Originally posted to DeviantArt and Wysp, Summer 2016

Nova loves you and he wants you to be happy.

This is a conveniently mortal-sized robot that Nova uses to communicate and interact with natural life-forms outside of his wish-granting duties. The anatomy is modeled after that of the Halcandrans (of course the cat aliens would make a cat-faced wish robot). The clockwork stars were built to run on the power of seraph nests; in particular, Nova runs on the power of Rainbow Sanctuary, which is why the power of all the Fountains of Dreams is needed to summon him. The ancients built the clockwork stars (and other artifacts, like the Lor) without knowing what this power was. The majority of their machines merely copied the seraphim's energy signature, but the clockwork stars tapped into the nests' material as a medium for infinite processing power and data storage. Upon activation, a clockwork star gains sapience, and the nest effectively becomes its brain. Once a clockwork star connected itself to a particular nest, it was permanently linked to it. As a result, only one clockwork star could use a particular nest.
However, only so many nests are linked to this universe. The ancients had no way of knowing how many nests were left to use, but they continued their projects anyway. Their final clockwork star was a failure. There were no seraph nests left. The last clockwork star, when activated, only had its own processors to draw on, so its mind was cold and soulless. When it was given its first test wish, it lacked the power to grant it and experienced a fatal error. The ensuing outpouring of energy incinerated half of the engineering team, and hundreds more of the onsite staff died of radiation poisoning within months. The final clockwork star and its main computer were shut down and launched into interstellar space, and seraph energy was never used again. The ancients' empire declined over the next few centuries, and eventually collapsed in on itself as tensions amongst the Popstarians, Halcandrans, and Dark Matter erupted into war.

Nova's first experiences as he booted up came from the data he downloaded from Rainbow Sanctuary. He imprinted on the Sanctuary Wardens' mission of protecting the universe, becoming an artificial deity of sorts. Nova's personality ranges from benign to benevolent. He typically does not intervene in mortal affairs, instead preferring to construct avatars and sending them out into the universe to gather data. Much of Nova's data-gathering is passive as he floats through dimensions, but his avatars allow him to actively explore and analyze history. Dimension-drive technology is used to maintain a constant link between Nova and his avatars, turning them all into a hive mind. Nova uses the data he gathers to predict future events, social and natural alike, and plan ways to indirectly steer the universe towards safety and peace, though in the short term, some of his actions may appear to be exactly the opposite. They say that God works in mysterious ways...

Hoo, boy! Headcanon dump! That was fun.

I had an absolute blast designing him. It was fun rearranging Nova's design aspects into something new. I took some design cues from Magolor and Susie as well. I didn't want to add every single device that Nova has attached to his main comet form, so I only picked a few. The pendulum makes a nice tail, and when I saw the hand-crank on the side, I couldn't help but turn him into a wind-up toy. It was too cute to pass up. I used the sun-ray pattern around the edges of Nova's face for the zigzags on his cloak, as well as his left ear and right whiskers. The square and compass filled in for the other ear and whiskers (I wonder if the Freemasons survived beyond the evacuation of Earth/Shiver Star?). I very nearly forgot to add the globe pendant, so I sketched that in digitally before starting the lineart. The globe can be a blank blue sphere, or it can be a map of a planet: Earth, Popstar (minus the magical barrier), Ripple Star (also minus the barrier), or Halcandra (inside a transparent bubble, since Halcandra isn't round). Nova will occasionally joke that the blue circle version is Aquarius/Aqualiss.

At first, I was just going to do a character shot of him, but then I put a space vignette behind him. And then I added the portal, and I decided it was necessary to shade Nova to match the portal. As a result, this piece looks SO GOOD. I am SO proud of the backlight. It makes the picture look that much more mystical.