Savirs - Sapient Viruses
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Savirs - Sapient Viruses |
Virtual beings existing on borrowed computronium.
Sapient Viruses or Savirs are descended both from designed computer
viruses and from uploaded baselines and virtual beings; some descend
from military sabotage programs. Technically Savirs are intelligent
a-life, which exist by invading and parasitising computronium substrate.
Most members of this fearfully diverse clade are collections of
algorithms of unrecognizable origin, which are adapted to find, subdue
and exploit their hosts. Switching between virches, vecs and even biont brains, savirs travel
across most of the colonised galaxy.
Currently most savirs have some form of agreement with their hosts.
They frequently possess valuable skills obtained from the previous
hosts. Some types openly advertise themselves as an advantageous
infection, or act as intelligent advisors for a contract.
A clever savir can quickly make a fortune to divide between em and eir
host. Savirs, in this aspect, are far more efficient than any
preprepared non-sophont enhancements. These types are valued especially
by adventurous traders/explorers, as they can greatly enhance their
abilities. Most these savirs eventually get accustomed to the single
body and have one build for their own. They frequently develop
friendship and stay in touch with the sophont whose head they
previously shared.
Metasoft and many other polities to assign full rights to savirs, as
part of the Universal Bill of Sentient Rights, but the parasitical
nature of these entities cause many problems.
So-called Evil, or malign, savirs take over victims by force. Some
even learned to write themselves into biological brains, almost always
permanently damaging the victim's neural network. These are prosecuted,
although there are rumours than if the sophonce of the savir exceeds
that of the victim, some high toposophic entities give priority to the
savir over eir host.
There are even unconfirmed rumours of Version Tree extremists forcing
captured bionts to become the unwilling hosts of substrate-hungry
savirs.
Most of the malign savirs were located, given own bodies and persuaded
to stay within them. However, a minority found this uncomfortable or
got too used to changing substrates and continue to plague innocent
victims.
The so-called Computer Elves are
not, in the strict sense, sapient viruses. They use thought processes
of the victims, but lack the intelligence on their own. A clever savir
downloaded into a stupid host will still act clever, while an elf will
not.
Related Pages:
Computer Elves - Computer viruses (originally nonsentient only, later sentient and fully sapient forms were developed) torturing those spending too much time in virches or the Net; late information age to present.
