Collector Leviathan

Databank Text

Enormous cephalopod predator (tentatively Tyrannoteuthis phobocoeus, tyrant squid of fearful curiosity). Feeds on hard-shelled, heavily defended prey. Solitary but highly intelligent. Likely a deep-sea creature.

1. Squidlike body plan
   The collector’s body converges with Earth squid — a long mantle and several limbs attached directly to the head. The mantle is covered in plastic armor. Unlike Earth squid, the collector has four long hunting tentacles with dextrous claws. Its eight arms are small and grouped around the beak.

2. Powerful thruster
   Two large spiracles feed a rear-facing thruster. These spiracles are separate from the four gills openings on the head, allowing the collector to separate its breath rate from its thrust speed. Two secondary hearts pump blood from the gills to the main heart.

3. Hard prey
   An enormous beak (capable of tearing through plate titanium) and four dextrous tentacles tipped with sharp bioglass claws imply that the collector specializes in prying or tearing open heavily armored prey. Possible prey fauna include the coral crab and great jaw. The need to defeat armored, active prey may have evolved a curious and aggressive psychology.

4. Broadcast organ
   This huge, many-chambered organ is a biological phased-array sonar. Multiple ‘speakers’ and ‘ears’ allow the collector to broadcast complex multi-part pulses. Dense innervation connects this organ to the toroidal brain; patterns of bioluminescence may be direct reflections of the collector’s brain activity.

5. W-shaped pupil
   In bright light the pupil creases into a W. This trait was present in Earth cephalopods, but its function was not determined before the Holocene collapse.

6. Abyssal gigantism
   Organisms from the deep sea are often very large, a phenomenon known as ‘abyssal gigantism’.

Assessment: hunters with varied and difficult diets are likely to be intelligent and inquisitive, and a predator’s curiosity may appear to prey as arbitrary torture. Any small submersible or habitat is likely to draw the collector’s interest.