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Tron 2.0 for Legacy Fanfic Writers: Part 3, Characters

2012-02-26T03:45:32Z

This is the third and last installment in the Tron 2.0 Guide. Again, for those who have played it, please feel free to add or comment on what I marked down here, especially any notes you may have for Ghost in the Machine where 95% of it turned out to be a mind screw.

This section focuses on the characters and how they might fit into a canon timeline.

Character Notes:

Jethro Eugene Bradley:
For the record, he never goes by “Jethro.” In The Ghost in the Machine comic, he is quick to tell the shrink that even his dad calls him “Jet.” First impressions are that he is a laid-back sort and mostly interested in making games, even turning down a promotion Alan was trying to arrange for him in order to become a lead programmer on Encom's next game. Scratch the surface, and Jet's more troubled than he seems. He and Alan...there's clearly a lot of love, but very little understanding. A flashback and emails indicate that Jet got into trouble in both high school and college. The high school principal remarked on Jet's tendency to make sarcastic interruptions and on his “despondent” behavior. There's also the one note from the police regarding Alan left his wallet when paying Jet's bail. It's stated in a flashback that Jet's arrest was for hacking into the school's mainframe. Jet says he did it because he was “bored,” but another way to read it is that Jet became very used to shoving down his feelings as to not trouble his already-grieving father, bottling them up until they get too much and he does something stupid as a result.
Ghost in the Machine also proposed that Jet had a much more adverse reaction to his time on the Grid than the Flynns did. The adrenaline wears off, and the implications set in. He knows now that “It's an entire universe in there...Every time you shut off your computer, do you know what you're doing? Have you ever reformatted a hard drive...destroyed an entire universe?”
As for a Legacy fanfic writer? Well, Jet and Sam would obviously have grown up together, and probably were the type of friends that sat across from each other in a holding cell going “that was fun” at least once. If Sam's got anyone helping him with the annual stunts, Jet's on the short list. Setting 2.0 prior to Legacy would also require some fast explanation as to the setting differences and why Jet and Alan keep their mouths shut.
Ma3a:
Alan and Lora created the first Math Assistant (Ma1a) in 1988, and she's third in the series. In-game emails, and the casting of Cindy Morgan as her voice, imply that at least part of Lora's mind was compiled with the Program. She really plays like a benevolent and less powerful version of Master Control, giving Jet his missions and advice as she can. However, she is still very much a program. She doesn't recognize Jet as anything other than a User, and usually refers to him as "Alan-2." A revealing conversation comes about when Jet tries to explain the concept of "father" to her, and she can only understand the idea as "a previous version." Again, it's not clear if Alan compiled what was left of Lora into her as accident or by design. What is known is that the pair of them have been working on those correction algorithms for the laser, and that Alan hid them in her code.
Mercury:
Seriously? If someone wanted to write up the idea of some leftover Tron and Yori code going into a new Program (creating a de facto “daughter”), Mercury would be a semi-canonical way to pull it off. Rebecca Romjin is the voice for Mercury, and with the distortion they put on her voice, she still sounds like Mystique from the Singer X-Men films. She's more like the Grid types in that she's ruthless and cunning. However, when the mission required her to sacrifice herself during a reformat, she got Jet out of the way without a blink. There was some implied romantic interest between her and Jet, but there wasn't a lot of screen time exploring it.
I-No:
If Ram had lived to see old age, he'd be I-No. A terribly friendly and relaxed sort, he marvels at Jet's elaborate coding and addresses him as “stranger,” in the same way the nice old man across the street would use “kiddo.” The old Tower Guardian had been around for a long time, and even mentions that he was one of those taken prisoner by the MCP during the film's events. You can easily see him and Dumont having a quiet drink of energy and playing a friendly game of mahjong. He still is a Guardian, though. He chose to accept de-rez when the system he was on went critical.

The less-than good guys
J. D. Thorne:
After being passed up for Vice President of security for Encom, Thorne became receptive to bribes. When he was approached by Crown, he was all too willing to fall for the bribe and sell out Encom's security secrets. His PDA doesn't have a lot of contacts on – the pizza place, a therapist, a few work contacts, and his mom. He also had at least one cat. He agreed to get digitized, believing Alan was lying about the need for correction algorithms. Alan does not bullshit, and Thorne found out the hard way. The process was not stable, and he ended up being a personified computer virus, infecting half of Encom and turning his private server into a sickening wasteland. Eventually, his body just fell apart from all the corruption and a beating by the Infiltration Counter Programs.
Seth Crown III (Attorney):
Born 9-25-74 in New York City. Went to Harvard and Cambridge. He is a medium-built, sharp-dressed African-American man (voiced by David "Sgt. Johnson" Scully). He's listed in his profile as a “born leader,” but he's the kind of “leader” that scares or bribes his people into complying. He's the type of guy, it seems, for whom everyone has a price. Most of his dialogue indicates that he's the guy who could probably hold a gun to someone's head and still keep his voice even. He's also the guy who keeps commenting that they “do something” about Alan, even after locking him in the storage room. One of the emails also states that he paid Alan a visit and made some “persuasive threats.” Whatever those threats were, they worked.
Dr. Eva Popoff (Human resources):
Born 3-13-78 in Lyons, France. Graduated American University of Paris. Native language is French, but she speaks English, Russian, German, and Cantonese as well. It says she's excellent at managing large groups (herd control), but stiff with one-on-one situations. That's the polite way of saying she's the HR manager from hell. She's heavy on the “resources” aspect of the “human resources,” and just a shade above Catbert in attitude. She's usually right behind Crown on the intimidation roll and the most aggressive about launching the Datawraith project – safeguards be hung. Popoff is frankly the most batshit nuts of the three, and completely shameless about the Datawraith project being able to appropriate anything from credit card data to state secrets, giving F-Con an “unprecedented influence over people and nations...erasing any who oppose us!” She and Dillinger Sr. would probably work smashingly together. Hell, if I were to give him a mistress on the side, it would be her (and I'd pity Dillinger).
Esmond Baza (Technician):
Born 11-10-71 in Delhi, India. Educated in Leicester, UK. His file says he's self-critical and prone to bouts of depression. What it means is that he's pretty much been bullied by Crown and Popoff to be the code monkey for their scheme. His clothing is rumpled and his shirt hangs half-open. He's easily bribed and intimidated, which means he's Crown's chew toy. Really, Baza is a weak man strung along by the nastier pair above.

Tron 2.0 for Legacy Fanfic Writers: Part 2, Timeline

2012-02-26T03:32:20Z

2.0's Timeline
Tron 2.0 states that Master Control was destroyed sometime prior to Feb 1982. With the loss of the MCP, no one at Encom was able to replicate the digitizing technology. Of course, for those of us working with Legacy, the dodge involved would be Flynn still had access, but decided to keep it quiet. Maybe his pattern was stored in there and would be safe, and that he was able to tinker with the algorithms from the inside after seven years of experimenting; possibly with the Isos' help. Maybe he was about to announce that he'd solved that issue and introduce the Isos when Clu decided to take over, and this could be used as a dodge for that Idiot Ball Flynn was carting in regards to why he was making regular trips into cyberspace without anyone else. Going with this theory means his pattern was the only one that could be transported safely.

Per the Ghost in the Machine comic, Flynn went insane and vanished several years after his trip through cyberspace, with no one sure where he is. The main difference is that the last we hear of Flynn is 1999 instead of 1989. So, Legacy compliance means fudging the timeline, but the fact Flynn AND Tron vanish with no one knowing where they went? TOTALLY works in your favor.

The other main thing you have to dodge is Lora's fate. In the Legacy timeline, she was sent to Washington DC for a contract job, and appears alive and well at the Flynn Lives event in San Francisco, still married to Alan and (apparently) happily so. In 2.0's timeline, she was killed in October 1994 when the digitizer misfired. It's implied that she was partly digitized and that what's left of her is Ma3a. Whether this was an accident or if Alan did it deliberately isn't clear. Not like I'd put either option past Mr. Bradley. If you're feeling generous, just use the “our spirit remains in every program” loophole from the movie to explain Ma3a. If you're less than generous...well, I'm sure we can think of something.

Here's the 2.0 trimeline as it appears in-game.

February1982:
-Master Control has been shut down by this point, and the secret to digitizing anything (or anyone) seems to have been lost with it.
- Flynn comes up with the idea for the Tron arcade game and asks Alan for permission to use the name.

May 1982: Flynn replies back to Alan and Lora's request for parental leave with a note of “you guys didn't waste any time, did you?” (Ah, the marvelous Flynn tact...) And adds that he'd be honored to be the kid's godfather.

December1982: Jethro Eugene Bradley is born. 7 pounds and 8 ounces for anyone playing along at home. Flynn jokes the kid will beat his high score at Space Paranoids within a few months.

October 1983: Flynn gives the green light to a Tron upgrade. There's an email from Alan that indicates Flynn told him everything, and said that was worried about the digitizing tech falling into the wrong hands. Alan found the whole prospect of a human manipulating a computer from the inside “frightening.”

December 1983: Alan's been working on the Tron upgrade, but hasn't implemented it because of a slight problem...With the patch, Tron would go from fighting for the Users to “kill any User that invades the system!” (Clu would probably trade five Isos and Jarvis's left arm for that code. Would have made “Rinzler” much worse).

August 1984: The plan to upgrade Tron gets shelved by Flynn himself, ostensibly to work on restoring the digitizing technology, since the MCP's destruction set them back. Alan's mollified by the chance to be working side-by-side with Lora. Even though Alan uploads the code to the server, Tron himself has curiously gone MIA from Encom's old server. (“Flynn, you sneaky bastard!”)

January 1988: Math Assistant 1 (Ma1a) is implemented. By March, it's capable of recognizing 64 voice commands.

June 1990: Flynn steps down from Encom. Walter Gibbs Jr. Takes his place as Senior Exec VP.

October 1994: Lora Bradly has a fatal accident in the digitizing lab due to a misfiring laser. It's implied that she was partly digitized, and that what was left of her in the system formed the basis of Ma3a (explaining why it is Ms. Morgan's voice under all that distortion).

March 1998:
* A note from Jet's high school indicating he's in trouble for mouthing off to a teacher and sarcastic remarks in the classroom, along with “despondent” behavior.
* A note from the police sergeant saying that Alan left his wallet behind when posting bail for Jet. An in-game flashback indicates that Jet was arrested for hacking into the school's mainframe, ostensibly out of “boredom.”

Feb 1999: Jet's university grades: A in computer science, and 3 classes graded “incomplete.”

October 1999: This is the last we hear from Flynn. It's an email asking how Alan is “holding up.” It appears as though Flynn's working on a screenplay about his memoirs, too. Alan jokes about who they'd cast to play his part. (Ever watch Babylon 5, Mr Bradley?)

May 2002: Thorne is passed up for a promotion to Vice President of Corporate Security. This sets up for why he was greedy and stupid enough to contact Crown and to take Crown's offer.

June 2002: Jet starts working the game division. Judging from the emails, Alan had to talk him into it because Jet needed a co-signer for an apartment lease, and Alan wasn't going to do it unless Jet had a job.

July 2002: Thorne contacts Crown for “freelance work.”

August 2002: Alan announces that with Ma3a's computational ability, the laser may be capable of digitizing organic matter again.

November 2002: Thorne sees Alan run the “orange test” (zapping an orange through the system) and reports it to F-con.

December 2002:
* Walter Gibbs Jr. starts laying groundwork for the merger with F-Con
* J. D. Thorne (Encom's security officer) is approached by to make it a more hostile takeover.
* A gossip email from an “Olivia” to “Nick” says the CFO of Encom is in trouble for misappropriation of funds.
* Alan tries to talk Gibbs Jr. out of selling.

March 2003: The events of the game.
* There is a note in there of Alan trying to contact Flynn using a home address, but there's no indication that Flynn's there to use it.
* A note from “Patrick” (Games department head) to Alan saying that Jet is more than pulling his weight and will be bumped up to lead programmer for their next title.

September or October 2003: The Ghost in the Machine comic

Tron 2.0 for Legacy Fanfic Writers: Part 1

2012-02-26T03:19:31Z

Greetings!

As many know, there were two sequels to Tron: Tron Legacy, which is canon, and the 2004 first-person shooter Tron 2.0, which has unfortunately been declared "non-canon," and downgraded to apocrypha.

However, that does it a great disservice as 2.0 has a rich array of characters, weaponry, scenarios, and situations to add to the greater whole of the setting. Furthermore, there is only a single detail that puts the timelines in direct conflict. Otherwise, the events of Tron 2.0 could be ported into Legacy-compliant fanfic with very little trouble. In fact, it is not uncommon to find a nod to Jet or Ma3a inside what is otherwise straight-up Legacy scenarios.

This is half-review and half analysis of Tron 2.0, with an emphasis on what fanfic writers will be able to strip mine for their own purposes. Walkthroughs and Let's Play videos will also give you a view of the game canon.

The Story:

Tron 2.0 came out in 2004, and was probably a test-run for Legacy. The plot of the game itself is that a rival company called Future Control Industries (F-Con) is looking to buy out Encom for the digitizing tech. They plan to use it to digitize groups of elite mercenaries into DataWraiths so that F-Con can obtain and control anything from credit card numbers to state secrets. Those who control the data, controls the world. The F-con CEO is never seen, but Word of God says it was Dillinger Sr. the fact that he is not seen can fit in with "The Next Day" canon of Dillinger Jr. addressing his father (or what he thinks is his father) through a computer interface.

As far as F-Con knows, the only obstacle is Alan Bradley, who has been working obsessively on the digitizing algorithms since his wife's untimely death and close friend's disappearance several years earlier. (No matter the time line, life sucks for him.) He's hidden the data somewhere, but no one but him knows where. F-Con has been trying to work on the same technology on their own, but they haven't perfected it. Digitize a human without the proper corrections, and the end result is a virus-infected, barely-sentient monster. They digitized the traitorous J. D. Thorne into the system, and he's become a living virus, infecting Programs by the score.
The virus infested Programs go insane, and become Z-lots, fanatically loyal to “Master User Thorne.” While the Z-lots are infesting Encom's systems, the terrible trio of Crown, Popoff, and Baza pay an unfriendly visit to Alan Bradley to intimidate him into handing over the digitizing tech. An unsuspecting Alan is on the phone to his son, Jet. Jet hears the struggle, races downstairs, and Ma3a turns the laser on him.

Once in the system, there isn't much for characterization. Jet's aided by a Byte sent by Ma3a. Byte is very sarcastic and fairly oblivious to danger, while Jet is in over his head and just wants to find either Ma3a (to get home) or his dad (to help out). Worse, the Z-lots focus on him as a powerful Program to assimilate and the ICP (Infiltration Countermeasure Programs) think he caused the corruption!

Jet fights his way through several levels, but is eventually arrested and taken before the Kernel (pretty much your stereotypical “General Hardass” type). A mysterious Program (later revealed to be Mercury) talks him into putting Jet on the Game Grid. Queue three rounds of lightcycle races (which are a pain in the ass with this game). Mercury is current champion of the Games, and she uses a Flynn-style trick of making an escape route. In her case, she shoots down a guard tower to make a ramp of fallen debris over the wall. Jet dodges his opponents and vaults over the wall, meeting up with Mercury.

Mercury is a rather sultry, self-confident warrior program, and only knows her User as someone named “Guest.” She teaches Jet how to turn his lightcycle rod into an improvised weapon. She isn't sure if she believes Jet is a User, but senses there's something "special" about him. They split up to try and find Ma3a. Que more fighting until the Kernel declares the system a loss and engages a reformat. Jet is able to find Ma3a and head for an escape, but Mercury is caught in the reformat.

Jet is taken to Alan's home computer. Ma3a finally explains what the heck she was thinking when she zapped Jet – a User would be the best chance of clearing the corruption from the system. She also suspects something in the Tron Legacy code (no relation, but worth a chuckle) will be able to help. Lucky for Jet, Alan is an archive nut. What else do you expect from a guy who probably still uses an abacus to balance his checkbook? There are three emails on Alan's system regarding a certain security program we all adore. Thing is, Alan had an upgrade almost ready, albeit one with a few bugs. Curiously, as he was about to apply that upgrade, the project was suspended....Flynn's orders. (Y'all went the same place I did, didn't you?)

Jet leaves and gets on a packet transport back to the Encom system. In the 2.0 universe, Recognizers have been re-purposed into mass transit. Of course, you could always say that it's just the obsolete models that got re-fitted. He goes through the power routing system to get the archaic 1982 server back online (lots of brawling and jumping, not much plot), and then it's out of frying pan and into the fire with a Seeker. Think those sandworms from Dune colored a sick pink-purple and shooting freaking lasers from their orifice.
Well, he takes out that and gets dropped into the ancient server.

Here's where life gets interesting. The Tower Guardian, I-No, is an extremely pleasant guy. He also lets it slip that he was one of the Guardians the MCP kidnapped at the end of the first film. It's not a stretch to see him being BFFs with Dumont. He curiously mentions that while the legacy code is on the server, Tron himself retired, then vanished from the old server shortly after Master Control's defeat and that no one knows where he is. (Oh, REALLY now? Flynn, you sneaky son of a bitch...). Thing is, there are also a gauntlet of tanks to run, which Flynn programmed to be indestructible and read-only (Flynn, you idiot!). So Jet runs the gauntlet, heads into the heart of the server, and has to overclock the thing into self-destruct to get Ma3a and download the legacy code. The predictable results occur of the system shaking itself apart. However, he does reach Ma3a, I-no and the Legacy Code (which looks like a golden sphere). Jet gets the code, and escapes with Ma3a, but the old Guardian chooses to stay with his system to the end.

Next stop is the internet, which looks like Coruscant. Jet and Ma3a need a compiler to help them with the Legacy Code. They find one, but he isn't strong enough. And it seems that every Program around has heard of Tron. His conspicuous absence is also a topic of speculation, but the man...er script himself has passed into the status of legend. The low-level compiler recommends heading to the Progress Bar. Unfortunately, there's an onslaught of Z-lots and Jet has to hold them off. After the fight, he meets Mercury, but she doesn't know who he is and her personality is gone. She's been re-installed from backup. After Jet fights off more Z-lots and a Rector script (think a wraith that spews the virus, infecting Programs in range), a grateful citizen gives him the permission to enter the Progress Bar.

The Progress Bar is a cousin of the End of Line; a place for the Programs to relax, have a drink of energy, and hang out. There's also a compiler for those who want to use his services to upgrade. The DJ...well, he's no Daft Punk. So, Jet asks around and finds a tune most of the Programs would like played. While everyone's on the dance floor, he gets the code compiled. The code itself goes into Ma3a. (However, Jet also volunteered to be a host for it! If that's not fanfic fodder...) The corrupted Thorne shows up and Jet had to hold him off while Ma3a is compiling to Tron Legacy Code code into her system. Worse, No sooner has that code compiled than Jet gets a video message from Alan warning him not to do it! Remember that bug from earlier? Yeah, Alan never worked it out.

Ma3a proceeds to go bonkers and kills Byte in the process. Jet hops on his light cycle and hauls ass. Just as he's managed and escape, a Seeker grabs Ma3a. After that, Jet fights his way across a remote node to get to Thorne's secure server so he can unlock the door to Alan's makeshift prison.

Back at the F-Con labs, it's explained that Alan hid the algorithms for the digitizer in Ma3a, explaining why Jet suffered no ill effects from the digitization. F-con sent the Seeker to appropriate her for the DataWraith project. An Encom employee (they're merging the companies) also expresses worry that several Encom employees, including Thorne and the Bradleys, have gone missing. The F-Con guy ignores the Encom one. Worse, Alan gets caught outside the storeroom. Crown, the nastiest of the three F-Con goons, decide to make and example/test of him and throw Alan in front of the digitizer, zapping him into the system. This, if one is genre-savvy, was probably F-Con's dumbest move, next to locking a computer genius in a storage closet full of discarded computer parts...After they verify Alan is still alive and reasonably intact after zapping him, they prep the first batch.

Jet finally gets in contact with Alan, but Alan looks different. In fact, he looks like he borrowed his security Program's old duds and looks ridiculous in them. Strangely enough, both Jet and Alan lose the glasses when they hit cyberspace, but it doesn't seem to impact their vision. They're both on Thorne's server – a glow in the dark apocalypse that makes Za'ha'dum look like a vacation spot. So while Alan hides from corrupted Programs (he's unarmed), Jet sides with the ICP Programs to fight off the virus. They'll need to find one another and then find Ma3a, as she had the algorithms to get them home. Thorne probably knows how to get to the F-Con servers and where they'd hide Ma3a, so they need to find him before the ICP units do. Eventually, Jet battles his way up to the system's core. Thorne's there, Alan's there, but so is the ICP Kernel, and the Kernel just wants to de-rez Thorne outright – cannot blame him one freaking bit! However, the Kernel allows a one-on-one battle with disks to determine the winner. Jet dispatches the Kernel, but Thorne is on the verge of death. Before the poor bastard finally dies, he tells the Bradleys that his PDA has a dial-up connection that bypasses the firewall.

Jet gets uploaded to the PDA, but the PDA is junk; Alan has to be left behind. From inside Thorne's PDA, Jet has to turn everything on and put such a drain on the memory and power that the OS decides to cry “uncle” and push him to the F-Con server. All well and good, now all Jet has to do it bring Alan over. Brawling his way through Fcon's sockets, he finally knocks down enough of them to take down the firewall. Here is his first encounter with datawraiths. They're neon purple, masked, and can appear and reappear at will. They also don't speak, instead emitting an eerie clattering noise that Rinzler would only make on his worst day. The Programs are actually terrified of them. Configuring and aligning the socket rings, the connection is made, and Alan's through! Cut to the F-Con lab (http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/tron/lostalan/lostalan.htm) where they're freaking out about not being able to locate Alan in the system and that there seems to be another someone helping him.

Jet clears the area of Datawraiths and F-Con ICP units for Alan to follow. They discover the mobile server F-Con plans on using to deploy the Datawraiths across the internet go steal information they oughtn't have. Alan takes a look at the schematics while Jet goes to take out the server's docking clamps. Jet heads to the tethers and Alan contacts him. The server is powerful, but unstable. They're going to crash it from the inside. Jet wonders if they'll go down with the ship. To Alan's credit, the idea of a heroic sacrifice never crosses his mind. The plan is to destabilize the server, grab Ma3a, and get out before it crashes. (Apparently, that “dying heroically” nonsense is Flynn's tactic, not Alan's!). Meanwhile, it seems that when Jet de-rezzes a Datawraith, the corresponding mercenary is dumped back at F-Con's digitizer lab. They finally figure out that there really is another User in the system helping Alan out. And while the wraiths at least survive long enough to get to a doctor, we have no idea whether or not they remain alive for long.

Jet takes out the docking clamps, fights off a squad of Datawraiths, then heads to the cargo bay. More Datawraiths and another Seeker wait. He takes those out and hops a transport to the server itself. Fighting his way down to the server's core, he starts engaging a series of override circuits until the server starts to take down functions to stay online. He then finds Ma3a and Alan, surrounded by ICP guards. Again, Jet dispatches those. Alan takes over trying to debug Ma3a while Jet heads to the stabilizers – once those go down, the server is history. To do so, it's another lightcycle chase against Datawraiths in training and they consider five of them to one opponent perfectly valid odds. Eventually, Alan is able to send Mercury to distract some of them enough for Jet to get off the training grid.

And that's when the Terrible Trio at F-Con decide they're going to win the Darwin Award and go in themselves! Baza balks, but Crown uses his usual combo of bribe and bully to get Baza in on this insane stunt. They get digitized...but Alan's freed Ma3a. The Terrible Trio became corrupted in transport.

Jet is able to get into the command module and start the system crash. Again with the horde of Datawraiths and ICPs trying to stop him while the place is literally falling apart around his ears. Just as he reaches the digitizer stream to go home, he sees Mercury. She's sad to see him go, and comments that the Program world is “too crude and rudimentary. ” He tells her to save herself, and she promises she will. Ma3a activates the beam and Alan steps inside. Unfortunately, when Jet does, the Terrible Trio are right behind him.

On a series of floating platforms, he battles the three of them, eventually knocking each one off and into limbo. As the last one is defeated, the digitizer kicks in and he arrives, safe, at F-Con labs. He's a little shaken about the whole thing, and comments that he'll never drop another laptop again. Alan retrieved Ma3a and Mercury managed to escape the server. As for the Terrible Trio? They're on a ultra-secure external hard disk, and Alan will try to do what he can for them...but it seems he's not in a big hurry to do so. F-con's mysterious overseer (again, implied to be Dillinger Sr.) threatens revenge, but the Bradleys walk out of the lab and away from the computers for a while.