The creeper...

[Western-Knight]

Our greatest enemy, and yet we need them to harvest their natural explosiveness to progress to greater heights as manipulators of the land and masters of technology.

However, where do they come from? What is their diet? What could their function in the natural world be? Surely they aren't creatures of dark magic like the skeletons and zombies else the elusive wither would treat them as an ally. I feel if we figure this out we may be able to get more out of them.


TL;DR I don't know if there's any 'canon' info on the creepers, where they come from, etc. But I think it'd be a bit of fun to theorize with ya'll.

I'll have somethin' made up before long, and if you post something please refrain from being... TOO ridiculous.

[Azdoine]

I can never exactly decide what I think of them, but here are my biggest theories:

1) Creepers are people infected with cordyceps. They explode into a mass of living pulp and spores, to spread the infection.

2) Creepers are insectile monsters, worker units in a hive mind of other creepers. They are willing to give up their lives because the hive consciousness will go on, and one worker unit is worth the possible destruction of us filthy vermin and our dens.

Creepers also use echolocation to navigate, that's why they can't see you through glass. The other mobs are just stupid.

[odranoel]

its funny, iv wondered this my self before. like where did they come from!?

they arent undead as they dont burn in the sun and they aren't from the nether as they are intolerant to excessive heat just like our beloved steve. they also arent form the end as that is domain of the endermen and the dragon only and they dont seem to posses any other worldy powers such as endermen.

previously this has left me to only one conclusion. it is just another predatory animal that naturally evolved over time in the world of minecraftia, like spiders and silver fish. albiet with one hell of a self defense mechanism.

however recent additions to BTW has thrown that theory into a bit of a paradox. as it now seems they are literally transporting from some other yet unknown dimension. only able to enter through the darkest corners of our realm. the light keeps them from being able to enter our dimension. so they do seem to be some sort of living creature such as spiders, but they seem to becoming from someplace else all together, some place much darker and unnatural as compared to our home world of minecraftia.


Edit: now that i think about it more, the extreme suicidal tendencies of the creeper seem miss placed as a self defense mechanism. as the creeper sacrifices it self in the process. this seems to suggest that the creeper is trying to protect something all together much more important then itself. something so important its willing to give its life to protect it. this brings to mind how bees will sacrifice their individual selves to protect the colony/hive as a whole.

this suggests a collective mentality, or super organism behavior. as to what they may be trying to protect or defend, that seems to be a bit of a mystery so far.

[Western-Knight]

1:) A tortured soul forced to walk the land in search of living souls whom they must approach and then detonate. (Thus the scream-like face)

2:) Much like the spider, they are an overgrown insect that begin their lives as larvae in caves. The mature creepers that live long enough to lay eggs find encrustations of saltpeter (nitre) and there they eat from the deposits as they grow to prepare their only defensive measure. The larvae also feed on carbon from nearby coal deposits and mushrooms growing nearby. The combination of nitre and coal allows the creepers to mix the two within their bodies with a volatile liquid their bodies produce to explode.

When a creeper is slain, the coal and liquid mix with the creeper's blood rendering them useless. The saltpeter however crystalizes and is therefore salvagable.

A creeper will attack Steve, because Steve is one of few things unrecognizable to them and assumed hostile.

(I also gotta say, I really love that hivemind thing.)

[haphazardnuke]

Well, my take on the Creeper lore stems largely from a few basic points:
- they don't burn in the sun, yet the other hostile mobs ignore them.
- instead of dying or mutating when hit by lightning, they become stronger.
- they (used to) spawn plentifully in forest biomes, fitting their texture.

Due to the above, I postulate that Creepers are a force of Nature. The world itself reacts to the Player's efforts at altering / destroying / manipulating everything around them, by sending these agents of destruction to reclaim the world from the encroacher.
The cool thing (imo) about this take is that it fits with both Vanilla and BTW, in fact it works even better with BTW due to the Player's industrial and soul-forging tendencies, both of which could be seen as the opposite of the natural state.

[Western-Knight]

Hm... This little idea for a topic turned out more interesting than I thought.

[BigShinyToys]

The creepers must be from a dimension where there spawner's are < think about it there are no spawner's in the over world they are protecting there spawner's. This realm has yet to be discoverer by Steve as they must be carrying a portal making device with them and explode to keep Steve from gaining it. This device may be in there head and might be able for Steve to reverse engineer at some higher tech level.

a world of creeper spawner's the most dangers place in minecraft.

[Psion]

I always figured creepers are a type of plant life. They resemble grass in their greenness, and have no arms, only ambulatory legs. They don't even resemble normal limbs like an animals, theyre just weird stubby things in a forward and back configuration instead of side to side like most animals have. They have no voices, which means they probably have no lungs, and they have no arms nor teeth to attack with. It could be their mouths only purpose is to allow oxygen into their explosive insides to assist in detonation of the gunpowder stored within.

They also don't mind the sun, and seem to survive despite no ability to eat with their mouth, so they probably are getting their energy from sun and water like any other plant. Certainly the ability to walk would assist them in minecrafts constantly changing world. As for their ability to explode, I'd assume they would get carbon, nitre, and brimstone from the soil, since those are all common elements to be found within the earth. They then store it within themselves, and when they find a suitable host, explode to kill their prey, spreading their seeds on the remains, which eventually decay and provide a lush fertilizer for their babies to grow in.

As for why they don't seem to attack animals and only steve... I'm not sure. lol. Perhaps because they recognize steve as an especially ideal corpse, since he often carries various items on his person that would facilitate their spawns growth? After all, he often has things like logs, nitre from other creepers, bones from cacti, rotten flesh, etc... I'd imagine no mere cow could compare to the juicy morsel that steve is.

[Splee999]

If you ask me, I think creepers are a highly evolved fungus. A million years ago, creepers might have been those cool fungi that release all of their spores in an explosion-like puff.

However, as time rolled by in the world of minecraft, the explosions became stronger and stronger with each successive generation. Eventually, the explosions were so strong that they could cripple animals that happened to be passing by. Then, all the spores that were released in the explosion would feast on the rotting carcass of the animal they just brought down. Not only had this proto-creeper successfully killed its target, but it reproduced at the same time beacause its spores matured.

Eventually, these proto-creepers gained the ability to move around, and more recently, gained the ability to walk around like we see in Minecraft today.

So, in other words, when that creeper blows up in your face, it doesn't hate you. It just wants to make babies.

[jorgebonafe]

This wonderful creatures have been well documented, didn't you know?

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/583548

[Western-Knight]

I gotta say I enjoyed that.

[Pucc]

They are the Guardians, the watchmen of order and balance. The stability of the universe rests in their hands, they are the front line against those who seek to unbalance the world of Minecraftia and create chaos in the universe. Unbeknownst to Steve he is an agent of chaos and the creepers greatest enemy. They must use all their cunning and explosives if they are to remove this threat from the face of Minecraftia.

[EpicAaron]

Creepers are quite obviously piles of crunchy leaves someone had forgotten to rake up one rainy autumn's day.

[Poppycocks]

When Notch was questioned about Creepers, he replied:

"I've imagined them as being crunchy, like dry leaves."

Also, one of the let's reads around here has referred to them as "agents of the father tree". And that's how I was thinking about them since then. Like they're a self defense mechanism of something bigger. A really desperate, perverse, painful attempt to wipe the dangerous vermin out.