fish. Answer distress calls of long-since dead survivors. He found his hope diminishing with each wrecked Lifepod he found. Officer Keen had promised a rendezvous. It was clear none had made it. He clicked the playback button on the latest message…
“It was the captain of a small ship called the Sunbeam. He picked up our distress signal but sadly I couldn’t call him back. I was just receiving bounce back from what was left of the Aurora’s communications systems. He didn’t know what had happened so he was kinda a jerk, but I was so happy. He was headed my way. He would see what happened and pick me up! I only got more excited when he sent his next message a few days later. It had been almost two weeks at that point. It took almost another week, but the Sunbeam finally got here! When the message came through and the captain, his name was Avery by the way, said that he was searching for a place to park, I couldn’t leave the radio! Another few days later, he sent me coordinates for an island. I hopped in my seamoth and made for the island immediately. Three weeks of waterlogged hell and I was finally going to be saved!”
Riley Robinson, former non-essential systems maintenance chief of the former intergalactic starship Aurora, was more excited than he’d ever been in his life. At least half a dozen small fish met their demise against the hull of his Seamoth as he floored it toward the rendezvous coordinates given to him by Avery Quinn, the captain of the ship currently en route to save him! He gets me off this landforsaken planet and I’ll kiss his feet! He thought.
Seems like a rather… odd notion.
“Like I cared! I would have, too!”
Would have, being the key phrase?
“Aye. Would have.”
Riley hopped out of his Seamoth and laughed out loud in joy at a sensation he thought he’d never feel: Sand! Dry, course, rough, sand! He was sick of the water, sick of the swimming, sick of his only solid land being hard metal Habitat floors. He looked around him. The island was small, and primarily consisted of a large mountain, but it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen! Sand, grass, TREES! He had TREES! He had some time before the Sunbeam arrived, so he spent it exploring every nook and cranny of the island. He felt as if he touched every blade of grass and every tree. Soon enough however… “What in the name of the world is THAT?!”
Standing before him was a weird structure like none other he had ever seen. It was a dark green, and consisted of a long platform with a tower standing above the shoreline. It was the weirdest structure he had ever seen in his life. He ran up to the large archway that appeared to be the only entrance into the weird structure and placed his hand on the green light that seemed to take up the space under the arch. His hand hit a solid wall. A forcefield. Question is, who put it here? It’s not Alterran tech, that’s for sure. His PDA confirmed it. “Scans indicate this structure is composed of a metal alloy with unprecedented integrity. No matches found in database. Performing structural analysis."
His curiosity about the structure was cut short by a voice emanating from some form of loudspeaker. He looked around for the source, before recognizing the voice and looking up at the sky. It was the Sunbeam! "Survivor, we see you!” Riley couldn’t help but smile and jump for joy as he heard Avery Quinn’s voice. “Man, I don't know how you held out down there. We've broken atmosphere and we're descending towards the landing site”
Riley’s celebration was cut short by a loud rumbling noise. He looked around for the source before realizing it was coming from the tower. It was moving! He watched as the tower seemed to rotate around a smaller center structure before tilting, as if it was pointing… at the Sunbeam? That’s odd. Riley thought. It looks like… a sense of dread hit him. A gun!
He heard Avery’s voice again. “Is that a building down there?! What do you mean you can't identify it? Hold on, no turning back now!” He started a countdown for landing as Riley watched some sort of energy gather at the end of the tower. His sense of dread only intensified. “No! Turn back! It’s a gun goddamnit turn back!” He shouted. Of course they couldn’t hear him.
Avery’s voice called out again. “It's coming from the building?! Change course, set thrusters to full-“ the voice cut off as a beam of energy emanated from the building, striking the Sunbeam. Riley watched in stunned silence as the Sunbeam exploded, right then and there. An image of the Aurora exploding as he descended in the Lifepod filled his vision. He knew that this is what had happened to the Aurora.
He had led the crew of the Sunbeam to their deaths.
