• As Bart you follow the trail of Ishmael, a rebel Precursor scientist, to a unique crater beyond the Void. Ishmael had returned there to resume a dangerous research project, against AL-AN's orders, and found something unexpected.
  
  
• Bart's encounters in the new zone include psychological attacks from creatures, of the very kind that prompted the Precursors to abandon their research complex there.
  
  
• The player can now use biologically based tech to survive unique hazards of the new zone, and searches for clues to unravel the mystery behind this peculiar location.

This opening scene updates the player on the key events leading to his current situation: Now as the hunted Bart Torgal, he must soon flee the main Crater for safer shores.


The player is locked within a small habitat on Crater's edge above the Void, filled with Bart's lab equipment. His cowardly PDA can be picked up from a desk. It contains several files conveying the following information:

• Bart's PDA is panicking and has locked down the habitat. Despite Bart's efforts to fake his own death, Alterra is now hunting Degasis survivors with a swarm of security droids dropped from high orbit (it seems the Company disapproves of foreign industrial spies & trespassers). Alterra now hastens to kill off any survivors before an arriving Mongolian diplomat can raise treaty objections.
  
  
• Bart's research notes: By now he's has achieved Wiz-level competence in practical bio-engineering: He now sports a pair of rudimentary gills that allow him to extend his scuba supplies by 10%. His notes discuss his ambition to increase their function. There are also records of his experiments building habitats from living coral and cultured shell tissue.
  
  
• A journal page by a rebel Precursor scientist, Ishmael, who rejected AL-AN's methods. He speaks of leaving for the 'Cerebral Crater' to resume past research on an apparently hostile intelligence at work there. As AL-An has disabled its phasegate, Ishmael plans to "ride the migration." His notes timetable this annual event - due to pass this point again this very day!

1. A herd of Reefbacks assemble outside the habitat. One of them has a small Precursor structure grafted onto its back, now similarly encrusted with marine growth. The PDA sees this as an escape plan.
   
   
2. The habitat doors will open now - but Bart's nervous PDA AI advises Alterra's drones are inbound and he has only minutes to depart
   
   
3. Bart will be safe if he swims towards the lead Reefback and enters its Precursor built 'cockpit'. Then the Alterra security droids will arrive, but their fire will only prompt the Reefback school to begin their migration across the Void

Note: If however, the player chooses to linger or explore elsewhere, then the droids will arrive and begin firing on him until his health is exhausted - restarting the game.

Inside the cockpit, there are no controls only a wired helmet. When worn, this creates a neural interface with the Reefback - the player can see through its eyes and control its movements (within limits of the migration course), and as the lead Reefback, the others will follow. The reefback's FOV is very wide, and predators are highlighted. Memory-shape outlines will overlay the Reefback HUD, indicating the direction of remembered prior encounters

A pair of Ghost Leviathans will menace the herd's juveniles. Reefback adults will ram the attackers, and the player can control his own Reefback to participate in the defence.

This is supended in the Void by a coating of floaters. For a time, the Reefback herd will nudge it along gently, perhaps in encouragement to join their migration. The player can park his Reefback and explore within, finding the ship's log recording some doomed castaway's attempt to escape the first crater.

Similar to a Vent Garden. The herd will circle beneath it for a time, feeding on the cloud of waste organic particles it exudes from below. This garden houses a Precursor lab, once used to study the Void ecosystem. A researcher's notes discuss AL-AN's difficulties in the main crater, and this unit's need to return to assist him. Ishmael has passed this way too, adding concerned notes comparing AL-AN to an obsessive space captain named AY-AB in some ancient Precursor legend.

An underwater archipelago supported by mature floaters. The central island is guarded by a mother Ghost leviathan. Beneath her coils shelters a writhing mass of small juveniles. She will not leave her nest, but attacks anything that strays withing striking distance. Exploration of the surrounding satellite islands can be made with caution, and one is topped by a Precursor observation dome. Ishmael's notes found here warn of madness ahead for any who follow him into the 'Cerebral Crater'.

The Reefback migration halts at the north side of a vast crater lagoon, seemingly during a very high tide. The lagoon's high surrounding cliffs mean the player must enter by jumping down to the calm waters below - leaving his barnacled companions behind to graze contently in plankton of the up-welling currents.

The double ringed crater has a sensitive inner zone. The creatures there dislike any artificial submersibles or constructions - prompting the player to use Bart's new organic technologies.
- Small fish will damage any submarine by swimming deliberately into it kamikaze style.
- Larger predators will attack titanium habitats and submersibles on sight.

Bart's gills and tolerance to water pressure can be improved once he builds a lab. Upgrades are achieved by studying material sampled from various creatures he encounters. Creatures found at greater depths give better upgrades. Once gills are at max efficiency the player will no longer have any need for air supplies.


As a genius genetic engineer, Bart is able to analyse the DNA of various molluscs he finds, to use as a blueprints to 'grow' habitats with his converted building tool, out of coral and other organic materials. As the player goes deeper, he can scan new creatures that let him construct progressively more elaborate organic habitats, similar to these:




Creatures can be hijacked as transport using the Precursor neural-link interface tech (as first encountered in the Reefback migration). Blueprints are species-specific, and are got by scanning any creature found with a neural-link dart already projecting from its skull. When controlling a creature Bart wears a neural-link helmet and sees through the creature's eyes. Interestingly the POV differs between each species - various colours and environmental features are revealed that are normally visible only in the infrared, or ultraviolet - often useful for uncovering hidden resources etc.


A wireless neural-link upgrade kit can be found late-game in a wrecked Precursor Lab. This not only frees the Bart from being wired to his mounts, but allows remote control of smaller creatures as reconnaissance drones.

As Bart, the player is plagued by a series of aquatic phantoms, all claiming to be his Father! (eventually revealed as flawed communication attempts by the planet's own intelligence).

They begin as cut-scene nightmares, then are encountered 'in the flesh' as the player penetrates further into the crater. Despite their fearsome appearances the phantoms are benign, and can easily be scattered into their component creatures by any attack. The core message behind the planet's communication is eventually revealed as: "Seek me within the Nucleus. Avert the Crisis! "




Note: Scanning a phantom only reveals its constituent creatures, not the whole. Asking your PDA for clarification only returns a series of unhelpful mental health diagnoses (nitrogen narcosis, temporal lobe seizure, water on the brain, Munchhausen's Syndrome etc)
-------------------------------

Precursor research bases in this crater were all abandoned do to their failure to engage properly with their own phantoms - experienced as their deceased loved ones. Scattered video-journals reveal their unfolding reactions, Kübler-Ross style, as they penetrated further into the Crater.

Outer Shallows
1. Blissful Ignorance - elated at the location and research possibilities. etc.
   
2. Partial Realisation - unsettling dreams of visitations by deceased loved ones.
   
   Outer Depths
   
3. Denial – Material avatars now encountered, but seen as hallucinations - perhaps due to a local neurotoxin
   
   Inner Shallows
   
4. Fear and Anger – acceptance now manifestations ARE material, but are threats that must be destroyed (this became the official policy set by AL-AN)
   
5. Bargaining - individuals communicate with phantoms, seeking to dispel any past unresolved injustices. Others see them as sea spirits and make offerings to gain their protection (these individualistic responses begin unravelling the Precursors' collectivist culture)
   
   Inner Depths
   
6. Depression – "Remaining here dooms us all to madness" (abandonment of the site)
   
7. Acceptance – "These creatures are NOT our dead. This planet is trying to communicate something important to us" (as experienced only by the maverick scientist Ishmael )

Most every Precursor ruin contains some note left by Ishmael, who feels he may not return from his investigation into the heart of the crater, so leaves these documents for posterity.

• It becomes clear his motives for returning to the Cerebral Crater are not entirely scientific. Whereas Bart is haunted by his father, Ishmael was visited by apparitions of his dead mate, and longs to meet with her again (although as he progresses, he begins to suspect their true nature).
  
  • "Again I stand alone on the bright hard sand, as the ebb tide pulls you back into the current. And wait for your return, amongst the faded nylon twine and plastic bottles"
  
  
• At times he critiques his own Precursor culture, feeling their extreme collectivism has left them prone to xenophobia, with little hope of understanding other species or the true nature of this planet:
  
  • "Adrift, I long for shelter in my brood's Great Collective. But out here that proud unity seems a small one - landlocked, and constrained against the surging flow of life"
  
  
• Years of neural-linking with many creatures begins to erode Ishmael's personal identity.
  
  • "To explore the crater I have linked to all kinds of creatures. - using sights and sounds beyond my own eyes and ears. Lately, even their minds begin to flood into mine - and I feel the wrench of un-linking like a clam torn from its shell.."
    
  • "The awareness of each animal is limited but unique - a kind of "species dream" of the Ocean. Since each creature is made of the stuff of the Ocean, so it follows each animal's sentience is a kind of 'dream' had by the Ocean - of itself. I must continue with these experiments to fully understand it."
    
  • "If my own sentience is but another of the Ocean's dreams . . . am I then the Ocean?
    I will journey deep into the heart of the Crater to seek my answers there."
    
  • “Nearing the centre, I feel the knowledge and the unity of this Ocean circulate in me like my own blood"

There are five zones, increasing in difficulty towards the centre:

1. Outer Shallows
   
2. Outer Deeps
   
3. Inner Shallows
   
4. Inner Deeps
   
5. The Cerebral Labyrinth and the Nucleus beneath the Crater

Each zone is detailed at the end of the guide. But for now, let's skip to the end game . . .

A vast cavern at the core of the Labyrinth is a safe zone - its swirling shoals of sea creatures will not attack. At its centre an ancient temple complex shelters the 'Nucleus' - the goal sought by rebel Precursor Ishmael: It seems to be a gigantic pulsating brain coral.

This coral is in fact a 'brain'. Attached is the living body of Ishmael, now somehow fused together with the planet's 'mind'. The player can question the great Mind via Ishmael, by choosing from a number of dialogue options:

Call Me Ishmael, if you like. for I am him and . . . more. What you see of me is only a husk. I . . . he has chosen to meld in his intelligence to become . . . part of this greater whole, adding to the many millennia of acquired knowledge of those who came before. Now his-my mind is is no longer constrained within this tiny husk - but dissolved throughout like the salt that seasons the Ocean. Let us speak together then, in yours and Ishmael's shared dialect of Science..

Perhaps . . . or perhaps he consumed Me. In his time he ate, drank and breathed enough of this planet until no atom in his body was other than Mine. And you too have eaten of my flesh, so I too live in you - as with all the creatures here. Creature individuality is an illusion - a dream - as had by fleeting waves they are distinct from the Ocean. All living worlds are alike in this.

You might better understand me as a vast single cell - my teeming creatures akin to cell organelles - a ceaseless dance of life and death an exchange energy and data - with a myriad of hatchings and deaths akin to the 1's and 0's in your brittle primitive devices. Here, in these ruins past, priests of races long departed perhaps did sense this connection. So they made their auguries from the circling flights of birds and the schooling of my fishes.

The attacks on artificial structures here are NOT willed by the Whole. In your understanding these are auto-immune responses that safeguard my most vital areas from parasitic infections. Older races saw this clash of flesh-on-steel as elements in opposition, which is a kind of truth.

Before Ishmael, this world lacked any voices you could understand. Your phantoms were my communication attempts . . . images from memories with tongues to speak through. Alas, how many races past have been content to fear or worship messengers, but so seldom listen to them.

It is the World-Apocalypse . . . but not one from any divine judgement. When under extreme stress my kind will 'encyst', again much like a bacterial cell. This involuntary reaction rapidly exudes a gel-like planetary shield - sealing it from the Galaxy for passing aeons. This is not an outcome I welcome, and not one I can halt once it begins.

1. Merge with the Whole and shed your fleeting illusion of individuality - just I did as Ishmael All your knowledge of your species will be added to the Whole. In return you will see, hear, feel and know all that I do. My past will be your memories. Then the you-in-I will share in something close to immortality, regardless if this planet encysts for a fleeting aeon or two.
   
   
2. Or else return to your Humanity as my intermediary. Negotiate for my protection, and thereby prevent the shield from forming - the outcome that benefits no one: I would merely sleep through your species' brief flourishing and learn nothing from it. And Humanity's imprint in the sand will be lost to the surging tides of Time. Should you succeed . . your kind may prove worthy to dip its pitcher into the vast reservoir of knowledge of all those who came before - the many species that 'worshipped' here in times long past by melting-in their greatest minds - just as I did when merely "Ishmael".

If the player chooses this option, then he is treated to a cut-scene of the universe from the Planet's POV:

• Many such ocean worlds scattered amongst galaxies, communicating with each other though slow pulses of energy and entangled particles.
  
• An ocean planet is seen reproducing by dividing like a cell
  
• Another is seen perishing from a parasitic infestation of billions of tiny creatures (humans)
  
• Another forming an encysting shield around itself, trapping all its colonists within

If the player chooses this option he is transported off the planet:

• The player is seen standing on the water's surface at the centre of the crater
  
• Water spirals up around him and forms into a gelatinous bubble
  
• This capsule is launched through the atmosphere towards a small fleet of orbiting ships of Alterran construction

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(covered just to reduce reader-overload here)

The following is likely the order that zones will be encountered by a player as they unlock various tech solutions to overcome the difficulties unique to each region


Depth Range: 0-100m (but with some 150m depth kelp rifts intersecting it).
Biomes::
- Safe Shallows
- Shallow Twisty Bridges
- Kelp Forest rifts
Creature Behaviours:
- Normal (no undue attacks on structures or subs)
Neuro-linked creatures:
- Stalker
Genetic Blueprints:
- Simple dome habitat
- Coral tube corridors
Ruins:
- Intact Precursor living apartments
- Inactive Precursor phasegate (links to a gate within the Labyrinth after repairs are made there)
- Destroyed phasegate (Formerly linked to the main crater. Disabled by AL-AN)
Phantoms:
- Bart has anxiety dreams of deceased Degasi crew members calling to him
Precursor Journals:
- Elated at location and research possibilities.
- Unsettling dreams (visitations by deceased loved ones)
Ishmael's Journals
- Dissatisfaction (with AL-AN's research approach in the earlier crater)
- Rebellion (his unsanctioned return to here complete his earlier research)


Depth Range: 0-200m
Biomes::
- Kelp Forest
- Grassy Plateaus
- Mushroom Forest
Creature Behaviours:
- Swarming around titanium structures & subs (no attacks)
Neuro-linked creatures:
- Sandshark
Genetic Blueprints:
- Coiled Shell Multipurpose Room
Ruins:
- Intact Precursor industrial buldings
Phantoms:
- Burbling Mass encountered
Precursor Journals:
- Denial (phantoms interpreted as hallucinations due to some local neurotoxin)
Ishmael's Journals
- Research (his earlier 'entropy scans' of the interior indicate a vast mind is located there)


Depth Range: 0-150m
Biomes::
- Purple Vents
- Thermal Spires
- Shallow twisty bridges
Creature Behaviours:
- Minor attacks on titanium builds and subs
Neuro-linked creatures:
- Brute Shark
Genetic Blueprints:
- Coiled Shell MP Room,
- Coiled towers
Ruins:
- Functional Precursor labs here, but dented and scarred
Phantoms:
- Intermediate Humanoid approximating Paul Torgal. Warning of a coming crisis.
Precursor Journals:
- Fear & Anger (manifestations ARE material. AL-AN orders their destruction)
- Bargaining (Individuals seek to resolve injustices with their own dead)
- Concern about creature swarming behaviours
Ishmael's Journals
- Acceptance (The phantoms are not our dead. This planet is trying to communicate something)
- Animal behaviour theory (creature attacks are local immune response by a living planet to foreign materials)


Depth Range: 0-500m
Biomes::
- Tree Spires
- Crag Field
- Bulb Zone
- Grand Reef
Creature Behaviours:
- Artificial structures and subs attacked on sight
Neuro-linked creatures:
- Blood Crawler
- Boneshark
- Reaper Leviathan
Genetic Blueprints:
- Clamshell Large Room
Ruins:
- Destroyed Precursor labs (evidence of relentless creature attacks)
Phantoms:
- Coherent late stage (speaking with Paul Togal's voice urging a meeting at 'the Nucleus')
Precursor Journals:
- Alarm (creature attacks on builds and subs require constant attention, making research difficult)
- Depression (remaining here dooms us to madness - we abandonment this crater)
Ishmael's Journals
- Resolve (he will penetrate the Labyrinth below, to uncover the cause of the hauntings)


A large 3D maze of large tunnels patrolled by a giant eel much larger than other leviathans. At its centre is the 'Nucleus Cavern'.

Depth Range: 600-800m
Biomes::
- Cooled inactive lava zone
Creature Behaviours:
- Gargantuan eel patrols the tunnels and will attack any intruder
Neuro-linked creatures:
- None
Genetic Blueprints:
- None
Ruins:
- Disabled principle phasegate (if repaired this links to a gate in the Outer Shallows)
- Ishmael's hidden lab (functional)
Phantoms:
- A late stage phantom will accompany the player and reveal Ishmael's lab location
Ishmael's Journals:
- Realisation that there is an ancient and creative intelligence at the centre.
- Fragmentation of his sense of personal identity



























The sun rises and the sun sets;
and hurries back into the Deep

The wind blows south, and then turns north;
but patterns just the surface of the Deep

From where the rains and streams all come;
to where every river runs

Generations go, then generations come;
but what remains forever is the Deep