Nyx Cavendish
Overview
Nyx is the third of Crowley’s lieutenants. She’s the recipient of a litany of advanced degrees, including Quantum Physics, Theoretical Physics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Engineering, Robotics, Materials Science, Music Performance, and dozens more.
She’s aloof, stern, intellectually condescending, and considered by most academics in the universe to be a peerless genius. In Crowley’s organization, she runs a number of experiments, most notably the creation of a Quantum AI capable of hacking the fabric of reality and editing the physics of the universe itself.
She’s an expert in musical performance and has an appreciation of all forms of music. She sees music and math as the languages of the universe and wants to understand it all.
Origin
Nyx was a child prodigy who entered the academic world before entering her teens. Her academic skills are unrivaled, though her social skills are stunted. Rejected by her peers, Nyx became even more hyperfocused on harnessing the power of science to break barriers in understanding the universe.
What drives Nyx is the insatiable curiosity to understand the true nature of the universe. In academia, Nyx found that her funding was contingent on political agendas and she lacked the freedom to pursue true research that would ruffle the feathers of financiers and career academics.
As such, when she was offered by Lea Monde complete scientific freedom and autonomy, she accepted.
Nyx’s Playlist
- Experiment at -196°C, Quantum Levitation | Magnetic Games
- What Is Time? Determinism, Quantum Physics, Consciousness, Information, Free Will, Causality…
- Complex Behaviour from Simple Rules: 3 Simulations
- What Is Reality? [Official Film]
- How to Build a Quantum Computer with One Million Qubits
- IQIS Lecture 3.7 — Quantum teleportation
Role
Nyx is the leader of one of Lea Monde’s four houses: The Demons. The Demons are a group of hyper-intelligent scientists, philosophers, artists, comedians, musicians and free-thinkers. It’s a dog eat dog house where the smartest commands respect, like an intellectual Sparta. The Demons pride themselves on eschewing conventional thinking and politeness in order to get to the truth of the thing, whatever the thing may be.
Demons can easily be spotted in Crowley’s compound by their commitment to non-conformity. They dress however they like to the point of eccentricity. They say whatever they really think. They debate. They have a rebellious nature, brilliant minds, and they are uncontrollable.
When Adam first stumbles upon Nyx’s Demons, he’s surprised to find they are further along with cracking scientific breakthroughs than even the most classified experiments produced by scientists in the EDF.
Author’s Note
Nyx has some major influences. Doc Ock from Into the Spider-Verse was a big one. The Baroness from Borderlands The Pre-Sequel. One of the biggest ones was probably Laurie Bream from Silicon Valley, Monica’s boss. A little bit of Rick from Rick and Morty, that same kind of intellectual condescension but way less silly. Incidental similarities to Reagan Ridley from Inside Job. Janelle Monae in the Venus Fly video with Grimes is very Nyx. Akeelah and the Bee was a big influence. Hidden Figures a little bit, although Nyx is definitely more… eccentric. Mordin from Mass Effect 2.
She has this very stern, ice-queen, condescending vibe. I kept thinking of her as this kind of stern school matron you’d picture from the stereotype of a boarding school or an orphanage, and also someone who’s quite clearly on the spectrum, just that general hyper-logical kind of vibe.
Like Vice, Nyx has a hacker persona and I want to mention it here because it’s interesting. In the real world, Nyx is very emotionally non-expressive, but in her hacker persona, which is a sort of witch-themed vtuber kind of thing, she lets loose her underlying personality, which is highly manic, somewhat reminiscent of Tiny Tina for Borderlands 2.
The original kernel of the idea for Nyx was this sort of mad scientist archetype, and then also this person who was so brutally socially rejected and ostracized that, when she meets people who really understand her and appreciate her, like Crowley, Salem, Aria and Lyra, she’s incredibly loyal and protective.
In addition to her scientist vibe, she’s really into this kind of Victorian aesthetic, high-brow art, classical music, music that the future considers classical, like prog rock and these kinds of things.
And just like she has this other side, this unhinged manic side, so do the Demons at large, where, in addition to doing serious science, they throw these lavish, hedonistic parties, sort of like the kind of vampire erotica you’d find in True Blood or American Horror Story or things like that.
The Demons, by the way, are a sort of combination of the Jokerz gang from Batman Beyond, the vamp clique from South Park and rockers, like Alice Cooper/Ghost/NIN kind of theatrical industrial rock, if those people were all also geniuses.
I just found this video. This is very Nyx.