I've always found it sort of weird that they took the angle that apparently a program's entire identity/personality is based on their disc. Kind of creepy, if you ask me-- you mean all you have to do to change a program is give him/her a new disc? That has a lot of really freaky connotations. Wouldn't you live in constant fear that somehow your disc would get switched or something? Good way to sabotage someone.

Sagitta Wrote:The episode was "Identity". I recall Tron mentioning to Beck towards the climax he didn't need his disc to be who he essentially was. In this case while Beck was being ordered by another program to kill, Tron reminded Beck that he didn't need his identity disc to know deep down he didn't derezz other programs.

Yes, long before the show premiered I had wondered (more as speculation than because I actually liked the idea) if the reason Rinzler could change back to Tron was because he'd lost his discs-- like the discs were the only thing keeping him Rinzler, and without them he could then "revert." (I think in one of my fics I'd even either written, or considered writing, that the reason Clu gave him two discs was because then he'd have a backup if one was lost-- because Clu COULD NOT afford to have Rinz lose his disc and become Tron again...)

ShadowSpark Wrote: Moses613 Wrote:In the episode which I think is titled "Lost", Beck has his disc stolen and is warned by Tron that he has a limited amount of time before his memory eventually is completely lost to him unless he gets the disc back. If he doesn't, he'll become a stray without any memory of his former self. Until then, he is warned, he'll have episodes which could best be analogous to seizures (in our world) which will eventually get longer and more frequent until he finally becomes a stray. During one of these seizures (I'll just call them that), the camera shows what Beck is seeing and experiencing from his own POV. He grows whoosy, his vision gets clouded and shaky. On a couple of occasions, he looses "consciousness". Let's look at the fact that Beck even HAS a POV. Does this say something about his consciousness, whether it's simulated or real and does it lend some credence to the idea that he may be a free-willed, sentient being in the computer world? I mean, we know from this that he does have at least a unique point of view which belongs to him and which is brought to him by his own eyes and other senses. When he's unconscious, does that mean he's crashed and isn't functioning at all? Do you think he might be dreaming then? Is he capable of dreaming? And does he or do other programs sleep? Please, programs, expound on this. I think it may be the beginning of a compelling discussion. Jeff The episode is titled "Identity" and yes, it's shown in "Isolated" that programs can dream. By the way, Beck doesn't actually pass out at all.

We also see Tessler in "sleep mode" in The Reward, and he has a nightmare. What that would translate to IRL, I don't know.

Sagitta Wrote: I watched Legacy recently and during the games Clu seemed to be controlling some of Rinzler's moves while toying with those two balls in his hands during the disc battle.

We've debated before what the balls in Clu's hands were. Final consensus that I believe most agreed on was that they were controlling the gravity in the arena, not Rinz himself. Although it certainly appears that way.

Here are a couple (old) threads on same:
-"What was Clu playing with during the disk battle?": http://www.tron-sector.com/forums/default.aspx?a=top&id=394931
-"Clu's orbs": http://www.tron-sector.com/forums/default.aspx?a=top&id=402611

Sagitta Wrote:Apart from the games I do wonder if Tron was allowed to keep at least some of his battle prowess since he was Clu's chief enforcer.

Yes, absolutely. Notice when he fights Quorra later on. I'm sure Clu kept the fighting skills-- he just wiped everything else blank.

Sagitta Wrote:Also, Rinzler did seem to recall bare basics such as what a user was.

I always assumed that Rinz knowing what a user was wasn't so much a memory as, Clu probably programmed him that way. Clu would have wanted to know when there was another user on the system-- whether it was something he created for Rinz first thing, or just after he sent the page and actively expected another user to show up. In Sam's case, it was just dumb luck that Rinz made him as a user-- if he hadn't had the telltale bleeding, he would've been toast before anyone figured out what was going on. What Clu may have instructed Rinz to do when he found a user, we can't be sure-- but my guess is that he was to bring the user (suspected user, whatever) to Clu.

The only thing I can't figure out is why Clu would have done that at all. My guess is that he would have been very careful to keep Rinz away from users, period-- especially since our conjecture here is that it may have been Alan he expected to show up (hence his question to Sam: "oh, so it's just you?"). NO WAY would he take the chance that Tronzler would meet up with his own user; even if he had no idea that something as simple as seeing someone like Flynn would convert Rinz, letting him anywhere near Alan is an obvious mistake. But I suppose he probably kept Rinz on a tight rein and just gave him those instructions on the off chance he DID find a user-- he just perhaps didn't expect it to happen in a context where he himself wasn't right there.

Sagitta Wrote:I have to wonder if one of the discs Rinzler had was actually his...but it had been reprogrammed and the second disc was to keep the captured and brainwashed Tron in-line. But his original disc would have needed to be present for him to remember Kevin when they made eye-contact and help him shake off whatever Clu had done. Without it I would think Rinzler would have been a "blank slate" (a stray had he been on the streets) memory-wise and not be able to remember at all.

Remember that when Rinz meets up with Flynn, he has NO discs. Both of them were lost in the fight with Sam and Quorra. Hence my speculation-- the discs kept him Rinzler, and when he didn't have them anymore, he could revert to Tron with the right catalyst (or perhaps enough time, but we'll never know).

Screenshots showing his lack of discs:
Here is the scene when Clu first shows up and learns the users got away (Rinz is in bottom left corner):
http://www.homeofthenutty.com/movies/screencaps/displayimage.php?album=140&pid=153458#top_display_media

and the "YMCA" scene (he's to Clu's immediate right):
http://www.homeofthenutty.com/movies/screencaps/displayimage.php?album=140&pid=153472#top_display_media

And the last time we see him, after he's fallen into the Sea of Simulation, just before his circuitry color resets:
http://www.homeofthenutty.com/movies/screencaps/displayimage.php?album=140&pid=153648#top_display_media

Sagitta Wrote:Wasn't the Grid supposed to be a "closed system". Meaning not many other users, if any, were to be actually expected? Wouldn't this mean Clu required any user who entered be brought to his immediate attention? Especially when he was the one who contacted Alan in the outside world posing as Kevin.

Yeah, which is pretty much what I meant.

Sagitta Wrote:Alan was the the one who received the original page so it's natural to think Clu was expecting Alan, not Kevin's own son to appear. (I would think Clu would have knowledge of Sam's and his relationship to Kevin. Maybe he had a one track mind?)

Right. Though I'm not entirely sure what went on with the page.

For one, we're not sure how Clu got hold of whatever it is you use in there to send a page. It could be that he took it from Flynn. Or, I've thought it's possible that Flynn *gave* it to him, or gave him a duplicate-- it may have been a safeguard; after all, at one time he trusted Clu. "If anything ever happens to me in here, use this thing and help will come."

We also don't know how much Clu understood about how it worked. He may have known Alan was on the other end. Or he may have been told no more than the above (and knowing Flynn, that's entirely possible). Clu may have had the inkling he'd get SOMEBODY, but not necessarily know who-- and maybe he's surprised that Sam's alone because if Flynn told him the pager would bring help, Clu may've expected an army or something. Who knows?

The whole page thing was simply weird. As I've argued before-- Alan knows the pager's significance, he still sleeps with the damn thing, but when he finally gets a page, what does he do? Waits two days, and then says something cryptic about it to someone else and hopes that person goes to figure out what's going on. I wonder what Flynn told him he was to do if he received a page? Was there a specific message he expected to receive, and Clu didn't know that so when Alan didn't get what he expected, he figured it was a malfunction or wasn't urgent, hence why he didn't worry about it?

And what about Flynn? When Sam first tells him about the page, he acts confused. Later he's certain Clu was the one who sent it. What occurred in his mind between the two episodes to make him go from "what page?" as if he has no idea what Sam's talking about, to "I know exactly what that was all about"?

Okay, sorry, hijacking, and the page thing has been discussed before, but I do tend to go off on tangents.

In the original Tron, Identity Discs seem to possibly have been a tool of the Game Grid that acted as a method of control, inventory, and tool for the Games.

It's possible that with the Grid, Flynn took inspiration in intentionally constructing his world. He may have created more advanced versions of the concept and made the basic programs in the Grid all have discs from the start. Perhaps the discs enable basic programs to function at a more complex level. Tron is a program imported from the Encom system, where he was created with whatever sympathetic reaction occurs between a User and a highly personal program he's conceptualizing. Perhaps Tron's code is inherently more complex allowing for high intelligence. He is mirrored from a personal User, like a simpler version of Clu. By comparison, the various programs in the Grid are NOT personal programs. Flynn made them all, but it seems by design none but Clu share any attributes with him, much less his appearance.

Perhaps the way they interact with their discs is a sign of that. (Also, I believe in worldbuilding literature, the average program on the Grid is actually called a Basic. Suggesting maybe that they are by nature simpler, designed to be mass produced to populate the Grid without requiring a User to write every one of them.)

Also Tron has made a bunch of noise about how Beck is "exceeding his programming". As if this is highly unusual, and something Tron was looking for, for a long time. Perhaps in the random generation of Basic class programs, the vast majority are intrinsically too simple to learn everything that Tron needs to teach Beck - to truly evolve. We see that Beck is already becoming formidable. He's getting smart... fast. He's stronger, faster, his fighting abilities are nearing Tron level. Beck truly is exceeding his programming, perhaps exceeding his nature as Basic. Maybe this is what Tron was calling out to, when Beck was struggling after having lost his disc. Tron was banking on the fact that Beck's exceptional nature would allow him to retain more of his identity even without the disc that all Basics require to function.