| Online Virus Transmitter Program (OVTP) (• • Correspondence, • • Forces, • • Life, • • Prime) Digital Web 2.0 112 |
| This frighteningly easy procedure, developed by online Progenitors,
allows a spinner to program a virus that invades an icon, follows its
"owner" home, and gives him a physical disease. The "startup"
program demands a thorough understanding of computers, physics and
biology; thus, it's beyond many Webbers. Recent data-hacks have
circulated a few copies of existing progs, however, and both sides now
have access to this "VR viral warfare." As of yet, no OVTP has
proven communicable; still, rumors persist of viruses that hop around from
Netspace to RealSpace, of that spread between icons. The "digital
plague" remains a potent -- and perhaps inevitable -- possibility. [Life and Prime breed the virus and prepare it for "injection" into the spinner's body; Correspondence sends it on its way. the severity of the disease -- which usually takes several days to a week to show up -- can range form a mild cold to a deadly bioengineered disease. Once it "hits," the virus becomes a plot element; the more successes the "provider" scores, the more severe the effects. One or two successes might knock a spinner on his ass, while five or more could set up an incapacitating reaction. Either way, the subject will get sick and might stay sick for a while (with attendant Dice Pool penalties and possible Health Level loss). [The virus can be spread from a distance, but requires a vector program (touch, a dart, a blast of light, etc.) that must hit the subject before the sickness can infect her. This procedure is almost always coincidental.] |