The Cravers were a creation of the Virtuals, an offshoot society of the ancient race known as the Endless. They were intended as a living weapon in the fratricidal wars with another branch of the Endless, known as the Concretes. Realizing the risk that the Cravers presented, the Virtuals decided to maroon them in a distant arm of the galaxy and wipe them out of existence. Distracted by other emergencies the Virtuals left the effort incomplete; the Cravers were broken and bombed back to the Stone Age but the species survived.

Given their genes, which were scientifically designed for rapid evolution, the Cravers eventually lifted themselves up to re-discover the secrets of interstellar flight. They found systems rich in resources waiting to sate their hunger. Militarily savage with little sense of individual worth, this Craver drive to consume is a great threat to others. To enter into diplomacy is, essentially, to no longer be a Craver.

Their relationship to the Endless is currently one of indifference, and they use Endless artifacts and ruins as food and energy rather than studying them for their secrets. Their sense of recorded history and intellectual pursuits being weak at best, they treat the civilization of the Endless no different from any other.