CLU 2.0 Application
User Name/Nick: Glitch
User LJ: systmadmin
AIM/IM: starvetheego [AIM]
E-mail: darkisthehorizon@gmail.com
Other Characters: None
Character Name: C.L.U. (Codified Likeness Utility) 2.0
Series: Tron: Legacy
Age: Looks physically to be in his mid-30's, but has existed for more than 1,000 "cycles"
From When?: Just moments before Flynn's reintegration yanks him away from the portal.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. CLU is genocidal, ruthless, and intent on taking over the real world to fashion it into what he would consider the "perfect system." He took over the Grid and transformed it into an absolute dictatorship; he also committed genocide against the ISOs, repurposed programs into his army, and had any stray or useless programs in the system forced into the Games.
Abilities/Powers: Like all programs within the Grid, CLU was able to generate vehicles (Light Cycles and Light Jets) and weapons from batons, all of which were created using energy. The Identity Discs that most programs have were used as weapons, and contained a record of the program's existence (their experiences, their code); when thrown, the discs would fly forward, hit a target or surface, then ricochet back to its owner. CLU also had the ability to access other program's discs and rewrite their code (repurposing), and so he's very familiar with how to read and program computer code.
Personality: CLU was programmed into existence to help create a digital utopia within the Grid, and to watch over it during Kevin Flynn's frequent absences. He was to be Flynn's virtual presence within the system while the User took care of his family and ran ENCOM. Much like his User, CLU is quite ambitious--not only did he take the Grid over and banish the system's equivalent of an all-powerful deity into a near continuous 1,000-'year' exile, but he had greater plans to free himself from the Grid's limited confines and take over (i.e. perfect) the "real world."
Methodical in all his endeavors, CLU ruled the Grid with efficiency and an iron fist. Having inherited some of Flynn's disarming charm, he is a natural at manipulation and deception. When the situation calls for it he can be pleasant and warm, but he's always ready to turn it around at a moment's notice when it suits him best. Much like a predator that enjoys sporting with its prey, CLU also has a tendency to toy with those he has power over.
Always the competitor, CLU treats most obstacles as a game to be played and always won, whether it be by his own skill or by deceit and cheats. There is a cruel side to him found not only within the Grid Games, but around others as well: Flynn and Tron were attacked, Sam was forced to compete in a game rigged for CLU's side, Jarvis was destroyed for his inadequacy in stopping Sam from recovering Flynn's disc, and numerous programs were repurposed against their will.
The directive given to him by Flynn--to "create the perfect system"--has served as his greatest motivation as well as his greatest aggravator. Chaos and unpredictability has never meshed well with this program, and any time it's encountered by him it tends to cause frustration, irritation, and make him miserable. Inconsistency and uncertainty within a very neat, orderly computer system like the Grid was intolerable to him. Because of the directive he was given, all CLU's rage and misery and frustration could be honed in on one person, the person that had set him up to fail by giving him such a seemingly impossible task: Flynn.
CLU's actions, in one way or another, were driven by a steadfast devotion to that purpose that Flynn initially gave him. With the ISOs, it was taken to the very extreme--CLU was forced to choose between following Flynn's original orders to create a perfect system, or to set them aside and allow the system to change and evolve as Flynn now wanted it to. After cycles passed and the Creator's visits to the Grid became less and less frequent, CLU made his decision. In his eyes, the ISOs were slowly tearing the Grid's code apart, were threatening the system and the programs that lived within it. There was no security in their unpredictability, and Flynn refused to acknowledge it.
So, the next logical step was to have them all destroyed.
Programs seem to have at least some ability to express and exhibit emotion. CLU in particular seems to be plagued with human-like emotions (though most times they are dealt with in a childish way): a short and volatile temper in the face of frustration, conceit about his own prowess, resentment and disdain felt towards the ISOs, and the painful misery that was caused by the one person that CLU always desperately sought validation from--his User and maker, Flynn.
Path to Redemption: CLU's fall from dutiful program to bitter tyrant took some time and an unhappy combination of events. Flynn's constant neglect of CLU and the Grid (coupled with the sudden appearance of the ISOs, and Flynn's unwavering obsession with them as "miracles" instead of the dangers that CLU saw them as) drove him to do what he did. CLU was programmed for a specific function--to create the perfect system--but consciously decided to interpret his directive in a way that justified the genocide of the ISOs and his takeover of the Grid. A Warden would have to appeal to the fact that what he did was his own choice (and a bad one, since at this point he wouldn't recognize it as such), that there were alternatives that didn't include getting rid of the ISOs and banishing his Creator out of hatred and jealousy. CLU would need to take responsibility for what he's done and realize it was wrong. He's also used to being the one in charge and thus only having to answer to himself, so accepting another person attempting to "redeem" him will be very, very hard.
Any mention of the ISOs would no doubt provoke him as well. They represented what he feared and hated in his system: uncertainty and uncontrollable evolution. CLU was convinced that their presence was ripping apart the code within the Grid (basically destroying his world), and that his only choice to protect it was to eliminate the problem. CLU has been unwilling to accept that change is good for anything, and so trying to make him understand that it isn't always bad might help. Also, a potential Warden would want to help him recognize that the ISOs did have value--even if it's just as fellow sentient, living beings--and that they were more than just "problems" that needed to be gotten rid of.
Flynn would also be a major trigger. The two--despite CLU being a "copy" of Flynn--acted very much like father (Flynn) and son (CLU). Many of CLU's actions were driven by Flynn's actions (or inaction, as it were): CLU felt abandoned by his User whenever Flynn disappeared for great lengths of time, and also felt betrayed when Flynn lavished all his attention and admiration on the ISOs. CLU always sought out validation and praise from Flynn, but rarely ever seemed to get it. In fact, once the ISOs came into existence, the two seemed to be more and more at odds with each other.
Eventually, CLU became convinced that Flynn had set him up to fail from the very beginning by giving him a directive that he could never hope to actually accomplish. This was a sore point with him that only got worse when Flynn told him, at the end, that there was no actual way to achieve perfection. Even in the movie's last scene, despite his long-held rage towards Flynn, CLU started off looking conflicted. He asks for an admission from Flynn that he had done what the User wanted him to, and angrily reminds Flynn that he broke his promise to help create a perfect world. However, Flynn's apology (sincere as it seemed to be) does absolutely nothing to heal the giant rift that has formed between them. Instead, CLU's reaction to it is to kick him down, take his disc, and continue with his plans to enter the User world.
Working through his troubled relationship with Flynn (and all the conflict that goes with it) is another route to go.
History: Roughly a year after Kevin Flynn escaped the clutches of the Master Control Program and proved Edward Dillinger had stolen his work, Flynn created the Grid--a virtual playground where he could experiment without limit to his creativity at the fraction of the time that it took in the real world. As his duties as a big-time CEO of ENCOM piled up (and his son, Sam, was born), it quickly became clear that Flynn would need more help to keep the new system running. Thus CLU 2.0 was created by the User to help take care of the Grid in his Creator's absence, to mold the Grid into a digital utopia. Once rezzed onto the Grid, CLU was given the directive that would shape him and define his actions well into the present day: Create the perfect system.
For some cycles, the system ran smoothly under CLU's guidance and Tron's protection. Flynn would visit the system enough, and the three of them spent their time constructing the Grid and all the wonders it contained.
Then, the Isomorphic Algorithms appeared.
Flynn considered the ISOs' spontaneous emergence to be a miracle, an evolution within the system that could've never been foreseen. CLU, however, did not welcome their presence--the ISOs brought about uncertainty and heralded in an unwelcome and unexpected change to the system. The ISOs hadn't been created by Flynn, and they had no clear function like Basic programs. They were unpredictable, different. And, as the cycles wore on, it seemed that their presence attracted destructive system glitches in the form of Gridbugs.
However, most attempts by CLU to enlighten his Creator to the dangers that the ISOs posed to the Grid were usually brushed away. Even if CLU managed to snare Flynn's fleeting attention, the User would usually end up running off to take care of his business in the "real world", which left Tron and CLU--sometimes for many cycles--to deal with the problems that assailed the system. Through the cycles, CLU became more and more frustrated as Flynn continued to ignore the problems that arose within the Grid and dismissed CLU's concerns. Deprived of Flynn's guidance and unable to take action without his User around, CLU was forced to watch as the only world that he knew began to fall apart. The ISOs were tearing the Grid apart and damaging the system's code, and Flynn was too blinded by his own infatuation for them that he wouldn't see it.
Bitterness took root within CLU, a deep-set resentment that chipped away at his devotion to Flynn every time the User rushed off to leave them. Flynn had asked CLU to create the perfect system, but the User had never anticipated that the ISOs would appear and make everything messy, imperfect. The idea came into his head that Flynn had set him up to fail. How could he to create the perfect system, but also accommodate such inconsistency?
Chaos and random deviations had no place alongside perfection.
Finally, CLU orchestrated a mock 'terrorist attack' and had the Sea of Simulation--the ISO's place of birth, where they continued to pour out cycle by cycle--poisoned into uselessness. Then, as CLU stood to the side and observed Flynn's utter distress and concern reserved solely for the ISOs, clarity came to him. His User, the Creator, didn't care for the world that they'd created together. If Flynn didn't want to take action, then CLU would.
Not too long after this revelation, as Flynn and Tron made their way back to the Portal, CLU and four Black Guard programs ambushed them. While the Black Guards fought Tron, CLU pursued Flynn. It was only by Tron's sudden intervention--as he'd managed to destroy all four Black Guards--that the attack on the User was halted. The security program tackled CLU to the ground, and Flynn was able to flee to safety. However, CLU dealt with Tron swiftly by smashing him with his disc. Tron, thereafter, became Rinzler.
With the Creator exiled to the Outlands in fear and with the freedom to do what he pleased, CLU had his forces spill into the streets of Tron City. Almost immediately the ISOs were rounded up, every aberration executed in the streets by his henchmen in what would eventually be called 'the Purge.' With the last perceived imperfections rid from his system, CLU had fulfilled the duty that Flynn had given him from the first moment of his existence. The system could be perfect now.
The next few cycles were spent quelling the unease and dissention that arose within the city. Any and all resistance that Flynn managed to piece together, CLU defeated with ease. Each struggle against his new rule only managed to strengthen him in the other programs' eyes. CLU had saved the other programs and their world from near destruction, had freed them all from the User's tyranny and shackles that the Creator had bound them in.
While his power over the Grid and its programs tightened like a noose, CLU scoured the Grid for Flynn. His plans had grown, become bigger, more ambitious. Flynn hadn't cared for them here, hadn't wanted to share his world with Basics, and so CLU would give them that world. He would break free from the Grid, and shape this new one into perfection. All CLU needed was an open portal and the master key: Flynn's disc.
---LEGACY SPOILERS BELOW---
Twenty years (nearly 900 cycles within the Grid) later, CLU sent out a page to Tron's User, Alan-One, in the hopes that it would lure the User to the Grid. However, when the portal finally lit up and a User stumbled into the Arena Games, CLU realized that he'd gotten an even better deal than he could've imagined: Flynn's son, Sam, had made it in. With this knowledge in hand, and with the intent to draw Flynn out from his hiding, CLU placed Sam within the Light Cycle Grid and went to head-to-head with the User.
Moments before CLU could strike the killing blow, however, the match was suddenly interrupted by another vehicle that sliced across the playing field, destroying CLU's cycle and saving Sam. This didn't faze CLU, even as the two sped away from Rinzler and into the unreachable Outlands. The game pieces were in place, the board was set and ready. It was Flynn's move to make.
Some time later, the Creator's lightcycle was found on the TRON city streets. This discovery proved fortuitous, as CLU's assistant Jarvis was able to track down the cycle's point of origin: Flynn's safehouse, tucked away somewhere in the barren Outlands. The command ship was immediately set on a direct course to the location, in the hopes that CLU could finally capture Flynn and appropriate the User's disc for his own plans. Their arrival at the safehouse was met with nothing but silence, however, as the User and his female confidante Quorra had fled in time to escape his grasp. With the place clearly abandoned, CLU quickly returned to the city to find that Castor, the enigmatic club owner of the End of Line, had come to possess Flynn's disc after a brief battle had occurred between the Users and Black Guards in his club. CLU took the disc from Castor without too much hassle, then had timed bombs set about the area as he and his henchmen vacated the club.
With the master key finally in hand, CLU's command ship headed towards the Portal where his enormous warship laid in wait, along with thousands of repurposed army programs.
((Okay, whoa. Long history is long. I'll let the Tron Wikia fill in the last few paragraphs, lol)):
"While Clu addressed his assembled forces and told of his plan to invade the physical world outside the system, the heroes infiltrated his Command Ship and retrieved Kevin's disc. When they escaped in a Light Jet, CLU, with Rinzler and four Black Guards, set off after them in small personal light jets of their own. The smaller craft were whittled away by the superior firepower of the escapees' larger light jet, however their strength in numbers eventually wore it down. CLU would have emerged victorious had it not been for a sudden betrayal by Rinzler. He was unsuccessful at shooting them down, but ultimately reached the portal first after stealing Rinzler's spare Light Jet Baton and leaving Rinzler to plummet into the Sea of Simulation.
Confronting the trio when they arrived, CLU justified his actions by saying that he had done simply as Kevin programmed him to do, venting his frustration at being abandoned and forced to run the Grid on his own. Flynn accepted Clu's arguments, but explained that the perfect world does not exist. Furious with this revelation, Clu attacked Kevin as Sam and Quorra headed for the portal."
As CLU attempted to follow the two into the real world, Flynn tried to reintegrate with the program to stop him (which would've caused his deresolution/death). This is the moment where CLU was snatched away and taken to the Barge.
Sample Journal Entry: [The video clicks on. It's noticeably dark in the room, yet there's movement as CLU sits down within the frame. The black suit that the program wears is lined with circuits that glow a brilliant golden hue, and the self-emitted light splashes up to illuminate the expression on his face: faint contempt, a mouth quirked down in a frown. The first word that CLU mutters is nearly indistinct, his tone deeply disgusted.]
Users.
[His expression shifts. This time, his words are audible.]
I was told this is the 'Barge' and that I am a prisoner here. What system is this exactly?
[CLU straightens in his seat, and it becomes slightly more clear that his incomplete knowledge about this place or why he's ended up here annoys him. Perhaps this is how the 'real world' really is supposed to be--CLU has only ever been told by Flynn about it--but it doesn't seem right. Then, a slight smirk.]
Am I the only one that made it out from the Grid?
Sample RP: Just outside the smooth, expansive glass of CLU's observation deck the Arena crowd roared with vicious anticipation; the noise reverberated throughout the entire command ship and caused the ship's polished floor to tremor with its force. Framed within the window stood CLU, his gaze focused past his own gold-circuited reflection within the glass to beyond it where the various compartments that made up the disc war battles floated in view. Within each translucent chamber, combatants pitched their identity discs at each other in an attempt to derezz the other. Every throw, every stumble, every near miss elicited an excited, raucous reaction from the stands.
For CLU, the battles only produced a mild smile.
The crowd's deafening joy was even more evident when a program's disc managed to strike a death blow on his opponent. The disc blazed through the program's torso and disintegrated him into a heap of useless code, and the glittering bits scattered in every direction like shattered ice across the glossy floor. The announcer proclaimed the winner, and the clear disc chamber shifted and moved to match up the next opponents.
The games hadn't been this way before--not when Flynn had originally made them and when Tron had dominated them. Back then, the losers were given mercy and a hearty handshake as their 'punishment' for the loss. CLU, of course, had modified the rules since then. Flynn had demanded that CLU be flexible in the face of change, and so he had been. He'd made the process more efficient for the system, and even better, more advantageous for himself. It was easy to throw trouble-makers or dissenters into the Games, then watch their inevitable deresolution at the hands of their opponents. Or, of course, failing that, at the hands of the Game Arena's champion and CLU's enforcer, Rinzler.
Another combatant fell, code torn apart and sprinkled across the compartment's floor, and the crowd bellowed in response. CLU's hands--locked behind his back--curled into fists, causing the material to creak lightly. His way was better. It always had been, and always would be. These programs were under his rule now, and it was his system to shape.
His alone to perfect.
Special Notes: Took some history/canon from the comic book 'Betrayal' as well. Tron Wikia where the two paragraphs in the history section were copied.