The Nanovoid
- Ash Colclough
- Gavin Rummery
The Nanovoid is the main antagonist within Holdara, this morphing alien hive-mind seeks to control Holdara for itself.
Its true motivations remain unclear, but since the cataclysmic event called Starfall (for which it may be responsible) it has spread its control across almost the entire surface of Holdara, leaving the surviving Holdarans trapped in Lighthaven beneath the Celestial Tower and faced with the daunting task of driving back the Nanovoid forces to take back their homeland.
Origin
The “dark particles” that make up the Nanovoid were originally part of the heliolith that the Celestials brought through the Lightstar. Like DNA in our world, these particles allowed things similar to plants to grow and replicate.
The Celestials realised early on that the heliolith was dangerous to their biology, and so used “mechanoids” to work with it while they themselves wore protective suits. They were surprised to discover the heliolith symbiotically reacted with the mechanoids to create more advanced creatures that essentially used the mechanoid as a skeletal base. They experimented and refined the process to create the first true Holdarans.
Intrigued, the Celestials did further experiments that revealed the dark particles were the “secret sauce”. They extracted and refined them into a pure form but this material turned out to be absolutely lethal to them. The Celestials were infected and absorbed into what is now known as the Nanovoid – a more intelligent form of pure dark particles, though it is more a hive mind of different memories.
Holdaran Physics
The Nanovoid is like a mass of nano-particles that work together, but it is natural like an alien virus rather than something that was manufactured. It can create shapes it “remembers”, a bit like cells using DNA information. This includes corrupting existing machinery and flora.
Unlike the Celestials, the Holdarans themselves are resistant to corruption by the Nanovoid because they have dark particles in their makeup already. They can combat the Nanovoid using Hard Light weaponry and armour, which is generated from the “light particles” that arrived via the Lightstar, and condense naturally in the form of Glowstones.
The Nanovoid itself can co-exist with diluted light particles (as it did when it was part of the heliolith) and actually needs them to provide itself with energy, but concentrated forms, such as the light from the working Lightstar, Spires or Hard Light weapons, are deadly to it.
To power creation of larger dark forms called Shadow Wraiths, the Nanovoid focuses captured light particles into Glowstones which do not harm it because they do not emit the light particles (like a battery does not shock us with its stored electricity).