The creeper is a blue fluid that is the primary method of attack for an ancient weapons network of the same name. The latter is capitalized in this article to avoid confusion between the two concepts.
Technologies of the Creeper[]
Creeper[]
The creeper is an amorphous substance that demolishes living beings, structures and anything else more complicated than mineral formations. Most other weapons that the Creeper use contain some amount of creeper as either a "payload" or a type of armor.
- "The focused energy beam of the Sniper was designed to penetrate the [c]reeper infused shells of a Runner. That might be enough to penetrate the shields around the Gliders."
- ―LIA
Creeper itself lacks any animate qualities on the large scale, only moving under the influence of an external force. Creeper emits a harmless blue "soylent" mist when destroyed by weaponry, and evaporates on its own over time.
Anti-Creeper[]
After their initial wars against the Creeper, humanity eventually found a way to manufacture creeper of their own. Anti-creeper would eat at creeper and Creeper weapons in the same way that creeper eats human structures. For gameplay reasons this version of the creeper was completely immune to human weapons. Another difference between creeper and its counterpart was that humanity had to mine and process minerals on site to make it, in stark contrast to the potentially limitless munitions their technology otherwise offered.
Structures[]
Creeper structures were effectively indestructible without the Nullifier technology, capable of surviving even planetary destruction. They could ceaselessly produce creeper weapons without any need for external power sources. Many devices of later civilizations were taken by the Creeper for their own goals, Ticon technology was especially useful to the Creeper.
Emitters[]
Although secondary methods of delivering creeper to structures were numerous, most of it was produced in floods by Emitters. Almost no planets were ever invaded without sending them in from the sky.
Warp Inhibitors[]
After Rift Space was destroyed, these structures were used as a defense against interstellar invasion. However, the Creeper perverted these objects and used them to trap others. Nullifying a Warp Inhibitor would destroy every other Creeper structure on the planet for unknown reasons.
Spores[]
These flying lumps of creeper would be periodically released to deposit their creeper directly on top of human structures, aiming to destroy human infrastructure and cut off their supply lines.
Phantoms[]
Phantoms were a similar technology of Styglek origin. Though identical in appearance and function, they were intangible and designed to attack humans from above or underground to bypass physical barriers. Specialized "phantom coils" were needed to bypass this ability before it could cause trouble.