Horror in the world of Tron is definately an interesting idea, and I do have somewhat of an idea for it based on the storyline for a game mod idea I was once playing around with. It had a definate quasi-hellish apocalypse feel to it similar to the atmosphere of the Doom game series.

The only problem with it now is that it might stray too far away from the new information we have available in Tron 2.0 (this was written long before and had only the original film to go to for CANON).

The general concept was this - a group of self-replicating viruses had invaded the ENCOM system and in the absence of another program strong enough, Tron was called upon to deal with the problem.

This is where the continuity with Tron 2.0 comes across a few 'cracks'. Tron 2.0 depicted the relationship between computer viruses and programs as being identical to the relationship between humans and normal organic viruses. They attack like any microscopic disease in the user world (even the configuration window in Tron 2.0 gave viruses a 'microbic' appearance). My story took the idea of viruses in a much different direction. Since viruses are still programs, I envisioned viruses as terrifying ravenous 'monsters' seeking to destroy everything in their path, hunting down programs and slaying them. There could be general search-and-destroy viruses, with huge deformed bodies and a nasty arsenal of melee weaponry, or perhaps they could be more parasitic - small but great in numbers, like "worm" viruses that travel in swarms and overwhelm programs, possibly even burrowing into their bodies and consuming them from within. Trojan viruses, like shapeshifters disguise themselves as other programs in order to sneak up on its next prey or gain access to restricted areas (think of the remake of"The Thing"). Stealth viruses that are invisible to all but programs that have the proper upgrades with which to spot them.

Now I know people who are reading this probably have some questions about this model, but I can't give too much away without giving away the whole storyline. (Not sure if you're looking for inspiration or just throwing ideas around - if you want more details, PM me). But be assured that there is a lot more depth to this plot than just blasting viruses. A couple more things I will mention about it though, the virus rampage is but the tip of the iceberg; the visible portion of a much more serious problem. The story also explores the worshipping of non-users, (much darker than the MCP "cult" in the film) including some bizarre and nasty rituals and 'supernatural' powers.

The trouble with trying to do anything like this in film format though, is the conflict you run into if you're trying to actually scare the audience. The world of Tron is so different from our own, that I feel it would be much harder to draw on people's emotions with imagery that is so detached from our everyday lives. For instance, human ideas of what is frightening is very deep-rooted in our subconscious. Most people are terrified by things such as blood, gore, wild beasts real or fantastic, cutting weapons ranging from daggers to chainsaws - you get the idea. All the elements of a typical blockbuster horror film. The trouble is that we get to take advantage of almost none of these common scare-tactics, at least not literally. A Tron-counterpart can be found for virtually any real-world concept, but our subconscious minds won't automatically make the connection. We could be scared by a drooling, big-clawed rubbery-skinned bear-like behemoth standing at 10 feet tall with pulsating veins almost leaping out of its skin, but would we be equally scared by it if we dressed it in computer gray, covered with glowing circuits and deadly electrodes replacing the teeth and claws? I'd have to say no. Would it be the most terrifying thing the programs have ever seen? Yes. But it isn't for us, and that's where the problem is.

Don't get me wrong, it wouldn't be impossible to pull off

I don't know about "halloween" horror working well in the world of Tron. Somehow I see horror in that world as defined as the programs knowing of things that would cause their certain extinction. Things like a sudden static discharge could have the same effect in their world as say a nuclear blast in ours. Or what if a program is created as part of a weapon, a misssle? He may be aware his only function is to cause destruction of others by helping destroy himself. For the most part the world of Tron defies so many of mankind's realities. Would the programs inside really have the same concept of life and death as humans? Can you have a real sense of mortality when you are bits and bytes and quite possibly backed up on a floppy or CD rom? To me I think the best formula would be psychological horror and not the slasher or zombie kind. Alth0ugh a "zombie tron" could be interesting. I would love to see a character study of a "program" who knew his fate was to control an objects destruction, thereby destroying himself in the process. How would he deal with his own mortality? How would his programming override his concern for himself?

I wouldn't know the answer myself. Just bringining in another perspective onthis here. I know for sure that this is not part of a religous cult like what you and I know that believes in the after life or what have you. Depending on the culture itself that is being used as an example. Maybe In a way that after the program has lived out their usefulness within the system system itslef they are no longer needed.

In this way I can say is that take a look at some of the Microsoft windows environments going backfrom windoiws 3.1 all the way to todays windows XP. Going back when you wre using windows 3.1 as an example somethings you still couldn't do unless you had strictly DOS underneath it to do some rudementory things like partioning disks as an example. Then when Microsoft went the way of 95 toME they still had some dos functionality. But was weenie people off of DOS and strictly into the graphical enviroment. Then going completely into geaphivcal when win2k came on and then Windows XP home and pro came out.

In a way I am looking at this like those of the game tron 2,0 and from the original Movie Tron. And the only way they could come back was to be from a restore from a precious state either doneback tape back ups or from what ever media they were being restored from. So they don't really fear the afterlife I guess.

Does this make anysense tron Fanfic or am I just rambling on too much here?

Tron Fanatic Wrote:I Now for the bigger reason for programs to fear death. If I'm wrong about this, someone tell me, but I've never seen any indication that programs believe in any sort of afterlife - so when they're dead.. they're REALLY dead.

Compucore Wrote:Or you do something like Bill Cosby had did with The chicken Heart whoate New York City Concpt and just have fun with it. ANd get the audience laughing their headw off there.

Good call.. I remember haveing a audio tape of BC stand up and the "Chicken Heart" was on it. I always love Bill as a kid and what makes him funny is that he is clean (no naughty language). It's hard to find good stand up like that these days.

A Tron horror. This is a very intresting idea indeed. What is so cool about it is the point-of-view. What makes a program afraid. What terror does one face being an app. Is it a virus or deletion? or is it the lack of use. Or perhaps fragmentation??

It would be cool to see a movie where "Texas Chainsaw" meets "Tron".... or something with the fear factor of the Execorist... .... ... .... .. interesting...

Yeah. I guess the reason why its difficult to "visualize" what would make a good "Tron-Horror" is because the psychology and sociollogy of the programs is but a mirror of our own yet still in a universe of alien possibilities. Perhaps a "Survival Horror" style story would work but then I am not so sure. One of us will be brave enough to challenge this frontier.

hmm. as for resource hogs, they could be scary if you pulled it off just right. I mean, the thought of a strong, loose crazy program that eats other programs is... disturbing...

when it comes to viruses, as I said, a loose cannon could be interesting. although we've seen datawraiths, the only "hacker" program we've seen so far is Clu. and that was back in '83, a hacking program would have to be a *significant* amount deadlier nowadays probably...

a thought- just from my experience with viruses they (viruses) could be symbiotes (ala Stargate SG-1) that not only control a program, but make them a lot stronger- virtually invicible. oh, and they leave a program almost unuseable once they exit it.

Kind of a pity the way taking another program's code in 2.0 works - downloading the coredump from the remains of a dead program, so the resource hogs would just kill you and then take what they wanted. Much less frightening than the idea of taking it from a program while it's still functioning.

Keep in mind though that Clu's purpose wasn't very malevolent, which in my onpinion as far as artistic license goes, I think whether it's primarily good or evil would have a large impact on its appearance. And I think I'd put the seeker program into the category of a hacker program (even though fCon did have legal control over Encom's systems, it was still made to forcefully locate a high-security item that was being hidden from them). In any event, that thing was pretty nasty - a giant worm equipped with a mesh cannon, and the ability to pass through solid matter, and move under the grid Tremors-style.

The symbiote idea sounds pretty fun too if it caused a ton of panicked paranoia among programs that are otherwise friendly with each other, wondering which one of them is infected.

As for the idea of anthropomorphic viruses that could simply assume the form of a program, it doesn't seem really that farfetched to me in terms of Trojan viruses. Even to the user, it looks like a program that they desire to have, until it gets onto the their computer and is excecuted. And if it destroyed a program and then renamed itself as that program (I'm almost sure someone at somepoint has written a virus that behaved in this fashion), you'd have a classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenario.

As far as what I was saying before about the idea of the virus mutating and becoming more complex, I could compare it to the film, evolution. Started out as simply a fast-multiplying single-celled lifeform but quickly began to produce multi-celled, then complete animals, etc. Very farfetched for a common computer virus, but if it became aware of its own existence (by our near-sighted standards, not programs' ) ala the machine conscousness of Terminator or Matrix, it could easily be creative and modify itself and its minions, becoming more elaborate the more power it had access too.

thinking about the ICPs as anti-virus programs, you suppose there couyld be a particular program who is like a decective- a virus decetor. that could make for an interesting story...

That sounds like a really fun idea. A tracker of sorts. A program like that could have a really cool character too, like a Pathfinder or an Old West bountyhunter. I like it.

as for resource hogs, you have me there. but the idea of stealing code from a 'living' program could be done with a virus. seeing as some viruses can use your computer as a means of distributing itself (E-mail viruses) would it not need to 'absorb' permissions to do so? (getting a bit far-fetched here, but it's just an idea)

If we're still looking for something scary, it seems like it would be less frightening with something like an email worm (hmm... worm... guess we know what such a virus would look like..) . Often they don't do any physical damage to anything, and the most they do is bog down servers, but once they're removed its as if they were never there.

a virus breaking off of it's original plan would be great. the thing is, most real-world viruses I get are like spies. wait- there's an idea there. viruses that corrupt not just to destroy, but to gain information they send to their users. but then that's different than hacking because it's an independant program- not being controlled. what if one of these viruses learned enough about the user world that it realized how to run the computer without user intervention? then it would be virus with the power of a user- but without the emotions or feelings that are innate in a user, even Thorne.

I guess we need to decide exactly how programs would get categorized down in the digital world, because we're starting to blend viruses with "spyware", though the two can easily intermingle. I think a virus meant simply to extract information and transmit it to a User wouldn't be a terrifying destructive thing at all, just a crafty/shadowy character that tries to draw minimal attention to itself (though the spy might kill a program that caught him doing something naughty). This pretty much matches what Clu was doing, but the modern era with more complex programs, in a more populated part of the system it would probably be much more interesting. But we're entering a different film genre with this.
A chaos/destruction virus that intends to wreak havoc on systems would be much less subtle and wouldn't care too much about whether or not its presence is known. This is the kind of program that could get a monster-like shell slapped onto it and go around killing and maiming.
Your conscious spy program perhaps could alter its programming so drastically that it did become a nasty version of a virus after it knew what it was doing... taking over a system by force and ruling with an iron fist. with such power, it be a false-User, fooling programs into following it. (the MCP probably did a lot of this, but unfortunately we don't get to see it rise to power).
As for what WE classify as spyware, I think it'd be hilarious to see one of them pop into a film at some point. They generally don't destroy or harm (not intentionally anyway though their code often is very buggy and causes all sorts of annoying problems) , they just get downloaded by a User who wants their primary feature (unaware of the fine print detailing what ELSE it does). Then much to the annoyance of the other programs nearby, every 20 seconds it sends out a pop-up advertisement, screaming obnoxiously like a used car salesman that just won't get out of your face, and so distracting that a couple of programs actually screw up what they're doing and crash. And when the User finally realizes what's going on, tries to delete it, which the programs do (and enjoy it), only to have a new one rez in and start the process all over again.

So would your virus hunter be akin to a sort of digital version of, say.. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It sounds like one could easily make an entire series out of it - with each episode involving travel to different systems, each time tackling a different kind of virus, and probably with an underlying plot that spans the whole series to bring down a mastermind of sorts who is somehow behind a lot of (if not all) of the viruses she's been going after.

The bloodhound thing has been going through my mind for a while now too, ever since the first mention of a 'tracker'. I can't decide if I'd easily accept the idea of a dog-like program running around although it sounds like a logical possibility. We haven't seen animal-like programs before though. And it seems like bits & bytes were meant to be the pet-creatures of the system.

"Another mouth to feed."

YES YES YES YES!

IsoLine Wrote:I wonder what computer based "tamogotchi"s look like?

animal/human form mutants creatures, I suppose. but then again, they don't really interect with other programs, considering they remain within their own "system".

I really imagened virus serchers to be more like a virus finder/killer. working freelance (a non-system component) to find/destroy viruses that enter the system.

oh, and another thought on hackers (my we are off topic) most computers do not react to a hacker in any other way other than normal. and so, I would think programs would react to a large worm popping up everywhere... though I suppose it's possible that the seeker only would pop up when it neede to change something.

my random thoughts here.