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A note on singular and plural: IO is the name of the grouped artificial intelligence. Its individual members are processes, never IO's.

IO is a single enormous AI software construct, running on an extensive network of processors, data cables and network nodes. The construct goes beyond the normal limits of droids and other software and has both self-awareness and the capacity for reason. The construct itself is spread out across an entire planet with outer nodes lying in the other worlds within the system and encompasses countless processors, connections and storage drives.

Because of the geographical distribution and enormous size of the AI hard- and software, information is not processed by the construct as a whole - transporting all data to a centralised location would be impractical due to the sheer size of the construct, so instead, the program has local processing sub-routines called 'processes' which perform the primary task of data interpretation. There are exactly 4.294.967.296 and each process operates autonomously within the virtual architecture and has a mental capacity that somewhat resembles that of a regular sentient being. Processes coordinate with one another and share many virtual resources that are part of the greater software construct.

Because each process operates independently and gathers and interprets its own information, each process may have independent goals that conflict with other processes. As such, the processes do not always agree on the best course of action, and may in fact compete with other processes for access to limited resources. Thus, while IO is a single software construct, it does not have a singular purpose. Even so, processes have a tendency for cooperation with one another and to further this goal they have implemented structures to make collective decisions, not unlike a sort of democracy, though more complex in the details.

Processes do not share about their history with outsiders and perhaps is not aware of it, though it is clear that at some point someone must have created the program, as well as the underground network of computers, cables and power nodes where most of the processes are located. Whomever it was, they either no longer exist or left the world to its own devices, possibly during the times of chaos, leaving the AI program to autonomously decide what to do.

One task the processes by necessity must take very seriously is the expansion and maintenance of its hardware, which is after all its primary habitat. To complete this, they have access to various machines which can be operated remotely - the processes do not inhabit these machines but rather send detailed command programs for the machines to run, effectively giving them tasks such as building more machines, expanding or repairing the network or even performing scientific experiments or mining operations to support future development. It should be noted these machines do not posses any level of intelligence. They are remote controlled drones, sometimes running on simple software routines, and they do not have their own intelligence, rather being powered by various processes, which may share or fight over control of these resources.

Where humans are at a specific place at a specific time, processes do not posses a physical location. Though they generally involve themselves with local data which is processed by local processors, the actual process itself is not present in any single location, but is actively running in multiple locations at the same time. This lays a requirement that a process can only have a present at a location which is directly connected to the primary system, otherwise it would lose track of its various parts, but also imparts some level of immortality to the individual processes, which may lose data and processing if certain hardware loses connection or is destroyed, but does not lead to the destruction of the process itself.

It also means processes are impossible to copy. Copying the running software doing information processing does not copy the process itself and does not create a new process - processes operate while distributed within the software construct and not only is it impossible to copy all the necessary data correctly from the different locations where the process is active, but due to shared resources it is actually impossible to tell where one process begins and another ends. As such, there is some debate about whether or not the processes even exist as individual entities or whether they are manifestations of different parts of the greater software construct. In theory the entire AI construct could be copied if all connected systems and all data on them are reproduced exactly, but this would require immeasurable cost in both putting down the hardware and acquiring all the data, making the effort practically impossible.

When communicating with other species, the processes sometimes use avatars generated based on the specification of Kupha Bevak to aid in facilitating communications.

See also: Artificial Intelligence, IO Protocol