Ram

Ram is an actuarial program from the first Grid. He arrived in-game on date and currently lives in Tronhaus.

age: Physically adult, mentally... derp.

origins: Tron, canon

app link: app

hmd: hmd

played by: Vic

contact: vicioushallway @ aim

Setting
Welcome to 1982, where feathered hair abounds and there are people in glowing spandex living inside your computers. All you really need to know about the real world is that it is, more or less, our own past with the exception that Encom is the technological super power of the age.

Now, back to the computer people. While the original Grid is supposedly inside a load of computer systems, there's really very little similarity to the inner workings of an actual computer. Everything is made of up geometric shapes and, while there is no sun/moon/stars, everything pretty much produces its own ambient light source. Even the people. This bizarre landscape is populated by programs--humanoid individuals who run around in helmets, white spandex, and intricate circuitry. The colours of a programs circuits are a pretty straight forward visual indicator of their allegiances; blue is good, red is bad, and purple is... ahah, not really important to the story. Each program has an identity disk, which is basically a glowing frisbee containing their personal data. It also doubles as a handy weapon against other programs. Neat, huh?

It should be noted that within the Tronverse, Users (programmers/creators/users of the programs on the Grid) are analogous to gods. Users have never appeared on the Grid before Flynn's little visit, so there are several camps of programs running around—those who believe, those who don't, and presumably those who don't care. For the purposes of the movie, only the first two camps really matter. Those who have faith in the Users believe in their existence, that some greater power created them and yadda yadda, and those who don't... well, they're pretty much Tronverse atheists. They're also usually the bad guys. Nice message for the viewers, movie.

Time runs much faster in the Grid than it does for the real world, vehicles can be rezzed out of thin air, and pretty much everything glows and nothing makes sense. Embrace it.

The big-bad of this whimsical glowing Narnia is the Master Control Program (usually referred to simply as 'the MCP'), an artificial intelligence program which had grown far more intelligent and power-hungry than its creator had ever anticipated. It, and the program Sark, were essentially terrorizing the Grid's inhabitants, cutting off communications between programs and Users, forcing programs into the games, and generally just being huge dicks. The games were violent, gladiatorial matches fought between conscripted programs which more often than not ended in at least one party being derezzed (killed).

Everything started looking up when the User Kevin Flynn was digitized into the Grid by the MCP. Tossed into the games and expected to be derezzed there, Flynn managed to escape alongside Tron (a security program created by Flynn's real world buddy Alan Bradley) and Ram and off they went on a merry adventure to stop the MCP.

Ram is an actuarial program written by Roy Kleinberg, an Encom employee at the time. Captured and conscripted, up until he encountered Flynn he'd been fighting for his life in between chilling in the holding pits. Fun times.

Personality
Ram is an actuarial program, his primary purpose being to mathematically calculate wonderfully interesting things like long term financial risks and uncertainties for a 'big insurance company.' It certainly sounds like dry work, but Ram is quite openly enthusiastic about what he was created to do--on a very basic level, Ram was created to help people, and that's exactly what he loves doing. He's a follower, not a leader, and as soon as you expose him to those charismatic leader-types he's perfectly happy to fall into step behind them. It's also safe to say that, once he's committed to a person or a cause, he's committed. After all, he told Flynn to go help Tron rather than, gee I dunno, asking him to try and save his actuarial behind from derezzing.

Out of all of the programs encountered in the Grid, Ram acts the youngest. With the slightly naive enthusiasm of youth on his side, Ram is free with his feelings and opinions. He wears his heart on his sleeve as far as his emotions go, whether it be an enthusiastic grin giving away his excitement or blatantly rolling his eyes. Ram may lack the maturity of the other programs, but he makes up for it in sheer pluck and energy. That's not to say he's totally useless, though. While he's not the strongest or most experienced program out there, he does have the benefit of being a fast learner. Considering he's an actuarial program (who would have had no reason to have any sort of combat subroutines) and managed to survive in the games for as long as he did, he clearly has no problems learning on the fly—even if what he's learning go beyond the boundaries of his original programming.

He's one of the more outgoing programs running around ENCOMs systems, warming up to people quickly and easily. Ram's definitely not shy, considering how fast he ends up chatting Flynn up in the holding cells, and if his friendship with Tron is any indication he's totally unfazed by dealing with more serious types. On top of that he's rather ridiculously easy-going, capable of enjoying himself wherever he is if he has suitable company. Stuck in the games? Life or derezz situation? He still manages to enjoy himself. Even when they take to the light cycles for the games--everything's fine and dandy as long as he has his friends around to chum around with. Nothing says fun like a daring escape on light cycles from a few heavily armoured tanks, right? ...Right?

It's hard to talk about Ram without mentioning his views on the Users. Ram is very firmly in the camp of programs who believe, despite the fact he's clearly never interacted with one directly before. Even while derezzing, a rather painful process, he still reacts to finding out Flynn is a User like he's just discovered a spandex-clad unicorn. Then again, you'd probably get a little giddy too if you found out your new buddy was pretty much the equivalent of a god.

Basically he's a derpy puppy who runs around going I'M HELPING and then conveniently dies.

Abilities & Weaknesses
As far as strengths go, Ram is definitely not the strongest program running around the Grid. His main strength is his intelligence--despite being a little derpy at times, he's is quite smart--and his ability to learn new skills not originally included in his programming (such as the skill set he picked up in the games). He's also good with numbers and statistics, as is befitting a program of his type, but ahah that's... not really that useful. Anybody want help with their taxes?

His identity disk functions pretty much the same, but it's not much of a hazard to anyone not made out of pixels. Y'know, unless he wings it at your head really hard.

When it comes to weaknesses, Ram's are pretty straight forward. He wasn't programmed to be a security or combat program—he's intended to be more of a digital desk jockey, honestly—and his build reflects this. He's rather short and compact, and if the way he handled getting shot at is any indication (aka taking one hit and then derezzing), he can't take direct hits very well.

Canon
Ram was more than a little upset when Flynn told him what happened to Rinzler and what sort of state he's currently in. Having two versions of your bff running around is supposed to be awesome, not horrendously depressing. He's still rather unhappy about what he sees as a lack of action re: fixing the issue, and he's even more upset about this whole WE CAN'T TALK business going on which may eventually lead to him going off and giving Clu a piece of his mind at some point, sob. For good or ill he still sees Rinzler as his friend, and considering how stubborn he can be that probably won't change anytime soon.
 * Kevin Flynn; So apparently while Ram was dead Flynn morphed from bro to dad like some sort of bizarre Buddhist butterfly? WELL OKAY THEN. Ram still adores him, even if he's more of a parental figure now.
 * Tron; BFF. M-MORE PENDING?
 * Anon; ANON YOU LOOK LIKE HIS TWO BFFS HAD A GODDAMN CODEBABY he will never not like you. Besides looking like mpreg fanfic gone horribly right, Anon has also been extremely helpful and just all-around nice to Ram since he arrived on the station. It's safe to say Ram really, really likes him, and would love to bro around with him more.
 * Jalen; Jalen be my mom dad. Friend of Flynn and Tron? Automatically a friend of Ram's.
 * Rinzler; BLUH BLUH WHY CAN'T BE WE FRIENDS.
 * Clu; Boo you whore. B( Look at that slut, I hope he derezzes.

Panfandom

 * Fenris; Okay so. Ram initially latched onto Fenris when he learned that the elf was lost and alone without his companions on the station--having already subconsciously decided that Fenris was a good guy due to a misunderstanding involving blue glowing, Ram felt more or less obligated to drag Fenris home like a particularly ornery alley cat. They both have their own particular brand of naivete, and really they barely their powers combined barely form a functioning adult, as proven by that one huge misunderstanding that lead to a pissed off Tron. Whoops. Ram has stamped Fenris with the bff label. DWI.
 * Delta; Ram really likes Delta. They have a common love of being super helpful (although Delta seems to be a bit more, uh, effective at this), and Delta has been extremely patient in dealing with the programs ~plethora~ of questions. If only he was blue.

Free Space
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