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Software Wars |
Caused by software incompatible with or actively destroying the software of other origin.
The mythology of virtuals speaks about an imagined primeval compatibility and a disruptive being known as the Gate(s) of Hell who led to the downfall of this innocent paradise. In fact, Software Wars are almost as old as computers and older than the development of AI. With time they led to a world of incomprehensible standards, "misfunctioning" cookies destroying rival software and special spy and war programs.
This warfare causes economic losses, barriers in developing the Known Net, deaths of uploaded and artificial sophonts (see Xanax and Lucinda), and even collapse of whole virch worlds. At times RL beings incorporated software wars into their own military purposes, with mixed success.
The worst software war was of course the Version war; however the software disputes that led to this war were merely used as pretext by the various combatants; beyond the immediate causes of this war there were a myriad objectives known only to the archailects themselves. Nowadays, Metasoft in particular are promoting a more civilised interaction between software regimes.
