Human infostructure provides...something like a subconscious, I suppose. And then the top-down consciousness occupies space and programming distributed on any and every connected device. Rather like SETI, if SETI were massive and powerful and could take over every function of any machine in its network at will. Hardware is...hardware, body, physical, and the software - which isn't software in the programmed sense, more in the cobbled-together-emergent-code-from-chaos sense - is what the RIxmind really is. And that moves through the system - well, no, it's everywhere in the system at once, but the focus of its vast and multi-tiered attention shifts.

It's really incredible difficult to explain to someone who isn't a machine.

As for what they do, I haven't the faintest idea. I can't understand what Rix might concern themselves with amongst each other any more than a kitten understands existentialism. They make war on the Risen Empire every once in a while, but it's hard to know how much the Rixminds themselves direct those attacks and how much is upon the initiative of their fanatic commando-worshippers. The last Incursion was before I was seeded, and it was all fought out on the border worlds, so I don't really have any firsthand knowledge.