okay FUCK

So

I was looking back through that post about Hobby Lobby

and the case where their stolen clay tablets got seized

….

And then the explanation of why it was named like that

…

…

And then my reply (because of course I am a ridiculous pattern recognition program and I will Tronjack anything)

….

…

And then

Then

I actually started thinking about this

And oh god

The angst

Ram somehow surviving (or being re-rezzed from) his apparent death in the Recognizer…

reuniting with Tron, and meeting Yori, and realizing he can probably even meet his original User now too (since Roy is an Encom programmer, wrote him for distribution to an insurance company, probably intended for him only to interact with end-users from then on, but omg now things have changed and he can probably actually communicate with his own creator?? Awesomeness)

(and with what he’s learned since then about fighting for the Users, versus the evil CEOs, he may have whole new insights on why he does not wanna go back to working for the insurance company anyway)

and suddenly he’s got a whole happy future ahead of him, he’s all looking forward to his whole new life in the new free Encom system…

When suddenly he is notified that

no.

He is stolen property.

He’s gonna be returned to Big Insurance whether he wants it or not.

(meaning cut and paste, i.e. destruction of the copy currently in the Encom system and creation of a copy back where it belongs)

(…and, if MCP just copied him and the insurance company still has their original… this will be carried out as basically just an execution. It’s not that Big Insurance needs their copy back. it’s just that Encom doesn’t have the right to have one.)

And it’s in rem jurisdiction

Meaning it’s against him (the rem, the thing, the supposedly inanimate property) and that is just because he can’t fight back, so that makes the repossession quicker

oh god I’m gonna cry.

(can he fight back? Can he contest it somehow? Can Roy help him? Or Tron? Or Flynn? Anyone please)