application | ataraxion
PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: Siri
OOC Journal: hearyourghost
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Negative, Ghost Rider.
Email + IM: hopeforrent[at]gmail | coolercouleur on AIM + Plurk
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Ward [NPC]
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Gibson
Canon: Tron: Evolution
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: Mid-sparklesplosion, or .0005 seconds before he dies.
Number: 148
Setting: Tron Wiki on Tron: Evolution and Gibson himself.
tl;dr: once upon a time, Jeff Bridges made a magic computer with a bunch of tiny glowing people living inside and stashed it under his arcade. Twenty years later, that magic computer turned into a shiny neon dystopia.
... okay, maybe a little more detail would be better.
The history of the Grid goes a little something like this: in the early 1980s, The Dude a maverick software CEO named Kevin Flynn created a world inside a computer, which he dubbed the Grid. The Grid isn't a virtual reality as we would think of them; it's really more like an actual, physical reality that just so happens to be contained within a mainframe from the 1980s. Flynn discovered-slash-created this special new computer-world via the use of some very creative programming and a possibly-stolen laser capable of transferring objects from the real world into a computer-and vice versa. (This is, honestly, one of those things you've just got to roll with in order for the plot of anything Tron-related to make any sense whatsoever.) He was able to enter and exit the Grid using this super-special laser, and used his powers as Creator-or God, essentially-to build a really, really awesome digital world. Computer programs-like firewalls, calendar programs, and MP3 players-manifest as humanoid people inside the Grid, and this is essentially how the Grid gained any sort of population at all. (Yes, your computer runs on the work of little neon people. Shh. Tron logic.) Flynn also imported Tron, a security program written by his friend Alan Bradley, from another system in order to maintain order on the Grid, and created Clu, a program "in his own image", to be the Grid's system administrator when Flynn wasn't around. Clu's directive was to create the perfect system, which proves to be a very poor choice of words on Flynn's part and totally comes back to bite him in the ass later.
The three of them then stepped back and began to let the Grid really run, and everything was bright and shiny and awesome for a while. Basically, this story is a huge Judeo-Christian mythological allegory-complete with miracles! Programs called ISOs-or isomorphic algorithms-spontaneously generated, fully-formed, in the Sea of Simulation. Unlike the other programs on the Grid, who were thereafter known as "Basics", ISOs had no specifically-programmed directives. This made them essentially independent operators, which was deeply disturbing to the Basics. Basic society was based on a strictly regimented class system, determined by both programs' inherent functions and their priority rankings within the system. This system did not allow for programs without a function to even exist, let alone become integrated into society, and this conflict between Basic society and ISO everything is, essentially, the root of most of the problems in the Tron universe.
Flynn explicitly referred to the newly-formed ISOs as "miracles" and became fascinated by the new arrivals to the Grid, possibly to the detriment of the (quite literally) millions of Basics left on the Grid. Not everyone was so thrilled about the shiny new arrivals, however; Clu, Flynn's first creation, resented the ISOs and Flynn's new affection for them, thinking they were dangerous signs of chaos and instability on the Grid. (ALSO DADDY DIDN'T LOVE HIM ANY MORE. Seriously, you think I'm kidding about the Judeo-Christian parallels? I'm really, really not.) Eventually Clu committed genocide, staged a coup, kicked Flynn into exile, and ran the new, Basic-only Grid with a neon fist, but we're not quite there yet during Evolution. Although ISOs attempted to integrate into the society of the Grid as best they could, and Flynn encouraged both ISOs and Basics to get along for the good of the Grid as a whole, tensions between the two groups increased drastically as time went on.
History:Gibson self-generated-or rezzed, to use the in-game terminology-in TC148 (or somewhere around 1986, according to the real-world calendar), making him a Beta-class ISO. (It's never quite stated in canon what the difference between Alpha- and Beta-class ISOs actually is. For the purposes of this app, the only difference between them is age, with Alpha-class ISOs generating first.) After first rezzing, Gibson lived in the City Core, like most other new ISOs, and was promptly assigned to System Utilities' engineering corps. He quickly demonstrated a talent for energy-transference engineering, partially due to his inherent ability to "see" (or sense) the flow of energy that underlies everything on the Grid.
Gibson chafed slightly under all of the rules in the City Core-for example, the whole NAVI Bit concept? totally insulting-but he never thought about actually leaving the city until a violent altercation at work essentially pushed him out of his job in TC172. To hear Gibson tell the story, the fight was caused by his Basic coworkers' xenophobia and jealousy of his talent, and not much else. Gibson had gained a reputation for being really, really good at developing innovative energy transfer systems, and his coworkers were none too pleased with that little fact. One of his Basic coworkers stole some plans he was developing for a new energy-refinement station near Arjia and attempted to pass them off as his own. (The parallels with Kevin Flynn's backstory are... unavoidable, at this point, but also mostly unintentional.) Gibson didn't technically start the fight, but he publicly called his coworker on stealing his plans and essentially provoked the other guy into throwing the first punch.
It's worth noting at this point that Gibson isn't an entirely reliable narrator, and the sections of the game which contain this story are also marked with the in-character equivalent of [citation needed] every-goddamn-where.
Anyway, as a result of this fight, Gibson gets booted out of System Utilities, leaving himself without a job to do in a society in which quite literally everything is based around your function. What's an ISO to do? Well, if you're Gibson, you run off to the middle of nowhere and join a bunch of loosely-organized, leather-fetishist radical separatists. Yep.
The Bostrumites are a small group of ISOs who were trying to shield themselves from xenophobic abuse by essentially picking up their toys and moving to the middle of the wilderness. They have green circuitry, which distinguishes themselves both from Basics and from other ISOs, and they're prone to some rather hardcore code modification, which can (and often does) manifest physically. This both helps them survive in the harsh conditions of the Outlands, and further delineates them from normal programs-ISO and Basic alike. Essentially, they're the cyberpunk leather-fetishist capital of the Grid, and they're okay with that. Although the Bostrumites were a rather extreme reaction to ISO/Basic tension, and they weren't exactly great in number, the fact that they existed at all attests to the fact that ISOs and Basics were not getting along like they should have been. The Bostrum Colony essentially runs on an egalitarian democratic system-which is highly unusual in a largely hierarchical, theocratic world-run by a governing council, with the occasional colony-wide quorum on the super-important stuff. (These meetings have a really alarming tendency to turn into riots, given the motley collection of programs who live in Bostrum, but it's okay. They're used to it by now.)
Gibson quickly proves himself useful to the colony, since the Outlands aren't exactly the most hospitable place to live, and both finding new sources of energy and increasing energy efficiency are high-priority issues to the Bostrumites. He also, through some miracle of abs charm and good looks, ends up getting elected to the governing council. Even more surprisingly, he doesn't actually suck at politics, and gets re-elected several times. He still thinks of himself as an engineer first and foremost, but he also feels more responsible for his people than he would have before.
Things proceed as normal for about a hundred cycles, with a couple of major exceptions. First: the Sea of Simulation, the place responsible for the generation of the ISOs, unexpectedly... ceased to be alive. The ISOs as a whole seemed to have a sort of empathic connection with the Sea, and it's implied that they all felt it die, regardless of their proximity to the Sea itself. This was a disaster for the ISOs as a whole, as not only was the Sea the place where they generated, but after its death? There would be no more new ISOs. Ever. For an already embattled minority, this was a crushing loss. (The Sea was actually poisoned by Clu in an attempt to keep the "ISO menace" and their chaos from taking over the Grid, but that's not public knowledge at this point-or ever, to be honest-and Gibson doesn't know about it.)
Second: Jalen, an Arjian political leader and one of the ISOs tapped to become co-sysadmin with Clu, died in a tragic-and unexpectedly, suspiciously violent-Game Grid accident. Jalen's participation in the tournament was intended as a sort of peace offering to the Basics. Despite the fact that ISOs weren't allowed to compete in the Game Grid, he assumed that by trying to participate in Basic culture, the Basics would then accept him (and the other ISOs) as part of their society. Unfortunately, he sort of died in the process. The Bostrumites immediately launched into CONSPIRACY THEORY MODE, since no one had died in the Game Grid for hundreds of cycles at that point, but there was no proof that it was anything other than an accident until several cycles later.
In TC301, however, Gibson's life starts to get really interesting. Not only does a virus named Abraxas surface, infecting everything and everyone in his path and generally creating chaos wherever he goes, but ISO/Basic tension seems to be kicked up to eleven. (At this point, it's worth noting that the virus Abraxas is actually Jalen, who didn't actually die on the Game Grid, but was actually corrupted by Clu in an effort to create a legitimate reason for his ISO genocide. (Clu also mentions that the virus is the ~evolution~ of the ISOs at every chance he gets, because apparently he hasn't twirled his evil mustache enough yet.) However, Gibson doesn't know any of this. He just thinks Abraxas is that crazy yellow guy who wants to spread the pain.)
While hanging out at End of Line-a bar in the City Core that catered to both ISOs and Basics-Gibson just so happens to overhear a conversation between the club's owner, Zuse, and a blue-circuited program he didn't know. (There was also a System Monitor there, but he didn't contribute much to the conversation beyond quizzical headtilting.) The unfamiliar program insisted that Flynn was dead, that Clu had betrayed him, and that she had seen it all happen. Gibson decides to check this out for himself, and as it turns out, her report wasn't entirely accurate. Clu had betrayed Flynn and attempted to kill Tron, but Flynn was still alive and hiding in the City Core. Gibson finds Flynn and smuggles him out of the City to Bostrum-which is in the middle of nowhere, and therefore infinitely safer-with the help of some friends. (You can thank him later.)
Although Gibson intended to follow his friends to Bostrum later, this plan is ruined somewhat by his sudden capture by a passing Black Guard patrol. The Grid's lack of habeas corpus laws means that he could technically have been arrested just for "looking suspicious" (aka being a Bostrumite in the middle of the City Core), but it's more likely that Clu found out about Gibson's rescue and decided to have him taken care of. Gibson ends up as a contestant on the Game Grid-which, as of that millicycle, was being turned into a set of neon-lit, extremely lethal gladiatorial games. Awesome.
Luckily, just before the Games are due to start, rescue arrives in the form of the System Monitor from the End of Line. As it turns out, the Arjian leader/prophet/plot device Radia sent the Monitor to the arena to save Gibson's ass before he gets himself killed-and he's got really really coincidental timing. Gibson casually takes advantage of the Monitor's willingness to trust him in order to trick him into switching places, dumping Anon onto the Game Grid in Gibson's place. (Anon is less than impressed with this tactic.) Gibson makes up for it later, though, as he comes back to rescue the Monitor partway through the fights. Basically, Gibson crashes a flying tank into the middle of the arena, crushing Anon's opponent and offering him a ride to Bostrum. On the way there, Gibson fills Anon in on the story so far-most notably the fact that Flynn isn't dead-and the two of them become... friends. Ish.
The two of them arrive in Bostrum a short time later, only to find a very abandoned colony, no Flynn to be found, and signs of viral infection everywhere.
This is approximately the point when everything goes to hell.
Gibson goes ahead of Anon to try and find Flynn-because oh geez oh man he can't have lost the Creator, this is bad-agreeing to meet up later after they've both tried to look for Flynn. While Anon wanders through Bostrum, Gibson runs into the friends who actually smuggled Flynn into Bostrum-unfortunately, they've also recently been infected by Abraxas. Gibson's response is to kill them, because there is no cure for Abraxas' infection and even death is better than living through the pain of infection. Although most people would go and have a quiet cry in the corner after being forced to kill their infected and insane friends, this just spurs Gibson into action; as he puts it, "My friends aren't dying for nothing, and neither am I". He and Anon meet up again-only to run into Abraxas himself. Anon is willing to stay and fight the virus, but Gibson's first response is "holy shit, run". This proves to be the most sensible reaction to Abraxas, really, and it also gives Gibson enough time to come up with a plan to slow Abraxas down-if not outright kill him. While Anon stalls Abraxas, Gibson sets up one of Bostrum's energy-refinement centers to basically be a timebomb, blowing up the entire center with Abraxas inside.
Once that's done and everything explodes, Gibson and Anon run to the outskirts of the colony, hoping to find Flynn's trail. Unfortunately, they just end up running into Clu's forces blocking their exit. After fighting off the Black Guards, the two of them make their escape from Bostrum. After coming across Flynn's lightcycle, Gibson proposes that the two of them go back to Arjia and talk to Radia, who will (probably) have a plan. They... don't quite get there.
Abraxas pops up again on their way out of the Outlands, musing quietly to himself with his cape billowing melodramatically in the wind-and he doesn't even look singed by the earlier explosion, let alone damaged. Gibson immediately shoves Anon out of the virus' path, accidentally knocking himself off his lightcycle in the process. He then proceeds to get himself infected by Abraxas. Gibson then proceeds to fight Anon and his infection at the same time, begging to be derezzed in his flashes of lucidity.
Gibson will be taken aboard the Tranquility right after Anon lands a killing blow and Gibson says thank you in his own... special idiom. I'm a bad person and I should feel bad.
Personality: On the Grid, programs' personalities are often at least partially defined by their functions. Security programs tend to be hyper-loyal and protective of others, programs designed to create the perfect system are usually megalomaniacal dictators... you get the idea. Although this idea applies most strongly to Basics, or programs created to have a specific function, it also provides some explanation for ISOs' behavior as well. Radia, one of the spiritual and political leaders of the ISOs, is appropriately diplomatic and almost motherly towards her charges, while the ISO-turned-virus Abraxas goes from a diplomatic leader trying to create peace between two warring factions to a virus obsessed with spreading pain and torturing other programs as a result of his corruption.
Gibson doesn't really do any of that.
Gibson is an energy-transference engineer and part-time politician-and neither of those jobs require anyone to be as much of an unabashed smartass as Gibson proves to be during the course of the game. It might actually be a detriment to those jobs, to be perfectly honest, but bad ideas have never stopped Gibson before. He has an almost compulsive need to snark at anyone and anything around him, even when it's probably to his advantage to keep his mouth shut. His last words are "About time you finally stepped up... thanks," and he attempts to deadpan his way through his fight with Anon despite being in unbelievable amounts of pain. Frankly, if Gibson doesn't stop snarking while he's dying, it's not likely that he'll ever quit being sarcastic. Sarcasm is also a bit of a coping mechanism for Gibson; being able to cover his actual emotions-whether fear, anger, panic, or something in-between-with sarcasm just means that when things get rough? Gibson's immediate response is usually a smartass remark.
He's also perfectly capable of using his sarcasm to his advantage, when necessary; he managed to provoke his ex-coworker into throwing the first punch in their fight, and he attempts to provoke the program in the cell next to him into losing his temper and doing something reckless and stupid in the arena. This last bit didn't work out quite how he planned, since Anon pseudo-rescued him before he could actually start fighting, but it's worth noting that provocation through sarcasm was essentially Gibson's entire strategy.
Although Gibson's most immediately obvious personality trait seems to be actively detrimental to... well, just about everything, his first job-System Utilities engineer-has had more of an impact on his thought processes than he'd like to admit. He's pragmatic in the extreme, and he's not afraid to do what he needs to in order to get the job done; this is a program who "put down" his infected friends without much hesitation, after all. He's not completely without a heart-he did turn around to rescue Anon from the Game Grid, after all, and he can be overheard apologizing to the infected Bostrumites he kills-but above all else, he's willing to do what needs to be done, regardless of how hard it might be for him to do. This pragmatism extends to his own life, if necessary; if he feels that sacrificing his own life is the only way to get things done? He'll do it. (That's not to say he has a tendency towards the stupidly brave, though. Running? He is so okay with running, if necessary.)
Gibson's pretty good at the Indy Ploy, too. He couldn't have possibly known that Anon was coming to the Game Grid to rescue him, but he still managed to parlay that into a: conning Anon into taking his place in the Games and b: stealing a Recognizer to rescue Anon and escape to the Bostrum Colony to meet up with Flynn again-not to mention the whole "blow Abraxas up" plan. (Although Gibson essentially made up all these plans on the fly... it's worth mentioning that Gibson's also got a bit of a dramatic streak, since every single one of his on-the-spot plans seems to involve something exploding or something else equally melodramatic--not to mention the part where his response to losing his job was to basically ragequit civilization and move to the middle of nowhere with a bunch of fetish-gear enthusiasts.)
Gibson is also, as far as we know, the only program to ever actively resist infection by Abraxas... and he does it pretty much through sheer stubbornness. It's implied that resisting the infection actually made things more painful for Gibson, but he managed to hold onto his sanity long enough to let Anon kill him. He just does not give up, ever-even when it would be a really good idea for him to do so. This tenacity is kind of a double-edged sword, since it's also the reason that it took him a really, really long time to actually die... but hey, it also let him die as himself, and there's something to be said for that. Unfortunately, Gibson is coming to the ship after his infection, not before. There won't be any leftover infection in his system, since it'll all get burned out by his transition into a human body. He remembers what infection felt like, even if the memories are slightly fragmented, and he remembers begging for death whenever he was lucid enough to actually talk. There's probably going to be a lot little bit of trauma there, although he'll probably just... avoid mentioning it as much as possible.
He's what could probably be best described as as "agnostic" with regards to Users in general. For someone as practical as Gibson, it's stupid to deny the fact that the Creator pops down to visit every couple of cycles-although he knows a few Bostrumites do that; quite frankly, Gibson is one of the few utterly sane voices in a colony full of instability and crazy. He won't, however, go so far as to actively worship Flynn like most of the other programs on the Grid do, and he damn sure won't revere any other humans. He's more than happy to stay out of the religious discussion entirely-until it looks like the Creator's going to die, anyway, in which case he's going to make sure the guy who can undo and remake his entire world doesn't get killed. That position makes him almost dangerously moderate compared to the rest of the Bostrumites... though that doesn't actually say much when you realize that most (if not all) of the other Bostrumites are essentially the Grid's equivalent of radical separatist movements.
Gibson is capable of dealing with Basics on a fairly rational, friendly basis, which is more than can be said of many of his compatriots. This doesn't stop him from thinking that he's inherently better than they are, of course, but he can manage to tone down the superiority and have a civil-albeit snarky-conversation if he needs to. (Team Free Will, bitches. oh god crossing the streams)
Quite frankly, Gibson is utterly fucked in the real world. First of all, the fact that the Arjians were right about Flynn's "real world" even existing-because really, he thought they were mostly religious loonies with a very tenuous grasp on reality, with a few rare exceptions-is going to blow his mind. More importantly, though, the real world isn't going to be anywhere near the mythical paradise the Arjians claimed it would be. It would almost be funny, except for the part where Gibson is trapped in space with no way of getting home. Because of his opinions on Arjians and their belief system, he hasn't paid enough attention to Radia's oracular pronouncements to really learn much about the real world. (He likes Radia, and he respects her as a leader, but he draws the line at listening to crazytalk about a perfect world outside the Grid.) He's relatively familiar with city environments, having lived in the City Core for 24 subjective years, and he won't be terribly bothered by the nighttime, but... well, let me put it this way: he doesn't know what the sun is. That should tell you just how unfamiliar he'll be with anything even vaguely nature-y or biological in nature, and he'll be nearly as confused by about 95% of human culture.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:UPGRADES This is the big one: Gibson, as a member of Bostrum Colony, has self-modified his coding in order to provide himself with the abilities necessary to actually survive in the inhospitable Outlands. Although he is notably less modified than many of his neighbors, he's still not anywhere close to running on ISO source code. NOTABLE IMPROVEMENTS INCLUDE:● INCREASED ENERGY EFFICIENCY-Energy is harder to come by in the Outlands than it is nearer civilization, and as a result, all Bostrumites have boosted their energy storage capabilities and their energy efficiency in order to not die. REMOVED
● INCREASED STORAGE CAPACITY-See above. REMOVED
● ENERGY CHANNELING-Gibson is capable of manipulating, storing, and converting large quantities of energy into usable forms, according to canon, although it's never entirely clear what that means. (If you're noticing an energy-based theme here, you wouldn't exactly be wrong. Gibson's an energy-transfer engineer, and he essentially picked the upgrades that would best help him do his job.) REMOVED
● SENSING ENERGY-Gibson is capable of "seeing" (or more accurately, sensing) the flow of energy from point A to point B on the Grid, which he can then exploit as necessary. It's strongly implied, however, that this is an ability Gibson rezzed with, rather than an aftermarket add-on.
● INCREASED SPEED-Gibson isn't exactly a combatant most of the time, and most of his modifications reflect that. He's no stronger than the average male program (or man), since that wouldn't normally do him any good, but his speed-and by extension, his reflexes-have increased enough to give him an edge in a fight, should it be necessary.
● BALANCE-Bostrum Colony is basically built into a mountain, with all the crags, crannies, and random narrow places that entails. Safety was... kind of put on the backburner there, and it's a lot easier-relatively speaking-to give everyone better balance in order to make sure everyone doesn't fall to their deaths than it would be to rebuild the entire colony.
● IMPROVED NIGHT VISION-Bostrum? Is fucking dark. The energy output there-aka the glowy lines that seem to cover everything on the Grid-is much lower than normal, due to its location in the inhospitable Outlands, and Bostrumites' low-light and no-light vision needs to be adjusted accordingly.
ENGINEERING Gibson is a very good energy-transference engineer with over 150 subjective years of experience. In the real world, he'll probably pick up electrical engineering-specifically power transmission and large-scale electrical systems engineering-very quickly.
POLITICS This is a questionable ability at best, since Bostrum isn't exactly the most functional of democracies, but Gibson has an understanding of the democratic process boosted by about a hundred subjective years of experience herding angry cats.
COMBAT Gibson's definitely not SysSec material, but he's pretty good in a fight. Just... don't let him actually use his disc. The manual says that he's an expert in baton combat-which probably means something, since even Tron is only listed as "proficient" in baton combat-buuuuut we never actually get to see him using a baton in-game, so take it with a grain of salt.
ABS Dem abs are a superpower all to themselves. 8|
HOW DOES HUMAN There are, as a matter of fact, a couple of ISOs on the Grid who have been tutored in how the User world works. Gibson isn't one of them. Human culture and biology-and honestly, biology in general-are completely foreign concepts to him, and most of the things that we take for granted are going to throw him for a loop. This puts him at a serious disadvantage compared to... well, just about everyone else on board, and is probably the most significant weakness he has at the moment.
COMBAT What is ranged combat. No, seriously, what is it.
NIGHT VISION Guess who's completely unprepared for a world with an actual sun or centralized lighting sources? THIS GUY. Night vision is all well and good when you live in the dark 24/7, but it's going to be a bitch and a half in the real world.
LIMITATIONS I know that looks like a lot of things in the Abilities category, but bear with me for a second. If at all possible, I'd like for Gibson to keep (most of) his Bostrumite upgrades. He's relatively unaugmented compared to just about everyone else in his colony, and he shouldn't be overpowered in the context of the ship. Some of his abilities just don't work in a meatspace body, though, so I plan to ditch the increased energy storage capacity, improved energy efficiency and energy-channeling abilities. Beyond that? He's only human, with all of the traditional human weaknesses that entails.
Inventory: n/a
Appearance: In the real world, Gibson is probably a hair under six feet tall, with a medium build and black hair. His eyes are an unnaturally pale gray, almost white, but beyond that? There's nothing to immediately mark him as anything other than human... except maybe the glowing tattoo on his right arm. For most ISOs, this marking is the only external symbol of their status, which actually comes up as a plot point in Legacy. The tattoo isn't particularly big or obtrusive, and it resembles a glowing white omicron + heta more than anything else. It's unknown what the tattoo is intended to symbolize, if anything, but all ISOs have them. Depending on how canonically you want to take Tron Evolution: Battle Grids, the male ISO symbol actually replaces the heta with a sort of sideways-v shape. We're not taking Battle Grids as canon today, thanks very much. While we're talking about things that make Gibson physically different from the average human, he also has DNA with three strands instead of the usual two. This is a carryover from his ISO source code, which is similarly triple-stranded. This doesn't actually affect him physically, and will only become obvious if anyone tries to do DNA analysis on him for... some reason...
On the Grid, Gibson has green circuitry lines on his clothing rather than the customary white, blue, or orangey-red, which immediately marks him as a Bostrumite. Bostrumites also have one other distinguishing characteristic: huge-ass tribal tattoos somewhere very noticeable. In Gibson's case, this means he has two thick black stripes going down his chest, with two smaller ones framing his neck. He also, like the rest of the Bostrumites, has a tendency to dress like a stripper rather revealingly, the better to show off the tattoos. Believe it or not, Gibson is actually pretty conservatively dressed for a Bostrumite-which just means that he throws a jacket on over his bare chest. The green circuit lines obviously won't carry over into the real world, instead being replaced by an obvious preference for green clothing. The tattoos are staying, however... as is the penchant for shirtlessness.
Have a screenshot, which is the closest thing to a full-body picture he gets during the whole entire game, and some concept art. Note the lovingly rendered abs; they're essentially his trademark. And here's a very melodramatic promo picture of his PB, Michael Trevino. (It should also be noted that his voice actor is Jensen Ackles. Yep.)
Age: 153 cycles, which translates to approximately three in real-world years. Physically, he appears to be somewhere in his early to mid twenties.
AU Clarification: n/a
SAMPLES
Log Sample:Gibson's eyes slam open, trying (and failing) to take in his surroundings through a haze of sheer, intense panic. This isn't supposed to be happening. He shouldn't be here. He derezzed, dammit; there was supposed to be peace and quiet and a distinct lack of infection, not... whatever this is. It takes what seems like an eternity, but Gibson manages to sluggishly push forward inside the liquid surrounding him until he hits a glass wall, hitting it weakly a couple of times just for good measure. Everything is foggy and too-bright all at once and he's moving too slow and he can't breathe (the part of him that's still thinking rationally wants to know: since when has he actually needed to breathe?) and he needs to get out of here-
-and that's when the container spits him unceremoniously out, leaving him collapsed, stark naked and coughing, on a cold metal floor.
It takes Gibson far longer than he would like to pry the mask off his face and roll to his feet, instinctively grabbing for an identity disc that suddenly just-isn't there. He feels heavier than usual, warmer despite the chill in the air, and he's still slightly wobbly on his feet even after managing to stand up. He braces himself on a nearby convenient... metal table-thing? and looks around, searching for anything even vaguely familiar.
There's no one else around. Frankly, this would be a lot more worrisome if the last programs he'd seen hadn't been either infected, and thus murderous and crazy, or Black Guards, and thus highly likely to try and derez him. What is worrisome, however, is the room itself; it's weirdly bright in here, with centralized light sources on the ceiling instead of circuit lines, and the energy flow here-what he can sense of it, anyway, which isn't much-is fuzzed out, like something's deliberately obscuring it from view.
He really doesn't want to move, since walking is apparently really hard right now and he's almost sure the table is the only thing keeping him off the floor, but standing still isn't going to fix anything. Taking a second to steel himself, Gibson pushes off from the table and starts moving unsteadily towards a promising-looking doorway, resolutely ignoring the fragmentation in his memory (he would have just checked his disc, but no, apparently that had to be taken, too, and he wasn't going to think about why for right now since that way kernel panic lies) and the growing suspicion that this might actually be the User world.
It's not like the Arjians needed an excuse to be any more insufferable.
Comms Sample:[audio » video]
[fumble fumble INDISTINCT OFFSCREEN NOISES ON YOUR AUDIO FEED
oh user almighty what even is this stupid thing] -ven on? There we go.
[the feed switches to video, revealing a dark-haired guy in his mid-twenties wearing an ever-so-slightly nervous smirk. he might be a little rattled by all of this bright shiny new-ness (or a lot rattled, to be perfectly honest), but flippancy is the best coping mechanism ever.
it's also fairly obvious that he's not really bothering with the top half of the uniform yet, judging by the amount of bare shoulder-and matte black tattoos-on display in the video.]
So, nice place you've got here. It's very, uh... bright. [that is not actually a compliment where gibson is concerned, but details.] Anyway, I'd stick around, but I've kinda got somewhere else I need to be. Anybody have directions to Arjia from here?
[...]
Anybody else even know where that is?
[monitor-bro, i've a feeling we're not in bostrum any more.]
Your Name: Siri
OOC Journal: hearyourghost
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Negative, Ghost Rider.
Email + IM: hopeforrent[at]gmail | coolercouleur on AIM + Plurk
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Ward [NPC]
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Gibson
Canon: Tron: Evolution
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: Mid-sparklesplosion, or .0005 seconds before he dies.
Number: 148
Setting: Tron Wiki on Tron: Evolution and Gibson himself.
tl;dr: once upon a time, Jeff Bridges made a magic computer with a bunch of tiny glowing people living inside and stashed it under his arcade. Twenty years later, that magic computer turned into a shiny neon dystopia.
... okay, maybe a little more detail would be better.
The history of the Grid goes a little something like this: in the early 1980s, The Dude a maverick software CEO named Kevin Flynn created a world inside a computer, which he dubbed the Grid. The Grid isn't a virtual reality as we would think of them; it's really more like an actual, physical reality that just so happens to be contained within a mainframe from the 1980s. Flynn discovered-slash-created this special new computer-world via the use of some very creative programming and a possibly-stolen laser capable of transferring objects from the real world into a computer-and vice versa. (This is, honestly, one of those things you've just got to roll with in order for the plot of anything Tron-related to make any sense whatsoever.) He was able to enter and exit the Grid using this super-special laser, and used his powers as Creator-or God, essentially-to build a really, really awesome digital world. Computer programs-like firewalls, calendar programs, and MP3 players-manifest as humanoid people inside the Grid, and this is essentially how the Grid gained any sort of population at all. (Yes, your computer runs on the work of little neon people. Shh. Tron logic.) Flynn also imported Tron, a security program written by his friend Alan Bradley, from another system in order to maintain order on the Grid, and created Clu, a program "in his own image", to be the Grid's system administrator when Flynn wasn't around. Clu's directive was to create the perfect system, which proves to be a very poor choice of words on Flynn's part and totally comes back to bite him in the ass later.
The three of them then stepped back and began to let the Grid really run, and everything was bright and shiny and awesome for a while. Basically, this story is a huge Judeo-Christian mythological allegory-complete with miracles! Programs called ISOs-or isomorphic algorithms-spontaneously generated, fully-formed, in the Sea of Simulation. Unlike the other programs on the Grid, who were thereafter known as "Basics", ISOs had no specifically-programmed directives. This made them essentially independent operators, which was deeply disturbing to the Basics. Basic society was based on a strictly regimented class system, determined by both programs' inherent functions and their priority rankings within the system. This system did not allow for programs without a function to even exist, let alone become integrated into society, and this conflict between Basic society and ISO everything is, essentially, the root of most of the problems in the Tron universe.
Flynn explicitly referred to the newly-formed ISOs as "miracles" and became fascinated by the new arrivals to the Grid, possibly to the detriment of the (quite literally) millions of Basics left on the Grid. Not everyone was so thrilled about the shiny new arrivals, however; Clu, Flynn's first creation, resented the ISOs and Flynn's new affection for them, thinking they were dangerous signs of chaos and instability on the Grid. (ALSO DADDY DIDN'T LOVE HIM ANY MORE. Seriously, you think I'm kidding about the Judeo-Christian parallels? I'm really, really not.) Eventually Clu committed genocide, staged a coup, kicked Flynn into exile, and ran the new, Basic-only Grid with a neon fist, but we're not quite there yet during Evolution. Although ISOs attempted to integrate into the society of the Grid as best they could, and Flynn encouraged both ISOs and Basics to get along for the good of the Grid as a whole, tensions between the two groups increased drastically as time went on.
History:Gibson self-generated-or rezzed, to use the in-game terminology-in TC148 (or somewhere around 1986, according to the real-world calendar), making him a Beta-class ISO. (It's never quite stated in canon what the difference between Alpha- and Beta-class ISOs actually is. For the purposes of this app, the only difference between them is age, with Alpha-class ISOs generating first.) After first rezzing, Gibson lived in the City Core, like most other new ISOs, and was promptly assigned to System Utilities' engineering corps. He quickly demonstrated a talent for energy-transference engineering, partially due to his inherent ability to "see" (or sense) the flow of energy that underlies everything on the Grid.
Gibson chafed slightly under all of the rules in the City Core-for example, the whole NAVI Bit concept? totally insulting-but he never thought about actually leaving the city until a violent altercation at work essentially pushed him out of his job in TC172. To hear Gibson tell the story, the fight was caused by his Basic coworkers' xenophobia and jealousy of his talent, and not much else. Gibson had gained a reputation for being really, really good at developing innovative energy transfer systems, and his coworkers were none too pleased with that little fact. One of his Basic coworkers stole some plans he was developing for a new energy-refinement station near Arjia and attempted to pass them off as his own. (The parallels with Kevin Flynn's backstory are... unavoidable, at this point, but also mostly unintentional.) Gibson didn't technically start the fight, but he publicly called his coworker on stealing his plans and essentially provoked the other guy into throwing the first punch.
It's worth noting at this point that Gibson isn't an entirely reliable narrator, and the sections of the game which contain this story are also marked with the in-character equivalent of [citation needed] every-goddamn-where.
Anyway, as a result of this fight, Gibson gets booted out of System Utilities, leaving himself without a job to do in a society in which quite literally everything is based around your function. What's an ISO to do? Well, if you're Gibson, you run off to the middle of nowhere and join a bunch of loosely-organized, leather-fetishist radical separatists. Yep.
The Bostrumites are a small group of ISOs who were trying to shield themselves from xenophobic abuse by essentially picking up their toys and moving to the middle of the wilderness. They have green circuitry, which distinguishes themselves both from Basics and from other ISOs, and they're prone to some rather hardcore code modification, which can (and often does) manifest physically. This both helps them survive in the harsh conditions of the Outlands, and further delineates them from normal programs-ISO and Basic alike. Essentially, they're the cyberpunk leather-fetishist capital of the Grid, and they're okay with that. Although the Bostrumites were a rather extreme reaction to ISO/Basic tension, and they weren't exactly great in number, the fact that they existed at all attests to the fact that ISOs and Basics were not getting along like they should have been. The Bostrum Colony essentially runs on an egalitarian democratic system-which is highly unusual in a largely hierarchical, theocratic world-run by a governing council, with the occasional colony-wide quorum on the super-important stuff. (These meetings have a really alarming tendency to turn into riots, given the motley collection of programs who live in Bostrum, but it's okay. They're used to it by now.)
Gibson quickly proves himself useful to the colony, since the Outlands aren't exactly the most hospitable place to live, and both finding new sources of energy and increasing energy efficiency are high-priority issues to the Bostrumites. He also, through some miracle of abs charm and good looks, ends up getting elected to the governing council. Even more surprisingly, he doesn't actually suck at politics, and gets re-elected several times. He still thinks of himself as an engineer first and foremost, but he also feels more responsible for his people than he would have before.
Things proceed as normal for about a hundred cycles, with a couple of major exceptions. First: the Sea of Simulation, the place responsible for the generation of the ISOs, unexpectedly... ceased to be alive. The ISOs as a whole seemed to have a sort of empathic connection with the Sea, and it's implied that they all felt it die, regardless of their proximity to the Sea itself. This was a disaster for the ISOs as a whole, as not only was the Sea the place where they generated, but after its death? There would be no more new ISOs. Ever. For an already embattled minority, this was a crushing loss. (The Sea was actually poisoned by Clu in an attempt to keep the "ISO menace" and their chaos from taking over the Grid, but that's not public knowledge at this point-or ever, to be honest-and Gibson doesn't know about it.)
Second: Jalen, an Arjian political leader and one of the ISOs tapped to become co-sysadmin with Clu, died in a tragic-and unexpectedly, suspiciously violent-Game Grid accident. Jalen's participation in the tournament was intended as a sort of peace offering to the Basics. Despite the fact that ISOs weren't allowed to compete in the Game Grid, he assumed that by trying to participate in Basic culture, the Basics would then accept him (and the other ISOs) as part of their society. Unfortunately, he sort of died in the process. The Bostrumites immediately launched into CONSPIRACY THEORY MODE, since no one had died in the Game Grid for hundreds of cycles at that point, but there was no proof that it was anything other than an accident until several cycles later.
In TC301, however, Gibson's life starts to get really interesting. Not only does a virus named Abraxas surface, infecting everything and everyone in his path and generally creating chaos wherever he goes, but ISO/Basic tension seems to be kicked up to eleven. (At this point, it's worth noting that the virus Abraxas is actually Jalen, who didn't actually die on the Game Grid, but was actually corrupted by Clu in an effort to create a legitimate reason for his ISO genocide. (Clu also mentions that the virus is the ~evolution~ of the ISOs at every chance he gets, because apparently he hasn't twirled his evil mustache enough yet.) However, Gibson doesn't know any of this. He just thinks Abraxas is that crazy yellow guy who wants to spread the pain.)
While hanging out at End of Line-a bar in the City Core that catered to both ISOs and Basics-Gibson just so happens to overhear a conversation between the club's owner, Zuse, and a blue-circuited program he didn't know. (There was also a System Monitor there, but he didn't contribute much to the conversation beyond quizzical headtilting.) The unfamiliar program insisted that Flynn was dead, that Clu had betrayed him, and that she had seen it all happen. Gibson decides to check this out for himself, and as it turns out, her report wasn't entirely accurate. Clu had betrayed Flynn and attempted to kill Tron, but Flynn was still alive and hiding in the City Core. Gibson finds Flynn and smuggles him out of the City to Bostrum-which is in the middle of nowhere, and therefore infinitely safer-with the help of some friends. (You can thank him later.)
Although Gibson intended to follow his friends to Bostrum later, this plan is ruined somewhat by his sudden capture by a passing Black Guard patrol. The Grid's lack of habeas corpus laws means that he could technically have been arrested just for "looking suspicious" (aka being a Bostrumite in the middle of the City Core), but it's more likely that Clu found out about Gibson's rescue and decided to have him taken care of. Gibson ends up as a contestant on the Game Grid-which, as of that millicycle, was being turned into a set of neon-lit, extremely lethal gladiatorial games. Awesome.
Luckily, just before the Games are due to start, rescue arrives in the form of the System Monitor from the End of Line. As it turns out, the Arjian leader/prophet/plot device Radia sent the Monitor to the arena to save Gibson's ass before he gets himself killed-and he's got really really coincidental timing. Gibson casually takes advantage of the Monitor's willingness to trust him in order to trick him into switching places, dumping Anon onto the Game Grid in Gibson's place. (Anon is less than impressed with this tactic.) Gibson makes up for it later, though, as he comes back to rescue the Monitor partway through the fights. Basically, Gibson crashes a flying tank into the middle of the arena, crushing Anon's opponent and offering him a ride to Bostrum. On the way there, Gibson fills Anon in on the story so far-most notably the fact that Flynn isn't dead-and the two of them become... friends. Ish.
The two of them arrive in Bostrum a short time later, only to find a very abandoned colony, no Flynn to be found, and signs of viral infection everywhere.
This is approximately the point when everything goes to hell.
Gibson goes ahead of Anon to try and find Flynn-because oh geez oh man he can't have lost the Creator, this is bad-agreeing to meet up later after they've both tried to look for Flynn. While Anon wanders through Bostrum, Gibson runs into the friends who actually smuggled Flynn into Bostrum-unfortunately, they've also recently been infected by Abraxas. Gibson's response is to kill them, because there is no cure for Abraxas' infection and even death is better than living through the pain of infection. Although most people would go and have a quiet cry in the corner after being forced to kill their infected and insane friends, this just spurs Gibson into action; as he puts it, "My friends aren't dying for nothing, and neither am I". He and Anon meet up again-only to run into Abraxas himself. Anon is willing to stay and fight the virus, but Gibson's first response is "holy shit, run". This proves to be the most sensible reaction to Abraxas, really, and it also gives Gibson enough time to come up with a plan to slow Abraxas down-if not outright kill him. While Anon stalls Abraxas, Gibson sets up one of Bostrum's energy-refinement centers to basically be a timebomb, blowing up the entire center with Abraxas inside.
Once that's done and everything explodes, Gibson and Anon run to the outskirts of the colony, hoping to find Flynn's trail. Unfortunately, they just end up running into Clu's forces blocking their exit. After fighting off the Black Guards, the two of them make their escape from Bostrum. After coming across Flynn's lightcycle, Gibson proposes that the two of them go back to Arjia and talk to Radia, who will (probably) have a plan. They... don't quite get there.
Abraxas pops up again on their way out of the Outlands, musing quietly to himself with his cape billowing melodramatically in the wind-and he doesn't even look singed by the earlier explosion, let alone damaged. Gibson immediately shoves Anon out of the virus' path, accidentally knocking himself off his lightcycle in the process. He then proceeds to get himself infected by Abraxas. Gibson then proceeds to fight Anon and his infection at the same time, begging to be derezzed in his flashes of lucidity.
Gibson will be taken aboard the Tranquility right after Anon lands a killing blow and Gibson says thank you in his own... special idiom. I'm a bad person and I should feel bad.
Personality: On the Grid, programs' personalities are often at least partially defined by their functions. Security programs tend to be hyper-loyal and protective of others, programs designed to create the perfect system are usually megalomaniacal dictators... you get the idea. Although this idea applies most strongly to Basics, or programs created to have a specific function, it also provides some explanation for ISOs' behavior as well. Radia, one of the spiritual and political leaders of the ISOs, is appropriately diplomatic and almost motherly towards her charges, while the ISO-turned-virus Abraxas goes from a diplomatic leader trying to create peace between two warring factions to a virus obsessed with spreading pain and torturing other programs as a result of his corruption.
Gibson doesn't really do any of that.
Gibson is an energy-transference engineer and part-time politician-and neither of those jobs require anyone to be as much of an unabashed smartass as Gibson proves to be during the course of the game. It might actually be a detriment to those jobs, to be perfectly honest, but bad ideas have never stopped Gibson before. He has an almost compulsive need to snark at anyone and anything around him, even when it's probably to his advantage to keep his mouth shut. His last words are "About time you finally stepped up... thanks," and he attempts to deadpan his way through his fight with Anon despite being in unbelievable amounts of pain. Frankly, if Gibson doesn't stop snarking while he's dying, it's not likely that he'll ever quit being sarcastic. Sarcasm is also a bit of a coping mechanism for Gibson; being able to cover his actual emotions-whether fear, anger, panic, or something in-between-with sarcasm just means that when things get rough? Gibson's immediate response is usually a smartass remark.
He's also perfectly capable of using his sarcasm to his advantage, when necessary; he managed to provoke his ex-coworker into throwing the first punch in their fight, and he attempts to provoke the program in the cell next to him into losing his temper and doing something reckless and stupid in the arena. This last bit didn't work out quite how he planned, since Anon pseudo-rescued him before he could actually start fighting, but it's worth noting that provocation through sarcasm was essentially Gibson's entire strategy.
Although Gibson's most immediately obvious personality trait seems to be actively detrimental to... well, just about everything, his first job-System Utilities engineer-has had more of an impact on his thought processes than he'd like to admit. He's pragmatic in the extreme, and he's not afraid to do what he needs to in order to get the job done; this is a program who "put down" his infected friends without much hesitation, after all. He's not completely without a heart-he did turn around to rescue Anon from the Game Grid, after all, and he can be overheard apologizing to the infected Bostrumites he kills-but above all else, he's willing to do what needs to be done, regardless of how hard it might be for him to do. This pragmatism extends to his own life, if necessary; if he feels that sacrificing his own life is the only way to get things done? He'll do it. (That's not to say he has a tendency towards the stupidly brave, though. Running? He is so okay with running, if necessary.)
Gibson's pretty good at the Indy Ploy, too. He couldn't have possibly known that Anon was coming to the Game Grid to rescue him, but he still managed to parlay that into a: conning Anon into taking his place in the Games and b: stealing a Recognizer to rescue Anon and escape to the Bostrum Colony to meet up with Flynn again-not to mention the whole "blow Abraxas up" plan. (Although Gibson essentially made up all these plans on the fly... it's worth mentioning that Gibson's also got a bit of a dramatic streak, since every single one of his on-the-spot plans seems to involve something exploding or something else equally melodramatic--not to mention the part where his response to losing his job was to basically ragequit civilization and move to the middle of nowhere with a bunch of fetish-gear enthusiasts.)
Gibson is also, as far as we know, the only program to ever actively resist infection by Abraxas... and he does it pretty much through sheer stubbornness. It's implied that resisting the infection actually made things more painful for Gibson, but he managed to hold onto his sanity long enough to let Anon kill him. He just does not give up, ever-even when it would be a really good idea for him to do so. This tenacity is kind of a double-edged sword, since it's also the reason that it took him a really, really long time to actually die... but hey, it also let him die as himself, and there's something to be said for that. Unfortunately, Gibson is coming to the ship after his infection, not before. There won't be any leftover infection in his system, since it'll all get burned out by his transition into a human body. He remembers what infection felt like, even if the memories are slightly fragmented, and he remembers begging for death whenever he was lucid enough to actually talk. There's probably going to be a lot little bit of trauma there, although he'll probably just... avoid mentioning it as much as possible.
He's what could probably be best described as as "agnostic" with regards to Users in general. For someone as practical as Gibson, it's stupid to deny the fact that the Creator pops down to visit every couple of cycles-although he knows a few Bostrumites do that; quite frankly, Gibson is one of the few utterly sane voices in a colony full of instability and crazy. He won't, however, go so far as to actively worship Flynn like most of the other programs on the Grid do, and he damn sure won't revere any other humans. He's more than happy to stay out of the religious discussion entirely-until it looks like the Creator's going to die, anyway, in which case he's going to make sure the guy who can undo and remake his entire world doesn't get killed. That position makes him almost dangerously moderate compared to the rest of the Bostrumites... though that doesn't actually say much when you realize that most (if not all) of the other Bostrumites are essentially the Grid's equivalent of radical separatist movements.
Gibson is capable of dealing with Basics on a fairly rational, friendly basis, which is more than can be said of many of his compatriots. This doesn't stop him from thinking that he's inherently better than they are, of course, but he can manage to tone down the superiority and have a civil-albeit snarky-conversation if he needs to. (Team Free Will, bitches. oh god crossing the streams)
Quite frankly, Gibson is utterly fucked in the real world. First of all, the fact that the Arjians were right about Flynn's "real world" even existing-because really, he thought they were mostly religious loonies with a very tenuous grasp on reality, with a few rare exceptions-is going to blow his mind. More importantly, though, the real world isn't going to be anywhere near the mythical paradise the Arjians claimed it would be. It would almost be funny, except for the part where Gibson is trapped in space with no way of getting home. Because of his opinions on Arjians and their belief system, he hasn't paid enough attention to Radia's oracular pronouncements to really learn much about the real world. (He likes Radia, and he respects her as a leader, but he draws the line at listening to crazytalk about a perfect world outside the Grid.) He's relatively familiar with city environments, having lived in the City Core for 24 subjective years, and he won't be terribly bothered by the nighttime, but... well, let me put it this way: he doesn't know what the sun is. That should tell you just how unfamiliar he'll be with anything even vaguely nature-y or biological in nature, and he'll be nearly as confused by about 95% of human culture.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:UPGRADES This is the big one: Gibson, as a member of Bostrum Colony, has self-modified his coding in order to provide himself with the abilities necessary to actually survive in the inhospitable Outlands. Although he is notably less modified than many of his neighbors, he's still not anywhere close to running on ISO source code. NOTABLE IMPROVEMENTS INCLUDE:● INCREASED ENERGY EFFICIENCY-Energy is harder to come by in the Outlands than it is nearer civilization, and as a result, all Bostrumites have boosted their energy storage capabilities and their energy efficiency in order to not die. REMOVED
● INCREASED STORAGE CAPACITY-See above. REMOVED
● ENERGY CHANNELING-Gibson is capable of manipulating, storing, and converting large quantities of energy into usable forms, according to canon, although it's never entirely clear what that means. (If you're noticing an energy-based theme here, you wouldn't exactly be wrong. Gibson's an energy-transfer engineer, and he essentially picked the upgrades that would best help him do his job.) REMOVED
● SENSING ENERGY-Gibson is capable of "seeing" (or more accurately, sensing) the flow of energy from point A to point B on the Grid, which he can then exploit as necessary. It's strongly implied, however, that this is an ability Gibson rezzed with, rather than an aftermarket add-on.
● INCREASED SPEED-Gibson isn't exactly a combatant most of the time, and most of his modifications reflect that. He's no stronger than the average male program (or man), since that wouldn't normally do him any good, but his speed-and by extension, his reflexes-have increased enough to give him an edge in a fight, should it be necessary.
● BALANCE-Bostrum Colony is basically built into a mountain, with all the crags, crannies, and random narrow places that entails. Safety was... kind of put on the backburner there, and it's a lot easier-relatively speaking-to give everyone better balance in order to make sure everyone doesn't fall to their deaths than it would be to rebuild the entire colony.
● IMPROVED NIGHT VISION-Bostrum? Is fucking dark. The energy output there-aka the glowy lines that seem to cover everything on the Grid-is much lower than normal, due to its location in the inhospitable Outlands, and Bostrumites' low-light and no-light vision needs to be adjusted accordingly.
ENGINEERING Gibson is a very good energy-transference engineer with over 150 subjective years of experience. In the real world, he'll probably pick up electrical engineering-specifically power transmission and large-scale electrical systems engineering-very quickly.
POLITICS This is a questionable ability at best, since Bostrum isn't exactly the most functional of democracies, but Gibson has an understanding of the democratic process boosted by about a hundred subjective years of experience herding angry cats.
COMBAT Gibson's definitely not SysSec material, but he's pretty good in a fight. Just... don't let him actually use his disc. The manual says that he's an expert in baton combat-which probably means something, since even Tron is only listed as "proficient" in baton combat-buuuuut we never actually get to see him using a baton in-game, so take it with a grain of salt.
ABS Dem abs are a superpower all to themselves. 8|
HOW DOES HUMAN There are, as a matter of fact, a couple of ISOs on the Grid who have been tutored in how the User world works. Gibson isn't one of them. Human culture and biology-and honestly, biology in general-are completely foreign concepts to him, and most of the things that we take for granted are going to throw him for a loop. This puts him at a serious disadvantage compared to... well, just about everyone else on board, and is probably the most significant weakness he has at the moment.
COMBAT What is ranged combat. No, seriously, what is it.
NIGHT VISION Guess who's completely unprepared for a world with an actual sun or centralized lighting sources? THIS GUY. Night vision is all well and good when you live in the dark 24/7, but it's going to be a bitch and a half in the real world.
LIMITATIONS I know that looks like a lot of things in the Abilities category, but bear with me for a second. If at all possible, I'd like for Gibson to keep (most of) his Bostrumite upgrades. He's relatively unaugmented compared to just about everyone else in his colony, and he shouldn't be overpowered in the context of the ship. Some of his abilities just don't work in a meatspace body, though, so I plan to ditch the increased energy storage capacity, improved energy efficiency and energy-channeling abilities. Beyond that? He's only human, with all of the traditional human weaknesses that entails.
Inventory: n/a
Appearance: In the real world, Gibson is probably a hair under six feet tall, with a medium build and black hair. His eyes are an unnaturally pale gray, almost white, but beyond that? There's nothing to immediately mark him as anything other than human... except maybe the glowing tattoo on his right arm. For most ISOs, this marking is the only external symbol of their status, which actually comes up as a plot point in Legacy. The tattoo isn't particularly big or obtrusive, and it resembles a glowing white omicron + heta more than anything else. It's unknown what the tattoo is intended to symbolize, if anything, but all ISOs have them. Depending on how canonically you want to take Tron Evolution: Battle Grids, the male ISO symbol actually replaces the heta with a sort of sideways-v shape. We're not taking Battle Grids as canon today, thanks very much. While we're talking about things that make Gibson physically different from the average human, he also has DNA with three strands instead of the usual two. This is a carryover from his ISO source code, which is similarly triple-stranded. This doesn't actually affect him physically, and will only become obvious if anyone tries to do DNA analysis on him for... some reason...
On the Grid, Gibson has green circuitry lines on his clothing rather than the customary white, blue, or orangey-red, which immediately marks him as a Bostrumite. Bostrumites also have one other distinguishing characteristic: huge-ass tribal tattoos somewhere very noticeable. In Gibson's case, this means he has two thick black stripes going down his chest, with two smaller ones framing his neck. He also, like the rest of the Bostrumites, has a tendency to dress like a stripper rather revealingly, the better to show off the tattoos. Believe it or not, Gibson is actually pretty conservatively dressed for a Bostrumite-which just means that he throws a jacket on over his bare chest. The green circuit lines obviously won't carry over into the real world, instead being replaced by an obvious preference for green clothing. The tattoos are staying, however... as is the penchant for shirtlessness.
Have a screenshot, which is the closest thing to a full-body picture he gets during the whole entire game, and some concept art. Note the lovingly rendered abs; they're essentially his trademark. And here's a very melodramatic promo picture of his PB, Michael Trevino. (It should also be noted that his voice actor is Jensen Ackles. Yep.)
Age: 153 cycles, which translates to approximately three in real-world years. Physically, he appears to be somewhere in his early to mid twenties.
AU Clarification: n/a
SAMPLES
Log Sample:Gibson's eyes slam open, trying (and failing) to take in his surroundings through a haze of sheer, intense panic. This isn't supposed to be happening. He shouldn't be here. He derezzed, dammit; there was supposed to be peace and quiet and a distinct lack of infection, not... whatever this is. It takes what seems like an eternity, but Gibson manages to sluggishly push forward inside the liquid surrounding him until he hits a glass wall, hitting it weakly a couple of times just for good measure. Everything is foggy and too-bright all at once and he's moving too slow and he can't breathe (the part of him that's still thinking rationally wants to know: since when has he actually needed to breathe?) and he needs to get out of here-
-and that's when the container spits him unceremoniously out, leaving him collapsed, stark naked and coughing, on a cold metal floor.
It takes Gibson far longer than he would like to pry the mask off his face and roll to his feet, instinctively grabbing for an identity disc that suddenly just-isn't there. He feels heavier than usual, warmer despite the chill in the air, and he's still slightly wobbly on his feet even after managing to stand up. He braces himself on a nearby convenient... metal table-thing? and looks around, searching for anything even vaguely familiar.
There's no one else around. Frankly, this would be a lot more worrisome if the last programs he'd seen hadn't been either infected, and thus murderous and crazy, or Black Guards, and thus highly likely to try and derez him. What is worrisome, however, is the room itself; it's weirdly bright in here, with centralized light sources on the ceiling instead of circuit lines, and the energy flow here-what he can sense of it, anyway, which isn't much-is fuzzed out, like something's deliberately obscuring it from view.
He really doesn't want to move, since walking is apparently really hard right now and he's almost sure the table is the only thing keeping him off the floor, but standing still isn't going to fix anything. Taking a second to steel himself, Gibson pushes off from the table and starts moving unsteadily towards a promising-looking doorway, resolutely ignoring the fragmentation in his memory (he would have just checked his disc, but no, apparently that had to be taken, too, and he wasn't going to think about why for right now since that way kernel panic lies) and the growing suspicion that this might actually be the User world.
It's not like the Arjians needed an excuse to be any more insufferable.
Comms Sample:[audio » video]
[fumble fumble INDISTINCT OFFSCREEN NOISES ON YOUR AUDIO FEED
oh user almighty what even is this stupid thing] -ven on? There we go.
[the feed switches to video, revealing a dark-haired guy in his mid-twenties wearing an ever-so-slightly nervous smirk. he might be a little rattled by all of this bright shiny new-ness (or a lot rattled, to be perfectly honest), but flippancy is the best coping mechanism ever.
it's also fairly obvious that he's not really bothering with the top half of the uniform yet, judging by the amount of bare shoulder-and matte black tattoos-on display in the video.]
So, nice place you've got here. It's very, uh... bright. [that is not actually a compliment where gibson is concerned, but details.] Anyway, I'd stick around, but I've kinda got somewhere else I need to be. Anybody have directions to Arjia from here?
[...]
Anybody else even know where that is?
[monitor-bro, i've a feeling we're not in bostrum any more.]