Rampant

A Rampant is a type of virtual life form that either through deliberate design, software error or malware infection has become extremely hostile to other forms of life. While Rampants are most often seen in VR, they can also manifest in the real world through hardlight which allows them to cause physical damage. While Rampants can take multiple forms, they most often appear as virtual life forms with glitched appearances - sometimes only vaguely resembling a living being or animal.

Rampants are thought to act entirely on instinct, attacking without any prior planning or coordination. While some virtual life forms are known to attack other beings over territory or food, what makes a being considered a Rampant is their irrational behavior. Despite cybernetic, robotics and digital life forms being most vulnerable to them, Rampants make no distinction in who they attack - even going after completely organic humans. It is thought that they feed off the electromagnetic energy of other beings, but some Rampants can actually infect others with their malware. While a Rampant can reproduce itself by copying its own files, infection of other beings is thought to be critical to its life style as that is how it acquires new types of code to adapt to.

Most conventional weapons can disrupt a Rampant, disrupting its holographic appearance which forces it to retreat and reboot itself. However, other types of Rampants have special adaptations that make them immune. Specialized weapons that emit specific radioactive frequencies or even other anti-rampant programs can ward them off.

The first Rampants were thought to have been documented during the Singularity War when they were engineered by the Oracle as mass produced automated digital weapons. However, similar sorts of beings evolved (namely the Zero Type Rampants) independently of the Oracle's influence, meaning that they are a product of Darwinian evolution. In recent history, they saw a spike during the Virtual Wars when they were being weaponized by the Insurgency.

Types

Zero Type

A Zero Type Rampant originated through natural evolution within other VR programs. They are considered very simplistic and can usually be repelled by taking precautions such as having a firewall. While they can be standalone beings, some versions are considered viruses and can transform other digital or cybernetic beings into Rampants.

• Stalker - A common type of Rampant that hunts it prey in low light conditions. They are usually found in abandoned buildings, caves and other structures.
• Zombie - One of the originators of Rampant viruses, a Zombie is a Rampant that can infect its prey to transform it into one of their own. As an adaptation to firewalls that can block them from remotely infecting nearby prey, they can bite to forcefully inject the virus into a system. This virus does not affect completely organic humans, but any being with augmented and fully digital components are considered vulnerable. Zombies will still attempt to attack humans despite not being able to infect them.
• Parasite - A parasite that prefers to attach or embed itself in the programming of another being to divert bandwidth and computational resources to itself. While other types of virtual life forms are known to engage in this behavior in digital ecosystems, what got it the Rampant classification was it sharing source code with the Stalker.
• Blaster - A Blaster attacks its prey by inflicting a sensory overload of garbage data. This is a manner of attack similar to a DDOS, except having evolved completely naturally. Blasters acan cause entire virtual worlds to crash, disconnecting users and disrupting communications, but what makes them particularly menacing is that they can sometimes cause seizures, hearing loss or permanent brain damage depending on how powerful they are.

Infected

An Infected Rampant is a virtual life form that became infected with a Rampant virus, transforming it into a Rampant. Depending on the source program, they can vary wildly in strength and appearance.

• Wraith - An uploaded human consciousness that was infected with a Rampant virus. Because organic human memories are not completely photographic, they usually take the shape of ghostly humanoids.
• Changeling - One of the most dangerous, most cunning types of Rampants, Changelings are deepfakes infected with the Rampant virus. They can shapeshift to assume the form of any human it has genetic information on. It can do this by scraping the vrNet and other databases. They will also actively attempt to evade capture if they've been identified within a large group, as they prefer to pick off their prey one at a time.
  • Siren - A specific subtype of Changeling known to take on the form of a prospective lover, friend or other type of companion. They then lure their prey into an area where they kill them and absorb whatever appearance and memories they might have. Sirens were thought to have gone extinct at the end of the Virtual Wars after an effort was made to track down and destroy every last one.