Gnos

"Apparently nothing much is known about this Gnos. Some say it's an unknown intelligent lifeform, others say it's a god from another dimension... It's all speculation ~ Raqio"

The Gnos is an aggregation of merged together human minds of those who have undergone cyberization, and the source of infection, whose victims are called the Gnosia. It came into being by the process of reconnecting one's conscious existence from their physical form, and then sending it to the realm of recalculation, which is also known as Heaven. It is unknown how many people went through the procedure, but it can be stated with certainty that among those who decided to abandon their body is Gina's mother. Although all individuals gained immortality, not fully aware of the consequences, they did it at a great cost of losing their own ego, however, as Yuriko stated, „they seem quite happy”. It can only be theorised whether the „side effects” were unexpected to everyone or what the exact reason of their occurrence is. As a matter of fact, their infinite minds, preserved in the realm of recalculation via cyberization, fused together, gaining a single will, and thus becoming the Gnos.

This process was originally conducted exclusively on the interstellar starship Hoshibune, where all members of the only guild of cyberization engineers, called Shrine Maidens, were held prisoner. They were, because there's one person who's an exception and succeeded in escaping the ship: Yuriko. She's now targeted by the „upper echelon” and Gnosia, which could possibly explain why so many infectees so suddenly appeared on Liu-An, where she was present at that time. Apparently, Gina believed that the cyberization is performed in the Star House, while in reality, it only serves as a „reception” that transfers information to the Hoshibune. It seems that most people are not only unaware of what the Gnos is, but the details of cyberization are unknown to them as well, so it's likely that the Gnos wanted to prevent „information leakage” by annihilating Yuriko.

The Gnos is guided by a single desire, which is a further expansion of themselves. It is unknown how it managed to infect anybody in the first place, or how exactly the infection spreads further, but it can be stated that by doing so, the Gnos tries to achieve its only goal. Those infected by Gnos receive a vision that change the fabric of their brain, turning them into Gnosia, the carriers of its will. They erase humans' physical forms and send their minds to the realm of recalculation, so that the Gnos may connect with more minds.

Trivia

 * The word "gnos" comes from Greek and Latin, where it has the meaning "knowledge".