Just so you know

When I go looking for a canon detail

And it turns out not to exist

Like so

ALT

And I have to make it up myself

Remember

When you send a pattern recognition program to do the job of a random number generator program

You will get PATTERNS

Not RANDOM NUMBERS

I did it– gave Ram a name in my latest I/O Tower fic

Input and Output (From Beta To Release) - big-overload-little-derez (tiliquain) - Tron (Movies) [Archive of Our Own]

ALT

…and no. I did NOT totally make the name up.

because guess what, i am NOT a random number generator

and i don’t KNOW HOW to do that

Matteo Jwhj 0715

We know the universe of Tron has slightly different history from our own, when it comes to the release of various works of entertainment.

(This is evident in the Legacy mention of TRON and Space Paranoids being among the most popular games in existence– implying that certain other RL games either never existed, or were released much later.)

So there’s ample reason to theorize that Goncharov (1973) was, in fact, released in the Tron universe

(nearly a decade prior to the events of TRON 1982).

We also have hints that programs written by ENCOM programmers follow a certain naming convention, with a short version of the name followed by a string of eight letters and numbers

(Tron’s is JA307020).

Presuming that this is simply to help distinguish it from other similarly named programs– and that the programmer has some say in choosing this extended name–

I find it plausible that Roy Kleinberg would have chosen JWHJ0715 in homage to the Goncharov co-director

(an admirable figure, both in his outspoken opposition to the Nazis and his bisexuality and support of LGBTQ rights)

Unfortunately, Ram’s life wound up following in a path that eerily echoed his namesake:

• He was captured and oppressed under a Nazi-like regime
• his own queer attraction to his cellmate was never permitted to flourish
• and he died young and tragically.

(At least as far as any of us know. Like his namesake, many details of Ram’s life are shrouded in mystery.)

(Further works in the I/O Tower series will explore aspects of that life that may *not* have been quite what they seemed onscreen.)