trollmaster_gibson

Player Information

Name: I go by ExpositionFairy on the internets!

Are you Over 18?: Yes, I am 31 years old.

Personal DW: bringstabbity.dreamwidth.org

Email/MSN/AIM/Plurk/Etc.: Email – bringstabbity@gmail.com, AIM – BringStabbity, Plurk – expositionfairy.plurk.com, Tumblr – expositionfairy.tumblr.com

Characters in Abax: This will be my first!

In-Character Information

Series: Tron, specifically the video game Tron: Evolution

Name: Gibson

Age: 198 Cycles (approximately 3.5 User years)

Sex: Male

Race/Species: Isomorphic Algorithm (ISO), a type of digital lifeform/Program

Height: 5’10”

Weight: Approximately 165 lbs.

Cause of Death: Derezzed by his friend/partner Anon after being badly infected by the Abraxas Virus.

Canon Point: Right after his canon death, which takes place about 2/3 of the way through the game.

Previous CR: None from any other RPs, but he does have major canon history with Anon and at least some with Tron (Rinzler in Abax)

History:

Part I: The ISOS - When Kevin Flynn created his Grid—a fully autonomous digital world, meant to be a living society built for Programs and by Programs—he never could have anticipated what occurred. In the User year 1984, an entirely new species of fully sentient digital lifeforms spontaneously manifested from the Sea of Simulation, a vast ocean of loose code and infinite possibility. These newborn beings chose their own names and seemed to have been born with an innate knowledge of and connection with their world…though for all that inborn knowledge, these brand-new beings were possessed of a sometimes painful degree of innocence and naivete. Flynn named them Isomorphic Algorithms, or ISOs for short.

The sudden appearance of the ISOs threw the still-growing Grid into confused turmoil. The Programs that Kevin Flynn had written or imported from other systems to populate his digital utopia (which he referred to as “Basics”), had no idea what to make of the bizarre newcomers. Some welcomed the ISOs with open arms, many others were uncertain and uneasy about them (would the ISOs render them obsolete? would the system be able to handle the growing demands on its resources?)…and for a steadily increasing number of Basics, that uncertainty began to turn into suspicion, prejudice, and even outright hatred.

Gibson was one of the first of the second wave of ISOs to be spawned from the Sea of Simulation. He broke out of the goggle-eyed-wonder phase of ISO development pretty fast, and gained a reputation for being quick-thinking, quick-witted, charismatic…and an incorrigible troublemaker. He turned out to have an affinity for engineering and energy manipulation, which landed him a job on Tron City’s System Utilities team, developing the Energy Transfer Conduit system that ran throughout the city (essentially panels and circuits running along streets and walls that Programs could absorb energy from.) He also invented new vehicles and vehicle modifications in his off time, and was a licensed operator for both small (lightcycles and lightrunners) and large vehicles (Recognizers, tanks, lightjets).

As the cycles wore on, and despite the efforts of Flynn and Tron and others on both sides, tensions between the Basics and the ISOs began to mount at a steadily increasing pace. The System Administrator himself—a true AI created by Flynn to be Flynn when the User was not there, to help him create the “perfect system”—considered the ISOs to be a detriment to the Grid: chaotic, resource-hogging glitch magnets who were slowly destroying the perfect system he’d been written to build. ISOs began to be treated almost as second-class citizens, barred from certain jobs and from competing in the Games, treated with derision and scorn and sometimes outright hatred. The more Gibson suffered and watched his brothers and sisters suffer under this treatment, the angrier and more jaded he became. He hid his hurt and anger under a patina of wisecracking and snark, while at the same time taking advantage of his wits and charisma to become an advocate for his people.

It all came to a head for Gibson one day while on the job at Tron City’s main energy-processing plant. Gibson witnessed one of his ISO colleagues at the plant being harassed and nearly badly injured by several Basic coworkers. The result was an ugly confrontation between Gibson and three other coworkers that turned violent and ended with Gibson being forced out of his job. (see the 3^rd person sample for details!)

For Gibson, that was the last straw. Despite Flynn’s efforts to convince him to stay, Gibson joined a faction of ISOs who were building their own colony far out in the Outlands: a mostly ISO-only sanctuary named Bostrum. His engineering skills and experience with constructing and implementing innovative energy sources turned out to be vital to the remote colony, and Gibson became part of Bostrum’s governing council.

Part 2: Evolution - He was back in Tron City on a supply-and-information run when all hell broke loose. A viral attack on a ceremony meant to celebrate the inauguration of Radia, an ISO, as co-Administrator of the Grid with Clu turned out to be the pretense for Clu declaring martial law on the Grid and orchestrating a coup against Flynn, the User who’d created the Grid. Gibson overheard the new System Monitor (Anon) and an ISO named Quorra talking about the coup at the End of Line club and quickly left to investigate for himself. He found Flynn, who’d managed to escape Clu thanks to Tron having sacrificed himself to buy Flynn time, and sent him off to Bostrum with some friends. Unfortunately for Gibson, though, he himself ended up getting captured by Clu’s lackeys and hauled off to be killed in front of an audience in the newly-deadly Games.

He was found by Anon just before the start of the Games, and with the System Monitor’s help he managed to escape…by exercising his mad trolling skills and tricking the young and rather derpy Monitor into taking his place while he snuck off to steal a Recognizer. In his defense, at least he did come back for Anon, and the two of them formed a reluctant Bro-TP partnership as they flew off to meet up with Flynn at the Bostrum colony.

That plan, unfortunately, didn’t work out terribly well either. By time the two of them got to Bostrum it had already been attacked and nearly emptied by the Abraxas Virus. They ran into the Virus itself while searching for Flynn and managed to successfully escape on lightcycles left for them by Flynn. Alas, however, it was only a brief hope spot...they hadn’t managed to get far at all before getting cockblocked by Abraxas once again. Gibson knocked Anon’s lightcycle out of the Virus’s path and crashed practically at Abraxas’ feet, who wasted no time in lifting the ISO bodily by the throat, infecting him, and tossing the now-zombified Gibson back at his friend before finally leaving.

Gibson fought the infection as hard as he could, alternating between periods of feral, agonized rage where he mindlessly attacked his friend, and periods of lucidity where he begged Anon to take the shot and kill him. After a long, drawn-out battle, Anon finally granted his friend’s wish, and Gibson thanked him for it before dying.

Personality: At first (and second and third) glance, it's very easy to simply write Gibson off as a chatty, trolling jerkass. He loves to talk, and sarcasm is definitely his native tongue. He also enjoys teasing and tricking and messing with peoples' heads in order to get a rise out of them and/or see what they'll do, to the point that one wonders just how he's managed to survive so long without getting shanked.

Authority figures in particular seem to draw out the troll in Gibson, and he'll often go out of his way to challenge them, defy them, annoy them, and generally drive them to drink. This particular tendency stems from his experiences with the two most prominent authority figures in his life: the Creator, Kevin Flynn, who Gibson considered a friend, but whose tendency to either be oblivious to or to outright ignore the mounting tensions and prejudice Gibson and his people were experiencing exasperated Gibson...and Clu, the oppressor and eventual murderer of the ISOs.

Beneath the smartass jerk facade, however, lies an intelligent, capable leader, a talented engineer, and (to those who've earned it) a caring, deeply loyal friend and a formidable ally in a tight situation. Gibson is devoted to his people and to his friends and loved ones, and will put his life on the line for them.

Gibson is also a great proponent of getting all the fun he can out of life, and despite how jaded he acts a lot of the time, he's never completely lost the curiosity and playfulness that he was born with as an ISO. "I'll try anything once" and "hey, any excuse to party" are definitely two of Gibson's mottoes, and he'll cheerfully rope anyone who happens to be standing nearby into his latest stunts...after all, life's no fun alone!

Gibson’s favorite hobby is modifying and customizing vehicles of all kinds, be they ground, sea, or air, and he’ll be fascinated by the variety of new forms to be found in Abax City.

Abilities/Powers: Gibson doesn’t have any superpowers, per se, though he has a particular affinity for sensing and working with energy and energy patterns in an engineering sense—he can’t throw lightning bolts or energy blasts or anything of that sort. He’s an expert in escrima-style baton/stick fighting, though he vastly prefers evasion to out-and-out combat (that’s Anon’s job).

First-Person Sample

[Gibson smirks when he sees Anon’s exasperated face on the phone’s camera. He loves the boy, don’t get him wrong, and he should really lay off him one of these days…but Users dammit, he’s just entirely too much fun to mess with.]

How should I know what you did with your shoe? [He asks, as he glances over across the room, where said shoe is sitting on Gibson’s drafting desk along with two cans of the User coffee he’s developed a taste for and a soldering kit] I swear, knowing you you’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached.

[And there he goes, breaking out the longsuffering sigh and those big blue eyes of his. Underhanded tactics, if you ask Gibson. Lucky for Gibson he’s built up an immunity to such things.] Have you checked everywhere? Even the fridge? You put your disc in the fridge not two nights ago, remember?

[He hadn’t, of course. Gibson had. But it’d been entirely too easy to convince the big Monitor that he’d done it himself. Gibson figures it’s good for him, anyway…the sooner Anon learns some savvy and stops being so adorably naïve, the better he’ll be at his job and the better chance of surviving he’ll have (this time).]

Oh, come on. You jump off cliffs for a living, you ought to be able to handle going barefoot for a day. Think of it as training.

[He winks one slate-grey eye at Anon, grinning and stretching.]

Third-Person Sample

Gibson can feel the User—and the oncoming lecture—approaching before he’s even halfway to the bar. Nope, not anywhere near intoxicated enough for this yet, he decides, downing his entire drink at one go before turning lazily in his barstool to face Flynn with his customary smirk. ”Yo. Order a guy a drink?”

Flynn raises an eyebrow. ”Dunno about that, man…heard you’ve gotten into plenty of trouble today already.”

Gibson just shrugs, still smirking, as though hearing those words from the Creator doesn’t sting. ”That’s me, always.”

“Apparently you really pissed in Clu’s cornflakes, shutting down the processing plant like that.”

Gibson grins at that. He can’t help it. ”I have no idea what that means, but you just made my day.” He raises a hand idly, flagging down the bartender and ordering another round. ”You want?”

Flynn just sighs. ”Gibson, you started a riot.”

And here we go. Gibson has to fight the urge to grit his teeth at the blatant skewing of events. ”Is that what you heard? Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered, but three guys on one isn’t exactly a riot.”

“You beat the task manager into standby—”

“Did they tell you about how they were harassing Cayce?” Gibson cuts him off, unable to keep the anger out of his voice anymore. ”Did they mention the part where they almost shoved her into the glitching output beam when she tried to get them to leave her the hell alone so she could get back to her job? Bet they conveniently left that part out, huh. Nope, it was just Gibson, incorrigible troublemaker, stirring up errors and being a hazard to the workplace as usual.” He turns back to the bar and grabs his drink, knocking back half of it in an attempt to calm himself down before he starts ranting at the User, who he’s always considered a friend.

Flynn, for his part, stays quiet for a long moment. ”…I’ll talk to Clu,” he says, finally. ”He’ll listen to me. I’ll get you reinstated. I’m sorry, man, I should have looked harder at both sides. But man, you gotta realize getting violent like that isn’t gonna solve anything.”

He means it, too, and for Gibson that almost makes it worse. ”…you don’t think I know that?” he sighs. ”And don’t worry about it. Going back to work there would just make things worse on everyone else.” He takes another drink before going on. ”…we’re building a new colony. Out in the Outlands. Someplace we can take the pressure off the people who don’t want us here and have a safe place to ourselves. I’ve been asked to help set it up, and I agreed.”

Flynn looks stricken. ”Gibson, are you sure…? We need…I need your skills here, man, you can’t leave.”

Gibson smiles a little. ”Thanks, friend. But they need me more. And besides, it’s not like I’m running off to hide in a cave forever, are you kidding me? This city’d get too boring without me.” He leans back against the bar, feeling his usual grin coming back, even if he doesn’t quite feel it all the way through. ”And you know you’re welcome out there anytime.”

Flynn regards Gibson sadly for another few nanos, and then finally heaves a sigh and smiles. ”Well, if I can’t convince you to stay, then I better wish you luck.” He reaches for his drink, raising his glass. ”To better tomorrows.”

Gibson raises his own. ”That, I can drink to, among other things. Better tomorrows for everyone.”

Case No.: I have no preference!