Alright Wyrm, for those of us without your extensive, god-like knowledge, can you dumb it down for us?
Being given 'tude like that, how can I say no?
Given that every time you've posted in this thread, you've condescended to us lesser beings, how could I ask any other way?
My question is, 'how could you ask
at all???' I gave my replies on page one and two of this thread. Everyone else wants to pull in dragons, free spirits, and gods know what else, and that fits
just fine with the name of the thread, but cripes, can you really think for a New York minute that any of that is what's
really happening???
If you want it laid out, then step one:
Fact: You can, since 2e (what year was Shadowbeat, ICly? 2051? 2052?), change a person's memories, including adding to them, by use of a PAB machine. (Maybe also magic, but don't quote me on that.)
Postulate: Peoples' personalities are
built from their memories.
Theorized: If you change enough of a person's memories, you can change the individual's personality.
In support of this are the events of the Arcology shutdown, in which thousands of people had their memories played with, added to, etc., in full 3-D Panoramic TerrorVision, changing their personalities - including but not limited to the Whites/Blues/Greens.
Also altered were those who would become the Network - people who were conditioned to 'plug in' and remain so for extended periods of time so that the code in their head could download and reassemble in the Matrix.
Step 2:
Fact: PABs
could engineer personality overlays. Introduction of a secondary personality based on another, even
identical to another, is not only possible, but practiced.
Postulated: They could also cause powerful personality disorders.
Addendum: ... as can other online-only programs, such as psychotropic IC.
Fact: These disorders could be as extensive as multiple personalities, subconscious 'Judas' activities (betraying your comrades without ever remembering you did just that), and similar issues, or as simple as just wanting to "Buy Ares!!"
Fact:
Without being addressed, these issues lingered, and though they were not
automatically permanent, they
could be.
Therefore: Given access, time, and (most importantly) processing power, full personality replacement - which interim steps could easily and explainably include 'blank-out' time where the personality being replaced is neither in charge nor aware of a gap in time - is not only possible, it is well within reach of Shadowrun technology as it stands.
Step 3:
Observed: All individuals who have been afflicted with the 'Sybil virus' (the latter part of which name is grossly incorrect) possess the capacity for direct neural linking, e.g. they possess datajacks. (Even the mages.)
Postulated: None of the individuals who have been afflicted have experienced a total transformation of their genetics - what muscle memory (or Talent) their body possesses, their body continues to possess.
Observed/Deduced: Many, if not
all, of the individuals who are known
or suspected of being transformed by this attack have had a) direct
neural contact with one, possibly multiple (and very possibly significant numbers of) presumably angry electronic intelligences (Elints) as well as b) EITHER subjected to a significant, extended period of time under which they could have been kept in a minimally-interactive situation (Roger Soaring-Owl is one of these, Anatoly Kirilenko is another) OR implanted (by prior intent (Fastjack), forcibly (Kirilenko) or due to early actions / influence of the secondary, 'replacing' personality (possibly Soaring-Owl)) with a nanohive which logically could be programmed to engage in ongoing PAB activity - said PAB activity's stated aim being to replace the initial host personality with the invasive Elint personality.
You piss off a thousand free spirits who just so happen to have been shown the way - or figured out - how to take over a person. As with Deus, the tech is there - you just have to have the reason (same reason, in this case - you'd think they'd learn) to reach out, grab it, and use it As Necessary in order to get yourself out.
Dragons? Dodger? All the other crazy theories here? They're fun, they're funny, but I can't for the life of me see how they could
possibly be taken seriously, when the answer is bloody idiot-simple, and even
done before. You'll forgive me if I continue to ricidule 'wild speculations' for what they are - wildly speculative, if not far, far,
far beyond left field.