Virus affecting your RSI?

The concept itself in my opinion is wrong. A RSI is an avatar. Like when you play a video game, your avatar is the character you play. In state-based games like rpgs, your character itself becomes better as it learns new abilities. But your mind also learns and get you better at controlling your character. So we have an avatar which gets new abilities as we progress, but also the player becomes better and better has he learns to use the system. If I play a game and my character file becomes corrupted, it's just too bad, all I have to do is to try to fix the problem, or restart a new character.

Now, the Matrix. Your avatar is your RSI. It's through it that you progress, that you learn abilities. Neo itself knew Kung-Fu, but I strongly doubt that his body in the real would have allowed him to practice it. It was through his avatar that he was able to realize those feats. Yeah there's the sentinel overloading thing also, but that's another thing. The main thing is that a RSI is our avatar. It contains data representing ourselves. What happens if the data of a RSI becomes corrupted?

My opinion is that it wouldn't matter. You scrap the RSI and bring another one. Your avatar is just a channel. As long as the person behind it starts learning how to use it, there wouldn't be a problem if he had to scrap his RSI and regenerate it. Maybe some abilities would have to be updated, but as long as the mental training is done, you would be ready to restart. I follow a strong conviction that in the Matrix, the mind is more important than the code. A virus infecting a RSI would be useless as soon as the person jacks out. Yes there's also Smith, but that's not the same kind of thing. This theory would also completely nihilates the popular lupine and blood drinker infected redpills. (Sorry Cai, I know that you're already aware of my views on the topic) Each jack into the Matrix is a new beginning.

I guess I didn't made any friends with this hypothesis, but will gladly discuss about it.

Tosuno wrote:

They stay in your mind, you don't need to "re-install" them everytime you jack in.

I disagree. There's no way a human being could be considered a Grandmaster in Aikido, Karate and Kung Fu at the same time, while knowing how to program complex simulacra or to code objects from thin air. Hence why we can't invoke a simulacra if you don't have the ability loaded. You know it's possible to do, that you know you can do it, but without the mechanics loaded into your RSI, you just can't do it. This explains why we must select the abilities that we want to load, and this is in limited quantity since the number of things loaded into our RSI is limited.

Like an ability, a virus is code. I think however it's possible to say that a virus could have done cerebral damage and would allow code to modify a brain, "implanting itself" in it. Just like how the various cyberpunk's settings viruses can affect the brain of a hacker jacked into a network through cerebral influx, just like The Matrix. Once jacked out, you would still feel the damage from it, but when you come back, your avatar is untouched. It's you who took the damage, not your code.

Last thing : I'm not a Matrix guru, not at all. I base my hypothesis on cyberpunk litterature and common sense. There are many black holes in The Matrix cannon, and there's place for interpretation. I'll never shun someone who took initiative to introduce something such as RSI viruses, as long as the process is believable enough. Tosuno's explanation of his virus seems good. Based on the cerebral impact argument, it's something I can believe into. For RSI viruses, people have the right to use them, but I think a little effort must be made to make sure they are believable, just like anything brought through roleplay.

You don't have programs in your head. You just know how to use them. It's through your datajack that brain influx is translated to machine code and vice-versa. I strongly doubt that Matrix cybernetics introduced data storage units inside brains to contain programs. From what I remember in the Matrix, the jacks are direct neural interfaces, working through stimuli to communicate inputs/outputs between the body and the machine.

I still stay strong that the only way you could influence someone through viral interference is by either inflicting direct damage to the brain, or find a way to hack into the storage where RSI data is stored permanently. The later part is truely the thing I have yet to find a precise reference about how it works.

Technically yes. A programmer could build a code specially designed against redpills to execute a pattern of influx that would affect the brain in a certain manner. Modern science is already able to influence the brain on specific points, which could lead in "thought control". Since the connexion to the Matrix is directly linked to your brain, it doesn't seem too farfecthed that a really advanced virus could alter brain functions.