Twitchers

**Twitchers**, otherwise known as Ascendant Vuokra or Void Things, are the "corpses" of destroyed Vuokra, animated by unknown means. While many consider the merciless Vuokra to be invincible, certain weapons, such as sufficiently-powerful kinetic blasts, condensed lasers or antimatter projectiles are capable of damaging the outer shell of a Vuokra body, exposing their brain-cores to the surrounding space. When not contained inside their dark matter shells, Vuokra brains will rapidly decay into raw energy particulate, releasing massive amounts of harmful radiation in the process. If these holes in their bodies are kept open through repeated impacts, a Vuokra will eventually "die" when their brain completely decays into ambient energy, and their bodies will dissipate shortly afterward. However, there are some rare instances in which a Vuokra's body, for unknown reasons, will persist after the destruction of their brain, becoming a Twitcher.

In addition to losing whatever previous form they retained, Vuokra bodies that become Twitchers take on many new and bizarre properties. They become absolutely invulnerable to all known forms of weaponry, and gain the ability to instantaneously teleport over large distances. Twitchers exhibit a form of rapidly-shifting quantum entanglement that causes them to periodically shift out of the known universe and enter an infinite number of parallel universes. It is very likely that some of the Twitchers encountered in our universe were, in fact, created elsewhere, which suggests the Vuokra prevail across numerous parallel universes. While there is inconclusive evidence to suggest otherwise, Twitchers are not sapient entities, and likewise, they are not in control of their teleportation or universe-shifting abilities. These teleports happen randomly and rapidly, so it is rare for a Twitcher to remain in a single place for more than a minute or so. Their excessive teleportation is believed to be the cause of their jagged, rapidly-shifting forms, which serve as the basis for their most common nickname within The Cluster.

Since the universe is mostly empty space, most Twitchers are never encountered by sapient life, but the infrequent run-ins certain species have had with Twitchers have always resulted in significant destruction and panic. The chaotic, constantly-shifting forms of Twitchers are feared by almost every intelligent being, and, through a currently unexplained process, the prescence of a Twitcher rapidly accelerates the physical decay of all matter within several feet of the Twitcher. Individuals that have witnessed Twitchers directly report hearing extremely loud, incoherent voices in their minds that quickly overwhelm them and force them to the ground. These telepathic projections, believed to originate from the Twitcher itself, are extremely painful, and can cause complete brain death in an individual if they are exposed long enough. While telepathic communication is an ability native to all Vuokra, the dangerous and unpredictable broadcasts created by Twitchers are poorly-understood, as the lack of any identifiable cortex within their forms would normally inhibit such broadcasts from being created. However, it is widely-agreed that even this phenomenon can not be cited as sufficient evidence of Twitcher sapience.

The existence of Twitchers has baffled the scientific communities of every known civilization. Assuming they have encountered Twitchers in the first place, most civilizations fail to generate any reliable data concerning their exact nature, as Twitchers are too chaotic and short-lived to be studied effectively. This has led to most civilizations writing off Twitchers as completely fictional entities, and doing their best to hide evidence of their existence. The infrequent nature of Twitcher encounters has made this relatively easy, but there are some groups, particularly closely-knit nomadic communities and Technomage tribes, that have built entire theologies around the mysterious beings following an encounter with one. The Followers of the Flailing Nothingness, a Technomage tribe of the Triangulum Galaxy, is one such example. Though their ideology blends somewhat with other Technomages that have dedicated themselves to the mysterious Black Infinity, the Followers of the Flailing Nothingness place a greater emphasis on the relevancy of Twitchers to this religion, claiming they are divine beings. The Vuokra themselves are keenly aware of the existence of Twitchers, but, at the same time, are not particularly disturbed or intrigued by their presence. Most Vuokra refer to Twitchers as "the Unchained," and claim that their existence is rather understandable and benign. It is not known exactly what they mean by this, but it serves as an interesting point concerning the relevancy of Twitchers to Vuokra biology and behavior.