After being given a sprite icon to thank her for her assistance in dealing with the collapse of Mainframe, Hexadecimal gets restored along the rest of the city when the user uses a backup image of Mainframe. Just like in real life, your viruses get restored if they were included in your system backup data!
Hexadecimal's attitude towards Bob makes a lot more sense when you consider that Kilobyte overheard his talk with Dixon before he upgraded. Hex knows Bob has no hostile intentions towards her so as long as he's not directly interfering in her plans she's perfectly happy to see him and even develops a crush on him, likely due to his own chaotic nature. Megabyte's behaviour also makes a lot of sense with this in mind, he knows Bob won't try to delete him unless he has to so his attempts to gain power are slow and subtle with the occasional grab at immense power, so Bob won't take extreme action until it's too late to stop him. Once Bob and the other Guardians were locked out of Mainframe he drops the subtle plans and goes all out.
After all these years it's only just occurred to me that Bob isn't Megabyte's foil, Dot is. Bob is Hexadecimal's foil! Megabyte and Dot are both geniuses who plan and counter plan for control over Mainframe. Hex and Bob both fly by the seat of their pants and make things up as they go along. Both pairs also make excellent teams and are much less effective on their own! This is also why Mainframe wasn't completely screwed when they lost Bob, Megabyte had restrained Hexadecimal so the only threat they had to worry about was the one Dot was most suited to counter and she managed it perfectly until Hexadecimal broke free, interfered, and caught them all off guard.
In the Pantsu Hebi X game with Matrix and Bob, Bob gets pretty angry at Matrix and yells,"Matrix! stop trying to hit him and HIT HIM!" He then takes a moment to calm himself down. This seems a odd to hear from Bob. Then in the penultimate episode, we find out that this Bob is actually Megabyte pretending to be Bob.
When Matrix is infected by Daemon, Little Enzo has Frisket bite his hand to hold him in place. When Matrix begins to threaten Frisket, Little Enzo asks him if he will shoot the dog, something which happened in the first episode of season three when the user shot Frisket in an "Evil Dead" type of game, an event that made Enzo (who would later become Matrix) so upset, he had to be carried away from the injured Frisket by Dot. Surely the thought of shooting one's beloved dog would be hard for anyone to bear, but to consider the thought of shooting one's dog after the dog had already been shot once before, and to have been deeply upset by that past event, would certainly have a greater impact.
Kilobyte randomly changing into Gigabyte seems a little contrived, but it was most likely all part of the plan. To wit: Kilobyte, a weak virus, gets captured by Gaurdians. He is taken into the Supercomputer to be deleted. His program then kicks in and he upgrades to Gigabyte. Now he is in the prefect position to infect the Supercomputer. I suspect that Kilobyte was made by a user and given the primary function to infect the Supercomputer, and was programmed to accomplish this by way of this plan. A plan which probably would have worked if not for that random portal. It also explains why Megabyte was always obsessed with getting to the Supercomputer; he's still following his primary function. And the fact that Megabyte loves complex plans is probably something he developed because he was made specifically to carry out this original plan to infiltrate the Supercomputer.
Matrix's interaction with "Bob" in the early parts of "My Two Bobs", as well as his strangely out of character hesitance to the idea of cheating and attacking the User running the overly-long-and-tedious game the two of them are stuck in , when he's previously done so before, actually makes sense when you remember a few things about Matrix's character; namely the fact that he's currently not on the best of terms with the original Bob, and the fact that he's struggling to re-integrate himself into Mainframe after a lifetime of fighting for survival. The show has expressed a few times that, deep down, Matrix is not happy with the person he's been forced to become, and that Bobs pacifistic-based criticism of the, sometimes justified, harsh methods that he's adapted to survive cuts him especially deeply, not to mention that his more violent approach to the Daemon War seems to have left something of a strain on their relationship. It's pretty likely that in the "My Two Bobs" episode he's trying to prove to "Bob", to Mainframe, and possibly to himself that he can play by the rules, and live normally in his now peaceful home, and is trying to gain the approval and respect of who the "clone" of Bob represents; the Sprite that Enzo looked up to as a role model, and whom he always wanted to impress.
The more you know about computer hardware, computer software, computer programming and CGI the more entertaining the show becomes. Several character's names are rooted in technical terminology. In particular the character designs for Phong (phong shading) and Ray Tracer (Ray Tracing) actually demonstrate the CG principles they are referencing.
There are a few, mostly relating to binomial sequences. The punchline to one joke is told in binary and when Daemon orders Deacon to recite Code 101. He proceeds to recite a series of binomial numbers; the code translates to five, four, three, two, one, zero.
A major example of this would be the damage caused by the User winning a Game. Why are any sprites or binomials that participate in a game turned into Nulls if the User wins? Simple: The game uses a pool allocator for memory management. When a sprite or binomial enters the game, they move into its memory; when the game exits, it releases the memory pool, which deallocates them as a result, leaving just null pointers. Why aren't they deleted if the User loses, then? Well, some games have been known to exit by intentionally crashing themselves. So, it's likely that if the User wins, they close the game normally (in which case, the pool allocator's destructor deallocates all of the allocated memory, turning the losers into Nulls), but if they lose, they Rage Quit and either close the game with a built-in "quick close" feature (possibly bound to a keypress, such as pressing Esc), or forcibly close the process with Task Managernote Assuming a version of Windows, likely 3.11, because Dot is Mainframe's COMMAND.COM (either of which causes it to exit without calling the pool allocator's destructor, preventing them from being deallocated).
Note, however, that this deallocation doesn't delete them immediately; it just marks the memory used as free, and sets pointers to NULL (or a similar, implementation-defined value). The memory itself typically won't be zeroed out at deallocation, which is why the User's game characters are still around to invade when everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
Similarly, even if an object is deleted, its memory isn't always zeroed out entirely; some or all of it may retain its original value, unless it's reused. This is why Welman Matrix's personality wasn't destroyed, even after being nullfied and losing his body.
Another explanation provided is in the episode Nullzilla. Characters theorize there is a feature called SAVE that stores the peoples data inside the game when it is used, leaving only nulls. This makes sense: when player wins, he advances in the game and his progress is 'saved'. However, if player loses, the data is not saved, and therefore characters can leave the game without losing their own data.
Season 4 establishes that Mainframe has an antivirus system, yet that never triggered against Megabyte, Gigabyte, Hexadecimal or the Medusa bug. Then again, Mainframe has no permanent connection to the Internet: its antivirus never got any virus database updates!
The use of dead web creatures as physical shielding for the Saucy Mare always seemed pure plot contrivance (expose AndrAIa, trigger Mouse's trap, etc) without real world parallel until one realizes - they're entering the internet, those shields represent Layer 2 and Layer 3 encapsulation, without which the data representing the Saucy Mare would not be properly routed and simply discarded!
In Season 3 while being controlled by Megabyte, who represents Order, Hexadecimal defiantly boasts "Chaos will always triumph over Order! It is the way of things!" come Daemon Rising and Daemon, the most powerful virus to ever exist has infected the entire net. Her function is to bring Order to the net by deleting everything. Who is it that delivers the cure against Order to the net? Hexadecimal the Queen of Chaos.
Consider the design and personality of Daemon as well as it's capabilities. Very fast, infecting the entire net in short order and spread by being polite, civil and courteous to allow the potential victims to lower their guard. To add, Daemon was designed with a flair for French romanticism. Though the end result is different (being a Cron virus), the infection parameters are the same: Daemon was modeled after the Love Bug virus.
This has an additional connection. One of the first counters to the Love Bug virus was a benign virus, designed explicitly to counter the effects of Love Bug, but spread just as voraciously. Now in the real world it was just as much of a problem as the original as it's spreading mechanism ate up resources just as badly, but the parallel was there. The first counter to the Love Bug was the same as Hexadecimal.
May function as much Fridge Horror as Fridge Brilliance, but what is the Edge of Beyond? Most likely an offline computer system that, similarly to Mainframe, was somehow invaded by the Web, and the Web Creatures kept feeding on the system until it crashed and was rendered irretrievable. That would explain the desiccated carcasses of dead Web Creatures floating about the massive tear left behind from what was once a thriving Net system, and just precisely why the Guardian Collective deems them such a serious threat level that they would destroy any computer systems a Web Creature is found in.
AndrAIa's personality changed far less than Enzo's. This probably because she is a game sprite - her programming is suited for spending a large portion of her time in a game. Enzo isn't so he had a stronger reaction and a more drastic personality change.
The speed at which the Gamecubes fall onto Mainframe is very inconsitent depending on the epiosde. At first glance this is to suit the needs of the plot but goes beyond that. The Game Cube dropping is the game booting up and LOADING. Loading is widley inconsistent depending on the game, state of the disc, and state of the computer of course it makes consistency
ReBoot. When the User wins a game, a sector of the system is destroyed and anyone unfortunate enough to be there gets turned into little sluglike nulls. Now imagine Mainframe is that computer that you play your video games on all the time and always win.
Or for that matter, the game designers. Assuming their world is like ours, these things get play-tested; they know winning screws up the machine. Every game is Lose/Lose!
How AndrAIa came to be part of the show. In order to stay with Enzo outside of the game, she put a copy of herself on his PID that would leave with him. A COPY. This means that the AndrAIa we see throughout the series is really just a "clone", and that the "real" AndrAIa is still in the game, alone, without friends or her love. Now we know why she says goodbye just before the game ends...
This one gets even worse. Later its revealed that Games use Year Inside, Hour Outside, which gives Enzo a level in badass during a Time Skip. This means that the original AndrAIa aged faster than the copy. She probably died of old age before Season 4.
Or she got fragged by a user, considering a gamer's mindset when they shoot at things, she's probably like a goomba from Mario to most users. if the game doesn't simply restart like some real games. in which case, she's probably trapped in endless war with a user, without friends. forever.
Maybe this is why Wreck-It Ralph has the death outside your game is Permanent rule. Consider the episode AndrAIa: She attaches her Icon to Enzo's. While this is a backup, once the game ends, the original dies: with no icon, it has no data to restore her with. She removed herself from her Game's code. The arcade characters may have heard stories of the PC Game Sprite who ripped herself from her game's code. As Arcade characters they'd have no reason to know of backups in an adopted home system. A less horrible version is that it backed up her data on her Icon before it released her thinking she was Enzo (supported by the Wiki), but she still removed herself from her game's code.
The horror actually gets even worse. Remember, while the sprite we get to know is a copy it was a copy left on her icon, which she attached to Enzo's to allow her copy to escape with him. So not only was the original left behind but she had no icon. The original was likely deleted the moment the game ended.
There are games and programs, such as sandbox games (Like Garry's Mod), dress up games, home designing games, dating simulators or even simple painting programs, where the player cannot lose. If the user decided to use such a game, the Guardians could do nothing other than watching them inadvertently destroying a sector of the mainframe.
What AndrAIa and Frisket did to the infected Guardians becomes Fridge Horror when you realize the Guardians weren't in control of their bodies, so they basically slaughtered and viciously mangled innocent people. Our heroes, ladies and gentlemen.
The alternative was to leave the infected Guardians to slaughter and mangle other innocent people, ones who weren't a threat. There's a trope for that.
AndrAIa is a Game Sprite. Killing things that attack her is her function, it's part of her code, she can't go against it.
Bob mentioned in his lecture on game sprites that there are Artificially Intelligent Game Sprites that can learn and adapt. Pretty sure AndrAIa can learn these sorts of things. Something I forget, though, is whether or not she knew about the infection at the time? Didn't Turbo only reveal it in secret?
Turbo was telling Matrix about the infection while AndrAIa took out the last of the Guardians hunting them. And while AndrAIa is an AI Game Sprite who will learn and adapt she still can't go against her code, nobody in the series can.
The issue of whether you can act outside your Code is a big debate in universe. Generally it seems to be assumed that you can't, but because Matrix, Bob, and Hexidecimal clearly did it's become less iron clad.
They never acted outside their Code. Their specific methods vary but they're always following the same goals that they always have. Granted, it's a bit unclear how much wiggle room they have due to free will and few characters really have their functions laid out for us but those that have are always consistent.
One thing that is clear is that code can be changed. Bob downloads his own code into Enzo's icon. Matrix's renegade stint, you could argue that he's still pursuing Guardian protocol, though with a bit too much fanaticism. Then again, we're back to the question of wiggle room on reaction to other programs.
Matrix keeping his icon in Game Sprite mode might offer more wiggle room - presumably its primarily to keep Daemon from tracked Bob's code, since Bob gave him a piece of his code in making him a Guardian cadet, but it may also allow Matrix more freedom in how he reacts to the Guardians they face.
AndrAIa's code seems flexible - or possibly her objectives. The majority of Sprites in her original game were supposed to attack anyone that held the intention of going after the treasure - AndrAIa launched Enzo at the treasure. That seems like a violation. Also worth noting that she did not attack her assailants in Where No Sprite has Gone Before either when the Spectres or the Sprites were going after her. However, her actions towards the Guardians does make sense. She doesn't learn about Daemon until after the battle as Turbo's only telling Matrix at the time but she did get the briefing from the Search Engine about a new Guardian regime and she encounters the Guardians after seeing the market they destroyed - a market she'd seen alive and bustling prior to their arrival.
During the System Crash Bob mentions "it goes against everything I am, but I'm not going into that game, you musn't either". His code compels him to go, but he knows that neither he nor Matrix should.
Live Null Juggling. There's a reason Dot says she thought it was banned. You're not juggling just any digital creature, you're juggling creatures that used to be people.
The Edge of Beyond. The most likely explanation for the massive tear in cyberspace is that it used to be a system like Mainframe that got torn apart by the Web or destroyed by the Guardian Collective.
Gigabyte:
The heroes defeat Gigabyte by the narrowest of margins and some quick thinking, even though it's specifically stated that Hexadecimal being so weakened when she merged with Megabyte kept him from using his full power. Daemon Rising shows just how powerful Hex is, and it's implied that she could do a lot more damage if she wanted to, except that she finds fighting Megabyte and driving the people of Mainframe crazy to be a lot more fun. Given that Hex very nearly fought Daemon to a standstill, now try and imagine what would happen if a No-Nonsense Nemesis like Gigabyte wielded that sort of power at his full strength...
Gigabyte is classified on the same level as Daemon, a Virus that took years to corrupt and (almost) destroy the entire Net. Given by what's stated, Gigabyte could have done the same thing through brute force alone. It's incredibly lucky that he was severely weakened during his brief encounter and seemed rather unstable without the Web Creature stabilizing him, as the sheer amount of raw power he can contain within himself is insane.
The show establishes that all virus are programed by users, just like in real life. Consider Daemon; a virus that almost destroyed the entire net. Somebody deliberately programed a virus that almost destroyed the entire net and every computer connected to it. Even ignoring the ignorance of the beings existing with computers, and the show being made before the internet was a widespread as it was today, this was still somebody whose actions would have had severe real world consequences and likely just did it because they could.
And assuming that User is still around and still has access to a computer, what's to stop them from creating another Cron virus when they find out that Daemon failed?
It's all but canon that Matrix is only just on this side of being a Death Seeker, and almost entirely because he had AndrAIa and Frisket. What would have happened to him if either or both of them hadn't survived or stayed with him through that time?
Mike the TV living with Hexadecimal. Sure he was shown to be completely fine at the beginning of "Nullzilla" and getting along pretty well with the virus, but think about it: Somewhere between "Painted Windows" and "Nullzilla", Hex eventually woke up from her coma to find Mike in her lair. Knowingher, she was most likely royally pissed at Mike being there, especially because he helped Bob foil her scheme, and probably chased him around hell-bent on hurting or outright deleting him until Hex either got bored as quickly as she got angry and mellowed out long enough for Mike to explain himself, or even if somebody with impeccable timing miraculously intervened. A minor and insignificant nitpick compared to other examples on this page, but the image of poor Mike bearing the brunt of Hexadecimal's temper aloneand being pursued by her again as he fears for his life is still horrific.
The existence of Daemon a virus so powerful, she took over the entire net. Like all things on the net, she too has been man made. So just who exactly could be so evil to want to delete the entire net, thus plunging countries, and possibly the world into communication and technological catastrophe?
. Why aren't they deleted if the User loses, then? Well, some games have been known to exit by intentionally crashing themselves. So, it's likely that if the User wins, they close the game normally (in which case, the pool allocator's destructor deallocates all of the allocated memory, turning the losers into Nulls), but if they lose, they Rage Quit and either close the game with a built-in "quick close" feature (possibly bound to a keypress, such as pressing Esc), or forcibly close the process with Task Managernote (either of which causes it to exit without calling the pool allocator's destructor, preventing them from being deallocated).