What are Digimon?
Digimon, short for "Digital Monster", are mysterious lifeforms that were discovered in the Computer Network in 1997.[1] They are central to the Digimon franchise. The word "Digimon" is typically invariable in the plural, though there are some cases where the term is pluralized as "Digimons". Digimon include almost all the creatures that reside within a parallel universe called the "Digital World." There are many different species of Digimon, as well as unconfirmed and new generations of Digimon yet to be revealed. The rate of new Digimon species continuously increase as the Digital World expands each year.
Digimon hatch from eggs called Digi-Eggs. They age via a process called "Digivolution" which changes their appearance and increases their powers. The effect of Digivolution, however, is not permanent, and Digimon who have digivolved will most of the time revert back to their previous form after a battle or if they are too weak to continue. Some Digimon are feral in nature, but most possess large amounts of intelligence and human speech. They are able to digivolve by the use of Digivices that their human partners have. In some cases, as in the first season, the Tamers had to find some special items such as Crests and Tags so the Digimon could digivolve in another stage called Ultimate then Mega.
The first Digimon anime introduces the Digimon life cycle: They age in a similar fashion to real organisms, but do not die under normal circumstances because they are made of reconfigurable data. Old Digimon and Digimon who receive fatal wounds dissolve into infinitesimal bits of data. The data then recomposes itself as a Digi-Egg, which will hatch when rubbed gently, and the Digimon goes through its life cycle again. Digimon who are reincarnated in this way will sometimes retain some or all their memories of their previous life. However, if a Digimon's data is completely destroyed, they will die.
In the Digimon Adventure universe, this cycle of reincarnation can be interrupted if the Digimon dies in the Real World, although the system-wide Reboot allowed such Digimon to finally be reincarnated. In addition, when a human dies in that universe, any Digimon partnered to it die as well. In the Digimon Tamers and Digimon Data Squad universes, the Digimon's data can be downloaded or absorbed by other Digimon, resulting in a permanent death.
Level
For most Digimon, there are six Digivolution levels:
Fresh or Baby, officially translated as "Baby I"
In-Training, officially translated as "Baby II"
Rookie, officially translated as "Child"
Champion, officially translated as "Adult"
Ultimate, officially translated as "Perfect"
Mega, officially translated as "Ultimate"
Attribute
Most Digimon fall into the first three categories, with "Free" being rarer and "Variable" mostly exclusive to Hybrid Digimon. Some Digimon either have their attributed unidentified or lack them entirely.
Data (weak to Virus)
Vaccine (weak to Vaccine)
Virus (weak to Data)
Variable
Free
Unidentified
Families
Digimon are classified into different "Digimon families" and serve as the archetypes of the various classes of Digimon.
Nature Spirits [NSp] - Animal, monster-like, desert-dwelling.
Deep Savers [DS] - Aquatic, marine and polar.
Nightmare Soldiers [NSo] - Demonic, undead.
Wind Guardians [WG] - Avian, flying.
Metal Empire [ME] - Mechanical, mutated.
Dark Area [DA] - Demonic, evil, Dark Area-welling.
Virus Busters [VB] - Sacred, angelic, holy.
Dragon's Roar [DR] - Draconic.
Jungle Troopers [JT] - Insectoid, vegetation-like.
Unknown [UN] - Mutant, uncategorized.
None - Babies, or too young to be classified.