Mr. Dougherty,
As you requested earlier, my views on Virus.
Virus IMTU
I believe that the in-game questions regarding Virus can both be explained and solved, just as I believe the in-game questions regarding the Interstellar Wars can be explained and solved. I also believe that additional handwaves should not and need not be utilized in this effort. Handwaves only further muddy the picture. We don't need more 'facts', we simply need a new perspective from which to view those facts.
Traveller has always had 'circles within circles'. Mr. Miller has written about them and most of you will know two of the biggest examples; the nature of Zhodani society and how the Aslan developed jump drive. In both these cases, the facts did not change, instead our perspective of the facts changed. The in-game mechanism that changed our perspective in these cases was the idea of 'common knowledge'; ideas and facts that most people hold to be true but are in actuality half-truths, propaganda, urban myths, or outright lies. Perception
is reality, change your perception and reality changes too.
I believe that through the mechanism of 'common knowledge' we can explain and solve the Virus Question with a minimum of handwaves newly created for the purpose. We may even be able to dispense with any new major handwaves altogether.
Below, I have listed my six primary 'views' or 'ideas' regarding the nature of Virus. These views, or ideas, are necessarily general. While they hold to canonical facts, in some cases they twist the canonical perception of those facts. I should also caution us about taking certain comparisons too far. Virus is a lifeform but not a carbon-biological lifeform. Any comparisons of regarding Virus that use carbon-biological terms are, at best, imprecise and, at worst, misleading. A comparison is just that, a comparison and not a complete guide to object being described. Elephants may weep, but they also do not play chess. Enough blather, on to the main course!
I believe that...
Virus is natural, not artifical - Is a quarter horse artificial? Is a Siamese cat? A Martha Washington geranium? Maize (corn to you Americans)? All of those living organisms have been bred by man, some for millenia. Yet none are described as artificial. Virus was bred from the Cymbeline chips, a natural sophont species. Man, rather than nature, directed the evolution of Virus from its Cymbeline ancestors, just as man, not nature, directed the evolution of quarter horses, siamese cats, and maize.
In some cases, Man has directed the evolution of species far beyond their so-called wild ancestors' attributes. Maize is an example of this; that's why I included it on my list. Even with the use of gene mapping, archeo-botanists have still yet to discover the wild antecedent of maize. We've changed maize so much, we can no longer find its roots - pun intended.
What man didn't do was 'build' Virus from the 'ground up'. Man took the naturally evolved attributes of the Cymbeline sophont chips, promoted what he wanted, suppressed what he didn't, and bent that sentient lifeform to his needs. We done it for millenia to thousands of other, non-sentient species. We're doing it today, somewhat faster thanks to geneering, but we're still not building what we want from the 'ground up'.
Man bred Virus from a natural sophont species. The Cymbeline sophont chips aren't natural you say? They needed the sudden intrusion of the a downed Terran Cofederation cruiser and its load of UFIC 29008A MILSPEC chips? Once those MILSPEC chips hit Cymbeline's surface they were part of the Cymbeline ecology. The Cymbeline chips merely exploited something found in their ecology, no more and no less. It was the evolutionary process that produced sentience, not the MILSPEC chips.
Still not convinced? Try this one on for size. K'Kree sentience is due to a nearby supernova. Does that make the K'Kree artificial? After all, the supernova was an 'intrusion' into the K'Kree ecology from off-world, just like the MILSPEC chips.
Finally, why does the Imperium continually refer to Virus, as well as its SDG cousin and its Cymbeline antecedents, as an artificial lifeform? It is a sop to the Imperium's conscience. By labeling the Cymbeline chips, SDG, and Virus as artificial, the Imperium can pretend it isn't engaged in a eugenics program on an
enslaved sentient species. This is a very old trick. Some Imperial researchers might not even know that there are 'wild' sophont chips on Cymbeline or that they are working on the descendents of a naturally occurring sophont species.
Virus' best carbon-biological analog is that of a virus or, better yet, a prion - Rather self-explanatory, but I still needed to list it. Virus does not exist without a host, it has no body in and of itself. Without a host, the only ability Virus can boast of is that of infection.
Virus in this prion-like state is not sentient. Like biological prions and viruses, Virus in this state can barely be described as being 'alive' - it is more like the 'potential' for life than life itself. The use of the terms 'seed' or 'egg' to describe Viral-infection prions are misleading. Seeds, eggs, and sperm are alive while Viral-infection prions can only lead to life.
The Virus-prion must infect a host, only then can it begin behave in a manner that we consider may life-like. The Virus we see in operation in merely the end result of a Virual-prion infection. If no proper host is present - with proper being determined by the Viral entity that transmitted the Viral 'seed' in question, Virus can become a 'spore' and wait. However, Virus still needs a host in which to grow, reproduce, and reach its full potential.
Like any disease, without a host Virus is nothing.
Virus is a genus, not a species - It is much better to think of the many strains of Virus as individual species and not merely different 'strains' or 'breeds'. The differences between a Puppeteer, a Doomslayer, and Sandman are far greater than the differences between collies, poodles, and boxers. After its release, Virus underwent the type of 'punctuated equilibrium' evolution that the late Stephen Jay Gould theorized about. The original Viral species rapidly evolved into dozens of other species - some still interfertile with the others.
(Remember my earlier caution about biological comparisons? Some readers may have pooh-poohed the paragraph above after recalling an old definition of species; the inability to interbreed. As I said, biological comparisons can only be pushed so far. I'm using the term species to denote major changes in Viral modus operandi and not to mark when Viral interfertility ceases. Virus is asexual, bisexual, and multisexual. It can 'mate' with nearly anything cybernetic if it chooses, selecting attributes from parasited circuits, devoured prey, and other sources to imbue in its offspring. Besides, that old definition of species is no longer used. Different species of all sort of animals and plants are interfertile; horses, citrus fruit, elephants, big cats, etc.)
Virus is not intrinsically sentient - Because Virus depends so greatly upon its host, it is
NOT intrinsically sentient. Viral sentience depends wholly on the host it infects. There must be enough 'processing potential' available in the host for Virus to reach full sentience, otherwise it remains sub-sapient. This dependency even goes so far as to effect the 'personalities' of sentient Viral infections; the sentient Virus aboard a deep space telescope has a noticeably different personality than the sentient Virus aboard a warship.
Virus' host-dependent sentience gets even odder. When the offspring of a biological sophont fails to achieve sentience that offspring is viewed as defective or damaged in some manner - and indeed it is. This does not hold true for Virus however. Sub-sapient Viral offspring simply have a poor host, they can still achieve sentience if they move to a better host. What's more, as it moves from host to host, Virus can cross and recross the sentience threshold with few, if any, effects.
Sentience for Virus depends far more on 'nuture' than 'nature'.
Virus is not a chip - Virus requires a chip or other computing substrate, but Virus is not bound by them. Please note; I am not suggesting some mystical Viral 'soul' exists or any other metaphysical nonsense. What I am pointing out is that Virus can go 'virtual'. It is not bound by matter, Virus can travel via energy alone. Although the term does not begin to even explain Virus, it is the only one I can use that we have experience with: Virus is a kind of 'operating system'. It is not wholly matter, nor is it usually wholly energy. Just as I am a bag of meat and water with a weak electrical system, Virus is a collection of energy with some physical circuitry.
Virus can transmit itself from host to host; either full and whole or as a barely living 'prion', a sub-sapient program, marginally sentient idiot-savant, or at any 'level' of sentience in between. Any Virus, no matter what 'sentience level' it currently exists at, can achieve sentience in the proper host. This make Virus quite literally in the 'ghost in the machine'.
Virus is a living weapon - The original Viral species was a purposely designed weapon. The Cymbeline sophont chips had been put through a eugenics program to create an idiot-savant; a barely sentient, suicidal, cybernetic lifeform that could invade and paralyze the computers aboard an enemy's vessel through a known infection point - the SDG transponder chip.
The SDG chips were chosen as an infection point because they and Virus have a similar lineage; they are both descendents of the Cymbeline sophont chips and thus share some of the same 'genetic' heritage. The SDG transponder chips were even more of an idiot-savant then the original Virus species was. The parasitic nature of the Cymbeline chips had been removed from or greatly suppressed in the SDG chips. Unfortunately, in the case of Virus, parasitic behavior was the whole point.
Like humans and chimpanzees, Virus and the transponder chips have a common ancestor; the Cymbeline sophont chips. Virus is not a descendent of the SDG chips, instead Virus is meant to exploit the SDG chip's presence.
Those are my six primary 'views' or 'ideas' regarding Virus. They can be considered the foundation I use to explain Virus' behavior, its evolution, and the results of its 'infection' of its many hosts. In my next post, I'll lay out my views of Virus' effects on Chartered Space and how Virus managed to do what it did. Just as importantly, I'll discuss how Virus' victims percieved it and what 'common knowledge' their descendents believe regarding Virus. Oh, I'll also discuss the history of syphilis and the Spanish Influenza of 1919 just for the hell of it.
As always, your mileage may - and most certainly should - vary.
Sincerely,
Larsen
