Nowhere

The nowhere, also called the negative realm, is an inter-dimensional reality that can be accessed and utilized by people with cytonic abilities. It's also the home of the delvers, and the primary medium for faster-than-light travel and communication.
== Characteristics ==
The nowhere is a space existing alongside the ordinary one, with different rules of physics. The flow of time there appears to be disturbed; the nowhere is often referred to as a "timeless" space, and it seems that only cytonics are able to perceive being there, with any other creature feeling as though no time has passed at all between exiting and reentering physical space. This timelessness also extends to non-living beings, as signals and matter traveling through nowhere can cross vast physical distances in an instant. However, when actually inside the nowhere for a significant period of time, both cytonic and non-cytonics lose all sense of timings very quickly(it happened to Spensa within weeks). 
The Nowhere consists of a small, bright white "sun"(the lightburst), and surrounding that a large white plain of acclivity stone, eventually breaking up into floating chunks as you go further from the lightburst. These further chunks often have their often ecosystems, brought from various different points in the somewhere. The nowhere has breathable air. Despite that, there is some physical matter in the nowhere -- the acclivity stone.
Interacting with the nowhere leaves cytonics with a sense of cold and a strong headache for hours afterwards. Both of those effects seem to lessen as a person's skill with cytonics grows.
== Access and Exploitation ==
The nowhere can be accessed by any cytonic by focusing and meditating. Getting close to or inside the nowhere is crucial to most, if not all of their abilities. Chief among them is FTL travel, which requires the cytonic to enter and exit the nowhere completely. They can do so by themselves, but they can also take with them passengers and objects. The latter seems to require aid in the form of a taynix. 
Machines can likewise utilize the nowhere. The timeless nature of it allows for signals to be sent through it at faster-than-light speed, which artificial intelligences such as M-Bot use to facilitate the high-speed processing necessary for them to function. Regular machines also use this to communicate across star systems, both to send messages between people on various worlds, and to control drones from a safe distance without the light-speed lag.
=== Radiation ===
The nowhere and the somewhere exert "radiation" on each other. This manifests in cytonics, delvers and acclivity stone. Acclivity stone is formed when matter from the somewhere "leaks" into the nowhere, forming the chunks. Cytonics, however, resulted from when the nowhere, an area which originally had no concept of matter, distance and time, "leaked" into the somewhere and began affecting different animals(there is no confirmed cytonic plants or microorganisms). Delvers were also formed with prolonged - at least several months - exposure to the nowhere. The concepts of matter, distance and time eventually began entering the nowhere with the introduction of acclivity stone, although this had the consequence of creating the lightburst, a sort of quarantine where the "true" nowhere exists. This is "where" you go during FTL travel and signals when using FTL travel and processing. (It is also where the delvers live).
=== Nowhere portals ===
Ordinary people can access the nowhere through nowhere portals, gateways that allow one to physically enter and exit the nowhere. They are typically surrounded by numerous symbols of unknown meaning, suggesting that they might've been artificially constructed. When active, they create a wormhole that connects the physical space with the nowhere. This allows for the mining of acclivity stone, which provides anti-gravity to the spacefaring species of the galaxy. As such, the presence of a nowhere portal in a system can bring great riches to its inhabitants.
Though it's unclear how the nowhere portals were made or by whom, the process can be recreated, as the Superiority's Department of Protective Services has managed to conjure a nowhere portal of their own. That portal takes on the appearance of a black sphere hovering above the ground, roughly the size of a person's head. When a person touches the sphere, they appear to stretch towards it before being absorbed into it. Like its predecessors, Superiority's portal is surrounded by a ring with alien writing etched into it, suggesting that the symbols are crucial to crossing the barrier between realities.
There are also the nowalks, which likewise seem to somehow connect physical space with the nowhere. Those nowalks were used by human military during the second Human War. However, what precisely they are -- and if "nowalk" isn't simply another name for a nowhere portal -- is uncertain.
== Trivia ==
* Nowhere was the working title for the third book in the Skyward series; however, as Brandon's publisher disliked it, it was changed to Cytonic.
== Notes ==