Voidborn Evolution Theorizing
Howdy boards, I have returned to continue my efforts to fill the void about the Void.
#Voidborn Evolution https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/6/6f/Freljord_The_Eye_In_The_Abyss.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180820210421 Now: Voidborn as a species are pretty cool. They've been through many iterations, and since they can't die of natural causes all of these iterations could potentially exist on Runeterra at the same time. Voidborn also have a tendency to evolve and change as individuals (although it seems this trait is not ubiquitous)
I'm going to try and break them down into general types with some semblance of a timeline. This could be wrong. This relies partly on headcanon and operates under the assumption that the majority of potentially outdated Voidborn lore is considered canon unless specifically stated not to be. It's just easier this way. There are multiple ways each Voidborn could be classified. I'll try to start with a list that vaguely resembles canon and put in some of my more outlandish theories in their own section at the end.
#First Section: Likely Facts These groups feel the least based on headcanon to me and are the most likely to be factually accurate. Less reliant on differences in artistic depictions and/or use of inconsistent Voidborn behavior to explain them.
##1: The Watcher-Surrogates
These were the first autonomous Voidborn. Designed to superficially resemble the Watchers, with their basic form being a large eyeball surrounded by tendrils and a heavy exoskeleton. After the failure at the Howling Abyss, the Watchers sought to learn more about the fully alien world they wished to unmake. These Voidborn started as more direct servants, akin to remotely controlled probes, who would go to where the Watchers instructed them, unmake things to learn all there was to know about them, and report back.
**-Known examples: Call of Power Voidborn, Vel’Koz. ** _-The vast accumulation of knowledge over their millennia-long existence has… interesting effects on their behavior. It seems that Vel’Koz in particular has survived long past his intended expiration date and has started to seek knowledge of his own accord without direct instruction from his masters or concern about whether said knowledge would be useful to them. _
-The fact that they require Void rifts to communicate with the Watchers indicates that ** Watchers do not have a direct connection to autonomous Voidborn. **
##2: The Swarm-Voidborn https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/7/70/Void_The_Fall_Of_Icathia.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180515055612
Swarm Voidborn are created en-masse during large scale incursions. Right now they likely make up the bulk of active and inactive Voidborn on Runeterra. They also are likely the source of many of the Voidborn who would go on to become "legends" due to increasing the number of bodies (and thus, creating more chances for aberrations to emerge).
There have been at least 2 waves of Swarm-Voidborn.
**The First Swarm ** These Voidborn were created during the first great incursion by the Watchers since the Howling Abyss. It was thwarted when Pantheon summoned Aurelion Sol to sear the rift shut. The current canon status of this story is dubious at best, but it is likely that the event will be retained in some form in future lore.
_-Little is known about these Voidborn. Largely mindless, designed to overwhelm the largest threats present to clear the way for what would presumably be the next wave of their kin had they not been reduced to ash. The First Swarm was birthed to overwhelm and conquer. _
-Unlike the Undersea Failures, these Voidborn lacked any sense of self-preservation and immediately sought to destroy Aurelion Sol when he appeared.
The Second Swarm The Second Swarm would prove to be far more resilient than the first. Originating from a rift created by human meddling in Icathia, these Voidborn spread and infested an area the size of a country before being beaten back by the full fury of the God-Warriors of Shurima. Without Pantheon and the star dragon, this was not a problem that could be stopped before it started.
-Aside from structural changes, these Voidborn likely differed little from their predecessors in the First Swarm. Their purpose was similar: consume everything in sight, remove priority threats. (Ironically, this probably would have lessened the body count as Voidborn would swarm towards the God-Warriors only to die)
_-It is likely that the Second Swarm were intended as a distraction whilst the caverns beneath Icathia took root. Most survivors from this generation have outlived their intended purpose. _
##3: Void-Touched Life https://d36fdldwzubus5.cloudfront.net/kaisa-comic/production/1.22/dist/issue/en_US/pages/5/5-5.webp
DISCLAIMER: This classification, while interesting, is not confirmed to be canon. Separating these entities from Voidborn may be incorrect on my part. Or, if they do exist, I may be overly generous in my classification.
While technically not Voidborn, they are a subtype of Voidborn. The Void-Touched are mutated into entities that superficially resemble Voidborn: fibrous, monstrous creatures consumed by hunger and driven by a heart of plasma. It is important to remember: THE VOID IS NOT AN UPGRADE. The Void-Touched are an attempt to harness the volatile, chaotic nature of the material world in order to manifest useful Voidborn. In most cases, it is likely that their bodies change and lose shape over time, perhaps becoming part of the vast expanse of Creeping Voidborn that decorated the cavern walls beneath Icathia. They frequently seem to develop "third eyes" on their foreheads, a mark indicative of the influence of the Watchers.
_-Potential Examples Include: Kai'Sa Suit, Some of the entities near the Marai Rift, The trader and his birds+beast in the Kai'Sa comic. _ _ -It is their random, amorphous nature that enabled a young Kaisa to severely injure the heart of a largely unmade Void-Touched and caused it to meld to her skin as a replacement for its lost heart. Kai’Sa likely hardened it onto herself during her first attempt to escape to the surface, and must hunt and kill Voidborn in order to provide her suit with the plasma it requires to live. Ironically, having a human mind at the helm has proved the catalyst required for her Void-Touched suit to truly tap into its volatile nature and evolve/grow stronger in response to external stimuli. _
_-It is likely that exposure to sunlight dramatically slows down the unmaking/random reshaping process that takes place in Void-Touched life (as it would harden the exoskeleton and enable it to retain a general shape). -Due to the sheer randomness of their growth+development, the vast majority of Void-touched likely end up completely non-viable. _
##4. The New Generation
Little is known about this line of Voidborn. They’re young, more capable than their predecessors of adapting and learning, and seem to be purpose-built for various tasks. Unlike the generations that preceded them, they seem to be born capable of complex thought and have the capacity to set goals. This generation seems to be born from the culmination of lessons learned from those that came before, using the chaotic nature of the material world to the fullest in order to further whatever plans the Watchers have made.
_-Examples of The New Generation include Kha’Zix and Kog’Maw. Both are likely intended to learn and grow in order to counter specific threats that the Watchers have encountered during their many attempted incursions into Runeterra. What these threats are, and what these two (and the others like them) will become in the long-term are mysteries. _
#Hardcore Headcanon/Iffy Bits
##1: Creeping Voidborn https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/b/bd/Freljord_Bridge_Of_The_Lost.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180820210724 “Creeping” Voidborn represent an early attempt by the Watchers to infiltrate Runeterra. A living, creeping corruption that needed a direct connection to either a Frozen Watcher or to a Void rift in order to live. It grew like lichen, spreading and consuming everything in its path. The exact timeline is unknown: it may have first emerged when the Frozen Watchers were briefly unimprisoned, or it may have come afterward as a more aggressive way of claiming biomass. Due to the HA version's differences from some of what we would see later in Icathia, it feels like it must have taken place pretty early on the Voidborn timeline. Its impact was minimal.
_-Visible consuming bridges that span the Howling Abyss, now dormant and seemingly frozen in time. Ex.Bridge of the Lost _
_-Potentially the first of its kind; perhaps calling it a Voidborn is generous but their biology is so alien it is likely that Voidborn are more similar to it than to actual life on Runeterra. _
Icathian Creeping Voidborn https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/7/7a/Void_An_Unknowable_Power.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180515055554 A land war wasn’t exactly what the Watchers had in mind. The Voidborn on the surface would do their damnedest to overwhelm the world, but against a legion of God-Warriors they were doomed to fail. It would be the second iteration of the Creeping Voidborn that served as the main arm of their plan. It burrowed beneath the earth, consuming all available biomass and fueling itself directly from the Void rift. As it grew, it established self-sufficient “hearts” akin to those that powered autonomous Voidborn, but on a much larger scale.
_-As the Voidborn on the surface were slaughtered and the Rift was sealed, this Creeping Voidborn would continue to spread inexorably. What few Second Swarm Voidborn still live are contained somewhere within its labyrinthine coils. _ _ -This creeping Voidborn maintains a unique modification of plasma within itself that behaves in a way similar to liquid. This acts as a backup fuel supply for the Voidborn who roam these caverns without food and rapidly converts living creatures exposed to it into Void-Touched. _
##The Hidden Voidborn https://universe-comics.leagueoflegends.com/comics/en_us/nami/intotheabyss/desktop/nami-01-85.jpg?v=c0eaf9abec4e30fd1a159be8d79b6ac6
These monsters may very well be an offshoot of one of the earlier swarms. My theory is that they emerged from early rifts in dark, hidden places. The only example of these we have at the moment is the Marai rift off the coast of Mount Targon. The first “attack” Voidborn created by the Watchers. Represents their first experiments with form.
-These creatures tend to have somewhat unstable forms, lacking proper cohesion and often resembling a middle ground between the Watcher-Surrogates and the sea life that was used in their construction. Armor plating is minimal even on those specimens who have been exposed to the light.
-They lack strength (either strength of their driving urges, or literal strength of will) to overcome their species’ natural aversion to light, being held at bay by the light of the Moonstone or that of the Tidecaller’s staff. They still have the beginnings of the ravenous hunger which defines terrestrial Voidborn, but it fails to stir them towards self-destruction in the way many later Voidborn were.
-They are more delicate than their later brethren, having tentacles that could be severed by a swing of Nami's pre-tidecaller staff
##Mythological Voidborn https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/457316449594245150/608783691027578930/latest.png
This generation mostly exists to explain the strange behavior of some Voidborn champions and to fill a gap in the Void timeline. It predates Icathia, and may or may not predate the events of Twin Dawns.
The Watchers development of Voidborn had been strictly… linear, until this point in time. Their objectives were physical, and their attempts to embrace and utilize the chaos of reality were minimal. They, in short, lacked creativity. Their designs were derivative, each one only being superficially different from the last with the intent of killing targets more efficiently. But as the Watcher-Surrogates gained access to the contents of human minds: their beliefs, their fears, their gods… The Watchers found a well of creativity to tap into. Whilst in their own cavernous minds they had sought to find more… realistic methods to render the Aspects incapable of preventing their next attack, the humans had in their own minds constructed a series of adversaries to the gods that the Watchers could tap in to.
This resulted in the creation of the first Mythological Voidborn, a generation limited in number but widely varied in behavior and appearance. Mothers of Monsters, World Eaters, and several other beasts straight out of the divine conflicts mankind had constructed were born during this period. They were intended to shatter the world, rip the gods from their seats of power, and shatter the morale of the mortals who impeded the spread of the Void.
_-Some had clever minds, personalities, and the capacity to form goals of their own. _
-Like every generation, the majority of these Voidborn were killed (in this case, likely by Ascended heroes.) _ -Those who proved too difficult for the Watchers to keep a grip on likely faced assault by others of their own kind, created with the intent to destroy them. _
_-Only Rek’Sai, mother of monsters, would prove to be of any use. Her more bestial mind and her propensity for infesting vast swathes of territory would be improved upon by the next generation of Voidborn. She is likely tolerant of the presence of other Voidborn on her territory, rendering her tunnel system quite useful for the transport of Voidborn and plasma, safe from the desert sun. _
#Closing That's about it, honestly. I bet a fair chunk of this is will turn out to be completely inaccurate speculation, but it's still fun to speculate. Feel free to fact check me, hit me with info on established canon I may have missed, or share your own ideas!
My next thing is going to be looking at the third eye symbolism that has been increasingly prevalent in newer renditions of the Void and speculating on what it could mean.
