Grid

The Grid
Geographical information
Region	Tron system
Points of Interest	Tron City Argon City Purgos
Other information
Designer	Kevin Flynn
Owners	Kevin Flynn (1983-1989) Clu 2 (1989-2010)
Inhabitants	Programs Gridbugs
Behind the scenes
Appearances	TRON: Evolution TRON: Betrayal TRON: Legacy TRON: Uprising TRON RUN/r Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
Gallery

"The Grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? Motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see."

―Kevin Flynn

Kevin Flynn, overlooking the Grid, with Tron to his left, and Clu to his right

The Grid is a vast part of the Tron system, programmed by Kevin Flynn. Often referred to by Flynn as his "digital frontier", the Grid was made to provide an experimental platform where all forms of research could be carried out at unparalleled speeds. Perceived time on the Grid is measured in cycles and run at a pace far greater than time perceived in the real world, thus allowing anyone immersed in the computer environment to perform the same functions in a fraction of the time it would take them otherwise.

Description

Much of the Grid consists of a flat, dark platform with glowing blue, cyan, or white ribbons of light covering it in a vast latticework. Within the Grid itself lie a number of cities, the most populous being Tron City, a metropolis modeled on a real world city which hosts a diverse range of programs. The programs carry out all the day-to-day tasks involved in running the system. On the periphery of the Grid lies the Outlands, an inhospitable region where most programs could not venture without flying or using specially coded ground vehicles.

Inhabitants

The Grid's original population consisted of programs written or installed by Kevin Flynn. Despite their programming, programs were autonomous to a large extent, living daily lives similar to that of a User in the outside world, clubbing, socialising, resting, playing games, and maintaining hobbies outside the primary directives that dictated their day jobs.

After the emergence of the ISOs from the Sea of Simulation, these unique, directive-free programs settled on the Grid as well. While they mingled with User-written programs at first, they eventually withdrew to colonies of their own, remaining there until the Purge. Both the User-written programs -- known then as Basics -- and the ISOs had factions of political and social thought jockeying for influence on the Grid. After the Purge, sympathetic programs attempted to convey surviving ISOs to safety until there seemed to be none left on the Grid, and factions quarreled for scraps of power in the heavily militarized system.

The Grid also contained other living entities, such as bits, gridbugs, code worms, and viruses.

ISOs, as they appears in TRON: Uprising

Known Locations

The Grid consisted many cities inhabited by programs and other terrain lanscape with weather simulation that mimics the real world. The Grid's capital, Tron City, was a centralized community comprising the Grid's administration, including the sysadmin Clu, and Kevin Flynn. Well-known landmarks in Tron City included Flynn's Arcade, a copy of the one in the outside world and the site of Flynn's arrival when he visited the Grid; the Disc Wars and Light Cycle Arenas, where programs competed in games of skill; and the End of Line Club, originally open to both Basics and ISOs, with a direct Solar Sailer line to the Portal. Over the cycles, Tron City was almost completely depopulated as programs were repurposed or flung into deadly games.

In TRON: Betrayal and TRON: Evolution, the Grid's largest ISO population lived in Arjia City, located on the Codestream Nexus. Evolution also introduced a distant settlement, Bostrum Colony, which was the exclusive home of a faction of ISOs and like-minded Basics who preferred solidarity to segregation. Along with all the other ISO colonies, Bostrum and Arjia were destroyed in the Purge.

TRON: Uprising introduced the far-off port of Argon City, its neighbor and original settlement Purgos, and a large metropolitan area called Bismuth of which only the Light Rail station was seen in the show. Concept art for a location used in one episode was labeled with the name "Gallium City," but the city was never named in the episode, though a map in another episode showed the location of a small city called Gallium which was even further out in the Outlands than Argon City. The pit concealing a secret compressed space prison lay near the road from Argon to Gallium. Also near Argon, in the Outlands, was a snowy peak concealing Tron's secret base of operations. 

The Grid is surrounded by the apparently endless Sea of Simulation, once the birthplace of the ISOs, now corrupted by an isomorphic virus which, while not harmful to Basics, does not allow new ISOs to develop. Passage over the Sea to the Portal, the only way to leave the Grid for the outside world, is possible only via Solar Sailer or light jet.

Trivia

• The "voice" of the Grid is credited as Tricia Helfer in TRON: Uprising and Ana Free in TRON RUN/r.
• The architecture in Tron City is partially based on designs by Jordan Canas.