Delver

Delver
by cccrystalclear
Type	Extra-dimensional entities
Sapient	y
World of Origin	Detritus
Universe	Skyward universe

This page or section needs to be updated with new information for Starsight!

Be aware that in its current state, it may not include all additional content yet.

This page or section contains spoilers for Starsight!

This information has the ability to potentially ruin elements of the plot for the reader. Proceed with caution if you have not read this book.

“ Ancient things stirred. And in that moment between heartbeats, they not only saw me, but they knew me. ”

— Spensa

The delvers, sometimes called the eyes, are ancient, extra-dimensional beings that live in the nowhere, the space beyond the world utilized by numerous cytonic abilities.

Appearance

In the nowhere

Delvers can be seen by cytonics who attempt to use their powers. Initially, they appear as hundreds of pinpricks of light across a vast blackness, which open to reveal small, white eyes that watch the cytonic. The effect is often compared the the attention of the entire universe suddenly focusing on the cytonic. The longer one obseves the eyes, the larger they seem to appear. Perceiving the eyes leaves a person with a sense of cold that persists for hours afterwards.

The appearance of delver eyes is preceded and accompanied by a pleasant sound, akin to a thousand musical notes playing together in harmony. It grows louder the closer one is to seeing them.

In physical space

When sufficiently antagonized by cytonics, delvers can emerge into the real space. The emergence begins as a distortion in reality from which everything manifests. The second step is the core, or the heart, which from the outside appears as a sphere of pure black. Afterwards the delver maze forms around it -- a confusing, seemingly-random array of dark, hollow spires jutting out in various directions, connecting together to form a network of traversible tunnels. Finally, the delver maze is enveloped by a dense cloud of particulate dust, in which storms rage, with strikes of lightning casting lights of various colours, mostly red.

A fully manifested delver is titanic in scale, enough so to have its own gravitational pull. The one summoned by Brade is somewhere between a massive moon and a small planet, while the called by humans in ancient past was capable of enveloping the entirety of Detritus.

Interior

The inside of the delver is extremely chaotic, with the particulate cloud in a state of perpetual storm, crippling both vision and communications. Any person that enters the maze will start to hallucinate, seeing passages and objects that aren't there. The hallucinations are different for every person -- as such, they are generally ineffective against groups capable of coordination, or dione drafts.

At the center of the maze lies the heart, protected by an illusory membrane. Unlike the rest of the delver, the area immediately surrounding it has atmosphere breathable to air-using species, like humans or diones. A black hole leads into the heart proper, which is black on the outside, and utterly white on the inside. The heart is a place of perfect serenity, white and peaceful, free of any disturbance, although cytonic and radio activity forms small holes in its walls. The holes appear to be inherently unpleasant to all who perceive them and make distressing sounds.

The delver mind resides within the heart; while its true shape is uncertain, it seems to take the form of the person who perceives it.

Abilities and behavior

Hatred of cytonics

“ They would not ever leave me alone, and I wanted so badly just to smash them. To smother them beneath my foot so they'd stop piling, and crawling, and clicking, and snapping, and biting, and corrupting, and— ”

— Delver's thoughts, as perceived by Spensa

Delvers are incapable of most emotions; rather, they reflect all that they sense outside. This being said, they can hear and perceive any intrusion into the nowhere. It appears to cause them immense pain; as such, they utterly despise cytonics, and grow more hateful the longer one holds their attention. Extreme and prolonged cytonics "screaming" can and will cause them to transition to the physical world in an attempt to quiet it down.

Once delvers leave nowhere, they can also hear radio communications, causing the same hateful reaction as cytonics. They perceive both types of signals as noise, causing them to grow aggressive and go after the strongest source in vicinity. When they are done, or otherwise run out of targets, delvers will roam space for anywhere between several years to several decades before fading back to nowhere.

It's heavily implied that delvers do not understand that the noises are caused by living, sapient creature; the revelation of it seems to cause at least one of them considerable distress and make it depart back into nowhere of its own volition mid-attack.

Tangibility and deadliness

Delvers have a strange relationship with tangibility -- while the delver maze has discernible, unpassable walls and floors, the delver itself can seemingly pass through physical matter, allowing it to envelop entire planets. However, standard shields, such as ones mounted on starfighters, can stop the delver from passing through a ship of a person.

When a delver does pass through a living being, it causes the latter incredible physical pain. The person affected appears to shrink and fold in on themselves, as though under enormous force, before quickly vanishing. This apparently doesn't require any effort or attention from a delver; as such, it can cause incredible destruction simply by passing over an inhabited area.

Cytonic abilities

Despite their hatred of cytonics, delvers seem to have at least some of their abilties, including:

• Illusions: much like "mind holograms" used by the Krell to deceive human cytonics, delvers can create illusions for people that enter their mazes. The illusions are extremely chaotic, overwhelming and nonsensical; however, each is specific to a particular person. As such, two minds are required to discern them from reality.
• Sense: delvers do not possess any discernible eyes; rather, they perceive cytonic and radio signals as sounds.
• Detecting cytonics: delves are capable of sensing other cytonics, both in nowhere and, seemingly, in physical space.
• Teleportation: delvers are capable of FTL travel while in physical space, and can jump between star systems in an instant.

Additionally, delvers possess strong telekinetic abilties. They can somehow create and control embers, large rocks akin to asteroids, and shoot them outside of themselves at targets. Close by, as well as within their base, they have much greater control, and can use embers to chase down and destroy ships.

Direct contact

“ I saw planets, I saw star systems, I saw galaxies. I saw the scrambling, useless, tiny little insects that covered them like chittering hives. I felt revulsion. Hatred for these pests that infested the worlds. ”

— Spensa after experiencing a delver

When a delver and a non-delver cytonic's minds meet, there's a level of mental "pollution"; the cytonic will begin to perceive the noise of the world at large as distinctly unpleasant, and feel hatred towards other living beings, along with a distinct sense of megalomania. The cytonic's mind also appears to expand, as though they can perceive the entire universe all at once. Such thoughts vanish within several moments. The effect is amplified when the cytonic comes into direct physical contact with the delver's mind.

On the other hand, at least within the heart, a cytonic can push their own thoughts onto a delver, bringing their mind down in scale to see from a living beings' perspective. This correlates with increase in empathy in the delver, and sudden ability to feel more emotions and have more human-like emotions, including regret and horror.

Safeguards

“ Use physical cords for data transfer, avoid broadcasting, and put shielding around faster processors. To do otherwise risks the attention of the eyes. ”

— Instructions from M-Bot's memory banks

The ancient humans who constructed M-Bot considered the eyes to be a hostile and dangerous force, and took measures to avoid catching their attention. This involved abandoning more advanced technologies in favor of the radio and shielding faster processors, suggesting that the eyes are capable of perceiving some sort of electronic activity, or perhaps only the mix of cytonics and technology. Spensa also speculates that M-Bot's faster-than-light capacities have been disabled due to the hostility of the eyes; however, short-distance jumps seem safe to make.

The Krell, on the other hand, do not appear concerned with the eyes, freely using the nowhere space for their own purposes. M-Bot also seems to use the nowhere to augment his processing capacity with no ill effects, although he could be shielded to protect him from the eyes.

History

First appearance

“ Centuries ago, my kind learned firsthand how dangerous the delvers are. ”

— Cuna

The origins of delvers, if there are any, are unknown, though it's likely they've existed in the nowhere for thousands, if not millions of years. Back in the days of the Phone Company, prior to humanity's expansion outside of the Solar System, they were nowhere to be seen, even by cytonics capable of teleportation. Superiority scholars speculate that a species needs to develop particularly skilled or powerful cytoncis for delvers to pay attention.

The first known appearance of a delver occured during the second of the Human Wars. During that time, humanity built facilties on obscure and dying stars as part of a weapons program hoping to summon and control a delver, with Detritus being one such base. They have succeeded and summoning delves; however, the beings proved impossible to control. In some cases, the cytoshields proved insufficient, leading to delvers destroying the very people who sought them out.

In total, thirteen delvers emerged into the physical world. They rampaged throughout the galaxy for the next few decades, destroying world after world, before eventually fading away one by one. From then on out, however, they were a constant presence in the nowhere, observing all cytonics. For this reason, Superiority, as well as human enclaves, drastically cut down on the use of cytonics and wireless communication, so as to avoid drawing them in again.

Second attempt

“ We don't need to defeat the delvers. We simply need to control them. ”

— Brade

A century after the Third Human War, the delvers remained a persistent danger, although the protective standards grew far more lax. A this time, Winzik, head of Superiority's Department of Protective Services, conceived of a plan to once more deliberately summon a delver and control it, to use it as a weapon against those who'd go against the Superiority. The lynchpin of his plan was Brade, a powerful human cytonic under his command.

With rumours of delvers being close to reemergence -- possibly fuelled by Winzik's propaganda -- the Superiority set up a program to train people in to fight delvers. They also developed a supposed weapon to fight them, though in reality, the "weapon" was a cytonic device luring them into a different planet. This was the primary method by which Winzik would "control" the delvers: set up the lure with coordinates to whichever place he wished destroyed.

Reemergence

“ In the panic of knowing she would die, Brade finally accomplished her goal. ”

— Spensa

When Superiority arrived over Detritus for a decisive battle, Spensa quickly realized that Brade intended to summon a delver, and ordered humans to cut off all radio communication in anticipation of the event before pursuing. She, and eventually others from her training flight, chased after Brade, hoping to kill her before she could suceed. Eventually, they managed to pin her down, although in her would-be final moments, Brade managed a summoning.

After the delver emerged, Spensa tried to send it away, to the star system in which she and the other trainees had practiced. While she succeeded at dissuading it from attacking Detritus, the delver instead went to Starsight. Spensa and her flightmates followed, hoping to take it out before it could kill everyone on the space station. With assistance from Morriumur, Spensa managed to reach the heart. There, she communed with the delver and managed to show it that all the annoyances that the delvers despised were living creatures. This seemed to horrify the delver, which quickly returned to nowhere.

Trivia

• Brandon once began writing a science fiction novella called The Eyes, inspired by Fermi paradox, the question of why we can't find any aliens despite the statistical probability of their existence. The story remains unfinished, although a chapter of it was posted as a reward on the Writing Excuses Patreon page. Its setting was eventually absorbed into the Skyward universe, with one of its alien races appearing in Starsight Given the title, it's possible that delvers originated from the story.

Notes

This article is still missing information. Please help The Coppermind by expanding it.