emdeesee User
Posts: 218 | What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Sunday, July, 08, 2012 4:16 PM
The recent thread on "Quorra and the End of Tron: Legacy" prompted me to dig out some notes I've been jotting down, and try to massage them into a coherent post. The question I'm interested in is, what does it mean for a human to be digitized and appear in the Grid? I don't claim any authority or assert any canonicity; a lot of this is just conjecture. I apologize in advance for the length.
The Grid appears to be a parallel universe, or maybe a set of parallel universes, that reflect the functioning of information processing systems in the universe we know as "reality". Most of the events in TRON [1982] occur on a Grid which supervenes the Encom corporate computer network. The events of TRON: Legacy [2010] on the other hand, suppose a second, separate Grid, which reflects the operation of a single, unnetworked server in the basement of Kevin Flynn's arcade.
The Grid is influenced by our reality: users in this world provide input to programs, which influences the actions of the programs on the Grid, who, in that world, appear more or less human themselves. In the digital world the progams tend to subordinate themselves to the "Users", whom they elevate to the status of deity. It's an oversimplification, though, to consider the Grid reality to be subordinate to this reality. While the Grid receives input from this world, the programs provide output back to this world. Nearly every human decision of any substance is influenced to some extent by the output from software. Despite the deification of users by some programs, the relationship is actually much more dynamic and reciprocal.
Unfortunately, the presentation of the Grid in the two films is not consistent. We know that the events occurring in the [1982] Grid were not limited to the Encom mainframes. The program Crom's user, Mr. Henderson, was a full branch (bank) manager. Banks have their own mainframes. Sark's skill at light cycle combat played out on an arcade machine.
This suggests a Grid that is only metaphorically "inside the computer". The relationship between the computer system's functions and the activities on the grid is loose and suggestive, rather than tightly-coupled and one-to-one.
In contrast, the Grid related to the server in Flynn's basement was limited and stand-alone. Somehow, Flynn managed to create a pocket universe that did not intersect with the Grid presented by [1982].
What about programs, the denizens of the Grid? In our reality programs are series of instructions carried out by computer systems to perform some calculation or take some action. Further, we know that most programs, as perceived in our world, are not examples of general artificial intelligence. Consider this exchange from [1982]:
Dr. Walter Gibbs: Ha, ha. You've got to expect some static. After all, computers are just machines; they can't think.
Alan Bradley: Some programs will be thinking soon.
Dr. Walter Gibbs: Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. |
Gibbs and Alan were apparently unaware that the Master Control Program was an example of general artificial intelligence, capable of learning, adapting and formulating its own objectives. However, the MCP was unique in that regard. "Some programs will be thinking soon" was exactly the state of AI research in 1982 (and, coincidentally, ever since). This suggests that software, within the structure of the Tron narrative, is substantially similar to the software we use every day.
It's unclear whether programs literally carry out computations as understood by our reality. Did Ram sit and calculate annuites by ticking away at a glowing abacus, or was there some more esoteric (to us) activity he undertook on the Grid, which ultimately resulted in actuarial calculations for his user? Though we're never explicitly told, the latter hold more appeal.
When the MCP activated the laser in the Encom facility, Flynn's body was completely destroyed by the laser. Fictional technology allowed the matter that made up is body to be held "suspended", and information encoded to reconstruct his body later, but such technology notwithstanding, we would say a person vaporized by a high-powered laser is dead.
At the same time, a new "Flynn" materialized in a parallel universe, the Grid. The Grid existed before Flynn appeared in it, and its denizens, who know themselves as programs, agents for the mysterious and all-powerful Users, went about their business, pushing data, performing searches, carrying out various functions on behalf of the Users, rezzing and derezzing.
To programs in the Grid, Flynn is outwardly indistinguishable from one of them. The similarities are more than skin deep. He is enough like a program that he can derive pleasure and sustenance by injesting "energy" from the pool he finds with Tron and Ram, and his environment (force fields, etc.) affects him as it would other program. It seems likely that, on the grid, Flynn is "just" a program, created by the laser digitization software, whose function is to be able to reconstruct human Flynn from the deconstructed matter stored in the vessels connected to the laser. Walter Gibbs says that when the program "is played back" the teleportation subject rematerializes. The Flynn we see on the Grid is that program.
A teleportation reconstructor program by necessity would have access to the complete map of its subject, and the Flynn program is no different. Because the subject is sentient, a human, the subject's mental states and memories must also be encoded in that map. Probably as an accident of programming, the reconstructor program has both read and write access to these mental states. This access manifested in the Grid as identification with the teleportation subject. The reconstruction program believed that it was Flynn, and because it could encode its own percpetions and experiences in Flynn's memory, it functionally was Flynn. By virtue of having access to Flynn's talents and understanding as well, the program has escalated privileges within the system. (User power!)
When "Flynn" jumped into the MCP's personal I/O beam, the reconstructor program completed its function, driving the laser to reinstantiate human Flynn at the laser workstation, complete with the memories of the parallel Grid universe, encoded by the reconstructor program.
Since the program's experiences within the grid became incorporated with the teleporation
subject's own "real world" memories, so the Flynn that rematerialized in the teleportation lab was not the same as the Flynn disintegrated by the MCP seconds before: he was changed by the perceptions of his parallel-universe alter ego.
Most of this holds up in the face of Legacy as well. A few things, though, don't fall directly out of it...
While humans and programs on the Grid remain outwardly indistinguishable, Rinzler identifies Sam Flynn as human by the fact that he bleeds when injured, instead of becoming "voxelated" as a program would, like the unnamed, injured program on the Recognizer, or Bartik in the End Of Line Club. Rinzler immediately knows, though, that the presence of blood means that Sam is a user/human; there is no hesitation or confusion. Since Kevin Flynn seemed to be working toward a world where humans moved freely in and out of the Grid, he may have felt it valuable for programs to be able recognize distressed or injured human. Bleeding instead of voxelating might be such a signal, while preserving a healthy human's anonymity.
(I can think of better ways, like a 10 meter arrow that would light up, pointing at a human-in-distress and say "THIS IS A USER!", but Flynn's personality seems to be driven by, as Argent puts it, "the rule of cool".)
Finally, there's the enigma of Quorra's manifestation in Sam's world (along with Clu's plans for escape and conquest), suggesting that any program that passes through the portal on the Grid can be constructed by the laser in the "real world". We are told that Kevin Flynn's disc is the key. Perhaps Flynn was working on a generic template, a framework that could be used by the laser system to construct a functioning humanoid in the "real world", and then populate the template with the mind of a program - the mind as it exists on the Grid rather than the machine instructions we know as a program in our reality. If the template were encoded on Flynn's disc, then referring to it as "the key" makes a kind of sense. His final act was to get this template into the portal and transport Quorra, the last Iso, to the relative safety of his home universe.
Please, fire away. Poke holes and point out weaknesses. I'd like to hear what you think about these ideas.
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Kat User
Posts: 2,394 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Sunday, July, 08, 2012 9:44 PM
Oh boy. I can sense I'm about to run with this.
In part because some of what you're saying is stuff I've speculated on elsewhere before (so I may do some cut-and-paste to make my lazy life easier).
And mind you this is just stuff that comes to mind as I read your post, so if it makes no sense, that may well be why.
Point 1: Quantum teleportation. The funny thing is that like a year ago, I was listening to astronomy.fm and they have a brief thing about quantum teleportation, which made me giggle, considering that's essentially what we deal with in this fandom. I wish I could remember everything they said about it, now.
Point 2: whether users are more important than programs. In my fic that I base around an OC (Elise), she does tend to take a different view than either Flynn seems to. She makes friends within the Grid, etc. because early on in her work there, she spends a lot of time there (a whole week IRL, which translates to like a year there) and she tends more to see programs as being anthropomorphic. So. From another discussion I've had elsewhere, in which I consider another fic I'd started with another OC who has more of the "users are superior to programs" attitude:
But go back to the films for a minute. Neither Flynn really has that attitude. When there are conflicts in the system, they don't fight for the benefit of the programs-- just for themselves. Kevin fights the MCP so he can get the hell out of there and get his info. Sam fights against Clu to get both of them out of there. Flynn only reintegrates with Clu to save Sam. Neither of them actually shows any concern for the freedom of the programs and such.
(and if T:B is to be believed, Flynn never much took anything in the system seriously. It was his place to mess around and he had fun, but that was about it.)
If even they take that attitude, the poor programs have no chance when the rest of the world gets in there.
The only thing I keep wondering about is Flynn at the end of T82. Why does he jump into the MCP? I could almost think that perhaps at that point, he starts to believe in what Tron believes in, and he does it for the benefit of someone besides himself, does something selfless for just about the first time in the film. But if that were the case, then he would've continued that attitude into his own system, right, so that must not be what was going through his head. I wonder what he did think would happen when he jumped. He almost takes the attitude that he thinks he'll die-- you don't kiss your buddy's girl if you think you're gonna live to face up to him later, right? -- but he does tell Yori "don't worry" as if he somehow knows his user-ness will keep him alive (but surely he can't guess that doing it will kick him back to TRW).
(Of course, as I've brought up before, they may well be right to not be willing to risk their necks for programs, of course... but while that's easy to remember on this side of the screen, I would have a hard time keeping that attitude if I had a program standing in front of me. Hence, I suppose, Elise.)
Also, I'd wondered before... what if Tron had to decide between one user, or the whole system? I'd thought about it after one part where my user OC has to do something only a user could survive doing-- her friend says "you can't do it! Tron would have my head if I let you!" and Elise says "Tron would understand and let me go." Then I realized I wasn't sure he would-- he might not sacrifice a user even if it meant the whole system would go down. It would be a difficult choice-- do you go with your directive to protect the Grid, or do you fight for the users? On the other hand, it also occurred to me that programs may realize that some stuff users keep on a system is very important, and letting it go down is not an option.
Point 3: How things function in-Grid. I'd always wondered that, too. I mean, it seems weird to think that there might be things like computers within a computer. OTOH, does your encyclopedia program or file system have a screen they can scroll through, or do they literally have a library of books to sort through? if you send an email, does your email program actually run to another server, or what? (Yeah, I've had a hell of a time dealing with this in writing.)
Point 4: I've always wondered how stuff translates back to the real world. If you get a scrape or broken bone in-Grid, when you rez back out, do you have a scrape or a broken bone? I can't imagine the laser would get that technical (or might not even know how to translate that to a real-world body), but on the other hand, then there would be no consequences to what you do on-Grid and that presents difficulties as well. It can change everything. (See my Afterward story.) And I think you maybe can't do this without at least going back to and thinking about how ti's done in The Matrix, so let's do that real quick-- there, it would seem there ARE consequences to a real-world body (Neo says something like "if you die in the Matrix, you die here?" and Morpheus says, "the body cannot live without the mind"), but I was never sure why. After all, much of the premise is Morpheus teaching Neo that you KNOW it's not real, so you can subvert laws of physics (flying, jumping off a building and landing on the sidewalk with no damage to you, etc.) so even if you're killed there, why would your mind not just KNOW "it's not real" and you're fine in the real world??
Point 5: why WOULD a user have blood after all? (besides as a convenient way to know a user) (though I've written that the human circulatory system = the program circuitry system for delivering energy. In part 'cause I dunno what else to do with it.) We won't go too far into what programs think of this, but suffice it to say I've speculated what they might think of it. Would a program be MORE freaked out by stuff like bleeding because they're not accustomed to it... or less so, simply because unlike users, they haven't spent their life immersed in the idea that blood = injury and so it's not a big deal to them if someone's leaking random red stuff (after all, why else do people get freaked out by the sight of blood even if it's not accompanied by pain or shock? Because it's an ingrown thing for them that if they're seeing blood, something is very wrong. Strange. My partner tends to pass out when having blood drawn. I myself enjoy watching it flow. Go figure.)
Addendum: the behavior of Sam's blood on the Grid. Interesting. Ever broken a thermometer and watched how the mercury tends to blob together? His blood seemed to do that. I wonder what the meaning of that was meant to be. Also, healing. Sam was gashed badly enough that his wound bled pretty freely. Yet after that, there was no sign of the injury-- no further blood, no seeming pain in the area. Yeah, I know, they couldn't spend the rest of the film with him favoring that one arm. But it still brings up an interesting point: will a user self-heal on the Grid? And if so, how fast? Instantly, or could a user fix their own wound? Or would it take the same amount of time it would for it to heal in the real world, and if so-- would this be Grid time or real-world time? Or would healing require a code manipulation like it would for a program?
Point 6: Other bodily stuff. How does that translate. Do you rez in with disabilities? Would I (or Alan) need my glasses? What about injuries-- if I have a bruise or zit, would that rez in with me, or does the laser not get that nitpicky? What about other normal bodily functions (I assume, for example, that the normal "female" type functions wouldn't translate in with you even if users do have blood on-Grid)? For that matter, if you have tattoos or piercings, or other accessories like a watch, do those go with you or not?
Point 7: How do users and programs differ? I know we've debated before: 1. do programs have circuitry printed on their bodies under the clothes? And 2. Do programs possess genitalia. Consider the Armory scene in T:L (how I actually feel about that scene shall remain irrelevant for this thread as it's a whole new can of worms). The Sirens get Sam pretty damn closed to nekkid and don't seem real surprised at what they see (though you will never convince me that programs wear boxer-briefs). Sure, the one said "he's different" but I didn't interpret her tone as feeling he was different in a significant physical way-- simply that she got a vibe that there was something different about him, or I would've suspected a more visceral reaction from all of them over the difference (but I know this could be up for debate according to your interpretation). Does this mean that programs also look like that under their suits too? Then what purpose does the circuitry on the suits serve (esp. since it seems all Games combatants are outfitted in that same pattern, so the pattern doesn't seem to matter and be unique to a specific program that way it seems to be in T82 and even seems to be implied later in T:L (Flynn recognizing Tron by the circuitry pattern). Yeah, another inconsistency I suppose.
There. Are y'all asleep yet? I know, giant can of worms of stuff to discuss. Sorry. I have a lot of stuff I've speculated on in the universe (again, much of it comes from writing about it and trying to figure out how stuff works), so... Also I've had two glasses of wine at this point, so I'm just speculating on anything and everything. Bear with me. on line abortion pill misoprostol dose abortion medical abortion pill onlinewhere to buy abortion pill http://blog.bitimpulse.com/template/default.aspx?abortion-types buy abortion pill online What do you want? I'm busy.
Program, please!
Chaos.... good news. |
emdeesee User
Posts: 218 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Sunday, July, 08, 2012 11:39 PM
Kat Wrote:
Oh boy. I can sense I'm about to run with this. |
Fantastic. I read your post and I'd like to process it. Here are some quick responses; I'll probably come back with more...
Kat Wrote:
The only thing I keep wondering about is Flynn at the end of T82. Why does he jump into the MCP? I could almost think that perhaps at that point, he starts to believe in what Tron believes in, and he does it for the benefit of someone besides himself, does something selfless for just about the first time in the film. But if that were the case, then he would've continued that attitude into his own system, right, so that must not be what was going through his head. I wonder what he did think would happen when he jumped. He almost takes the attitude that he thinks he'll die-- you don't kiss your buddy's girl if you think you're gonna live to face up to him later, right? -- but he does tell Yori "don't worry" as if he somehow knows his user-ness will keep him alive (but surely he can't guess that doing it will kick him back to TRW). |
I agree, he seemed to have some inside knowledge as a result of his User-ness, and maybe because of the function of the reconstruction program. I think he knew on some level he was not only about to distract the MCP and help Tron, but also go back where he came from. The kiss was more a good-bye (and "hey I get to kiss Lora again kinda"), knowing that he wasn't going to have to face Tron in the aftermath, not because he would be derezzed, but because he would be back in Userland.
Kat Wrote:
(Of course, as I've brought up before, they may well be right to not be willing to risk their necks for programs, of course... but while that's easy to remember on this side of the screen, I would have a hard time keeping that attitude if I had a program standing in front of me. Hence, I suppose, Elise.) |
I'll have to go looking for this; I'm interested in the reasoning. The ethics of the program/user relationship in Tron is fascinating.
Kat Wrote:
Point 4: I've always wondered how stuff translates back to the real world. If you get a scrape or broken bone in-Grid, when you rez back out, do you have a scrape or a broken bone? I can't imagine the laser would get that technical (or might not even know how to translate that to a real-world body), but on the other hand, then there would be no consequences to what you do on-Grid and that presents difficulties as well. It can change everything. (See my Afterward story.) And I think you maybe can't do this without at least going back to and thinking about how ti's done in The Matrix, so let's do that real quick-- there, it would seem there ARE consequences to a real-world body (Neo says something like "if you die in the Matrix, you die here?" and Morpheus says, "the body cannot live without the mind"), but I was never sure why. After all, much of the premise is Morpheus teaching Neo that you KNOW it's not real, so you can subvert laws of physics (flying, jumping off a building and landing on the sidewalk with no damage to you, etc.) so even if you're killed there, why would your mind not just KNOW "it's not real" and you're fine in the real world?? |
Under the concept I propose, that the human form projected into digital space (HFPiDS) exists as the program that will eventually rerezz the human in "meat space", I would not expect every "User" to have the powers that Flynn manifests. He manifests those powers because of his deep and inherent understanding of programming and computer systems, not simply because he his human. Taking the idea further, the HFPiDS who is injured on the Grid, might not be able to rematerialize at all if the program is damaged badly enough. Even a relatively minor injury could result a bad outcome at rematerialization time. (Think Star Trek-style transporter accidents.)
Side note: Programs damaging other programs is a really bad design for computer system. The whole sense of urgency around derezzing doesn't really jibe with how computers work, where we kill (with a command called "kill" on some systems - really) programs all the time and restart them. If a program damages other programs, we call that a bug. We fix the aberrant program and move on. If the Isos are so darned important, make a backup, already, so they're saved if your disk crashes or your artificially intelligent system administrator goes rogue and commits cyber-genocide. Apparently it does not work that way, though, and I try to hedge around that with the idea that the relationship between Flynn's computer and the action on the Grid is "loose and suggestive".
Kat Wrote:
But it still brings up an interesting point: will a user self-heal on the Grid? And if so, how fast? Instantly, or could a user fix their own wound? Or would it take the same amount of time it would for it to heal in the real world, and if so-- would this be Grid time or real-world time? Or would healing require a code manipulation like it would for a program? |
If HFPiDS are programs, they would behave like programs. Flynn (or Alan or other programmers) might be able to repair their code on the fly.
I wonder if there are programs that would pass out when the saw the code of other programs (or their own, I suppose) accessed via disc. "Ohhh, my User, I think I'm gonna throw an exception..." thud
Kat Wrote:
Point 6: Other bodily stuff. How does that translate. Do you rez in with disabilities? Would I (or Alan) need my glasses? What about injuries-- if I have a bruise or zit, would that rez in with me, or does the laser not get that nitpicky? What about other normal bodily functions (I assume, for example, that the normal "female" type functions wouldn't translate in with you even if users do have blood on-Grid)? For that matter, if you have tattoos or piercings, or other accessories like a watch, do those go with you or not? |
I don't know why, if you had a bruise, say, your HFPiDS program would be damaged. I'm suggesting a situation where your physical body and your program body are not the same. Something like "residual self-image" a la The Matrix, or maybe more idealized even than that. I person with a crippling spinal cord injury would have full use of their body on the Grid. This is the sort of thing I imagine Flynn was trying to accomplish.
Kat Wrote:
Point 7: How do users and programs differ? I know we've debated before: 1. do programs have circuitry printed on their bodies under the clothes? |
I didn't bring this up, but I consider the lightsuits to be quasi-anatomical, based largely on the relationship between the program and his or her identity disc, and we don't really ever see a program without one. Sometimes they're more revealing, like the Isos in Arjia City in Evolution, or less obtrusive, like Yori's in the deleted scene in her apartment, but they always seem to be there. Sark's whipping boy on the carrier had light traces on his skin, his neck in particular.
Side note: the daemons in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy reminded me of ID discs, daemons and discs being the essence of the person and residing outside the body. Oh, and His Dark Materials has quantum teleportation too.
Kat Wrote:
And 2. Do programs possess genitalia. |
Heck, what does it even mean for programs to have gender? Not that I'm complaining really, Cindy and Bruce and Garrett and Olivia do nice things for their lightsuits - but do boy programs and girl programs go on dates? They sit on each other's laps in night clubs? They engage in ... behaviors in deleted scenes? This is where I just shrug and go "okay".
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Kat User
Posts: 2,394 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Monday, July, 09, 2012 10:21 PM
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What do you want? I'm busy.
Program, please!
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Kat User
Posts: 2,394 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Thursday, July, 12, 2012 10:14 PM
emdeesee Wrote:I'll have to go looking for this; I'm interested in the reasoning. The ethics of the program/user relationship in Tron is fascinating.
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You mean in the reasoning for a user's life being more important than a program's, or the reasoning why a user may come to see programs as human (perhaps to a fault, actually. Maybe I should explore that theme in a story some time as well)?
emdeesee Wrote:would not expect every "User" to have the powers that Flynn manifests. He manifests those powers because of his deep and inherent understanding of programming and computer systems, not simply because he his human.
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I've wondered that too. I have user characters who aren't programmers (well, one isn't, at least) and I've wondered whether these characters might not be able to fix things.
Although I would imagine users would all have some sort of universal powers-- extra energy, a certain added durability of body. And then I wonder if one's "user powers" would be more according to one's knowledge/skills/talents in the real world. Flynn can drive Grid vehicles because he's a gamer; a non-gamer might be hopelessly lost, but might be able to do things there that he never could (unfortunately, I'm a music and writing geek and I think I'd be good-for-nothing no matter where I went. ).
emdeesee Wrote:If HFPiDS are programs, they would behave like programs. Flynn (or Alan or other programmers) might be able to repair their code on the fly.
I wonder if there are programs that would pass out when the saw the code of other programs (or their own, I suppose) accessed via disc. "Ohhh, my User, I think I'm gonna throw an exception..." thud
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Heh, good point! Maybe so. Always wondered what it looks like, anyway. Everyone argues that Quorra is special because she has some triple-helix DNA when you pull her code up on her disc... but we never see what happens when you do the same for a regular program. Maybe it looks the same. Maybe they have a QUAD-helix. Maybe the similarity in look to DNA is simply a visual representation Flynn created because that's what he liked to work with and another programmer might make it look totally different. We have no idea.
emdeesee Wrote:I don't know why, if you had a bruise, say, your HFPiDS program would be damaged. I'm suggesting a situation where your physical body and your program body are not the same. Something like "residual self-image" a la The Matrix, or maybe more idealized even than that. I person with a crippling spinal cord injury would have full use of their body on the Grid. This is the sort of thing I imagine Flynn was trying to accomplish.
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I think that's probably another example of needing to decide exactly what the laser knows how to translate. It takes raw data from your actual body (either inside or outside)-- where does it get the knowledge to change your body and still make it work, if all it has to work with is the information it was given during digitization? I would think it would take some careful programming. "If Bob has only one leg and you digitize him,and he wants two legs, some careful mapping will need to be done to make it so Bob's digital body can be created with a spare leg that actually works." I don't know that it would be automatic.
(I always wondered in The Matrix too how people KNOW what to look like in the Matrix if, obviously, they've never seen what they really look like... and if they then do know that their appearance is up to them, why doesn't everyone plug in and become impossibly attractive in there? I sure as hell would. Booty begone! Teeth straightened! Etc.)
emdeesee Wrote:I didn't bring this up, but I consider the lightsuits to be quasi-anatomical, based largely on the relationship between the program and his or her identity disc, and we don't really ever see a program without one. Sometimes they're more revealing, like the Isos in Arjia City in Evolution, or less obtrusive, like Yori's in the deleted scene in her apartment, but they always seem to be there. Sark's whipping boy on the carrier had light traces on his skin, his neck in particular.
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I always say I rather preferred the treatment in T82--where the circuitry is a part of the program, rather than something they wear. And the circuitry seems to mean something, unlike in T:L, where all of the Games conscripts, and all of the programs Clu rectifies, now have the same patterns.
emdeesee Wrote:
Side note: the daemons in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy reminded me of ID discs, daemons and discs being the essence of the person and residing outside the body. Oh, and His Dark Materials has quantum teleportation too.
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Oh, damn. I never thought to compare the two. Though I also prefer T82's treatment of discs as something that's more a weapon/a way to keep track of how you do in the Games (except the part with Tron/Alan/Tron's disc, which seems to be contradictive to how discs seem to function for the rest of the film), as opposed to something that completely defines who you are (more like, you're right, the daemons). It'd be like carrying your brain and your DNA in your wallet.... what???
emdeesee Wrote:
Heck, what does it even mean for programs to have gender? Not that I'm complaining really, Cindy and Bruce and Garrett and Olivia do nice things for their lightsuits - but do boy programs and girl programs go on dates? They sit on each other's laps in night clubs? They engage in ... behaviors in deleted scenes? This is where I just shrug and go "okay".
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I've not quite figured that out, either. We assume they experience attraction because their users do (or so the Tron/Yori relationship, and the spark of Flynn/Yori attraction, seems to tell us)... which would suggest that program sexual mores and structure tend to mirror those in the real world.
On the other hand, if that were NOT the case-- since programs don't reproduce, I see no reason for them to be tied as strongly to concepts like heterosexuality or even monogamy perhaps.
And since there aren't other biological and household functions to be performed, and really no reason for any program to be weaker than another except by virtue of the robustness of their coding, I don't imagine there would be much in the way of gender roles/stereotypes, either. All other things being equal, if Yori were in a fistfight with Ram, both ought to have an even chance of winning. In reality, one may have been written stronger or as more of a fighter, but that's not a feature of their sex so much as their programming. (In one of my fics, in which Tron has a security team, his two best fighters are this tall, big, athletic-looking male, and a shortish, thin, quiet female. In another, I have a skinny female hacker program who can kick just about anybody's ass, though I admit that her pair of colleagues who are brute-force door crackers are on the big side... but still, if she fights one of them, she tends to win slightly more often than not-- or as she points out, "he was written for entry, not combat.")
(On Flynn's Grid, too, it would seem programs no longer resemble their user... this should mean there would be greater diversity, right, because "race" and other aspects of appearance are rather arbitrary. One of the things that sort of disappointed me in T:L-- we see, what, three programs who aren't white [and two of them are Sirens and almost don't count; guess they're more worried about racial equality in sex symbols than in anyone else]. I tend to populate my systems in my stories with programs of all races/appearances, sexes, and their relationships can run the gamut from interracial to homosexual, 'cause it just doesn't occur to them that this might be out of the ordinary.)
What do you want? I'm busy.
Program, please!
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KingJ.exe User
Posts: 390 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Thursday, July, 12, 2012 11:41 PM
Idea about the digitization process and memories: I was watching the sequence in T82 again, and I noticed that when the laser first hits, Flynn is frozen for several seconds. The. The grid work is mapped and the laser sucks him up. What if the frozen time is the laser taking a snapshot of the entire item being digitized, the firings in the brain having been frozen at the exact same second, cell connections, everything. Then, it writes all the information down as a specific code that when sent to the laser system again, realizes the digitized form. This would result in Flynn having all his memories. This "User code" as I'll call it, is indistinguishable from regular codes for programs, unless you know what you're looking for. Attributes that the digitized person had would translate to the user code, like Flynn's programming ability. The important thing there would be is that somehow the memory section of this code that controls the subjects memories is writeable, and as the code has experiences as a digitized human, it adds these to the memory section of the code. Thus, memories remain from the digital world.
I think this could also explain how Quorra was translated into human form. Flynn's disc was referred to as the master key. In this theory, it works sorta like the correction algorithms in TRON 2.0, only in reverse. Flynn's disc has the caclulations necessary to properly convert program code into a form the laser would understand as user code, and realize it properly. Thoughts?
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zennswill User
Posts: 2 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Friday, August, 10, 2012 3:52 AM
Digitization is the process of converting information into a digital format . In this format, information is organized into discrete units of data (called bit s) that can be separately addressed (usually in multiple-bit groups called byte s). This is the binary data that computers and many devices with computing capacity (such as digital camera s and digital hearing aid s) can process.
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J User
Posts: 248 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Saturday, August, 11, 2012 5:00 PM
I'm having to put a lot of thought into this because of "Invasion" (and a post-Legacy ffic called "Endgame"). Now, keep in mind that I do say "screw it" and use both 2.0 and Legacy canons...
Some interesting thoughts:
1) Users do seem to have a much higher resiliency and energy reserves inside the system. Yes, it's mostly "rule of fun" that can max Jet's hit points & energy reserves at 300, which is anywhere from three to ten times more than the Programs he's fighting. We also have Flynn's insane move of channeling a transit beam using his body as a conduit, which is explicitly stated should have killed him.
2) When you convert anything in an analog medium to digital, you fundamentally change it. Say you have an vinyl record that you put on a USB turntable. You digitize the content into MP3. Now, you can do some interesting things with it - remove pops and hisses, clean up scratches, enhance parts of the sound. You can copy it, back it up, transfer it between computers. In theory, it's the same music. Listening to it, you might not hear much of a difference. However, the analog record is a continuous medium. Digital versions are made of millions of samples per second. There is some data loss the that you aren't supposed to perceive, and the computer "fills in" the losses. Your ear can't hear the difference, and even if you transcribed your new MP3 back onto a new LP, you would be dealing with the digital format that is an almost, but not completely, perfect copy.
Now, digitize a human. It seems to break them down into millions of sampled parts before reassembling them in cyberspace. If done properly, they can't perceive the difference, aside from losing their clothes and getting them replaced with circuit armor. If it's done at too low of a sample rate, or there's a format error? Well, that explains Thorne, the F-Con trio, and at least one timeline's version of Lora.
3) Now, here's the kicker - remember the data loss that the computer "fills in" when they play back the file? A human that comes back from the digital world isn't the same as when he went in. Like the vinyl record above, the content has been subtly, but significantly, altered. It might be a fluke on the part of the artists, but remember Jet's horn rim glasses? He wasn't wearing them in the analog scenes of Ghost in the Machine. (Yes, I know about how it was Blue Jet...maybe. LurkingHorror, those things made about as much sense as the Grant Morrison Doom Patrol run).
Since the template for a digitized human was a healthy, active man of roughly 30, that's what the computer is going on when it "fills in" the rest of the data. As such, it may view things like poor eyesight to be an "error" and corrects it when translating the human to digital and back.
And here's a very disturbing (or really fun) idea to chew on; Flynn Sr. was apparently racking up frequent flyer miles to cyberspace before Jordan was in the picture. What do you think that might have done to Sam's DNA? The guy might actually be closer to Quorra in the species department than he realizes.
It's an entire universe in there, one we created, but it's beyond us now. Really. It's outgrown us. You know, every time you shut off your computer...do you know what you're doing? Have you ever reformatted a hard drive? Deleted old software? Destroyed an entire universe?"
-- Jet Bradley, Tron: Ghost in the Machine on why being a User isn't necessarily a good thing. |
Kat User
Posts: 2,394 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Saturday, August, 11, 2012 7:45 PM
J Wrote:3) Now, here's the kicker - remember the data loss that the computer "fills in" when they play back the file? A human that comes back from the digital world isn't the same as when he went in. Like the vinyl record above, the content has been subtly, but significantly, altered. It might be a fluke on the part of the artists, but remember Jet's horn rim glasses? He wasn't wearing them in the analog scenes of Ghost in the Machine. (Yes, I know about how it was Blue Jet...maybe. LurkingHorror, those things made about as much sense as the Grant Morrison Doom Patrol run).
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And that is, of course, one of the issues with quantum teleportation: is the person who reassembles at (wherever you're going) the same "you" that left in the first place? (With the philosophical question aside of whether you're truly the same person you were a minute ago, or a year ago, or a decade ago... because that's something different and is introducing two variables into the thought experiment.) Which leads to...
J Wrote:And here's a very disturbing (or really fun) idea to chew on; Flynn Sr. was apparently racking up frequent flyer miles to cyberspace before Jordan was in the picture. What do you think that might have done to Sam's DNA? The guy might actually be closer to Quorra in the species department than he realizes. |
DNA aside (although I've had the same question and wondered if there may not be some sort of undesirable mutation occurring-- getting zapped by a laser repeatedly could surely have the same effect as, say, regularly taking low doses of radiation), I've also wondered in the past if it might not have neurological implications as well. Which could be one explanation why everyone seems to think Flynn gets more eccentric and strange as time goes on-- it may not just be that he's overextended in juggling work, Grid, and persona life, or that his worldview is changing slightly because he knows about the Grid, or because he's excited about it and becoming obsessive... it could truly be that something in the firing of his synapses is changing slightly every time he goes in and comes back out, and over enough time/enough trips, his personality is actually changing.
(I don't think it's as strange as it seems-- when I was in high school, my mom had cancer, and she was on chemo for a while. I swear to you there were subtle changes in her personality afterward-- you might not notice unless you knew her really well, but I noticed, and no, it wasn't the sort of thing I'd chalk up to facing your own possible mortality or anything like that. We could of course even go into mind-altering substances-- and, the illegal ones aside, anyone who's been on certain painkillers or antidepressants long-term and then gone off them could attest to the neurological consequences, esp. if quitting cold-turkey-- but that's really off-topic; the point is that messing around with our mental equilibrium, both physically and psychologically, just isn't that difficult.)
And to return to an earlier subject in this thread-- as to whether Sam has any user powers, I think we'll have to wait to find out. The fact that he exhibits none in T:L could just be because he hasn't a clue he has any-- anything Flynn manages in T82 (like fixing the reco) is unintentional and discovered quite by accident, because he had no idea either. (At the end, I don't think he really knew if he'd survive his encounter with the MCP or not. Probably why he figures he has nothing to lose in kissing Yori.) What do you want? I'm busy.
Program, please!
Chaos.... good news. |
J User
Posts: 248 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Tuesday, August, 14, 2012 8:35 PM
Yeah, macking on your pal's girlfriend is probably a fast way to get your arse kicked, along with the squicky implications that he only does it because she looks like the ex he's totally not over. (Stay classy, Flynn...)
But go back to the films for a minute. Neither Flynn really has that attitude. When there are conflicts in the system, they don't fight for the benefit of the programs-- just for themselves. Kevin fights the MCP so he can get the hell out of there and get his info. Sam fights against Clu to get both of them out of there. Flynn only reintegrates with Clu to save Sam. Neither of them actually shows any concern for the freedom of the programs and such.
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I'd argue Flynn had a shift of priorities and got a swift kick in the Character Development when Ram practically died in his arms. Using the classic alignment system, he was on a tightrope between Chaotic Good and Chaotic Neutral. Chaotic Neutral? That's Jack Sparrow's alignment - doesn't like anyone impinging on his freedom, takes a dim view on those who would impinge others' freedom, but ultimately out for himself. That sweet actuarial dies invoking the Users, and his last words are not for himself at all, but begging Flynn to "help Tron." The novelization takes it up a bit - seeing Tron and Yori helps him wrap his mind around the idea that Lora really is better off with Alan. It's because of this swift kick from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good that gets him pulling two things that saved his digital friends
But his behavior in Betrayal? The Grid may have been something he saw as a plaything. After the analog world kicked him in the teeth repeatedly (the board barely tolerating him, losing Jordan, trying to raise Sam alone), it also became his escape, almost like a drug. Now, I'll argue that Clu was becoming a nasty piece of work well before the coup, but it didn't help. To his credit, he never seemed to treat the Programs and Isos as less than human, he was merely ill-equpped for the responsibility and wasn't truly able to comprehend what being a User or Creator meant.
In 2.0, we can explicitly see what bad Users will do to a system, especially if they disregard the Programs' lives entirely. Thorne was bad enough, corrupting Programs left and right, and reveling in power. But add the DataWraiths whose explicit purpose is to bully and terrorize the Programs into betraying their Users.
(Which beings up a nasty implication for anyone else writing patchwork canons - Tron wouldn't be able to do a damn thing against a DataWraith, not even to save himself or another Program. )
Point 3: How things function in-Grid. I'd always wondered that, too. I mean, it seems weird to think that there might be things like computers within a computer. OTOH, does your encyclopedia program or file system have a screen they can scroll through, or do they literally have a library of books to sort through? if you send an email, does your email program actually run to another server, or what? (Yeah, I've had a hell of a time dealing with this in writing.)
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I'll punt to 2.0 for this one. Email couriers do have to run from system to system, sometimes on foot, sometimes by piloting packet transfers. Corrupting a few was how Thorne got into Encom's servers in the first place. I-No seemed to have a means of looking up things, but seeing as the fellow is a Tower Guardian as well as an information retrieval Program, It's hard to say what his method is for finding the data.
Point 4: I've always wondered how stuff translates back to the real world. If you get a scrape or broken bone in-Grid, when you rez back out, do you have a scrape or a broken bone?
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As for self-healing and other physiological oddities? Yeah, that can get some really disturbing implications, especially if you're going with the MP3 analogy. Again, 2.0's on the brain, so I'm thinking about those little, red balls of "PRAISE THE USERS!" that you find when racing from system to system. Essentially, you're shoring up your own "code" with program code. Short-term, it'll save your butt. Hard to tell what the long term on that'll be. I like the idea you brought up about neurological changes, though. Maybe it's damage, maybe it's more that the User starts thinking like a Program.
Until expressed otherwise, I'll figure that damage heals much faster. Perhaps Programs can't explicitly self-repair, and Users shrug off damage or heal the way video game sprites can. I also have little hiccups, like Lora and Alan realizing "Hey, our lower back pain/ neuropathy pain/old carpal tunnel injuries don't hurt here." I also have a scene I'm not sure I'll use where Jet tells his dad "Lose the glasses, Pop. We haven't needed them since coming back the first time."
Again, this is why I like Ghost in the Machine, as much of a head trip as it is - only thing in the franchise that even tries to raise the questions.
Point 5: why WOULD a user have blood after all? (besides as a convenient way to know a user) (though I've written that the human circulatory system = the program circuitry system for delivering energy. In part 'cause I dunno what else to do with it.) We won't go too far into what programs think of this, but suffice it to say I've speculated what they might think of it.
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That's one I haven't figured out. But yeah...the blood did behave strangely. Maybe it's a side effect of digitized blood behaving like leaking energy would.
Point 7: How do users and programs differ? I know we've debated before: 1. do programs have circuitry printed on their bodies under the clothes? And 2. Do programs possess genitalia. |
Ah, Rule 34 and the kinds of things we'll need to know when writing fic. Worse, we're dealing with a Disney film, so the only "source material" we have for this is deliberately vague. We do see Yori's fingers migrating southward, though. The book and script seem to propose some kind of energy meld. It might be that their shells (bodies) didn't have them in the 1982 era, but that as computers have upgraded, their shells have also evolved to become more human-like. the Grid folk likely are built like humans, and Mercury (being from the 2000's) definitely is.
Energy exchanges through physical contact, and circuit-to-circuit touching would probably be the primary way Programs get it on, but "User style" wouldn't be unheard of - merely seen as a kink, and likely a kinda blasphemous one at that.
As for the purposes of Program sexuality and gender differentiation? Well, they don't seem to have concepts of "children," and "family." (Thinking of Ma3a, a very sophisticated AI, only able to parse "father" as "earlier version). They do seem to have a concept of marriage or committed relationship (Tron & Yori), though. I started calling that kind of relationship "bundled" as a joke and kept it because I haven't figured out a better term. I don't picture monogamy or sexual orientation as meaning all that much on the other side of the screen, either. I could just see it as "don't go into promiscuous mode if you're bundled." And "bundled" doesn't have to be just two Programs of opposite gender designations. I can easily see threesomes and foursomes being in place. Five or more is odd, but not unheard of.
Gender designation is trickier. It's probably "Rule of Fanservice" on the Sirens, but female-designated Programs tend towards support jobs; Yori's a simulation debugger, Paige was a healer, the Sirens equip combatants for the Games. There were female-designated lightcycle racers in Tron 2.0, however. It probably doesn't have as many implications as it would on this side of the screen, but it's not purely aesthetic, either.
I'd say they do have the circuitry on the skin (Tron's gorgeous nimbus pattern oughtn't be completely forgotten), as it serves the purpose of identifier. Like video games,there might be dozens of Programs with the same or similar enough face, but the individual circuitry helps tell Joe from Jim if you're seeing them from a distance. Having identical circuitry patterns for a game contestant in that light would be a dehumanizing (or equivalent) thing; your captors sending the message that you are no longer an individual, merely an interchangeable piece of disc fodder unworthy of differentiation.
It's an entire universe in there, one we created, but it's beyond us now. Really. It's outgrown us. You know, every time you shut off your computer...do you know what you're doing? Have you ever reformatted a hard drive? Deleted old software? Destroyed an entire universe?"
-- Jet Bradley, Tron: Ghost in the Machine on why being a User isn't necessarily a good thing. |
Kat User
Posts: 2,394 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Thursday, August, 16, 2012 1:37 AM
J Wrote:Yeah, macking on your pal's girlfriend is probably a fast way to get your arse kicked, along with the squicky implications that he only does it because she looks like the ex he's totally not over. (Stay classy, Flynn...)
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Yes, well... that's another creepiness factor I try to ignore. (I still wonder how Flynn and Yori got along in his subsequent visits [well, and also how he looked Tron in the eye]. I mean, if she didn't know at the time what he was doing-- though she seemed to figure it out pretty quick as she definitely kisses him back-- she surely did later, and... well... I'd have a hard time being friends with a guy who made a move on me, knowing I was spoken for. Especially since, well, she didn't agree to it in the first place...)
J Wrote:I'd argue Flynn had a shift of priorities and got a swift kick in the Character Development when Ram practically died in his arms. Using the classic alignment system, he was on a tightrope between Chaotic Good and Chaotic Neutral. Chaotic Neutral? That's Jack Sparrow's alignment - doesn't like anyone impinging on his freedom, takes a dim view on those who would impinge others' freedom, but ultimately out for himself. That sweet actuarial dies invoking the Users, and his last words are not for himself at all, but begging Flynn to "help Tron." The novelization takes it up a bit - seeing Tron and Yori helps him wrap his mind around the idea that Lora really is better off with Alan. It's because of this swift kick from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good that gets him pulling two things that saved his digital friends
But his behavior in Betrayal? The Grid may have been something he saw as a plaything. After the analog world kicked him in the teeth repeatedly (the board barely tolerating him, losing Jordan, trying to raise Sam alone), it also became his escape, almost like a drug. Now, I'll argue that Clu was becoming a nasty piece of work well before the coup, but it didn't help. To his credit, he never seemed to treat the Programs and Isos as less than human, he was merely ill-equpped for the responsibility and wasn't truly able to comprehend what being a User or Creator meant.
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That's the problem, though-- T:B implies that he's never in the Grid. I can't remember if it was this thread or another one where I said it didn't jive-- Clu says Flynn's never in the Grid; Alan says he's never at Encom; Jordan's parents say he's never around for Sam. So where IS the dude, then?
J Wrote:As for self-healing and other physiological oddities? Yeah, that can get some really disturbing implications, especially if you're going with the MP3 analogy. Again, 2.0's on the brain, so I'm thinking about those little, red balls of "PRAISE THE USERS!" that you find when racing from system to system. Essentially, you're shoring up your own "code" with program code. Short-term, it'll save your butt. Hard to tell what the long term on that'll be. I like the idea you brought up about neurological changes, though. Maybe it's damage, maybe it's more that the User starts thinking like a Program.
Until expressed otherwise, I'll figure that damage heals much faster. Perhaps Programs can't explicitly self-repair, and Users shrug off damage or heal the way video game sprites can. I also have little hiccups, like Lora and Alan realizing "Hey, our lower back pain/ neuropathy pain/old carpal tunnel injuries don't hurt here." I also have a scene I'm not sure I'll use where Jet tells his dad "Lose the glasses, Pop. We haven't needed them since coming back the first time."
Again, this is why I like Ghost in the Machine, as much of a head trip as it is - only thing in the franchise that even tries to raise the questions.
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Yow. I never thought of it in terms of patching with system/program code. Cybernetics indeed. Sounds like a person could be assimilated.
I think it's a slippery slope, though. Say you don't need glasses or don't have arthritis in the Grid. Then you probably wouldn't have any other disabilities. Well, in that case, nobody would need to be obese or short or anything, right? Pretty soon you're justifying fixing every flaw about yourself and you've got something like Tron meets Gattaca meets Second Life. Little creepy, at least to me, and creates a WHOLE different storyline. I'd rather think it's the digitization version of WYSIWYG-- what you got is what you get.
J Wrote:That's one I haven't figured out. But yeah...the blood did behave strangely. Maybe it's a side effect of digitized blood behaving like leaking energy would. |
Never thought of that. I just considered it maybe a side effect of the surface it was on.
J Wrote:Energy exchanges through physical contact, and circuit-to-circuit touching would probably be the primary way Programs get it on, but "User style" wouldn't be unheard of - merely seen as a kink, and likely a kinda blasphemous one at that.
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Oh, I could go interesting places with that one....
The only thing I never favored was the idea of merely circuit contact. Now, maybe programs aren't as clumsy as I am, but imagine having these really sensitive spots and going through your daily life... you run into a door and scream in pain; someone bumps into you on the street and you're turned on. Etc. Wouldn't it be like a constant kick in the nuts, to put it coarsely?
J Wrote:As for the purposes of Program sexuality and gender differentiation? Well, they don't seem to have concepts of "children," and "family." (Thinking of Ma3a, a very sophisticated AI, only able to parse "father" as "earlier version). They do seem to have a concept of marriage or committed relationship (Tron & Yori), though. I started calling that kind of relationship "bundled" as a joke and kept it because I haven't figured out a better term. I don't picture monogamy or sexual orientation as meaning all that much on the other side of the screen, either. I could just see it as "don't go into promiscuous mode if you're bundled." And "bundled" doesn't have to be just two Programs of opposite gender designations. I can easily see threesomes and foursomes being in place. Five or more is odd, but not unheard of.
Gender designation is trickier. It's probably "Rule of Fanservice" on the Sirens, but female-designated Programs tend towards support jobs; Yori's a simulation debugger, Paige was a healer, the Sirens equip combatants for the Games. There were female-designated lightcycle racers in Tron 2.0, however. It probably doesn't have as many implications as it would on this side of the screen, but it's not purely aesthetic, either.
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Exactly. There are few reasons for programs to have gender roles. For that matter, I see no reason for there to be any differences except outward appearance, really. There's no reason any program would be stronger than another except by virtue of their coding and purpose.
(I always thought of romantic commitments as being separate from programs written to work as colleagues, though. I've got a couple of encryption-cracker programs written as partners, but they're not romantically involved-- they function more like twins or soulmates than anything else. And romantic commitments look nothing like real-world marriage... closer in form to something like a handfasting, I suppose-- less rigid and more customizable to the participants.)
J Wrote:I'd say they do have the circuitry on the skin (Tron's gorgeous nimbus pattern oughtn't be completely forgotten), as it serves the purpose of identifier. Like video games,there might be dozens of Programs with the same or similar enough face, but the individual circuitry helps tell Joe from Jim if you're seeing them from a distance. Having identical circuitry patterns for a game contestant in that light would be a dehumanizing (or equivalent) thing; your captors sending the message that you are no longer an individual, merely an interchangeable piece of disc fodder unworthy of differentiation.
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The "uniform" appearance is understandable-- but it's HOW that might translate to on-skin circuitry that bugs me. I don't imagine the latter would tend to change... which is why I wonder what the implications might be of changing the outward appearance.
What do you want? I'm busy.
Program, please!
Chaos.... good news. |
KingJ.exe User
Posts: 390 | RE: What does it mean to be "digitized"? on Thursday, August, 16, 2012 2:40 AM
I had a thought about Users bleeding.
What if, sometime during his escapades on the Grid before everything went haywire, Flynn got some sort of scratch or something while running from gridbugs or something? Maybe his scratch being represented as the pixel-y bits of programs kinda wierded him out, and he programmed it so that if a digitized user got hurt, it would mimic human physiology? This way, the inside simulation wouldn't be active unless a user got hurt, and would only apply to users, so the strain on the system wouldn't be too great? (he probably custom built the computer too, I bet he had a ton of ram strapped onto that thing).
Watch me stream TRON 2.0 on my YouTube channel!
https://gaming.youtube.com/channel/UCvvT-h8JK4w1xgKavs35WHg/live
Find the archive here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf9ZcCtZm_CjonNAjms4wKN-p6UuiCMgZ |
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