The Meta-Virus


Character created by: Jay 2K Winger


Name: The Meta-Virus. It may use false names, but the Meta-Virus has no true name.

Format: Strictly speaking, Virus.

Apparent chronological age: Varies. The Meta-Virus appears however old as it may best serve it.

Gender: Unknown. As with age, the Meta-Virus can assume whatever gender best suits its purposes.

Relatives: The Meta-Virus has no parents, being perhaps one of the oldest beings in cyberspace. Whether it was created by a User or some other source is unknown. The Meta-Virus claims all Viruses as its children, however.

Physical appearance: The Meta-Virus has no true set appearance. It has, amongst other talents, Trojan Horse capabilities and can take whatever form best suits it. Most often, however, the Meta-Virus takes on a sprite-like form with pale golden skin, smooth and unblemished. When taking on a male form, the Meta-Virus tends to be hairless. When female, the Meta-Virus has shimmering blue-black hair, reaching down to her waist. Whatever form the Meta-Virus takes, however, always has one trait in common: the eyes. The Meta-Virus' eyes are 'twin pools of blackness, like dark, bottomless voids'. When pleased or highly amused, these eyes can seem to have a twinkle deep in their depths. Around non-viruses, the Meta-Virus tends to wear opaque-lensed glasses, hiding its eyes from view.

Origins/Background: The Meta-Virus' origins are clouded in mystery. The Meta-Virus describes its past thusly: "Back when the User first created the Net, I infected it, and gave birth to the Viral race. Since then, I have wandered the Net, and now the Web, watching as my children grow, watching some of them thrive and some of them wither and offline." The Meta-Virus is indeed one of the oldest beings in cyberspace, and exists agelessly: anywhere life in cyberspace is, it is there, propagating through it.

When?: The first fic featuring the Meta-Virus was set between the third and fourth seasons, but due to the Meta-Virus' very nature, it can appear anywhere in the Reboot timeline.

Personality: The Meta-Virus seems both evil and benevolent at the same time. It does not act irrationally, and is not easy to anger. Being ageless as it is, the Meta-Virus has learned temperance. It searches cyberspace for ways to amuse itself, but while it may unleash a terrible new Virus upon a system and sit back to watch what happens, it would not destroy a system by itself. The Meta-Virus is a watcher, a manipulator, an orchestrator. It does not directly soil its hands. To those who do not know the Meta-Virus' nature, it comes across as a cool, collected, and highly intelligent individual. Indeed, the Meta-Virus, while it may occasionally make a flippant remark that offends someone, takes care to present itself as polite.

The Meta-Virus always seeks those within whom it sees 'potential', be they Viruses or Sprites. (Binomes it considers almost beneath its notice. It will acknowledge their presence, but it would never consider a binome's potential.) To those that it sees this potential in, the Meta-Virus offers its 'Gift'. (details below)

Skills: The Meta-Virus' abilities are incredible. Simply put, it has the ability to create new Viruses. But it cannot create something from nothing. The Meta-Virus could not just point its finger and summon a Virus into existence. Instead, what it does is it alters the very code of a person -- Sprite or Virus, never binome - and makes a new Virus from it. Except for a few exceptions, it never does this without the chosen's consent. It offers the code change to the chosen as its 'Gift'. It almost always alters the code enough to keep its chosen one's personality as intact as possible. Changing a Virus' powers enough would result in a completely new persona, and more often than not, it is the personality of the chosen that catches the Meta-Virus' attention. There have been instances, however, when the Meta-Virus would alter some person so radically that they lose their personality completely and become a feral Virus. (These feral Viruses the Meta-Virus unleashes on systems for its own amusement, but only rarely.) It has these powers itself, but rarely uses them. The only powers the Meta-Virus has been known to use for itself are Trojan Horse capabilities (to change its appearance), flight, minor infection, and light energy manipulation.

Weaknesses: The Meta-Virus' main weakness is its very age. Being as old as it is (however ageless it might seem), it has grown somewhat arrogant, leading to occasions when it will make an offensive remark without realizing its affect until after it has been uttered. It could also be argued that the Meta-Virus' occasional lapses into boredom (leading to the creation of a feral Virus) are weaknesses as well.

Likes: The Meta-Virus, of course, takes a keen interest in the exploits and exploitations of its 'children'. It also has a taste for sparkling binary wine and exotic foods. Anything new is also of interest to it. (It is old enough to have 'been there, done that', after all.)

Dislikes: The Meta-Virus sees binomes as "a waste of memory," but refrains from voicing this opinion in the presence of those unaware of its nature. It also dislikes seeing a Virus not living up to its purpose. (A timid infector Virus, for example.) Guardians are also high on the Meta-Virus' 'do not like' list, given their knack for shipping its children off to the Virus Deletion Chambers.


Cast relationships

  • Megabyte & Hexadecimal: As Viruses, the Meta-Virus of course looks upon these siblings as its children. It sees them as youngsters out to prove themselves, and so is proud of them for what they have accomplished. It looks upon Megabyte as having 'potential', and indeed, the Meta-Virus encounters Megabyte in the Web and offers him its Gift, in the form of Trojan Horse capabilities. Hexadecimal, on the other hand, it looks upon as both a success and a failure. Successful in the fact that unlike most Chaos Viruses, Hex retained at least some of her sanity and kept from simply wiping Mainframe out on a whim, but a failure in the fact that she both fell in love with a sprite and become a sprite herself. Oddly, the Meta-Virus does not disapprove of Hex's sacrifice to save the Net from Daemon, instead being proud of her saving the Net from becoming a boring, empty place.

  • Bob: Since Bob is a Guardian, the Meta-Virus would normally take an instant dislike to him. However, it is both disgusted and intrigued by Bob's radical theories on changing a Virus' programming. It both hates Bob for wanting to 'mutilate the code' of its children, but it also keeps an interest in his ideas on program alteration. "Rather reminds me of me," the Meta-Virus would remark.


Fics featuring this character: 'The Gift of Madness'

Is author willing to 'loan out' character to other writers?:
Yes. jay_winger_2k@hotmail.com


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