How Are You, Gentlemen?

Dec 27, 2012 08:28

THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR TRON LEGACY IN THIS APP, I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING.



Player Information ;
Your Nickname: Blue!
OOC Journal: fluffysparkle
Under 18? Not for a long time.
Email/IM: send me an LJ PM, hit me up by email: loyalty.ever@gmail.com, and once every blue moon I'm actually on AIM at notamctaggert
Characters Played at Singularity: Moira Brown, Shepherd Book

Character Information ;
Name:Clu (Codified Likeness Utility)
Name of Canon: Tron: Legacy
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: AU; post-film/Expanded Universe (game and comic).
Reference: Here, have a Wiki.
Canon Point: Recovered from an errant backup, post-film.
Setting:

Welcome to the Grid. This is your computer on some real good shit, maaan, c. 1982. This particular Grid represents the inside of Kevin Flynn's computer. In here, the information highway is literal, decked with lightcycles (which transfer Programs quickly), massive Recognizer and Rectifier transports (mass transfer and warships, respectively), and the occasional tank (blows shit up: security protocols or espionage). Within the Grid, Programs are living entities that mirror their Users' appearance. More advanced Programs, like Tron and Clu, laugh in the face of your puny Turing test.

Inside the Grid, Users--humans plunked down in front of their computer screens--are revered, seen as an entity somewhere between a god and a Jedi master. Kevin Flynn is god to the Programs on this Grid, having designed most of it himself, including the Game Grid, where Programs can earn the acclaim of their peers (and your quarters) in simulations like Disc Wars and Space Paranoids. He's also written himself a pretty sweet apartment in the hills of the Outlands.

See, Kevin Flynn, the User, Creator of all he surveys, has been a ghost in the machine for the last twenty-seven years. But we'll get to that; there's time.

Citizens of the Grid are right at home with technology and possess several advancements, mostly mechanical, not seen in our world: bikes that pull 90-degree turns, tanks that fly for no real reason and with no discernible means of propulsion. Then, of course, there are the killer read-write Frisbees and the ever-popular glowing stun sticks.

Everything in the Grid glows. Everything. No exceptions. Living in this world is like being inside a blacklight.

The Grid is a closed system, and has been since 1989. Contact with the outside was re-established in 2010, using a land line telephone connection to call a pager, but Users enter the Grid by means of a super-advanced laser interface that works because it's magic sufficiently advanced technology. That's...pretty much the world of Tron: massively advanced overkill side by side with analogue modems that measure their connectivity in Baud rate.

But who was phone, man. That's what Programs had to work with before Clu cut them off from the outside world.

Which brings us back to Kevin Flynn. A lead programmer for the ENCOM corporation, his day job involves mainframe work. He writes video games in his spare time at night. Because he develops them on company property, rival programmer Ed Dilinger is able to hack Flynn's shit, steal the games, slap his name on them, and take all the credit. The games are a runaway success. Dilinger becomes pimp master of all he surveys. Flynn is fired.

But he's not gonna take it, no! He ain't gonna take it! He's not gonna take it, anymorrre!

Long story short: Flynn breaks into ENCOM with the help of his BFF and his BFF's girl, who used to be his girl; it's complicated. The psychotic mainframe AI that's been running the show while Kev was away arms a top sekrit laser and beams him into the computer, where he meet's his BFF's Program, Tron, and they work together to save the digital world. (But really it's La Roux's headspace with Adobe gradients slathered over the top).

They succeed. Flynn becomes pimp master of all he surveys. Dilinger is fired. Flynn's BFF becomes executive consultant, and they all live like kings, happily ever after. BFF and his girl get married, and Flynn marries another girl, and everything's totally tubular in paradise, dude.

But the times, they are a changin'. The Grid is becoming more advanced and intricate, just like life outside. Meanwhile, the ENCOM board harasses Flynn and blocks his initiatives at every turn, because corporations are always evil and guys in power suits are always dicks.

In 1983, Flynn almost misses the birth of his son, Sam, because he's busy arguing with stupid executives and dealing with expansion issues on the Grid. Even Tron's upgrades and continued help aren't enough. That's when Flynn realizes he's got to be in two places at once.

On a bright spring day in '83, Flynn programs Clu--his personal Codified Likeness Utility. (Could be worse. His name could've been Ava, for Avatar, and then everyone would wonder where his stylish tats went.) As a system admin and monitor, Clu is tasked with creating the perfect system.

Which is all well and good, except for worsening glitches, literal swarms of bugs, and a sudden...massive anomaly in the Sea of Simulation.

No one wrote Ophelia. She just arrived, born from the waters like a pagan goddess, threaded with light and life. She was the first ISO. But there were more, soon, all appearing independently. They had no directives, no set function, no instructions to carry out--and no Users. They were energy beings, spontaneous and powerful, and full of innocent wonder when it came to the world they found themselves in.

Unfortunately, their brave new world had Clu in it. They were unaccounted for, unpredictable, and entirely incompatible with Clu's stated function and design. They were imperfect, a blot on the system and a drain on its already taxed resources.

And Clu blamed Flynn for their creation. Over the next few years, Clu hoarded resources, converted or de-rezzed opposing Programs on the sly, and made all kinds of trouble for the ISOs, blaming them for everything he orchestrated. Clu eventually seized full control of the system, rewrote Tron to be on his team, and wiped out the ISOs.

Which brings us, plus or minus the entire plot of the movie, to where we stand now.

Personality: Pompous and analytical, with a flash-bang temper, Clu is used to being the boss and is hooked on the adulation of the crowd. Any group of admirers will do, but the thunder of Programs clamoring for the destruction of their peers...That's purer than music. Corrupted and destabilized by twenty years of absolute power, he frequently lapses into a snide inversion of Flynn's laid back, aging hippie platitudes, man. Clu is vulnerable to flattery--and just as likely to slag cronies who irritate him with too much drivel. In a way, he has to believe he deserves what he hears--the praise he feels Flynn denied him, the wonder his Creator wasted on the ISOs.

Clu is impressed by prowess and skill, especially physical (eg. marksmanship, parkour, stealth, etc.) and technological (hax, building or refining machinery). Originally programmed as a monitor and admin, he'll ask questions first and then shoot: he wants your information, Program. And he will get it. What happens to you after that is not high on his priority list.

He is supremely arrogant. He hates losing almost as much as he hated the ISOs. He'll cheat to win, and rub your face in it. Imagine every X-Box Live match you ever lost to a ten-year-old cranked on Mountain Dew. Now add Death Frisbee and a touch of The Dude. That is Clu's attitude in competition.

His idea of teamwork is using you for a decoy.

Being flawed himself, he will not tolerate flaws in others--though there seems to be a blind spot where other programs or AI are concerned. He saves most of his compulsive raeg for organics and people who move his stuff when he isn't looking. He has--issues--with his own reflection, and thus prefers smooth, dark planar surfaces with a high shine; they break his image up into patterns and fractals, creating abstract data that he doesn't have to consider too closely.

And hexagons are his favorite shape. Ever.

Abilities and Weaknesses:

Abilities include:
  • Compulsive attention to detail, often at the expense of everything else.
  • Fluency in most pseudocode; adequate proficiency in archaic languages (eg. BASIC, FORTRAN)
  • Physical skills comparable with a second-or-third karate belt. He's fairly agile and not a wuss, but more powerful characters can mop the floor with him!
  • Level Boss: Disc Wars. You might think you're better than me, but can't no one beat my man Rinzler.
  • Final Boss: Lightcycle Grid. He will kill you with the glowing contrails of his motorbike. He'll also sucker you into getting your friends killed.

Weaknesses include:
  • Compulsive attention to detail, often at the expense of everything else.
  • Misinterprets newer technology. For example, he still expects that a pure tone of exactly 2600 Hz will crack Audio posts.
  • Guns? He has no idea how they work or even what they would be useful for. None. Whatsoever.
  • A veteran of a closed system, he is vulnerable to hacking and manipulation by stronger AI and/or masters of all the hax, especially those capable of subtlety.
  • Appeals to vanity and/or ego will get you absolutely everywhere.
  • I'll be introducing errors into the character, to reflect his...sorta glitchy...ressurected state. Examples include processing delay, vulnerability to attack, selective amnesia, and the occasional bout of word salad.
  • To produce incapacitating rabid mouthfoam? Mention Flynn.
  • Mention Flynn. Steal shit while Clu's back is turned. Or just punch him inna face and laugh. Then, die.

Inventory: The clothes/light armor on his back. It glows, bitches.

Identity disc: a piece of high-density material that records the life of a Program. Once the disc is activated, everything the Program does or learns is written to it. This disc is the source of Clu's mostly-intact backup. If someone were to nab or copy it, they'd be able to download a record of his memories from his reactivation up until they caught the disc: they'll know everything about him from his time on Singularity. They can't access his old system files (events in the Legacy game or movie), mostly to prevent fourth-walling and save me a lot of pain in the ass as mun.

The disc is also a hollow Frisbee weapon, similar to Xena's hollow metal Frisbee, but less sharp: this disc cuts clothing and flesh, but not metal. A thrown disc will always return to its owner unless forcibly intercepted (knocked into a sucking vortex of doom, fricking stolen, etc. etc.)

Attempting to copy Clu's disc? Contact me. Hacking it is also probably pretty hard.

Appearance: Clu is 27, give or take, but looks about 35, with crows' feet, blue eyes, and a full-on blonde mullet, as last rocked by Earth humans when Bush Sr. was President. Clu's got a weird, plastic finish to him that should be off-putting for most. He looks like what he is: a synthetic.

Age: 27, going on 35

OC/AU Justification ;

If AU, How is Your Version Different From Canon, and How Will That Come Across?

Coming from post-movie, he's aware that he de-rezzed and knows how it was done, and by whom. Otherwise, wiping out and coming back is uncommon for Programs but not that rare, and other than wanting ~revenge~, it's not going to alter him much.

I drew on some expanded universe things to explain setting and background, like details about the ISOs, but this shouldn't really affect play so much.

Honestly, most of the AU stuff will only make a difference/allow him to recognize certain Legacy characters when and if they appear, and only if they are cool with it OOC. I just...over-research my roles. Basically. Herp derp.

If OC, Did You Run Your Character Through a Mary-Sue Litmus Test?
And What Did You Score?

For fun, I ran him through the test anyway and got 19. Oh man, villains run high, don't they?

Samples ;
Please consider some Dear Mun tags

and Clu's Dear Mun intro thread, instead?

I never know what to write for these things, s-sobbity-sob-sob.

singularity_rpg, all your base

Previous post Next post
Up