Tron Wiki
Advertisement

Discs only, program!

—Kernel


Kernel2
Kernel
Biographical information
Derezzed Date 2003
Physical description
Circuitry Color Red
Gender Male
Other information
Functions Oversees all security in ENCOM's network.
Commander of all ICPs.
Equipment Identity Disc
Allies ICPs
Kernel's Aide
Out of universe information
Actor Dennis Bateman
Appearances TRON 2.0
Gallery


The Kernel is a program in command of the ENCOM, or red, ICPs within the TRON 2.0 storyline. Every system has a Kernel. Kernels believe in the users, but have very low opinions of them.

Kernels are known to be very strong and hard to defeat. For example, ENCOM's Kernel easily defeated Thorne, who was a user, an unusual feat seeing as users usually have a great advantage over programs.

Description[]

Kernel has red circuitry, and a shell that makes him tall with a monstrous appearance. In Killer App, he wears a cape with an emblem on the upper half with three yellow spikes coming from it behind his head. He always uses the identity disc for combat, and sometimes the sequencer. Kernel is also very robust with more health than a Seeker.

His main base is the Kernel's tower, a heavily defended place where he can do what he wants in the system, and otherwise defends the system for the last stand. From there, he commands the ENCOM ICP forces, but is not adverse to going into battle alongside his scripts.

Events of TRON 2.0[]


When J. D. Thorne became a living, virulent computer virus, the Kernel became furious and frustrated with his soldiers' inability to combat the corruption. Unfortunately, this also led him to mistake Jet Bradley for the source of the virus. He interrogated the captured Jet, but disbelieved the answers the young user was giving, including dismissing Jet's insistence he was a user as "blasphemy" and threatening to torture him to death. He was about to execute Jet when Mercury intervened on Jet's behalf.

After Jet and Mercury escaped, eluding or destroying the ICP patrols sent after them, the infuriated Kernel decided he would stop at nothing to destroy Jet, even if Ma3a was de-rezzed in the process. By the time the ICPs reached Thorne's corrupted server, most of the ICPs had stopped viewing Jet as an enemy, but the Kernel wasn't persuaded. However, Thorne was the greater threat.

The Kernel caught up to Thorne and had defeated the corrupted user, injuring him to the brink of death. Alan tried to talk the Kernel out of killing Thorne outright, but the Kernel would hear nothing of it. Jet then faced the Kernel in single, disc-only combat to try and save Thorne and his father. The Kernel admitted Jet was a worthy opponent, but also said that he should have derezzed the young user when he had the chance. After a protracted battle, Jet's skill with the disc proved greater and the Kernel succumbed.

Trivia[]

  • The word, "kernel," is used in TRON 2.0 as a pun on the military rank of colonel.
  • Quoting Wikipedia: "In computing, the kernel is the central component of most computer operating systems; it is a bridge between applications and the actual data processing done at the hardware level."
Advertisement