Chalk it up to late nights and some canon review.

Given the premise of the story we're working with, what does being a User mean and what are their ethical responsibilities to the Programs they create/utilize?

After all, it seems we're neglectful precursors at best, abusive at worst - reformats, server crashes, uninstalls. We rez up these living, sentient beings to do our bidding, essentially creating a slave race that we destroy callously for the price of a quarter in the arcade (or on a home console).

So why would a Program revere our kind when it makes as much sense to hate us for our callous attitudes? Did Clu have a point when he called Flynn out on a charge of neglect? Was Jet right in saying our worlds aren't ready to co-exist? Were Flynn's actions in creating The Grid ethical or even sane?

And how would one go about being the kind of User a Program would not be ashamed to have?

I've always assumed that the ethics and responsibilities of being a user in the computer are the same as outside of the computer.

From what I've been able to gather, it seems to me that "user powers" are essentially a visual method of showing how a computer function is done. That said, I've always assumed that what user powers you have are the same as what you would know how to do on a computer.

Now, we need to take into consideration the timeframe of Tron and the context of Flynn's use of the computer. First, this is the 80's. While today, moving a program to a different location on the computer would be as simple as a few mouse clicks, back then it was all text-based, so anyone who knew how to move a file to a different location probably knew their stuff about computers. Second, Flynn is in this system unauthorized. He's a hacker. So when Flynn disguises himself as the MCP warrior program, he's essentially doing the equivalent of taking the permission set from that program and assigning those permissions to himself, and then deletes the program so it can't send out any kind of security error message.

So, for comparison's sake, lets look at some basic computer functions and speculate how they would be represented in the computer world:

Moving a file to a different location - Some kind of force grab?
Deleting a file - Force choke?
And so on..

So, in the 80's anyone who knew how to do that kind of stuff with a computer in the real world probably knew their stuff about how to use computers. Today, anyone can click and drag an icon to a different hard drive location through Windows Explorer or Finder or whatever.

So basically, the danger of any average joe being beamed into a computer today is much higher than it would have been in the 1980's, assuming it's an open system where everyone has full read/write access. In that situation, everyone is a Jedi. It's just like if you invited a group of people to mess around with your computer. There's a pretty good chance they're going to do some things you don't want them to do, but they have full access to your system.

Now, lets assume we're in a closed system. You don't have the necessary permissions to move files around. How does that work? Maybe/hopefully, Tron 3 will cover some of that. My guess for now is that you just can't, like Luke Skywalker trying to lift the X-Wing out of the swamp in Episode V, but he isn't focusing hard enough, so he can't.

That said, and as a TLDR answer to your question: I think the ethics and responsibilities you would have as a user in the computer are identical to the ones you would have outside, in the real world.

Additionally, it should also be noted that Tron 2.0 is not part of Tron Legacy canon. Main evidence being that Lora is alive in Legacy's canon and she is dead in 2.0's.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall seeing anything in T:L that mentions Lora at all, let alone whether she is alive or not.

(Sorry, probably would post more of a thoughtful reply at another time, but a lot of shit going on right now for me and I'm too swamped to have the energy to take care of much of my own business, let alone 'net posts.)

Yes, but I thought we were discussing T:L?

(and she was in T:B, but we don't see anything of her past '89 when T:B ends-- and a lot can happen between then and 2010. I'm not arguing for her one way or the other, just saying she's a bit like Schrodinger's cat if we base it on the film-- we have nothing to inform us as to whether she's alive or dead. And remember, didn't the ARG you're speaking of come out well after the film and AFTER fans started bitching about the lack of Lora/Yori, hence it could be a retcon?)


(I write her both ways. The stuff I started before I found out T2.0 wasn't canon tends to have her dead-- in my private fic there would've been too much to go back and change to have her alive once I figured it out, so I just had to retcon it to her dying of cancer when Sam was 15. Other stuff has her alive, especially if it works better for the plot to have her that way. But then, some of that stuff is AU stuff anyway so it doesn't really matter.)

TRON.dll Wrote:The ARG happened before the film came out, and is canon.

I thought the Encom press conference came out within the last year? Did we not have a relatively-recent thread with pics? Or was it an old one that was resurrected?

I gotta chime in on this, since my answer has a lot to do with my dissappointment with how the Legacy story was presented....

If you assume a program is "living" on some level, and you are its creator then you do bear some responsibility for your conduct in how its treated. On the other hand, if the program is a digital representation of you, or your personna in an alternate "living" form then your conduct is your own prerogative. I don't have any moral qualms about how I treat my finger if I use it to tickle a puppy, flip someone the bird or pull a trigger on a gun. Its doing what I desire, because its a part of me. When i write a program I'm doing the same thing, i'm doing something (in the digital world) with an extension of myself.

By that same notion, a program will desire to fulfill its programming and do what it was created to do, its purpose. I ( and this is where i take a leap of personal logic ) would expect a program i wrote to do my accounting to be "happy" with its task, since this is what it was made for. Its doing it for me and in a sense it it doing it AS me, in the digital realm. A program that by design was made to fight on the games should be happy and enthusuastic to do its thing, and enjoy the process.

This is where Legacy lost me. In the original, the fact that programs were being seperated from their Users (and the purposes) that they were made for was critical in establishing the user/program relationship. Ram was an actuarial program, he wanted to do that and for his user but was denied by the MCP and you know the rest. I felt like this dynamic was completely missing in the Legacy story and that was a big letdown for me.

My moral responsiblities to programs as a User? Simply use them for what they were meant to do. Anything to the contrary would be illogical, and cruel.

Just my 2 bits,
Mech

laphtiya Wrote:I suppose if I were an in universe user I wouldn't be very ethical what with the Total War games I play with 6000+ programs fighting it out in a single battle :P

Don't worry they will be re-rezzed next time you play.

Traahn Wrote: Kat Wrote: TRON.dll Wrote:The ARG happened before the film came out, and is canon. I thought the Encom press conference came out within the last year? Did we not have a relatively-recent thread with pics? Or was it an old one that was resurrected? The following press conference, if this is the one you're referring to, happened before the film's release: http://www.flynnlives.com/operationtron_overview/ Lora enters the first video a couple minutes into it. Alan indicates she's his lovely bride. (Bruce and Cindy look cute together!)

Very confusing. I thought all the outrage was because Cindy wasn't asked to be involved AT ALL with this whole thing, which is perhaps why I thought the press conference was a response to that. So she WAS involved, she just wasn't in the film.

Traahn Wrote:That said, I don't consider the ARG, video games, comics, etc. to be Tron canon. I know some things from them are, and that's fine. But I seem to remember some errors or discrepancies between them, and between the films. As far as I'm concerned, whatever gets put on the big screen dictates what is canon. Everything else is almost just side adventure fanfic to me, even if it's sponsored by Disney. There are and can be exceptions to the rule, but I haven't seen it yet for the Tron franchise. Tron Uprising might be an exception, but I still need to watch the series. I'm only two or three episodes into it *gasp! what am I waiting for??*

That's my problem. I'm used to taking additional material as, well, simply additional material (I even take novelizations with a grain of salt, as just sponsored fanfic in a way). I consider all the extra stuff to be like the Animatrix-- you get a better idea of where they're going with the storyline, but it shouldn't be essential to understanding the basic story (like, you shouldn't find stuff there that changes the game from what the films show) and I don't consider it hard-and-fast canon. That's kinda what throws me for a loop with this whole thing. One should have pretty much the whole idea just by watching the films; one shouldn't see other sources and then be like "but wait, I thought it was THIS way!" (Or maybe that's just me being difficult because I'm too lazy to be a source-chaser.)