Application: Abax
player information.
name: Sharn
are you over 18?: Yep.
personal lj: smiley_anon. That said, I haven't checked it in awhile; this account's more likely to get a response.
plurk: notglitching
characters in abax: No one else.
in character information.
series: The Tron and Tron: Legacy movies, and accompanying canon. This includes the Tron: Betrayal comic and Tron: Evolution storylines as well.
name: Rinzler (Tron)
sex: Male. But not anatomically correct by human standards.
age: Approximately 1354 cycles (1237 years), though only 28 years passed outside the computer. Physically resembles a 32-year-old human.
race: Basic program
height: 6'2" (Worth noting ooc, though-Rinzler hunches ridiculously. He's lightly built and more likely to look short than tall to a casual glance.)
weight: 160 (guessed).
canon point: Halfway through Tron: Legacy, shortly after Rinzler left the End of Line club to go hunt users.
previous cr:
Rinzler spent a few months in ilpromenade. This has been a massive source of character development for him. When he first entered, his focus was straightforward: carry out his orders from Clu and kill anyone who got in the way. By now, while he hasn't really broken the reprogramming that limits him, Rinzler's fought for and against users (humans), recovered some degree of memory, and is actually beginning to wrestle with choice rather than just obeying his directives.
Network posts made and tagged by Rinzler.
Logs made and tagged by Rinzler.
Previous CR (for characters similarly transferring to Abax):
savior_n_black started off Rinzler's stay in Promenade with utterly inexplicable and untrustworthy behavior- trying to help the program for no other reason than he was lost and struggling in a new place. Though their interactions have gone through several stages of aggression and uncertainty, Ichigo's continued effort has resulted in a reciprocated friendship, inasmuch as Rinzler's capable of such a thing. More than support, Ichigo constantly provides Rinzler with challenges-to move past the rote aggression his recoding prompts, to think and choose for himself. These aren't concepts Rinzler can easily accept, but Ichigo's efforts-and friendship-has made an undeniable difference.
holeheart was, and largely still is, a confusing threat in Rinzler's estimation. Their first encounter resulted in the program concluding "virus" and having to be physically blocked from attacking. Their next interaction resulted in Rinzler reclassifying the other as a security function (made "to protect"). Though they've fought as brief allies since, the two have no particular closeness. As a whole, Rinzler respects Shiro's ruthlessness, recognizes him as both an ally of a friend and a potential enemy-and has a vague suspicion, somewhere in his processing, that Shiro's stated function is somehow what his should be.
snowwhitesoul stood between him and isomorphology (a surviving ISO and Rinzler's canon enemy) when Rinzler was hunting the ISO. Rinzler subsequently attacked, and while he didn't fare poorly in the resulting fight, he also failed completely at gaining anything more than a battle. Though he's peripherally aware of her connection to other, less antagonistic associates, Rinzler holds nothing but hostility towards this threat-and a good deal of respect.
destinedwaters likewise opposed Rinzler in his pursuit of Quorra-and the program had very little idea how to deal with some of the magic she wielded. His battle with her (and her student ultimarecipe) would be difficult to describe as any kind of victory; while the program came away relatively uninjured, being frozen, fireballed, and levitated over the course of the fight did little for his sense of combat superiority. Since then, she's threatened him, fought in his Games, and on one occasion, helped him. Rinzler's not as sure about her as he could be, but for the most part, considers her an enemy and threat-and one worth taking very, very seriously.
One more interaction is relevant to Rinzler's arrival in a more immediate sense: while stand_witness won't be joining him in Abax at this time, Rinzler's being taken from right after the latest fight in the ongoing war the two have been engaged in. As a result, Rinzler's left arm (the dominant one, though he's more or less ambidextrous) will be broken on arrival. Which is to say, nearly broken off.
history: (If this is too long, these links should serve.)
Rinzler was originally written in 1982 by Alan Bradley as “Tron”: a security program, one of the first firewalls. His purpose was to monitor and protect the Encom system and run independently from admin control. When the AI running the system, the MCP (“Master Control Program”), seized Tron before he was even finished being updated and put him in the gladiatorial Games under its lackey Sark, he was briefly stymied in his goal.
Tron survived the Games, though, adopting the directive to “fight for the Users” in defiance of Sark and the MCP’s attempts to purge programs of their user-following beliefs. When one user, Kevin Flynn, was digitized into the system by accident, Tron joined him in escape and eventually destroyed the MCP, freeing the system. When Flynn returned a few weeks later, asking Tron to come join him a new system, the program agreed.
Flynn’s new system was an experiment, the user trying to create a world from the inside out. His primary assistants were Tron and Clu, a sysadmin written by Flynn with the directive to “create the perfect system”. When Flynn’s system started spawning ISOs-Isomorphic algorithms, self-generated programs written by no user, Clu determined the newcomers were a fault-an imperfection. Tron disagreed, and was stuck for awhile in the middle, trying to broker peace between ISOs and other programs (now dubbed ‘Basics’), while Flynn was largely absent, and Clu grew more and more aggressive.
Tron warned Flynn of the problems, but the user was only minimally concerned-and then Clu made his move. He attacked Flynn, trying to stop the user leaving the system while he pulled a coup from the inside. Tron defended Flynn enough to save the user, but failed to save himself. Clu defeated him-but contrary to what everyone else believed, Tron wasn’t derezzed (killed). Instead, Clu decided to test out his repurposing privileges: his abilities, as an admin, to rewrite a program’s code. Tron was recoded, filtered, reprogrammed-his independence and free will removed, his memories, name, and voice taken from him. With the black helmet hiding his face from the system, a second disk of restrictive code merged with his own, and his normally-blue circuits glowing corrupted orange, Tron was gone for all intents and purposes. Clu had his perfect enforcer: Rinzler.
Time inside the computer passes more rapidly than outside, and while just over 20 years went by in the outside world, Rinzler had a millennium to settle into his new existence. He was Clu’s weapon, his utterly obedient tool, and Clu used him to great effect. When Clu’s army destroyed the ISO strongholds, Rinzler was sent to hunt down those who remained. When rebellious programs took steps to free the system, they would find a black-helmeted shadow derezzing them with vicious precision. He was more than just a weapon-he was Clu’s champion, a symbol of his power-as demonstrated through the Games Clu set up, deathmatches of his captured prisoners, with Rinzler always there as the final opponent, the one to execute the last surviving offender and prove the invulnerability of Clu’s dictatorship.
Occasional errors would come up in Rinzler’s code, the program hesitating, reaching back for the self and freedom he had lost, but the rewrites were extensive, and Clu was always there, checking his disk, rectifying any imperfections that came up. It would take a truly impressive series of events to break fully through the reprogramming.
Such a thing was in the process of unfolding before Rinzler… well, went elsewhere. A new user entered the system: Sam Flynn, the elder Flynn’s son. Rinzler wound up facing him in the Games, sparing him (and speaking his first word in hundreds of cycles) upon recognizing him as a user. His processing was further disturbed when Clu successfully tracked down the original Flynn’s hiding place-and took Rinzler with to observe the now-empty abode. The program was just sent from the doomed End of Line club after the escaping users when his sensors went dark with unexpected shutdown, and he woke up somewhere new.
personality:
Rinzler’s personality manages to be completely direct and still overwhelmingly complicated. In short, he’s been reduced to the perfect weapon. He's utterly loyal to Clu, his admin and (re)programmer, incapable of even considering defiance. Though he's made progress in his time in Promenade, morals are still mostly foreign to him, and if there’s reason, he’ll kill as quickly as make friends-he’s far more used to the former, actually. He’s been forbidden speech or the removal of his mask (among other things), so ‘faceless drone’ is in many ways an accurate interpretation. That said, beneath the mask, he has a fully functioning mind and personality, if limited severely. Rinzler’s quick-thinking and adaptive, constantly alert for threats and orders. He only takes orders from Clu-or so he was programmed. He enjoys combat a great deal, and tends towards showmanship, drawing fights out unless he has a reason to end things quickly.
On an even deeper level, he’s constantly frustrated. Clu’s reprogramming left him without access to his memories, original directives, name, or much in the way of free will. Though warped by centuries of use and recoding, Rinzler is Tron beneath it all-and he’s furious. From time to time, the program will make efforts to access his restricted identity-and suffer crippling feedback as his systems punish the unauthorized attempt. This can happen by accident as well, if outside circumstances trigger memory or impulses his current programming doesn’t permit. While mostly futile, enough triggers and agonizing efforts can break through the filters somewhat-progress which, in his own world, is generally followed by deletion the next time Clu checks and ‘fixes’ his disk.
Rinzler’s disk is his personality, in a lot of ways-it’s his backup, his code, the lines that define him. Uniquely among all programs, Rinzler has two disks-his original one, as Tron, and an additional one repurposed to his use. They meld together seamlessly when he isn’t splitting them for combat, and by now, the code is effectively inextricable between the two; alterations are made to the joined disks. His code is a mess at first sight, a precisely balanced system at second-his original coding, as Tron, is carefully overwritten, restricted, and suppressed, with just enough permitted through to optimize his combat abilities. Those who are capable would be able to rewrite the program-or remove Clu’s rewrites-should they get ahold of his disks. Good luck doing so, if your name’s not Clu.
abilities/powers:
Rinzler is the elite combatant and most skilled warrior on the Grid. While he was originally written to protect and react to threats, he’s been reshaped and recoded continually for the last (literal) millennium to be a skilled hunter, assassin, and executioner. His weapons of choice are his disks: rounded weapons (think chakram) that can be activated for melee or ranged attacks, capable of cutting nearly any material.
In a fight, Rinzler’s greatest advantage is his speed and agility. The program is fast, capable of launching and defending multiple attacks at once, and will frequently evade with flips, leaps, or other improbable acrobatics. He’s also tactically intelligent, precise with his attacks, and far stronger than a comparable human. His combat skill is quite literally unsurpassed in his world, though he can be (and has been) taken by surprise and defeated.
As far as noncombat abilities go: Rinzler can activate coded overlays, personal illusions, effectively. The simplest of these just manipulate his own circuits, dimming the glow or masking the color, but he’s capable of simulating another’s appearance-most typically with a different program. He can track the movements of others, following electronic ‘footprints’ signifying their passage. He’s skilled at operating any number of primarily combative vehicles from his world: Recognizers, Lightjets, Lightcycles. As a security program, he can scan others: with programs, this provides data on their function, nature, and current state; with users the results are likely to be more haphazard. He's also capable of almost any degree of hacking-taking apart other programs’ code is literally what he’s designed for, though he'll need to get used to the interface.
While his outward appearance (sans mask and gridsuit) looks almost entirely human, Rinzler's actual composition is somewhat less standard. He's made of data and code, not flesh and blood. If injured, he breaks into "voxels": tiny cubelets that glow faintly with the same red-orange as his circuit lines. His perception is also somewhat different, partly due to said circuits-the program can instinctively detect motion and energy (and data, in his own world) with something more than typical sight or hearing. Rinzler consumes energy, generally by draining it passively from a digital environment, or more quickly from an ETC (energy transfer conduit). Though ingesting it is possible, he'd have to get the mask off first.
As far as weaknesses go, there are physical vulnerabilities, such as electrocution and strong magnetic fields. Extreme temperatures won't burn him, but can cause overheat and malfunction. But in the end, Rinzler's greatest weakness is internal, not external, the same vulnerability that's entrapped him for the last thousand years: recoding. Though his code's locked to Clu's signature, for anyone who can bypass that, Rinzler's a supremely easy target-he's been reworked to have even less control over how his disk syncs than most programs, forbidden so much as a glance at his code or memory files, and even as Tron, was never able to rewrite or fix himself. If someone capable of programming gets access to his disks, they can remake him however they choose.
first person sample: Here. Context: Rinzler just beat Quorra in ilpromenade, and is operating under the delusion that Clu's around to care about it.
third person sample: Rinzler's glitchytimes. Set several days into an event where Rinzler snapped and spent some time helping users instead of trying to kill them all.
case no: 02-07-03 (his designation number as Tron, flipped around).