CLASS-M HORROR:

THEORIES OF A WEBCREATURE

The Web is one of the weirder and nastier bits of ReBoot lore. This chaotic nightmarish place full of horrible beasties, and nobody's quite sure what it has to do with the Net. Well, the web is real terms is a system for reaching other systems online, data passing through constantly- as such, the Web is chaotic, formless and given to strange misshapen lifeforms. You can't go into it and not degrade without special equipment, Guardian code or Gibson Coil-Pikes.

The Webcreatures have an instinctive need to make it into Systems, following the real-life function of the Web. However, the Webcreatures just can't stay stable in a System without absorbing energy constantly; to be in a System, they have to eventually destroy it. They don't realise this. They are just attracted to it, and the beings that live in it. And when they run into it, their whole drive is to consume energy.

Let's look at the behaviour of the Class-M Webcreature we saw in Season 2.

It comes to Mainframe as an infant of sorts, and the first thing it does is go for Hexadecimal. This is partly due to her being close to it, and partly because of her transfinite power reserves. What's interesting is that it Venom-ises her, whereas later it just hooks up Mainframers to energy-draining tendrils. Why? Well, with the Mainframers it had to keep going out and hunting- forced to keep mobile to find energy. Hexadecimal has more energy, and it's in the Webcreature's interests to stick around feeding on her slowly. Encasing her in a shell of its own form and slowly draining her just works better.

So we see that Webcreature's can be both predatory and parasitical, depending on the energy source.

The Webcreature next goes for Megabyte. But note it doesn't stay with Megabyte- instead, the Webcreature goes off to reform Gigabyte. This is logical if you want energy, as Gigabyte was a virus driven to absorb energy from Binome to Core. The Webcreature just stays parasitical and feeds off the energy Giggy drains.

But the only way it could know about Gigabyte is if it could access to Megabyte (or Hex's) memory. In parasitical form, not only can the Webcreature control a host, it can read their minds as well.

However, the Class-M Webcreature was only concerned about energy and strong light. Others have shown more intelligence. The Web Spores are a different type of Webcreature, one seemingly based around a hive intelligence (there's presumably a Web Queen/Directory commanding them) or at least group thinking. Unlike the Class-M, they aren't single-minded and show some form of strategic thinking. They send in the Probes first to check out the System and its defences, and then the Attack Drones to wipe out all threats before they start absorbing energy; they most likely strip-mine the System. Luckily, these Webcreatures are highly unlikely to arrive unless a Portal to the Web has been formed.

It is for this reason that the Guardians will not just kill a Class-M, they'll wipe out a large sector of the system in the process just to be sure. There can be no margin of error when dealing with a Class-M, because the Spores cannot be allowed access to the Net.

And it is for this reason that Daemon arranged for Webcreatures to arrive in Systems throughout Season 2 (we hear about the attacks at the beginning of Painted Windows). What better way of distracting the Guardians? Because who has time to worry about a rumoured Supervirus when the Web is attacking?

Because as bad as Daemon was, a widespread Web attack would be far worse.