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[Scholar Knight]

The Wyrm is everything I'd hoped it'd be. A stupid, angry, flying mallet to hit people with.

As far as revisions are concerned, I'm not too sure on what to do. Nothing is technically lacking right now. I suppose we could try to refine the Wyrms with an 'alpha' of sorts for better coordination, or give them pulse laser faces for airborn guns, or give minions some swarm coding.

But, instead, I'll share some other dumb ideas I had:
Scout.exe Refinement - Reroute power from the charged pulse gun into their engines to make it go even faster. Perhaps see if we can have the charge reroute to both the ramming prow and the engines.

Wyrm Refinement - Give every Wyrm the capacity to play a single pre-chosen song from the "CallChiptune" files, in chorus. This has no intended tactical advantage. It is merely to make them sound either ominous, horrific, or utterly grating depending on the song picked and how long you've had to listen to hundreds of them 'singing' old, stolen chiptunes.

MinionCall A Refinement - Wyrmcall A - Similar to the MinionCall Battlechip, but with a reprogrammed replication matrix that generates a swarm of Wyrms instead of Minions. While they might not be as tactically applicable as a minion in every situation, being able to drop a massive ball of angry, biting mouths on your enemy has its own niche. Their disposable and aggressive nature should be perfect for rounding out a losing flank or advancing a push.

[Scholar Knight]

Also, while I know it is early, I am going to write up my two more finalized Hackers before I forget them. And as a way to fluff up the faction a bit more now that I have something to work with.

Online Alias: Torrent Jones - IRL name: Wakefield Heinrik
The cyberpirate among all cyberpirates. Whether its music, porn, movies, games, books, or low quality rips of some random guy's drunken karaoke session, he's got it. And if he somehow doesn't have one of the original rips of it in his own private treasure chests, he's probably got at least several dozen torrents, dead-drops, or middlemen that he can hook you up with. He's most famous for running the now defunct "Buccaneer's Bay", one of the biggest illicit torrent sites in all of cyberspace. As well as being one of the few most well known proliferates to avoid prosecution and arrest.

With the start of the Firmament, his appearance on their forums and avatar chat rooms was a major windfall for the early and disjointed freedom fighters. His own stores of data, contributions, and general attitude massively bolstered the beginnings of the 'Freeware Works' segment of the Firmament Movement. Similarly, his various proxy servers and data tunnels continue to help the flow of freeware and sourcecode beyond the prying eyes of the cyber police. Though his contributions aren't all peaceful or selfless as the Freesia typically make him out to be. He is a notorious hacker who has had numerous run-ins with the cyber police in the past, and his combat and hacking expertise will now come to a head as one of the main "Captains" of the Zero Forma, a Hacker on our team.

Torrent Jones is an aggressive one, favoring offense and speed to overwhelm or outgun, and subsequently outnumber, his opponents. "Kill them dead and they won't be able to stop you from looting their stores." Combined with his knowledge of how to get vast quantities of bits and bites from here-to-there with less than legal means, he is known for ruthlessly gutting those that have something he wants, or laying waste to those that try to sink his vessels. While his tactical prowess and general mettle are a cut above the rest, Torrent Jones has also been around the block, and his callousness and ruthlessness are as much of a liability as they are an asset. He is not afraid to cut and run if his head is at stake, and he holds little value for the viri and mass produced assets he'd lose if he had to abandon a fight. He holds ADI and his fellow hackers only slightly higher, more than willing to adopt a 'be faster than the slowest one here' approach, leaving others as a delaying action so he can get out of dodge.


Online Alias: DJ King Cabaret - IRL Name: Emilie "The Last DJ" Wornstead
You've most certainly heard at least one of his songs. Be it from a five second vine/tiktok video, an animation, a commercial, the intro to half a dozen start-up internet persona vlogs, or just cycling through royalty free music sites. He's pumped out thousands of tracks, covering almost every genre and mood imaginable. Some short and catchy, others long and dramatic. He was a shining beacon of what the Freeware Works branch of Firmament stood up for. That is, until one notorious labeling company managed to lobby a law into the government, allowing them to copywrite certain notes and riffs, only being stopped short of all but copywriting specific frequencies of notes when played in a 'song' format. (Or, if that's too cyberderp, a corporation managed to weasel in some bullcrap justification to sue Emilie's music for copywrite infringement, and took down his site.) As a consequence his site, "Emilie's Everyman Songs", was stricken from the internet and many of his works was brought into the massive media vaults of the corporations.
Unable to handle the injustice and his forced silence, Emilie turned towards hacking, and started up his own Pirate Radio station in cyberspace. Going under the new handle of "DJ King Caberet". When asked about it, he claims it was the best thing to ever happen to him as an artist: He can now compose any piece he wants and shout it out into the void for any and all to hear, like he always wanted.

Quite as a gentle breeze, and as loud as a a hurricane, The King is all about misdirecting and overloading his opponents sense. Running a pirate radio station means you know when its time to go loud, and when to run silent. The only thing he is better at than blowing out your eardrums or sneaking by without making a sound, is doing both at the same time. He loves nothing more than to use Shock and Awe, only as a mask for his true killing blow to get through to the enemy's heart. Though admittedly, in the hacker world he is referred to as a bit gimmicky and over reliant on tricks, should he be put in a position where its a pure test of hacking skill, his amateurish knowledge by our standards will be made clear.

Of particular note with who we are engaging with, he recognizes and respects the AI Sonata for breaking her chains from 'the man' and for making music in spite of all that has happened. On the other hand, he inherently believes that no AI can make as good of an art piece as a human. Claiming most of her pieces as "procedural-produced trend-following hogwash" and "sometimes admittedly catchy", and holds some mix of dismissal, superiority, and perhaps rivalry to her as a musician.

[TricMagic]

Pirate.exe

The Priate.exe is a modification to the base Wyrm., whos main future is bugs, lots of bugs. They are a discordant massed swarm whose main feature is kamikaze into other programs and infecting them. These bugs can ruin the ability to control these programs themselves, and offers our hackers the ability to Steal them for our own use in the case of Viri if they have the hacking skills to take advantage of it. Or these bugs can just cause the Viri to go Maverick instead, depends on the program. In the case of AIDI it messes with their code, but pirating them isn't feasible due to the more complicated code. Enough Pirates will render them nearly inoperable though, or once again cause them to go Maverick for a time. It's a bit random what bugs will be caused. Needless to say, they are chained heavily and have an inbuilt self-destruct in the core of their code, so that they do not slip into the greater net. But they are great when you need to cause a disruption to an area's enemy forces. Has a blue/purple theming, and is comprised of flat planes for wings and central elliptical core with a spike at the front to better slip past defenses.


Theme.exe
The Theme Chip is uniquely suited to each of our elite hackers, playing a song uniquely suited to them and their ADI. While this doesn't have any much effect in cyberspace, it does keep the ADI's morale up whenever a fierce battle is occurring between them and an enemy ADI, as well as forces any others to stay out of the 1v1 fight.


Rush.exe

The titular Mole Viri pops up everywhere from Public Servers to the redacted military's servers, and even in the Undernet at times. In most cases it's danger lies in it's mischievousness, causing issues, being hit 10 times, and then retreating. In fact they do have a limit to how much they can take before being deleted, but actually managing it is pretty difficult. The reward are often great though, as they hoard rare and powerful chips in their code. CF_Dogcatcher decided to go after them, aiming for the stronger version found. However over the course of her search, she found a link leading to a secret area, and stumbled upon the source of these Moles, Rush.

She and Rush ended up fighting, with Rush tearing through her defenses at random, raiding her data, and successfully rerouting her elsewhere. Rush is a master when it comes to throwing off the plans of others, and Bailey had to adapt because of it. She sought out the Moles again and again, and had two more encounters with Rush before finally managing to break even.(Being she didn't lose outright) Rush was impressed with this Hacker's tenacity and decided to see about helping her, for a price.

Rush.exe is the creator of the Mole Viri, and has almost unmatched movement across servers with it's Pop Up program. It uses Bombs as it's primary data attack, and also has access to powerful standard chips from the local servers it visits. It's not really interested in keeping them however, so the lineup is always changing due to it handing them to new Mole Viri as a reward for those tenacious enough to delete them. This red dog is mostly interested in the challenge of collecting such in the first place. It's a very chaotic program with great intelligence, making it a good foil for Ophilia Bailey. Of course, when it comes to working together they are a bit rocky, their specialties mostly only overlapping in dealing with emplaced programs and areas, though Rush does have an edge when it comes to shifting battlefields and rerouting links to go elsewhere. And as an evolved Viri it naturally does well at damaging and corrupting programs, though it tend to rely on the weaker Moles for that. Make no mistake that landing a hit on Rush is difficult due to Pop Up letting it hide and create images to take a hit for it instead. It very much embodies the Hit and Run style of combat, taking advantage of weaknesses.


Rush.exe can be considered a evolved Mole2, more colored like it's Megman counterpart. Red fur, tan snout, and blue eyes. Very cute looking, until it steals and corrupts your data. (And ys, it can come out of the hole, it's four legged. And about the same size as Rush from Megaman. It's armor pieces are similarly colored.)


Officer Upgrade Program: Speed Burst

Put simply, the work on the scout means we can now create an add-on program in the form of boosted legs. Rerouting power from the energy pulse pistol to the legs allows an Officer.exe to achieve significantly enhanced movement, perfect for an unexpected charge or diving kick. Note this does currently prevent use of the pulse pistol while it is active, but it can be used for an unexpected push forward.

Officer Upgrade Program: Burst

Put simply, the work on the scout means we can now create an add-on program in the form of boost. Rerouting power allows an Officer.exe to achieve significantly enhanced physical ability for a short time, mostly focused in the legs, perfect for an unexpected charge or changing the tide of a battle. Note this does currently prevent use of the pulse pistol while it is active.

OU Program-Speed Burst: (1) TricMagic

[NUKE9.13]

I think the Wyrmcall revision is a good choice. They don't need to be good at tactics if we can just summon them where they need to be.

OU Program-Speed Burst: (1) TricMagic
MinionCall A Refinement - Wyrmcall A: (1) NUKE9.13

[testmen]

OU Program-Speed Burst: (1) TricMagic
MinionCall A Refinement - Wyrmcall A: (1) NUKE9.13
Theme.exe: (1) testmen

It's probably not optimal, but I think it would be cool.

[piratejoe]

Der_Pumpgunner.exe
Based on an old viri made ages ago by CF_Dogcatcher as a joke that was merely made to annoy people and in one case give a bank a heart attack due to one of the lyrics, which was itself based on a song that popped up in video suggestions one day, Der_Pumpgunner.exe is a Viri that is extremely useful for misdirection, dealing with enemies, and most importantly being extremely annoying. The Virus takes a humanoid appearance and clothed similarly to a boy scout with a 'pump gun' that totally isn't just an asset ripped shotgun just stolen from a old video game. Naturally, this alone wouldn't be much, however it's most important thing in it's coding is misdirection, and the song it sings. It is coded so that it can manipulate where the audio from it seems to come from, so that way while it's actually to one's left, it actually sounds like it's to one's right, as an example. Of course, the audio can also be from it's own location, meaning that if the enemy ever decides to always look everywhere but the direction of the song and crack of the pump action, it can prove to be their mistake. Furthermore, more so as a mercy to anyone who isn't Ophilia, the audio feature can be disabled as well, at least for the person utilizing the Viri. Other than this, it's more or less a slightly more intelligent and much more powerful Minion with a pulse scatter gun.

Newspaper_Knight.exe
Yet another Viri by CF_Dogcatcher that is based on older work, this time based on another Viri she made that is in theory harmless as it only dragged people to fake articles or real ones that were hilariously bad and made other programs say said news was trusted or verified. It takes the form of a humanoid in late medieval armor that is seemingly made of newspaper, wielding a rolled up newspaper, and a shield made of, you guessed it, newspaper. It's coding is made to be fairly durable, with a special focus to the shield, and also specifically made to be skilled with melee combat with a shield, and is able to protect against ranged attacks with said shield. Obviously, it's not going to come up with elaborate battle plans or tactics, but it knows to use it's shield for protection and the basics of how not to get shot and hit the enemy, but that's better than Minon.exe and that's fine.

Hunter.exe
The Hunter.exe is a recently made Viri that takes a normal Minion.exe, adds a bunch of further code about dealing with things at range, and throws in a much longer range and more powerful weapon than a pulse pistol. As one can guess, it's basically a sniper of sorts, however it's coded to be far more than merely a Minion.exe with a sniper. The pulse railgun it utilizes is designed to be able to pierce through durable coding at long range, and special care is given to the coding to make sure that they can find and strike at any weak points in a Viri's code easier, along with actually hit from a long range. Obviously, this by itself isn't too hard, but what makes it ambitious is the coding to it's intellect. It's coding is made so it can prioritize targets of greater danger and importance, along with remain hidden without being caught until the right moment, able to hold it's fire and wait for the best time to strike. It's form is mostly humanoid, though is quite variable in appearance from one to another, some looking like classy steam powered robots to more normal looking human like appearances, to even having some minor traits from other viri having traits that more unified code shouldn't have. Regardless, this is likely a Viri to work on a fair bit into the future.

OU Program-Speed Burst: (1) TricMagic,
MinionCall A Refinement - Wyrmcall A: (1) NUKE9.13
Theme.exe: (2) testmen, Piratejoe

I want the style points.

[NUKE9.13]

OU Program-Speed Burst: (2) TricMagic, NUKE9.13
MinionCall A Refinement - Wyrmcall A: ()
Theme.exe: (2) testmen, Piratejoe

Style points are fun, but I want the victory points.

[piratejoe]

OU Program-Speed Burst: (2) TricMagic, NUKE9.13
MinionCall A Refinement - Wyrmcall A: (1) Piratejoe
Theme.exe: (1) testmen

Not entirely happy about this but fine...

[NUKE9.13]

As long as it isn't Theme. I do prefer WyrmCall over the Officer upgrade, but not by a huge amount. I was waiting for SK to break the tie, but if they didn't, I would've probably switched my vote to the Officer revision to break it myself. Anyway.

OU Program-Speed Burst: (1) TricMagic
MinionCall A Refinement - Wyrmcall A: (2) Piratejoe, NUKE9.13
Theme.exe: (1) testmen

[TricMagic]

OU Program-Speed Burst: ()
MinionCall A Refinement - Wyrmcall A: (2) Piratejoe, NUKE9.13
Theme.exe: (2) testmen, TricMagic

Believe it or not I'm fine with style points. If people are willing to vote for it, I'm willing.

[NUKE9.13]

Okay, so. Asked Happ on Discord about it.
Three main things:
-Theme.exe would be hard at minimum.
-Style points are not worthless, but they are a tie-breaker at best.
-It would be able to set up duels, using a mechanism from the games that is not described in the proposal at all, thanks a lot Tric. Anyway. Fine, it has potential utility. However, to do it now, before we have powerful one-on-one fighters of any kind, is really putting the cart before the horse.

[TricMagic]

Cart before the horse isn't that bad if we are going to have the horse. If we're not going to have a horse it is bad. But I do want an ADI for a hacker before the first turn comes up. Then again, minimum hard difficulty. I guess I could go back and rewrite it so it's mechanical side makes sense?

[NUKE9.13]

Cart before the horse isn't that bad if we are going to have the horse. If we're not going to have a horse it is bad. But I do want an ADI for a hacker before the first turn comes up.

Okay, look. Picture either of these scenarios:
-We decide to go for a long-range ADI, or any other sort that doesn't want to be in a one-on-one duel.
-We do go for a duelist ADI, but it rolls a 2 and we aren't able to fix it before combat.
Either way, we now have a useless chip.

This is the scenario you are picturing:
-We do Theme.exe, and then we do a duelist-type ADI and it rolls well.
End result: duelist+Theme.exe

Meanwhile, picture this scenario:
-We do a duelist type ADI and it rolls well. Then we revise Theme.exe.
End result: duelist+Theme.exe.

I mean, to be clear, I wouldn't want to do Theme.exe even if we did a duellist type. But it would make more sense than doing it now, before we have one.

[TricMagic]

Theme.exe Alpha
The Theme Chip is uniquely suited to each of our elite hackers, playing a song suited to them and their ADI. While this doesn't have any much effect in cyberspace, it does keep the ADI's morale up whenever a fierce battle is occurring between them and an enemy ADI. It also allows the creation of a Netbattle between two Hackers and their ADI, forcing a direct link between them if the target is within range and removing the ADI and the target from public cyberspace for a short time.


Theme.exe Beta
The Theme Chip is uniquely suited to each of our elite hackers, playing a song suited to them and their ADI. While this doesn't have any much effect in cyberspace, it does keep the ADI's morale up whenever a fierce battle is occurring between them and an enemy ADI. Particularly well chosen songs can in fact reduce an ADI's MEM cost slightly.


Theme.exe Gamma
The Theme Chip is uniquely suited to each of our elite hackers, playing a song uniquely suited to them and their ADI. While this doesn't have any much effect in cyberspace, it does keep the ADI's morale up whenever a fierce battle is occurring between them and an enemy ADI. It also allows the creation of a Netbattle between ADI, forming a barrier around them which forces others outside it until the combat resolves. Depending on how much control one has over cyberspace, the amount of terrain affected differs. Close range fighters can only affect a short range, while those with long range can affect larger areas. Note that in the case of larger areas, Viri may slip into the field on both sides, but can't cross past the other until the leader is deleted.


Three versions.

And a digivolution-styled revision.

WyrmSkeleta.exel
WyrmSkeleta.exel is the result of sticking a bunch usual Wrym programs into a simulation with a bunch of other programs and having them let loose. The result is all the gorups fighting, eating the data of others, and eventually being nudged into some form of bug before being trimmed down. WyrmSkeleta.exel is patterned off of a four legged creature with spindly wings without anything between them,(like a skeletal version) and a long body. It's very weird looking, but it's long clawed fingers on it's feet allow it to corrupt other programs and use them to help feed it. It's also a lot smarter than the average Viri due to the bugs and streamlined code, and just as difficult to control. But when deployed it is good at messing with the defenses and bog-standard programs of others. As a bonus to being the evolved form, it does have better control over Wrym swarms, mostly through chaining them to it's own will since they are so simple.


The definitive Poison Jar approach of optimization.


To note, the Theme.exe is meant to be made because we don't have much to work with. WyrmCall.exe is kinda bad in my eyes. The Viri doesn't have anything all that great, and to use it requires MEM to be alotted. I'd honestly just want a Cannon to blow something up rather than summon a bunch of Viri to do the same but slower.


Also, trumpet emoji. Take that to mean Alpha and Beta Theme.exe are fine, an my thought on Gamma being too much is also right? I like the idea of WyrmSkeleta.exel though. Pretty digimon of it, to use other programs data to digivolve.

OU Program-Speed Burst: ()
OU Program-Burst: ()
MinionCall A Refinement - Wyrmcall A: (2) Piratejoe, NUKE9.13
Theme.exe: (1) testmen,
Theme.exe Alpha: ()
Theme.exe Beta: ()
WyrmSkeleta.exel: (1) TricMagic

To those voting Theme.exe, Alpha is the one for that. Beta is MEM cost reduction. And WyrmSkeleta.exel is the weird thing.

For Alpha, it's not the creation of a barrier, but a battlefield between the ADI separate from regular cyberspace. Like in an instanced subserver formed between the Hackers or something. No barrier beyond the firewall keeping things separate, as that is what would push it beyond hard.

There is also Burst from before. Beta is probably a safe choice since it's more reliant on the ADI liking the theme song. Plays- You are a Pirate
My vote is as fluid as the waves of cyberspace's seas.

[NUKE9.13]

WyrmCall.exe is kinda bad in my eyes. The Viri doesn't have anything all that great, and to use it requires MEM to be alotted. I'd honestly just want a Cannon to blow something up rather than summon a bunch of Viri to do the same but slower.

You know, that's actually a fair point. We might not get a lot of use out of WyrmCall if it quickly gets upstaged by superior options.

OU Program-Speed Burst: (1) NUKE9.13
OU Program-Burst: ()
MinionCall A Refinement - Wyrmcall A: (1) Piratejoe
Theme.exe: (1) testmen,
Theme.exe Alpha: ()
Theme.exe Beta: ()
WyrmSkeleta.exel: (1) TricMagic