#there's sooooooo much more already like. there's a gem and wels subplot for lore and bodyguard reasons

[shortfeather]

And today's "deeply distracting au while i wait for my wrist to calm down from attempting to write for too long" iiiiiiiiiis Subnautica! an inevitability for every fandom i'm in after a certain point tbh i just LOVE Subnautica... would love to actually play it myself one day when i have a better computer

ANYWAYS I'm spicing it up this time by mashing both games together and also really mixing up the hermits.

The premise is that the Hermatrix Convoy (HC), a trio of spaceships that travels together in a group as a defense measure against outside dangers, is on its journey. When they have to reroute to slingshot 4546-B, they don't think it's going to be a problem. Knowing the planet is uninhabited and that no other ships are nearby, they all go for the slingshot at the same time, separated by mere seconds.

The gun, of course, gets them all.

Hermatrix-1 crashes in a shallow part of the flooded surface in the subtropics (the setting of the first game) and completely loses the ship, though a dozen survive. Hermatrix-2 crashes in the arctic (Subnautica: Below Zero); their ship remains habitable for survival, but barely, and eight survive.

Hermatrix-3, the smallest of the convoy, manages to switch to planetside navigation and mitigates the damage from the crash. If they want to get off-planet, they'll need some serious repairs, but in the meantime they can still move through the water like a particularly clumsy and slow submarine. The problem is figuring out where they are besides "deep, deep underwater," and what exactly the giant lifeforms the scanner insists are out there are...

Of course, there's groups within each ship as well. The friend groups of HC's staff and passengers does not necessarily correlate to ship assignment, which only adds to the stress of crashing on a supposedly-safe planet's anti-spacecraft gun.

Hermatrix-1's survivors: BDubs (architect, passenger), Zedaph (theoretical physicist), Pearl (janitor), Beef (psychologist), False (metallurgist, passenger), Etho (navigator), Scar (actor, passenger), Hypno (gov't agent, passenger), Iskall (athlete, passenger), xB (xenohistorian, passenger), Jevin (communicator specialist), Keralis (doctor)

Hermatrix-2's survivors: Ren (captain), Xisuma (cybersec specialist), Gem (ambassador, passenger), Impulse (chemist, passenger), Wels (bodyguard, passenger), Joe (teacher, passenger), Cub (CEO, pasenger), Grian (shipwright)

Hermatrix-3's survivors: Doc (spacecraft engineer), Mumbo (architect, passenger), Stress (pharmacologist), Tango (mechanical engineer, passenger), Cleo (acting captain)

If it doesn't clarify them as a passenger, then they are a member of the ship's crew. Loosely based on s9 roles, if that wasn't clear - though some of these are definitely going to change because I don't know some of these Hermits well enough yet.