Data Bugs (Games Tetralogy)

Data Bugs (ウィルスバグ, Hepburn: Uirusu Bagu) are successfully mutated versions of regular enemies encountered within The World. They generally have Infinite Hitpoints and are considered unkillable. More Data Bugs appear the longer the game is corrupted. They are encountered as Bosses and Mini-Bosses in the Games Tetralogy.

Lore

Some monsters drop Virus Cores after Data Drain is used. These are called Carrier Monsters, and they have the potential to mutate into Data Bugs. There are two kinds of Carrier Monsters: those who failed to become Data Bugs, and monsters undergoing the rewriting of their data. Carrier Monsters leave behind Virus Cores when they are data drained, but are otherwise indistinguishable from regular monsters. As The World becomes more corrupted, the rate of Carrier Monsters that actually mutate into Data Bugs increases.

Regular players are not capable of defeating Data Bugs. Even a full party of the high level players with the best equipment and the most powerful skills can not defeat a Data Bug. The only way to defeat a Data Bug is to use Data Drain to extract the Virus Core, which will revert the Monster's data into its usual configuration.

Morganna created Data Bugs by merging corrupted data with the pre-existing monster data within the game. This corrupted data is what constitutes the Virus Cores that are extracted from Carrier Monsters. The Virus Core is what recompiles the monster's data, leading to Data Bugs.

Media

Liminality Easter Egg

• 

  Data Infection
  Morganna's malfunction affected field objects which could
  be seen graphically when portions of the overlaying
  graphics disappeared and raw program data showed
  through.

• 

  Data Bug
  To protect herself from Aura and the Bracelet, Morganna
  created Data Bugs by merging corrupted data with
  existing monster data. Although these were believed to be
  symptoms of her malfunctioning, they were actually
  methods of self-defense. She used 26 virus core data
  

• 

  Carrier Monster
  A carrier monster is a creature
  that has the potential to mutate
  into a Data Bug. As the data
  corruption of "The World"
  progressed, the mutation
  rate of carrier monsters
  into Data Bugs increased.
  Carrier monsters leave
  Virus Cores after being
  Data Drained, but their
  appearance and
  parameters are otherwise
  indistinguishable from
  regular monsters.

• 

  There are 26 different types of
  Virus Cores. Depending on
  which Virus Core was added to
  the monster data and how much
  time has elapsed, the carrier
  monster turns into a Data Bug.
  There are two different types of
  carrier monsters: monsters that
  failed to become Data Bugs
  (Morganna's failed experiments),
  and monsters that are currently
  undergoing rewriting of data.

Notes

In Japanese, Data Bugs were called ウィルスバグ (Uirusu Bagu), using the English loan words "virus" and "bug."