I'm posting this here because while a general idea, it relates heavily to details in the Tron Betrayal graphic novel and in Tron Legacy.

So, destroying or Derezzing a program in Tron has always been a little fantastical and not entirely true to real life computers. (As folks always ask: why didn't they just make a back-up of themselves?)

I realized though, that thru accident or design, the Betrayal graphic novel combined with Tron Legacy creates a great framework for this concept to fully congeal.

In Betrayal, the entire reason why the ISOs are initially a problem for Clu is because they're unplanned. The Grid must have its power systems modified to account for an increased amount of traffic. There can only be so many programs, referred to as Basics, in existence at any one time, or the power distribution system becomes unstable.

This implies indirectly that Basic programs are all accounted for to the last digital man (or woman). Now, logically, there's no reason you cannot rez up an infinite number of copies of a program - but the idea that numbers must be balanced to manage resources finally provides good answers to some questions. Here's how I think it'd be fun to relate it to Derezzing.

One plot hole (I'd imagine) is this: "Why would Clu waste time having Basics killed on the Game Grid if he just wants to Rectify them into his army? Wouldn't he want as many soldiers as he could get?"

What if, we imagine, when a Basic is derezzed, that instance of themselves is removed form the Grid, and they are then free to be spawned again as a fresh copy; if each Basic was originally designed to perform a function, this would be necessary anyway, else the Grid would run out of say, workers for Energy Plant 5 due to mishaps and accidents.

But, Basics sure don't want to be killed, and we even saw people in the End of Line club crying in shock and horror at friends being murdered. So death matters in this reality. What could make it matter, is that when a Basic (or any kind of digital entity) is derezzed, that unique instance of their personality is erased - all their experience, memories, and traits earned in that incarnation. A new copy of whatever kind of program they are is then automatically spawned by the system so that they can keep doing their job; but it's not the same guy. It's a clone, with a blank memory, and so to anyone who knew that fellow, he was truly killed.

This would also help explain the Games under Clu; they're not just entertaining, but a way to filter out the Basics who, by their inherent design, are the fiercest predators. Clu cares not whether individual personalities are being murdered over and over - his obsession is efficiency, and a cold machine that continually murders people only to have them re-rezzed and murdered again sure would help give Clu's operations an even more sinister edge.

This might also reconcile the old fantasy element of Tron wherein programs who are killed actually "die" even though in a real computer, we could simply reload the program. It also might be an entirely necessary explanation in order to figure out why, in 1000 years of Grid time between the betrayal and Sam arriving on the Grid, Clu didn't run out of civilian Basics thanks to the Game Grid murdering them all. Finally, it'd work into that one poor guy committing suicide with the plea "erase me" rather than be killed in the games instead - he wanted to /literally/ be erased, not just derezzed, so as not to live through the nightmare over and over again.

This fanon speculation brought to you by Space Dinosaur Industries, LLC.

There are like 120,000+ or more "Programs" in The Grid. There's probably a lot of redundency, "active" and "inactive" Programs. To me it seemed that the more "emotional", "useless" i.e. "imperfect" Programs were sent to the games, and Programs with the least "emotions" that where the most useful where sent to be rectified (repurposed).

I'm sure that a few dozen Programs derezzed every so often didn't matter much when there are other Programs that are of the same type to continue to fulfill whatever the derezzed Program's role was....

Now I've always assumed that to be Derezed was to be removed from the system completely. We have programs sitting idle on computers all the time this doesn't mean that they are not ON the system. They are just waiting for a command to be issued to them, so when a program is Derezed they are wiped off the system and are no longer able to be used at all meaning they would have to be reinstalled.

"As folks always ask: why didn't they just make a back-up of themselves?"

Does your email program back itself up when it feels like it or when you tell it too? If I delete a program from my computer I have to reinstall the copy I have which could be a few versions out of date unless I have kept a recent backup of it. If programs were as you say respawned then Clu would never have been able to take over the system as he has done. The thing is you are assuming that programs are needed to run the system, most programs do not run the system but operate within the system. We can safely assume that the world they live in consists of the computer hardware and the OS, every program you see is an extra that Flynn put in there for some purpose.

Also to join in on this "its just a movie debate"

If it wasnt for scientists and engineers watching Sci Fi and asking "could that work" we wouldnt have things like laptops and iphones

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