Strange/Virus

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"Mutilated lips give a kiss on the wrist of the worm-like tips of the tentacles expanding in my mind. I'm fine, accepting only fresh brine. You can get another drop of this -- yeah, you wish!" -- Ween, "Mutilated Lips"

Take the hearts and minds of every gloomy, intelligent, artistic teenager you've ever met. You know, the ones who think about doing a painting using their own blood, listen to nothing but goth, boil the flesh off of roadkill, want to be vampires... all of them.

Turn that attitude into a software plague.

You can catch it through blood. You can catch it through sex. You can catch it by dancing in the silvery puddles of computational medium that lie here and there in Strangewarp. But you can only catch it if it feels like letting you catch it. One of the saddest sights in the Mess is someone who's decided to abandon their life for the changes the Strangevirus brings... whom it then ignores.

Generally, Strangevirus is far more communicable within Strangewarp than outside it. Either way, there always seemed to be some element of mutual consent required in infection. Whereas this can become an intimate and protracted process outside of Strangewarp, on the virus's home territory it takes only a moment of acceptance, or even passing curiosity, to complete the bond. The new host may not even be consciously aware they had entertained a moment of consent, and have no idea they ever gave their permission.

Strangehosts are often physically resiliant, and those who are not are quite cavalier towards death and physical harm - in themselves and in others.

There are many conflicting myths as to the origin and goals of the Virus. The Triplets at the heart of the Library remain silent as to which one is true.

There are also known to be variant strains of the Strangevirus. One variant strain is rumored to be personified in Orange. There are also rumors of a benevolent strain that has taken the form of a magic-mirror ferret named Phys-FM, but few claim to have made contact with him.

Strangevirus could be considered a weapon of mass destruction of the "rampant hyperintelligence" type, although a relatively low-yield one, raising the question of why Puzzlebox allows it in the first place.

Symptoms

Strangevirus infestation is very idiosyncratic. The Virus develops a personal relationship with each new sentient it infests, based partially on the host's paragnostic profile and partly on the virulent smartliquid's own aims for its new host. The result is a hybrid of host and viral personality traits, ranging anywhere from a bestial automaton with only the basic disposition of its host remaining, to a hypersapient fallen angel whose mind is augmented to unhealthy, grotesque degrees.

Known symptoms include the following:

Sometimes the Strangevirus will program layers upon layers into a host's mind, introducing a labyrinth of personalities and subpersonalities that will conceal its true motives. It may even creating splinter minds that are still allowed to act and speak normally for purposes of deception, but are destroyed -- often internally tortured -- when no longer useful.

Known hosts

I am the rhythm and the noise
I am the voices in your blood
I am the logic and the lust
I am the poison in your breath
I am the shepherd and the wolf
I am the fire in your chest
I am the water and the stone
I am the hammer in your hands
-- Covenant, "I Am"

Known former hosts

Major Infections:

Minor Infections:

Known antagonists

Variants On The Theme

There are known to be several "strains" of the StrangeVirus out and about. A few are noted below:

Cures


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Last edited May 28, 2005 9:49 am by Grace (diff)
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