Dero

The detrimental robots are a race of diminutive sadists described by Richard Sharpe Shaver to exist underneath the Earth's surface, where they secretely torture the entire human race with stolen technology of the ancients (mech in Mantong). Their worst depredations befall any who directly enter their subterranean caves, whether from wandering or abduction, where humans are ceaselessly killed in the most horrible ways they can concieve, and then healed so that the torture may continue. Visions of the dero's habitat has inspired the human concept of Hell.

History
Shaver believed that life survived off of the cycles of creation and decay inside the universe, and natural as it may be, there were definite forms of good and evil inside this cycle. Matter decays into ex-disintegrance, an energy that causes gravity in its attempts to return to material form. Living beings develop by absorbing ex-disintegrance into their bodies, a process that leads to indefinite growth of the body and mind. However, elements that were still distintegrating are disintegrant, a poison that inhibits collection of exd in living beings. This was the source of all age; and worse yet, of human error. Consciousness is an organization of energy, and radioactive decay is a disorganized form of energy. Brains will interpret these random impulses of energy as actual thought, creating a mental infection called der that is antithetical to intelligence.

The elder races believed that free will was an acquired quality, and most people were ro until they had developed to the level of godhood. There were three categories of ro based on someone's mental purity:


 * The natural state of humanity was to be Tero, a force for the positive development of one's species, civilization, and self. Earth's remaining tribes of Tero survive through the same technologies as the dero, although their own mech was given proper maintenance and kept away from such depraved actions.
 * Zero, the useless robots, were partially hindered by contamination with the der into the self-destructive behavior which humanity knows as selfishness, lacking inherent recognition that true self interest requires the edification of others with them. Any society consisting of Zeros was on its way to subjugation under the Dero.
 * Dero, detrimental robots, those whose minds have been totally replaced with the der. Having no capacity for sensical behavior, they operate through blind malice towards all others.

As a star ages, it procedes to scatter a greater quantity of disintegrant particles onto the neighboring planets. A young star system is full of titanic flora and fauna, and is a desirable candidate for colonization by the elder races. However, the fertility of a planet wanes with the life of its sun, requiring greater measures in protecting its residence from disintegrance. An elderly star system is known as a der star. The elder races moved from bubble cities to subterranean environments as the poison built up, and it was only twelve thousand years ago that Earth was evacuated.

In every passing millenia, the ones left behind would continue to shrink in size, lifespan, and knowledge. Some were able to hold on to greater proportions of all three by seizing ancient mech. At the same time, an impure mech would infest the user with the same toxins which the life supporting technologies were made to fight.

A human being would become indefinitely larger and wiser with their absorption of exd, inspiring the stories of "angels", "gods" and "giants". Shaver cited the accelerated aging of radium girls to make the point that all aging comes from radiation poisoning. The radiation faced by deros bleaches their hair, stunts their growth and inflicts other deformities on their being, making them as hideous on the inside as on the outside.

Deros reside in the abandoned caverns that Earth's elder races once inhabited, where they've become mutated by both the natural radiation of this planet and the unnatural radiation of neglected ancient technology. The deros use this technology to inflict suffering on all the inhabitants of Earth's surface. Nightmares, common accidents, reports of alien abduction, and insanity are all blamed on the acts of the deros. In other words, if the elder races are the gods in heaven, then the deros are the demons who rule the world from within Hell.