Mercury, contains plot and narrative details from Monolith Productions TRON 2.0, as well as Slave Labor Graphics Publishing's TRON: The Ghost in the Machine, which is has been classified as non-canon from current TRON Universe.
| “ | Is it true about you being a user? | ” |
—Mercury | ||
| |
| Mercury | |
| Biographical information | |
| User | GUEST |
| Compile Date | (Believed 2003) |
| Physical description | |
| Circuitry Color | Blue |
| Gender | Female |
| Description | Updated Female Program Appearance |
| Other information | |
| Functions | Game Bot |
| Equipment | Rod |
| Vehicles | Light Cycle |
| Allies | Jet Bradley Byte Ma3a |
| Out of universe information | |
| Actor | Rebecca Romijn |
| Appearances | TRON 2.0 TRON 2.0: Killer App (Game Boy Advance) TRON: The Ghost in the Machine |
| Gallery | |
Mercury (voiced by Rebecca Romijn) is a primary character and heroine of TRON 2.0, created by Alan Bradley. She is a game bot, skilled in light cycle racing and rod combat.
History[]
TRON 2.0[]
Mercury's first appearance was during the untimely capture and interrogation of Jet Bradley by Kernel, commander of the ICP's. She overheard that Jet was searching for Ma3a and suggested to the Kernel that he put Jet on the Game Grid. Mercury set her plan to free Jet in motion during the final round of the light cycle race. She downed one of the observation towers and instructed Jet to use a nearby ramp as an escape route. Once Jet was free, Mercury explained that her user sent her to find Ma3a. She led Jet through the prisoner bin and observation tower where his confiscated disc lay under guard. Once that was retrieved, they escaped the observation tower into the data stream.
Mercury realizes her true purpose.
On the way to the transport station, Mercury realized that her user simply wanted her to find Ma3a, not combat the virus as she had mistakenly believed. Jet and Mercury separated to find Byte as the virus began to overwhelm the ENCOM server. Ma3a was freed by Jet and they made for the exit port, with Mercury fending off a group of Z-Lots. As a result of her self-sacrifice she was erased in the system reformat.
An earlier version of Mercury appeared on the 'Net, with no memory of her previous encounter with Jet, reiterating that her user, GUEST wished to communicate with him. Prior to being digitized, Alan sent Mercury to assist Jet in reaching ENCOM's security server. As she repaired the exit port, she met Jet's attempts to jog her memory with indifference and confusion. After Thorne's defeat, and pinned down by DataWraiths on the Fcon server, Alan was able to restore Mercury's memory and upload her. She and Jet quickly thwarted their opponents, and she continued to put up a distraction for the Wraiths, allowing Jet to get to the critical functions and crash the server. Mercury appeared one final time as Jet and Alan prepared to escape. While Alan went into the transit beam immediately, Jet stayed to warn her to leave before the system failed completely and Mercury asked Jet to search for her before departing. Jet promised that he would. Back in the real world, as fCon's server crashed, Alan assured his son that Mercury was no longer on their server.
TRON: The Ghost in the Machine[]
Mercury was reinstalled into ENCOM's sever by the system under the name MCRY73.EXE. When Jet reentered the computer world, she explained that she was the one who summoned him back to help them fight the MCP. She and Jet worked together to fight against the red army, while Clarence, a white rabbit that appears only to Jet, tried to get Jet to believe that she was working against him. When Jet received an optic upgrade via patch routine, Mercury's appearance changed to something similar to the program appearances in TRON. She explained the change as a result of the upgrade and nothing to be concerned about.
When they finally reached the MCP, Mercury and Jet stormed the citadel on armored light cycles and broke through the Master Control Program's defenses. With Jet distracted by Clarence, Mercury and the blue army were overwhelmed by the red army and Mercury was ultimately derezzed. When Clarence, Blue and Red Jet were revealed be to fragments of Jet.exe by the real Jet Bradley, Jet.exe used his disc to channel the system's energy into his body to recreate the digital world. He awoke to find Mercury sitting next to him on a hill.
TRON 2.0: Killer App[]
Mercury Rezzing-in her Lightcycle
Some time after the events of 2.0, Mercury's duties in the lightcycle arena were interrupted by an attack from an entity known as The Corruptor, leaving her home sector crawling with Gridbugs and crowded with refugees from other sectors that fell to the attack. One of them, Profet, told her that Tron himself had been brought out of stasis to fight the threat, returning to the system in its time of need just like legend predicted. Mercury had little belief in legends, and less faith that an older program like Tron would be any good against a system-wide threat. She decided to investigate the threat herself. Unfortunately, the Intrusion Countermeasure Programs, confused by the Corruptor's attack and commanded to turn on their own civilians, flagged her as a threat, forcing her to flee on her lightcycle.
Once safely past their patrol, she encountered a lone security program and prepared to defend herself, but the program identified himself. It was Tron, restored from archive to battle the corruption. Mercury quickly got over her surprise at finding out the legend was real and volunteered to assist. There wasn't enough time to go after the Corruptor virus and disable his User's access, so they agreed to split up - Mercury would attack the Corrupter while Tron would cut off the network access.
Communicating with Tron
Mercury left for the next sector, still evading and fighting her way through the ICP patrols and trying to restore as many corrupted civilians as she could. One of them pointed her to a data repository program named Fat2ne, who might be able to find a weakness in the Corruptor's defense. Stealing a tank, she escapes for Fat2ne's sector. Fat2ne deliberately fragmented himself to appear too old and slow for the Corruptor's forces to bother with. Mercury restored him, and he found a way to sever network access for the Corruptor's User, but not an immediate answer for de-rezzing the Corruptor himself. Mercury, unable to wait longer, comandeered a Recognizer to the closest communication node. She was able to contact Tron and the two shared their findings; Tron now had the means to shut off the network connection, but Mercury still didn't know of the Corruptor's weakness. Worse, the Corruptor's User realized that something had gone wrong and set Corruptor to self-destruct, taking all of the Encom network with it unless stopped. But Fat2ne came through and told Mercury to bounce her rods off the pillars in the Corruptor's lair to evade the program's heavy shields.
The Corruptor laughed off Mercury's attempts to fight him until he realized that the network access had been cut, meaning the ICP forces had now flagged him as a threat. Mercury's skill with the Rods and Fat2ne's strategy did the rest. Mercury escaped the sector after the Corruptor's defeat and decided a long rest was in order, but was disappointed she couldn't thank Tron for his help.
General information[]
Personality[]
To a certain degree, Mercury lacks the innocence and naivety of previous programs from the original TRON. She is a cunning warrior, both physically and mentally; despite her position as a game bot, she displays the ability to persuade high-command programs like Kernel from derezzing suspected viruses (such as Jet), and has little use for legends or stories, preferring immediate and direct action to contemplation and patience.
She holds users, particularly her own, in high regard and follows their command without question. That being said, she has no restrictions against harming Users, as seen with her merciless handling of the Datawraiths. As an aside, she tried to console herself when Jet had to leave by remarking that her world was no place for a User, as programs were too crude and rudimentary. Jet disagreed, saying humans were the ones unworthy of living with the programs.
Mercury is also selfless and loyal to self to the Z-Lot's and the reformatting to allow Jet and Ma3a to escape into the exit port. When Mercury was erased and reformatted, her personality becomes more robotic and simple. She is completely focused on the objective given to her by her user, seemingly unable to answer basic questions in regards to her own fate.
Skills and Abilities[]
Mercury is known within the computer world as a champion Light Cycle racer, with the ability to "race circles" around her opponents despite the light cycle arena's straight line default. In Killer App, her driving skills extend to tanks and Recognizers. While the vehicle is her prefered weapon, she is also an skilled melee fighter; preferring the Rod Primitive (easily passed off as a utility item) to a disc, making her unusual among programs.
At the system reformat, she hold off a group of infected programs with little trouble to get Ma3a, Jet, and Byte, and the Killer App game explictly demonstrated that she is Tron's equal when it came to combat ability. Mercury also put her stealth, hacking and system repair skills to good use to the benefit of Jet and Tron whenever they were faced with an obstacle that required the assistance of another.
Romance[]
During the course of the game, an emerging romance between Mercury and Jet Bradley is suggested, but never realized. In the end of Ghost in the Machine, she was seen walking off into the newly-restored system with Jet.exe.