The Virus

[MasterGwydion]

I have a question about the Virus. I know it is a thing that many people dislike and it annoys me too, but no biggie.

This is kind of a @Geir question since he wrote the Robot Handbook.

How does the Virus pass between electronic devices? It says that it can sit dormant in systems that are not advanced enough to allow them to become sentient. So, what TL is advanced enough for the Virus to inhabit and gain sentience? According to the RH, that would be TL-17 and according to High Guard that would be TL-16, but if that were true, then the Virus never could have taken over Charted Space as there isn't enough TL-16 or 17 tech laying around to inhabit.

Just something that occurred to me. Nothing especially important.

 

[collins355]

The detailed answer (?) is in TNE/Survival Margin if you can get your hands on a pdf. For your specific question, look at pages 74-75 for starters.

As a bonus, in it you get a complete history of the Rebellion era.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The detailed answer (?) is in TNE/Survival Margin if you can get your hands on a pdf. For your specific question, look at pages 74-75 for starters.

As a bonus, in it you get a complete history of the Rebellion era.
View attachment 6455

Thank you!

 

[MasterGwydion]

So, the Virus is a silicon life form? Everything I have read says they require a silicon matrix for reproduction. What happens when they try and take over a computer or device that is not silicon based? Such as Gallium Nitride or Graphene or even organic circuitry.

 

[Arkathan]

The way I read it, they were based IN silicon, not ON silicon. The intellect could transfer into new systems without taking the material with it.
They could survive in and replicate from whatever processor they found themselves in.
Eggs and jumper chips would require a medium that they could burn new circuitry into, but the lack of that capability would not prevent a virus strain from using available avenues to infect other systems.

I blame the same mindset that made Battletech the future of the '80's, with numerous themes and limitations upended earlier than the mid nineties.

 

[tytalan]

The truth of the matter is the virus is broken even after multiple attempts to redefine it. Original and communication with a Virus infected system would infect the new system, later there was a minimal amount of computer capacity needed but that was vague and not actually followed by the writers of TNE. The most common factor was any ship exposed was infected this broke just about everything since it was literally impossible for the knowledge of the virus to out pace the virus itself (basically the very fact that you received the message about the viruses existed meant you ship was infected). Survival margin is a great book unfortunately other TNE books counter-dictated what is written in it.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The way I read it, they were based IN silicon, not ON silicon. The intellect could transfer into new systems without taking the material with it.
They could survive in and replicate from whatever processor they found themselves in.
Eggs and jumper chips would require a medium that they could burn new circuitry into, but the lack of that capability would not prevent a virus strain from using available avenues to infect other systems.

I blame the same mindset that made Battletech the future of the '80's, with numerous themes and limitations upended earlier than the mid nineties.

So, the Virus can take over sophont brains since they are organic computers?

 

[Arkathan]

So, the Virus can take over sophont brains since they are organic computers?

They need a transmission method. They could definitely infect computerized implants and from there really mess with the head they are in, but I don't see how they could create neurons in a sophont in order to take over. Sophonts do not run on programs.

 

[Arkathan]

The truth of the matter is the virus is broken even after multiple attempts to redefine it. Original and communication with a Virus infected system would infect the new system, later there was a minimal amount of computer capacity needed but that was vague and not actually followed by the writers of TNE. The most common factor was any ship exposed was infected this broke just about everything since it was literally impossible for the knowledge of the virus to out pace the virus itself (basically the very fact that you received the message about the viruses existed meant you ship was infected). Survival margin is a great book unfortunately other TNE books counter-dictated what is written in it.

I find it easier just to ignore any lore that occurred after CT and before MgT, since that is the era my players insist on sticking to.

 

[Sigtrygg]

To understand Virus go and read CT Adventure 13 Signal GK.

Forget all the scare stories about Virus being able to take over your toaster etc (it can certainly cause its electronics to fail)... as with a lot of Traveller in game narrative it is unreliable.

Read up on real world computer viruses, stuxnet and its ilk, programmable chips and the like. Imagine an AI version of stuxnet...

 

[MasterGwydion]

They need a transmission method.

Can't light be used as a transmission method? Aren't laser communications a thing?

They could definitely infect computerized implants and from there really mess with the head they are in, but I don't see how they could create neurons in a sophont in order to take over. Sophonts do not run on programs.

Sophonts are organic computers, sentient ones. How do you mean that they don't run on programs? It also says that they physically create new pathways and that this action causes a small, but detectable power spike. Can they only create new silicon pathways or can they create organic pathways as well?

 

[Sigtrygg]

You are asking questions that science at the moment has no answer for.

How is a bag of chemicals self aware and conscious?

Is your DNA conscious? It has the blueprints for building "you"

Are "you" - the self aware consciousness - an emergent property of your brain structure?

Cymberline chips are postulated to be silicon based organisms that can etch their own circuitry. Is the circuitry their consciousness and their self awareness? It is a lot easier to map the circuit structure of a Cymberline chip and replicate it than it is to map and replicate an organic brain, and yet in the Third Imperium setting both are now possible.

Wafer tech allows for the memory/personality of a person to be recorded and dowloaded on top of another person's brain, run in a sim, downloaded to a computer, android brain etc.

Virus is akin to the wafer tech but applied to a silicon based lifeform.

 

[MasterGwydion]

You are asking questions that science at the moment has no answer for.

True, science may not have these answers, but thankfully, we are playing science fiction, so most of what is in our games is beyond current science.

How is a bag of chemicals self aware and conscious?

Same way a bag of chemicals can be a sentient computer?

Is your DNA conscious? It has the blueprints for building "you"

Is a blueprint sentient? I doubt it.

Are "you" - the self aware consciousness - an emergent property of your brain structure?

Must be, because people with no brains are not sentient.

Cymberline chips are postulated to be silicon based organisms that can etch their own circuitry. Is the circuitry their consciousness and their self awareness? It is a lot easier to map the circuit structure of a Cymberline chip and replicate it than it is to map and replicate an organic brain, and yet in the Third Imperium setting both are now possible.

Wafer tech allows for the memory/personality of a person to be recorded and dowloaded on top of another person's brain, run in a sim, downloaded to a computer, android brain etc.

Virus is akin to the wafer tech but applied to a silicon based lifeform.

So, does this mean they only function in silicon-based computers? What happens when the Virus interfaces with Ancient technology? Is Ancient technology immune? Why didn't the Virus just take over the giant Ancient war machine on Vland?

 

[MarcusIII]

Read up on real world computer viruses, stuxnet and its ilk, programmable chips and the like. Imagine an AI version of stuxnet...

I ran a real world AV virus lab. Virus in Trav is NOTHING like a real computer virus, even with total A.I.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I am using them as anologies, how a computer virus will function in the 57th century is like trying to explain the inner workings of the jump drive or how grav plate artificial gravity works.

 

[MarcusIII]

I am using them as anologies, how a computer virus will function in the 57th century is like trying to explain the inner workings of the jump drive or how grav plate artificial gravity works.

Doesn't matter. Virus in Trav spread via paths of devices not having write ability to a computer. Even in the 57th century that can't happen

 

[Sigtrygg]

Can you give examples of this in the actual products rather than hearsay from the fanon? I have not read a single TNE product that grants Virsus the ability to infect a computer system that it can not gain access to.

 

[MarcusIII]

Can you give examples of this in the actual products rather than hearsay from the fanon? I have not read a single TNE product that grants Virsus the ability to infect a computer system that it can not gain access to.

I read and understood those products decades ago. I gave them away as they were so poorly written. You really should get familiar with them before trying to argue what's in them though. Reread them and you'l see them spreading via radio comms for one thing. Just one example of them being a magical being and not a computer program.

 

[Endie]

Virus was a dumb idea that reads like a Boomer read the Good Times virus hoax email and believed that that was how computer viruses worked. Someone else must have looked at it before publication and thought "ummm, that's not how this would work" but they were so keen to break the OTU in the face of the community's desire to at least have the Marches conserved in recognisable form that they stayed quiet. All subsequent tweaks were smearing lipstick on a very ugly pig with an unusually low IQ, even for a member of sus scrofa domesticus.

 

[MarcusIII]

Virus was a dumb idea that reads like a Boomer read the Good Times virus hoax email and believed that that was how computer viruses worked.

100% accurate depiction.