FASTI - Application

PLAYER INFORMATION

Player Name: Blue!
Are you 18+?: Yes, I am definitely over 18.
Preferred Contact: Please plurk me Miz_Bluebird or journal PM a_perfect_end.
Current Characters: none in game; this is my first app.

CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character Name: CLU 2.0
Canon: Tron: Legacy
Canonpoint: He’s taken from early in the movie, directly after he meets young protagonist Sam Flynn for the first time. He expected to be making a grand entrance and a big speech before challenging the kid to a race on the glowy deathmatch field, not...Any of this.
Character Age: around 1,400 cycles or about 30 standard years.
Appearance: JEFF BRIDGES The most notable difference upon being humanized is that he does not have circuits or his disc, though in its place there is a reminder. This might freak out people from his own world, and will certainly freak him out initially, but shouldn’t present a playability obstacle.
Background/History: Because this canon is bats, please accept links to the wiki.

Strengths: He does actually have a few!

Structural intelligence: Clu quickly grasps the form and purpose of devices, components, and people. He can reduce or repurpose almost anything from its main parts very quickly. (Understanding and dismantling complex work is easy! Putting it back together, is, ah, variable.)

• "He can't create Programs; he can only destroy or repurpose them." - literal canon word of god The User


• He spent a thousand cycles diligently working on, and finally solving, the process of transposing computer code for living material: something no one else could do, or even believed was possible.


• He remade Tron into Rinzler - a complex, intensive process involving understanding of how to take a specific being apart physically, psychologically, and in terms of base code, and put them back together...a bit differently, as an unquestioning, fatally loyal, utterly deadly murder machine.

Tactics: Clu is competitive--as all Programs are written to be competitive--but also especially shrewd about selecting the next correct action (before his opponent can).

• Figures out how to use a side-channel attack to contact Alan Bradley in the "real" world, leading to the events of the film. (It's supposed to be impossible to contact the outside world from the Grid...But Clu figured it out first.)


• Uses his connection with the social Program Castor to lay a trap for Flynn and Sam--and ultimately to capture Flynn's disc, the important McGuffin of the second and third acts.


• He gets Flynn and Tron apart during the initial coup--and when he can't capture Flynn, he smashes Tron and turns what's left into Rinzler. Waste not, want not, and stockpile assets against the good guys.

Mimicry: Clu successfully tricks other characters in canon by grasping behavioral/mannerism cues and copying them exactly--thereby acting just as expected.

• Imitates Kevin Flynn to lure Sam into a trap.


• Reflects Castor’s ‘gracious host’ act back to him long enough to lead him to his death.


• In the final confrontation, he’s the picture of bewildered sorrow reflected back at Flynn--right before kicking him in the face and making one final break for it.

Weaknesses: YES, HE HAS SEVERAL. Here are some major ones.

Stubborn: Written to be “dogged and relentless,” Clu is actually just stubborn. Unbelievably stubborn. This works in canon in multiple ways:

• Sticking with an initial impression or bias, despite clear evidence that he’s wrong. (He sees ISOs as imperfect and possibly murderous.)


• Pushing things until they break. (He poisoned the Sea of Simulation--the only ocean in his world--with a super-deadly virus basically just to make a point.)


• Doubling down on objectively horrible ideas. (For example, the Rectifier: programs go in. Mindless soldier drones come out. Flawless victory?)

Vindictive: Clu will sacrifice teammates, allies, and the success of his own master plan just to pull power moves on people--for example:

• Pauses in the midst of the lightcycle races to drive over failed opponents.


• Pauses in the midst of getting the all powerful McGuffin to mock and further injure Flynn--leaving himself wide open for the bait and switch that seals his fate.


• Beheads his flunky lieutenant basically in a fit of sheer pique (bye, Jarvis).

Selfish: As far as Clu is concerned, everything in the Grid is or should be his, as shown:

• Takes over the Grid. Flynn’s world-changing top secret project? It’s his now.


• Reformats Tron into Rinzler. Flynn’s Grid bestie? Is his now.


• Once he’s got Flynn’s disc (that super powerful McGuffin master key? All his) the entire world will be his for the taking.

Fatal Flaw: Pride. Even above and beyond his drive for perfection, there’s that gigantic bruised ego: he not only believes he can do a better job running his universe than Flynn can, he’s going to prove he can do it in the outside world.
Driving Force: Clu is on a desperate quest for perfection, pursuit of an ideal conferred upon him by his directive: I will create the perfect system. For Programs, this is something between a soul and a credo.
As a human, this directive will be somewhat less pressing, more of a fixation than a mystical statement of his total being--but it aligns with his personality and nature, and especially in the beginning, he’ll be clinging to it as he works out how to survive.

In concrete terms, this drive looks like:

• A drive to understand how things work, to improve them.


• A drive to understand how things come apart, to return or reduce them to an ideal state.


• A drive to understand not just the construction or appearance of things, but how they fit together in larger systems: for example, how the ideal Roman household should be run.

Patron: Minerva, ideally.

What about your character drives them to do this/why this deity? Minerva would want him first for his cleverness and his almost mechanical logical dedication to the workings of a problem. He will continue reasoning in linear fashion until he solves for the impossible: communication across worlds and en masse matter transfer in blithe defiance of conservation of mass are good canon examples. While his is a vindictive sort of cleverness, it’s matched by the tireless obsession and bullish courage to plot his way out of problems that others deem impossible.

Clu’s faults would also be familiar territory in Minerva’s house: his actions against the ISOs show the vilest possible face of elitism. His clever plans are finally spoiled less by the protagonists and more by his own frustrated impatience when at last he can see the goal in front of him--going for a trap that should be obvious in his sudden furious haste.

To have heard, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” at Flynn’s knee when he was newly-made is directly in line with Clu’s grand goals for the Grid: not only to patiently, endlessly refine it down until it’s perfect, but--having rid the Grid of all imperfection, all dissent, all individuality--to conquer the outside world. To smooth the entire world down perfect and recreate it according to his own ideal is his ultimate goal.

GAME INFORMATION

Setting Suitability: In terms of raw canon suitability for participation in a sword-and-sandals war on heaven campaign, Clu successfully toppled the previous government and installed himself as dictator absolute of the Grid, complete with WWII parallels in which he is Dear Leader. If that's 2Edge^(tm), or perhaps too pat an answer, please consider:

Beyond the war effort, he’s a voracious and didactic learner, comfortable with obsessive practice and patient with intense detail. He seems to enjoy appearing affable and approachable, as well-suited to a round of drinks as he would be to research inquiry (though he may find either outcome...variable, given his listed flaws.)

He's also fond of the Games in his own world, having had a direct hand in building the Arena at home, and he loves a good day at the races--especially if there’s a crash. Particularly if he’s the cause of it.

Why play this character in this setting? I’m interested in threading out the process of Clu realizing his human limitations and mortal state. He operates from a deep prejudice that everyone Not A Program is Other: misguided, imperfect, and fundamentally wrong. A place like ancient Rome would force him to confront his own fragility and the meaning, reality, and consequences of death--both the risk to his own life and the harrowing obstacle of watching teammates fall.

On a less heavy note, the setting affords so much fish-out-of-water interest! Clu literally will not know what to do with himself in most situations, and so will strive to either learn the customs (si fueris Romae)...or help to build better ones, even (and perhaps especially!) if he’s got to crack some skulls to do it.




Sample: In lieu of a sample, please accept test drive activity.