Thanks to everyone for their feedback and views.
As for the Virus, I think as Mssr. Fetters points out, it will become somewhat like a "man in a funny suit" - but then again most of the "aliens" in Traveller are very much in that "man in a funny suit" mold. I figure at worst I'll be making the Virus just another man in a funny suit - a tragedy to be sure but par for the course. Hopefully it'll be more interesting.
Here's my current thoughts about the Virus AIs:
* There's actually a variety Machine Intelligences, including an entire family of its own that could probably be divided up into taxonomic trees. From the original "kill them all" version, it's mutated quite a bit. The generations were very fast at first, but it's been slowing down since as the Virus "builds" become more stable. More recent versions of the AIs have about as much in common the early "war weapon" Virus as protozoa have with you and I.
* Known space is probably (thinly) populated by machine intelligences for the most part. Suitable vessels for AIs out in the "wilds" are scarce and becoming more scarce all the time. These Virus AIs are pretty much in the standard mold, so aren't all that interesting. Most of these are considered by the "civilized" Viruses (see below) as a mix between (noble) savages, evolutionary throwbacks, and with the same fascination/revulsion that you or I might feel when we hear stories of human children being raised by animals.
* "Civilized" AIs primarily live in the area on the TNE map labelled "The Black Curtain." In my universe, it's significantly larger, however. Originally brought together out of instinct, the Virii at first fought each other for dominance, attacking and overwriting each other over and over again. Apparently the desire to replicate (ie; reproduce) was pretty hardcoded in the Virus, so in that respect, one can imagine the drives of the Virus aren't all that different other lifeforms.
* "AIs would think vastly faster than us" thing. I grew up reading Niven sci-fi where stable AI was impossible because "computers think faster than us, so would commit suicide in a few weeks because they'd start thinking about Existential issues and conclude there is no meaning to anything and commit suicide." To partially get around this, I am thinking that when AIs consider ideas and options they actually (try to) run very complex simulations of reality in their cores. Such simulations naturally take a long time to run, which slows down their response times. In addition, any AI that really desired to interact with reality would probably get used to slow responses. After all, if you think a person's thoughts are slow, what about trying to pattern weld something or waiting for titanium to melt (the monitored crucible never goes molten, perhaps).
* My current model is that the Civilized Virus realms are divided into pure machine zone (the areas closest around Capital) where non-Machine Intelligences have been wiped out and the outer areas, many of which have biological sophont populations. Initially, the Black Curtain AIs attempted to go on a vast genocidal pogrom, but gradually, the idea was abandoned. There's still "hardliners" amongst the AIs who want to see "competition" or "outdated life forms" eliminated, but it's more of topic of scholarly debate now than foreign policy.
* The Outer Realms are probably the most interesting and fertile areas for interaction. Many of them are inhabited by collections of intelligent machines and humans (and other sophonts) with a variety of interactions and worldviews. In some, humans and machines cooperate (perhaps to the point that 'cyborgs' might exist as unions between humans and machines). In others, humans are experiments or crops or slaves. Such liberal human-machine realms are probably looked at with some suspicision by the "hardline" intelligences of the Core, but nothing's happened. Yet.
* The civilized Virii have a few things in common:
- They're descended from starship AIs. The ones that infected the large planet-bound computers were early "suicider" strains which either destroyed the computers or were overwritten by the later, more sophisticated AIs on the ships.
- They are not parasitic lifeforms any longer, squatting in the works of human beings. They've essentially built smaller, more mobile bodies to manipulate the world around them (probably at first utilizing remote control of domestic robots), at first to effect repairs upon themselves, later to build new things.
- Destruction is akin to murder with these AI, which can occur on a hardware level (physical damage) and on a software level (overwriting without backup). Antisocial AIs have been removed from the societies. Protecting their code from being overwritten is probably a major drive of AIs. I have this idea the AIs would consider the spread of new ideas to be as valid of an "attack" as reprogramming. However, I'm not really sure what kind of implications it would have to any intelligent beings who would desire a society. I think to some extent, the spread of new ideas would be an accepted danger of "attack."
Those are my current ideas. Any input? More on this later.
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A little background, feel free to skip this.
The Virus as the civilization-destroying event of M:T/C:T has always been fascinating to me, especially considering that after GDW went belly-up, MWM publishes T4, whose premise is basically the same as the stated premise of TNE: Known Civilization was destroyed by some event (and according to Nilsen's writings in the rules the event itself wasn't actually important) and now, many years later, a new civilization is rising out of the ashes to expand and "recivilize" the Wilds (1).
Correspondingly, TNE has always been my favorite setting in principle. In practice, I found a number of severe problems that made TNE pretty much unplayable for me, starting with the clunky (to me) mechanics of the GDW House System, the train wreck known as FF&S, and the annoying self-indulgence and fascination with Early Americana that marked the last days of GDW.
So I guess my latest game is my attempt to rewrite TNE to a setting more to my views and interests. I've pushed out the timeframe some. I've changed the Regency into an empire more like Byzantium as opposed to post WW1 UK, the RC is destroyed by Vampire Fleets (in an event that directly triggers major events), as well as a numerous other changes.
1. Nevermind the brief (unrealisitically brief in my mind) interregnum between 1130 of the Virus and 1200 of TNE not being long enough to really create many of the societies that exist in TNE - one can make both pro and con arguements about it. I've always sort of wondered about why Nilsen chose such a short period of time, perhaps any longer and technological artefacts would have decayed too much to sustain the Pyramid Scheme Republic / Miracle Bank Empire otherwise known as the Reformation Coalition (if you don't believe me, look closely at how this whole 'recovering relic technology' and Auction thing works).