A Theory About Minecraft's Deep Dark
This one is going to be different from my usual stuff, but it's been living rent free in my head for weeks now, and I want to get it written somewhere.
So for those of you who play Minecraft, most of this will make some form of sense. For those of you who don't, some of this might make sense but the rest won't.
In the recent Caves and Cliffs update, some new cave "biomes" were added to differentiate from the modest variants we had previously. All we really had were ravines, small caves, large caves or caves that intertwined. Now there are lush caves with unique flora, massive holes in the roof of the overworld that can drop over 80 blocks, deep jagged cuts into the world and of course, if you go deep enough in the right areas, The Deep Dark.
Originally I thought this was anywhere beneath Y0 but it turned out I was wrong. Not only does a particular block spawn there and only there but a particular music track plays there, only there, and ALWAYS there. Of all the things in Minecraft, this was the one that got my brain thinking the most.
First of all, we've never been able to go below Y0 (well, really below about Y3 thanks to all the bedrock but I digress) until this update which changed the height and depth limits from 256 and 0 to 320 and -64 respectively.
To my horrendous and overthinking brain, this means that the Deep Dark has always existed in the game world, we've just never been able to access it until now, for whatever foreboding reason.
Amongst many other reasons, this is one of the things I love about the Deep Dark; almost nothing is explained about it; it's all left for us to come to our own conclusions which is what makes it BY FAR the most terrifying place in Minecraft, in my opinion.
The Nether is obviously Hell as Nether is another word for Hell. The Deep Dark simply describes the nature of the place, deep and dark, and not just in one way.
As far as I'm aware, the Deep Dark spawns anywhere beneath Y0 but under very specific areas predominantly. Areas of "low erosion value" specifically. That wording instantaneously got me thinking but already in an ominous light.
Low erosion insinuates that geographically speaking, the area has not undergone major changes like floods, storms, landslides, earthquakes or anything that might result in drastic or even subtle geographic changes. This to me, means that the area has been mostly left untouched by nature. This on the surface doesn't sound too ominous but when combined with everything else my brain came up with, it makes it horrendously scary.
The game does define these areas of low erosion and that was how I found my first (and currently only) Deep Dark biome underneath a cherry grove. Shortly after arriving at this biome, its name set in quite quickly. These eerie black blocks with changing blue lights in them dominate the scenery. Other blocks evidently of the same "family" are scattered throughout the biome as well. Thanks to prior investigation, I was aware that these blocks were all a part of the "Sculk" family. Originally I thought it was quite a peculiar name for a block, until I understood more about the biome, and then my brain allowed it to make sense.
Sculk is actually a word, but spelt differently. It's spelt skulk instead of sculk and it means roughly, sneaking with insidious intent. Very fitting.
Fear not; for those who are still reading and are curious about my theory, it is coming. I just need to lay out the groundwork first.
So with all of that said, we now move on to the ancient cities and the main reason the Deep Dark is so terrifying, and no, it's not the cities themselves. It's something the cites are deliberately designed to have a greater proclivity for summoning. The Warden. Arguably the strongest mob in the entirety of Minecraft both in power, health and personally, by design. He fits the biome he was built for PERFECTLY and sells the theme of the biome almost single handedly. He facilitates this feeling of dread, anxiety and terror that feels stronger than even some horror games. Particularly when combined with all the additional elements of my theory.
So, the Warden is a mob that directly ties to the variants of Sculk that spawn in the Deep Dark. There are four main block variants of Sculk. The basic Sculk block is black with bright blue spots on it that seem to change patterns periodically and also dim and brighten periodically as well.
The next block of mention is the Sculk Sensor. This is where the theme of the Deep Dark becomes quite sinister. These are navy blue blocks with almost flame like patterns on the top that wave back and forward, making it one of the rare blocks in Minecraft that has a movement animation. These things detect vibrations. For those of you who play Minecraft and haven't encountered this before, you might be wondering "what constitutes as vibration?" The answer is, "Pretty. Much. Everything." This is one of the first things that got me to love this biome. The entirety of Minecraft is basically breaking and building blocks to progress. The Deep Dark is the only biome to punish you for attempting this method without prior understanding. Placing blocks or destroying blocks counts as vibration. Not only that, but even standard WALKING counts as vibration. You have to sneak or crouch to avoid vibrations but that doesn't stop you from making no vibrations at all. While crouched, you can't fall off blocks so you have to jump. Even this is cruel as jumping adds to your fall distance. Typically, you can fall 3 blocks without taking damage but when needing to jump to go down, this drops the number to 2 blocks whilst accounting for jump height, and the point of that is yes, taking damage from a fall counts as a vibration even while sneaking.
Fortunately, simply walking into other blocks doesn't count as vibration while in sneak, but walking into a sensor does. Fortunately, there are ways around this.
Placing wool blocks between a sensor and your target action E.G. placing a torch, mining a sensor to remove it, mining ore, removing water/lava, does not count as vibration. In fact neither placing or removing wool counts as vibration, it being literally the only exception. Nonetheless, even this caught me off guard. While most things in Minecraft operate on a block by block system, the transmission of sensor signals does not.
This is where another of the Sculk family comes into play. The Shrieker.
Shriekers by themselves are practically harmless as the stand out much more than their sensor counterparts, even in the dark; however when surrounded by their sensor counterparts, things get much scarier and difficult to manage.
Sensors have an 8 block detection radius for vibration, which includes the attempt of mining sensors to prevent detection. If you mine a sensor simply to destroy it, or with a Silk Touch pickaxe to collect for yourself, you'd better hope you've placed some wool around it. Wool not only doesn't count as a vibrator (that feels like a peculiar innuendo but I'm sticking with it) but it also muffles vibration signals passing through it, making wool your best friend in the Deep Dark. However, if you fail to account for a sensor and it's in range of a shrieker, things get much more ominous.
Shriekers are what can summon the Warden and they will do so if their TOTAL count reaches 4. Every time a shrieker is triggered by a vibration you have caused, or been directly stepped on top of, the count will rise. If it reaches 4 within a 10 minute window, the Warden will be summoned. Having the highest HP of any enemy in the game (except the Wither on Hard difficulty) and being able to one shot you with its arm drop attack, AND being able to hit you with a tracking sonic boom that can pierce through ANY block, means that attempting to fight this thing, isn't worth it at all. Even Minecraft themselves refer to the Warden as a "natural disaster that is better to avoid." The use of that particular phrasing got me thinking again. "Natural disaster."
All the pieces are in place now, so I can give my actual theory. Apologies for the length, but I like to ensure that I've said everything I need to to articulate my point conclusively.
As I said before, the Deep Dark was only accessible after the Caves and Cliffs update, however I do believe (at least in the confines of my theory) that it has always existed in the Minecraft universe. We just could never access it before now, either because it was literally inaccessible or, and this is my personal belief as it makes the rest of the theory so much more frightening, the world didn't want us to access it.
My theory is that the world was trying to protect us from the horror that is the Deep Dark but sadly, it has failed and now it's possible to get there. Not only that, but my theory is also, that not including the Warden, we are not the first person or entity to visit the Deep Dark.
A little while ago, I mentioned there were 4 variants of Sculk. To those that kept count, you might wonder, why did I only talk about 3? That's because I left the scariest one and the centrepiece of my theory for this part. The Sculk Catalyst is a block that has the ability to transform most basic world blocks into Sculk. The way it does so is where my theory comes from. All entities that die, except for a few, leave EXP orbs that glow and transition from green to yellow. Sculk Catalysts absorb these orbs in an 8 block radius around themselves and transform random blocks in that circle into Sculk and sometimes replicating it's variants like the sensors, shriekers or even other catalysts. The fact that these occur naturally in the Deep Dark leads to this theory.
I believe that the Warden was an actual warden for a prison, possibly the entire city. It's even possible the city was a prison city, however I personally believe that the warden was fascinated by the way experience literally had a physical form in the Minecraft universe. So he worked on finding a way that could harness it. Here's the scary part. While I believe that living beings have no problems interacting with experience, it was never intended for blocks to have direct consumption for experience. They can grant experience for transformations but it NEVER happens that they STEAL experience.
My theory is that the experiments the warden did, compromised these blocks to the point they reflected only the darkest nature of Minecraft and wished to engineer a system that betrays it. They literally created an ecosystem that spreads itself by feeding on the experience of others. This is why, in my opinion, there's so much Sculk in the Deep Dark. So many beings have ventured here, only to be killed probably by the warden, who was also corrupted by the experience stolen by the blocks.
As punishment, or to make him like them, the warden lost his eyesight and had to rely on the same methodology as the blocks for detecting intruders, vibrations. This is the main way the warden hunts you, detecting your vibrations the same way the sensors do, except in a wider radius, however if you think you can just sneak away from the warden and you'll be fine, you won't. The Warden evidently had both his touch and his SMELL increased when he lost his sight as if he doesn't detect vibrations from you, he'll sniff you out, literally. One of the main ways to evade him is to throw snowballs or shoot arrows to trigger a vibration somewhere else and make him investigate. Probably the scariest thing of all is that the warden prioritises players over anything else in the game; almost like it had a vendetta, which, in my theory, could be potentially close to the truth. Here's were the theory gets a bit of a stretch, but it's interesting food for thought and there's no contradictory evidence as far as I'm aware.
The music that plays consistently when you are in the Deep Dark is phenomenal. It's this combination of distorted sounds with clear piano and haunting drones that help convey several thoughts in tandem with my theory.
The first, is that this music has always been playing and we've only just been able to hear it because we are now close enough to the source to hear it. This is insinuated even from the beginning of the track where it sounds like a vinyl starting to play on a record or a transmission just coming in to reception range. That's when the haunting sounds kick in; a repetitive tone that sounds like a track trying to stop itself repeatedly but failing or a drone of wind being played backwards. The clanging of, something, getting closer and louder with every iteration. After a brief period, this skittering tune begins, invoking this anxious feeling of dread. After every piano crescendo the pitch of the skittering increases, almost like the music is scared of itself or what it represents. I will admit, after the second crescendo, the music does lose most of the ominous, empty and tormented feeling it had in the first three and a half minutes, but for how haunting the first three minutes are, I'll forgive it. The music helps invoking this dread that any wrong move could summon the Warden or potentially get you killed in some other way.
Even the blocks of Sculk have very peculiar noises when destroyed or mined. Regular Sculk and sensors have a distorted exhale when mines, shriekers have a shortened and quieter version of the shriek they make when triggered and catalysts sound like how a solid block of metal should sound, something you'd have a nagging fear that would produce a lot of vibrations or something reflective of the cold soul of the Deep Dark.
To top it all off, the name of the music in the Deep Dark is called Ancestry. This to me is the icing on this terrifying cake. This makes me believe that "Steve" came from one of these cities. He learned about experience possibly alongside the warden and maybe betrayed him for life on the Overworld with the clueless villagers that go about their lives completely unaware of what lies beneath them. This would explain why the warden prioritises players (beyond simple programmed preference) over everything else in the game. The Warden is so offended you would return that he would willingly become like the blocks he corrupted to absorb your experience and your soul the same way he absorbed all the souls of those he killed before, leaving him with that ghostly heart that only beats with the experience of others and not his own. Even the basic Sculk block reflects this. I believe those blue lights are lights of the corrupted experience that was used to create the block in the first place and the reason it changes is because the experience wants to return to its natural form. In saying that, basic Sculk blocks do give experience when mined, however this theory becomes a bit shaky when you realise that you can place and mine Sculk consistently for an infinite experience loop, or at least as long as your Silk Touch pickaxe lasts.
In essence, one could even consider the Deep Dark as a complicated virus that thrives on experience to spread itself. The Warden is the carrier of this virus and sometimes acting as its emissary. The Sculk is the first form of this virus. The sensors are the beacons that alert the rest to a new food source. The shriekers are the alarm clock that awaken the emissary to act where they cannot. And the catalysts are the points of division that ensure the virus can keep spreading.
I like to think this is why the depth limit never changed until now. Because the world knew that an ancient and terrifying virus, one that had infected the literal building blocks of the world had spread beyond control; that nothing could stop the warden, because even if you manage to kill it, who's to say there aren't more? That, given enough time, the overworld wouldn't be anywhere near as green as it is now.
Apologies for the length again, but for those with a similar brain to mine, all that food for thought was worth it, right? 😁
So for those of you who play Minecraft, most of this will make some form of sense. For those of you who don't, some of this might make sense but the rest won't.
In the recent Caves and Cliffs update, some new cave "biomes" were added to differentiate from the modest variants we had previously. All we really had were ravines, small caves, large caves or caves that intertwined. Now there are lush caves with unique flora, massive holes in the roof of the overworld that can drop over 80 blocks, deep jagged cuts into the world and of course, if you go deep enough in the right areas, The Deep Dark.
Originally I thought this was anywhere beneath Y0 but it turned out I was wrong. Not only does a particular block spawn there and only there but a particular music track plays there, only there, and ALWAYS there. Of all the things in Minecraft, this was the one that got my brain thinking the most.
First of all, we've never been able to go below Y0 (well, really below about Y3 thanks to all the bedrock but I digress) until this update which changed the height and depth limits from 256 and 0 to 320 and -64 respectively.
To my horrendous and overthinking brain, this means that the Deep Dark has always existed in the game world, we've just never been able to access it until now, for whatever foreboding reason.
Amongst many other reasons, this is one of the things I love about the Deep Dark; almost nothing is explained about it; it's all left for us to come to our own conclusions which is what makes it BY FAR the most terrifying place in Minecraft, in my opinion.
The Nether is obviously Hell as Nether is another word for Hell. The Deep Dark simply describes the nature of the place, deep and dark, and not just in one way.
As far as I'm aware, the Deep Dark spawns anywhere beneath Y0 but under very specific areas predominantly. Areas of "low erosion value" specifically. That wording instantaneously got me thinking but already in an ominous light.
Low erosion insinuates that geographically speaking, the area has not undergone major changes like floods, storms, landslides, earthquakes or anything that might result in drastic or even subtle geographic changes. This to me, means that the area has been mostly left untouched by nature. This on the surface doesn't sound too ominous but when combined with everything else my brain came up with, it makes it horrendously scary.
The game does define these areas of low erosion and that was how I found my first (and currently only) Deep Dark biome underneath a cherry grove. Shortly after arriving at this biome, its name set in quite quickly. These eerie black blocks with changing blue lights in them dominate the scenery. Other blocks evidently of the same "family" are scattered throughout the biome as well. Thanks to prior investigation, I was aware that these blocks were all a part of the "Sculk" family. Originally I thought it was quite a peculiar name for a block, until I understood more about the biome, and then my brain allowed it to make sense.
Sculk is actually a word, but spelt differently. It's spelt skulk instead of sculk and it means roughly, sneaking with insidious intent. Very fitting.
Fear not; for those who are still reading and are curious about my theory, it is coming. I just need to lay out the groundwork first.
So with all of that said, we now move on to the ancient cities and the main reason the Deep Dark is so terrifying, and no, it's not the cities themselves. It's something the cites are deliberately designed to have a greater proclivity for summoning. The Warden. Arguably the strongest mob in the entirety of Minecraft both in power, health and personally, by design. He fits the biome he was built for PERFECTLY and sells the theme of the biome almost single handedly. He facilitates this feeling of dread, anxiety and terror that feels stronger than even some horror games. Particularly when combined with all the additional elements of my theory.
So, the Warden is a mob that directly ties to the variants of Sculk that spawn in the Deep Dark. There are four main block variants of Sculk. The basic Sculk block is black with bright blue spots on it that seem to change patterns periodically and also dim and brighten periodically as well.
The next block of mention is the Sculk Sensor. This is where the theme of the Deep Dark becomes quite sinister. These are navy blue blocks with almost flame like patterns on the top that wave back and forward, making it one of the rare blocks in Minecraft that has a movement animation. These things detect vibrations. For those of you who play Minecraft and haven't encountered this before, you might be wondering "what constitutes as vibration?" The answer is, "Pretty. Much. Everything." This is one of the first things that got me to love this biome. The entirety of Minecraft is basically breaking and building blocks to progress. The Deep Dark is the only biome to punish you for attempting this method without prior understanding. Placing blocks or destroying blocks counts as vibration. Not only that, but even standard WALKING counts as vibration. You have to sneak or crouch to avoid vibrations but that doesn't stop you from making no vibrations at all. While crouched, you can't fall off blocks so you have to jump. Even this is cruel as jumping adds to your fall distance. Typically, you can fall 3 blocks without taking damage but when needing to jump to go down, this drops the number to 2 blocks whilst accounting for jump height, and the point of that is yes, taking damage from a fall counts as a vibration even while sneaking.
Fortunately, simply walking into other blocks doesn't count as vibration while in sneak, but walking into a sensor does. Fortunately, there are ways around this.
Placing wool blocks between a sensor and your target action E.G. placing a torch, mining a sensor to remove it, mining ore, removing water/lava, does not count as vibration. In fact neither placing or removing wool counts as vibration, it being literally the only exception. Nonetheless, even this caught me off guard. While most things in Minecraft operate on a block by block system, the transmission of sensor signals does not.
This is where another of the Sculk family comes into play. The Shrieker.
Shriekers by themselves are practically harmless as the stand out much more than their sensor counterparts, even in the dark; however when surrounded by their sensor counterparts, things get much scarier and difficult to manage.
Sensors have an 8 block detection radius for vibration, which includes the attempt of mining sensors to prevent detection. If you mine a sensor simply to destroy it, or with a Silk Touch pickaxe to collect for yourself, you'd better hope you've placed some wool around it. Wool not only doesn't count as a vibrator (that feels like a peculiar innuendo but I'm sticking with it) but it also muffles vibration signals passing through it, making wool your best friend in the Deep Dark. However, if you fail to account for a sensor and it's in range of a shrieker, things get much more ominous.
Shriekers are what can summon the Warden and they will do so if their TOTAL count reaches 4. Every time a shrieker is triggered by a vibration you have caused, or been directly stepped on top of, the count will rise. If it reaches 4 within a 10 minute window, the Warden will be summoned. Having the highest HP of any enemy in the game (except the Wither on Hard difficulty) and being able to one shot you with its arm drop attack, AND being able to hit you with a tracking sonic boom that can pierce through ANY block, means that attempting to fight this thing, isn't worth it at all. Even Minecraft themselves refer to the Warden as a "natural disaster that is better to avoid." The use of that particular phrasing got me thinking again. "Natural disaster."
All the pieces are in place now, so I can give my actual theory. Apologies for the length, but I like to ensure that I've said everything I need to to articulate my point conclusively.
As I said before, the Deep Dark was only accessible after the Caves and Cliffs update, however I do believe (at least in the confines of my theory) that it has always existed in the Minecraft universe. We just could never access it before now, either because it was literally inaccessible or, and this is my personal belief as it makes the rest of the theory so much more frightening, the world didn't want us to access it.
My theory is that the world was trying to protect us from the horror that is the Deep Dark but sadly, it has failed and now it's possible to get there. Not only that, but my theory is also, that not including the Warden, we are not the first person or entity to visit the Deep Dark.
A little while ago, I mentioned there were 4 variants of Sculk. To those that kept count, you might wonder, why did I only talk about 3? That's because I left the scariest one and the centrepiece of my theory for this part. The Sculk Catalyst is a block that has the ability to transform most basic world blocks into Sculk. The way it does so is where my theory comes from. All entities that die, except for a few, leave EXP orbs that glow and transition from green to yellow. Sculk Catalysts absorb these orbs in an 8 block radius around themselves and transform random blocks in that circle into Sculk and sometimes replicating it's variants like the sensors, shriekers or even other catalysts. The fact that these occur naturally in the Deep Dark leads to this theory.
I believe that the Warden was an actual warden for a prison, possibly the entire city. It's even possible the city was a prison city, however I personally believe that the warden was fascinated by the way experience literally had a physical form in the Minecraft universe. So he worked on finding a way that could harness it. Here's the scary part. While I believe that living beings have no problems interacting with experience, it was never intended for blocks to have direct consumption for experience. They can grant experience for transformations but it NEVER happens that they STEAL experience.
My theory is that the experiments the warden did, compromised these blocks to the point they reflected only the darkest nature of Minecraft and wished to engineer a system that betrays it. They literally created an ecosystem that spreads itself by feeding on the experience of others. This is why, in my opinion, there's so much Sculk in the Deep Dark. So many beings have ventured here, only to be killed probably by the warden, who was also corrupted by the experience stolen by the blocks.
As punishment, or to make him like them, the warden lost his eyesight and had to rely on the same methodology as the blocks for detecting intruders, vibrations. This is the main way the warden hunts you, detecting your vibrations the same way the sensors do, except in a wider radius, however if you think you can just sneak away from the warden and you'll be fine, you won't. The Warden evidently had both his touch and his SMELL increased when he lost his sight as if he doesn't detect vibrations from you, he'll sniff you out, literally. One of the main ways to evade him is to throw snowballs or shoot arrows to trigger a vibration somewhere else and make him investigate. Probably the scariest thing of all is that the warden prioritises players over anything else in the game; almost like it had a vendetta, which, in my theory, could be potentially close to the truth. Here's were the theory gets a bit of a stretch, but it's interesting food for thought and there's no contradictory evidence as far as I'm aware.
The music that plays consistently when you are in the Deep Dark is phenomenal. It's this combination of distorted sounds with clear piano and haunting drones that help convey several thoughts in tandem with my theory.
The first, is that this music has always been playing and we've only just been able to hear it because we are now close enough to the source to hear it. This is insinuated even from the beginning of the track where it sounds like a vinyl starting to play on a record or a transmission just coming in to reception range. That's when the haunting sounds kick in; a repetitive tone that sounds like a track trying to stop itself repeatedly but failing or a drone of wind being played backwards. The clanging of, something, getting closer and louder with every iteration. After a brief period, this skittering tune begins, invoking this anxious feeling of dread. After every piano crescendo the pitch of the skittering increases, almost like the music is scared of itself or what it represents. I will admit, after the second crescendo, the music does lose most of the ominous, empty and tormented feeling it had in the first three and a half minutes, but for how haunting the first three minutes are, I'll forgive it. The music helps invoking this dread that any wrong move could summon the Warden or potentially get you killed in some other way.
Even the blocks of Sculk have very peculiar noises when destroyed or mined. Regular Sculk and sensors have a distorted exhale when mines, shriekers have a shortened and quieter version of the shriek they make when triggered and catalysts sound like how a solid block of metal should sound, something you'd have a nagging fear that would produce a lot of vibrations or something reflective of the cold soul of the Deep Dark.
To top it all off, the name of the music in the Deep Dark is called Ancestry. This to me is the icing on this terrifying cake. This makes me believe that "Steve" came from one of these cities. He learned about experience possibly alongside the warden and maybe betrayed him for life on the Overworld with the clueless villagers that go about their lives completely unaware of what lies beneath them. This would explain why the warden prioritises players (beyond simple programmed preference) over everything else in the game. The Warden is so offended you would return that he would willingly become like the blocks he corrupted to absorb your experience and your soul the same way he absorbed all the souls of those he killed before, leaving him with that ghostly heart that only beats with the experience of others and not his own. Even the basic Sculk block reflects this. I believe those blue lights are lights of the corrupted experience that was used to create the block in the first place and the reason it changes is because the experience wants to return to its natural form. In saying that, basic Sculk blocks do give experience when mined, however this theory becomes a bit shaky when you realise that you can place and mine Sculk consistently for an infinite experience loop, or at least as long as your Silk Touch pickaxe lasts.
In essence, one could even consider the Deep Dark as a complicated virus that thrives on experience to spread itself. The Warden is the carrier of this virus and sometimes acting as its emissary. The Sculk is the first form of this virus. The sensors are the beacons that alert the rest to a new food source. The shriekers are the alarm clock that awaken the emissary to act where they cannot. And the catalysts are the points of division that ensure the virus can keep spreading.
I like to think this is why the depth limit never changed until now. Because the world knew that an ancient and terrifying virus, one that had infected the literal building blocks of the world had spread beyond control; that nothing could stop the warden, because even if you manage to kill it, who's to say there aren't more? That, given enough time, the overworld wouldn't be anywhere near as green as it is now.
Apologies for the length again, but for those with a similar brain to mine, all that food for thought was worth it, right? 😁
26-30, M
