Master Control Program

"We don't need users."

—MCP

The Master Control Program was once the highest-ranking program in the Hollow Bastion OS. He appears in Kingdom Hearts II.

Journal Entries

Kingdom Hearts II

Tron (1982)

The Master Control Program. He rules the system as the chief control program.

Instead of working for the users, the MCP is planning to take over the system for himself. By refusing to follow the users' orders and trying to enact his evil plan, he's causing chaos among the other programs.

Story

The MCP was once the network controlling program of a company called ENCOM, where it was able to monitor and control the progress of functions of the entire company. As time wore on, it began to make itself more powerful by deleting weaker programs and adding their functions to himself. Eventually he was too powerful to be stopped even by a User, and was only stopped from taking total control of every computer network by a lone User who was pushed into the digital realm, with the help of a powerful security program called Tron.

An unknown amount of time later, the system was copied by Ansem the Wise and used in his personal network. He created a dataspace for information concerning Hearts and the Heartless, protected by Tron. He also rebuilt the laser that allows Users to travel into the computer, and stored away the MCP, realizing the danger it posed to the system, and to Users themselves.

After the banishment of Ansem the Wise, Xehanort and the other apprentices reactivated the MCP, possibly to gain access to Ansem's private files.

Years later, the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee rediscovered Ansem's computer, and booted it up, discovering the MCP still active. He had been using Ansem's and Xehanort's data to create an army of digital Heartless, under command of his number two, Sark. He locked away Tron, and no other programs were ever shown, though were likely either destroyed and replaced by Heartless or out of sight, mindlessly working for the MCP.

The MCP himself attempted to gain access to the DTD, Ansem's dataspace, to gain infinite wisdom and take over the world. It was for this very reason that he did not want to de-resolute Tron as per Sark's suggestion, because the MCP discovered that Tron had escaped, and had access to the dataspace. For a short time, the MCP did have access to it, and immediately activated the emergency self-destruct mechanism for the town. But with help from Sora and Co., Tron was able to keep him out, and created a new password.

The MCP, however, was able to fight from another front to take over the world. He reactivated the Heartless manufacturer in Ansem's lab, and began creating an army of electronic Heartless to ravage the streets of Hollow Bastion. Although Leon and Yuffie fought them off well enough, the Heartless kept coming, and their only hope was Tron, who was locked away in the Hollow Bastion OS. Cid began making an MCP Eradication program, enhanced with Merlin's magic, and Sora saved Tron in the digital world. After Tron received the enhancement from Cid, he and Sora went to the Central Computer Mesa, and fight the MCP himself, as well as a gargantuan Sark. The MCP was stubborn enough to convince Tron that they could work together without the help of Users, but Tron retaliated.

Tron was eventually able to use Cid's program to delete the MCP, and he quickly jumped into the Master Control Program's resting place, seemingly killing himself. He is soon shown to have taken over the MCP's job, however, and now runs the entire system according to the wishes of the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee. He also gives them a brief glimpse of what the world used to look like, and allowed them to remember the town's real name: Radiant Garden.

In Battle

The MCP does very little fighting himself. Instead, he resurrects Sark as a monstrous figure to fight for him. Sark would have to be incapacitated for the attack on the actual MCP to begin. For this to be done, Sark's legs would have to be damaged enough for him to fall over, and then his head would have to be attacked. A quicker way to disable Sark is to run away from him until he would put up a barrier in front of Sora. Here, Sora can use the Reaction Command "Climb" to quickly ascend the wall and use the Reaction command "Needle Dive", diving through Sark's head and knocking him out in one hit. Once he was knocked out, Sora and company would have to destroy one or more of the panels shielding the MCP from view, and then upload the Eradication Program with Tron to the MCP with a button-mashing Reaction Command. Eventually, Sark would revive, starting the process all over.

The MCP also has a secondary defense mechanism. He can rotate the panels around him, and fire lasers from them, making it tricky to fight Sark and find a place to start deleting him.

Quotes

"Sark...Sark! All of my functions are now yours!"
"End of line."
"PROGRAM! You've changed the password!"
"We don't need users."
"Is that the best a user can do?"
"Eliminate all threats!"
"Insignificant user!"
"I will repair your data."

Trivia

• It can be argued that the MCP is the most powerful Disney Villain in the Kingdom Hearts games, due to the fact that he is the only one who can actually create Heartless rather than having to summon them. It is also very likely that he has considerable knowledge of the Heartless, Nobodies, Xehanort and virtually every aspect of the mysteries that surround Ansem and his discoveries because he is in Ansem's computer.
• While his "wire-frame" version is viewable as an entry in Jiminy's journal, his true form is not.
• In other versions of the game, the name of the MCP does not translate to "Master Control Program", but is always suited in such a way that the acronym will remain as "MCP".
• David Warner was the voice of the MCP in "Tron", but the role for the game went to Corey Burton, as was Sark (also from Tron).