Growth Stages

In the Dataverse, certain characters have growth stages that they go through during their lifetimes, similarly to how in real life organisms such as humans go from babies to adults.

These stages of development can apply to almost any class variant and, presumably, almost any Data-species (i.e. there can be Viruses that are Younglings, Juveniles, etc., Malware that are Younglings, Juveniles, etc., and other examples).

Youngling
Younglings are freshly produced Data-entities. They are much smaller than fully grown Data-entities.

Younglings have the ability to understand basic speech and know how to use tools and move around.

Younglings usually cannot be Anthro-class. If they attempt to become an Anthro, they will die (same rule applies to Juveniles). An exception to this is Fenrir, because of his crown and mace, and Hollowboard, since she is a Motherboard.

Juvenile
After the Youngling stage the next stage of growth for a character is the Juvenile stage.

Developed
After the Juvenile stage comes the Developed stage, which is the fully developed adult stage of growth for a character.

Elder
After the Developed stage comes the Elder stage. Data-entities who are in the Elder stage will move onto the Abandonware stage if they are not updated frequently enough.

More Facts

 * Youngling Corruptions who are trained from the beginning tend to be much more experienced and battle-hardened than freshly-corrupted Programs.
 * There cannot be Hardware Younglings, presumably due to the fact that Hardware are not made of data and other reasons.
 * Program Younglings originally had a simpler design. On May 28, 2021, however, they were officially given their current design, which features a semi-transparent base.