Megabyte

Name: Megabyte (a unit of computer information storage capacity equal to 1,048,576 bytes)

Age: Unknown; He seems old than Hex and Bob; see Hexadecimal discussion for more on his age and creation, Season IV updating earlier discussion

Appearance: Blue metal skin, a green mouth with three rows of teeth and fangs (Mouse also has fangs, connection? nah), and a red Neptune-like crest on his head with two green crescents on his chest, a triangle on his sternum, and four short vertical stripes below the ribcage, retractable claws and removable legs. Speaks with a mid-Atlantic accent.

Format: Virus

Function: To corrupt and conquer; to amass power

Megabyte is a virus, those potentially disastrous computer glitches that corrupt your computer's programming. Megabyte entered Mainframe via an infected word processing program and soon made it his business to take it over as a stepping stone to further domination. He is not satisfied with controlling about a third of Mainframe with the help of his loyal (if tad incompetent, thank goodness) minions (viral binomes with red and green eyes instead of black and white ones, usually dark blue in color with a black and green unsmiley face logo) and the incompetent extraordinaire duo of Hack and Slash. Nope. He wants somehow to form a portal to the Supercomputer, where the real action is at, but only a game or an altered tear (usually the job of guardians) can make this happen. Thus, his ongoing struggle to take over Mainframe, as well as discovering or stealing the ability to form a portal. Luckily, for the good guys, his minions are not very smart, even with all those Armed Binome Carriers (ABCs) and other evil stuff.

The origins of Megabyte is (surprise surprise) not totally clear. The accepted theory seems to be that Megabyte and Hexadecimal was "born" when their father Kilobyte ("one thousand bytes") was nullified with only Nibbles (Megabyte's little pet, green with white markenings) remaining, though another theory has him originating from a mischieveous computer hacker, getting into Mainframe via an innocent looking word processing file. Some also say that Kilobyte was nullified when the Twin Cities (now Lost Angeles, helping to explain all the nulls) was destroyed, but this has not been confirmed. At any rate, Megabyte's main lair is the Silicon Tor (a type of high peak or hill), where he has a throne in which he often sits without his legs. He moves around in style via a stretch limo or a motorcyle, which AndrAIa later takes for herself (she has a thing for bikes). Megabyte was temporarily infected by the web creature and united with Hexadecimal, becoming Gigabtye.

Hexidecimal once said that Megabyte got the brains, while she got the power, but the problem is that he has to rely on such bad help. The bad help reaffirms that enslaved individuals are less likely to be good workers, both since they must obey those who enslaved them (not the type of person one would like to help), and encouraging too much intelligence and freedom in them might encourage them to want to be free themselves. It was Mainframers' desire for freedom, as well as their intellegence and courage that ultimately led to Megabyte's downfall. In the end, his problem was that though the alternative life he supplied might be beneficial to his goal of amassing power, it just was not worth it for those who would serve his empire ("Megaframe").

At any rate, Megabyte is quite powerful and strong, towering over everyone else in Mainframe. Nonetheless, he is also pretty smart, including smart enough to hide his evil nature behind a calm reserved exterior. It is this sense of style that along with his power that attracts some people to him. Nonetheless, Megabyte's true nature does show sometimes, especially when he does not get his way. It is also shown through his actions, including torturing his own sister (and earlier trying to kill her) to harness her power to take over Mainframe. Megabyte did show that he is willing to repay a debt (Bob helped him in a game, so he let Dot and Enzo go), and has a fun side (see his guitar duel with Bob in "Talent Night"), but overall is not a person you would like to be around. Also, a typical virus (be it biological or computer) does not have his ability to think and scheme in such a way to make things that much more dangerous for the forces of good. He was snatched by a web creature after unsucessfully taking over much of the city and then trying to destroy it all, but it is unclear if he was destroyed. Good villians like him rarely are.

And destroyed, he was not. Somehow changed while in the web, he returned as a "trojan horse" virus, namely one that can take the form of others. This he wickedly did by taking the form of Bob (some of whose code he absorbed while crushing his keytool), tricking everyone, and nearly leading Dot to marry him! Since "Bob" came out of nowhere without much of an explanation and acted kind of weird (breaking game rules, and even saying "fancy" a game to Matrix at one point), this was rather naive of everyone. Glitch ferreted him out just in time, but Bob apparently could not use it to discover who else Megabyte trojan horsed himself into. An earlier scan did not even catch him, though one led to the assumption Glitch Bob was a copy since his altered form did not match his recorded original form. Megabyte escapes, the gang thought they caught him, but he sneaks into the War Room disguised as Frisket. He's apparently in control as "My Two Bobs" ends in a cliffhanger, more powerful and dangerous than ever.

"I haven't felt this good since my first...infection."

"I am become Gigabyte, destroyer of systems".

"I come from the Net, infecting systems, To this place ... Megaframe. My domain. My format? Virus! To corrupt and conquer!."

"You are what you`ve always been... a mere delivery boy! Do not provoke me further. It is by my will alone you survive this encounter! Be well to remember that... boy!"

"Excellent!... Now remember - I want her [injured Hexadecimal] to have the best treatment! Understand? The best."

"Mmmm... yes, we`ve heard this before. Herr Doktor! It is time!" [Answer to Hex's Threats of Revenge]

"Enzo: (shocked) You did that... to your own sister? Megabyte: (pleased with self, chuckles) Yes, yes, yes. Yes, rather good, isn`t it?"

"Prepare yourselves -- for the hunt." [end of "Crouching Binome, Hidden Virus"]

Credits: The picture on this page is from Mainframe.ca, while the information comes from various sites (special credit to Joe's Unofficial Site, who gives a nice summary of his 'look') and many of the quotes from Silicon Tor, which has the scripts for several Season Three episodes.