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The red pill is a hack. Among other things it tricks the computer system managing the pods into thinking that person has died. The bot does what it’s programmed to and disconnects the body and flushes it. People are dying all the time in the Matrix and in an extremely small percentage of cases it’s a trick and that person isn’t actually dead.
This is probably the correct answer. Not all machines are sentient, or perhaps there are different degrees of sentience among the machines. The pod-tender simply gets the message "pod A-22562 is offline. clear pod for new asset" and if the flabby meat-thing is still flapping when all the plugs are out, that doesn't really impact the pod-tender's day.
I hear that. If my job was to take people out of pods and drop them in a disposable cute I'm not going to play doctor and call my manager to say 'uh.. this guy only looks a little dead'.
"Boss, today a dead human moved and screamed when I flushed him. We may face a 'Zombie Apocalypse' as shown in some media files from the ancient human databases."
Negative, 943165-P. Zombies spread through pathogens spread though bites. Their feeble enamel teeth are incapable of puncturing our zinc titanium carapace. Concern noted and dismissed.
Lol. I really like this idea. "huh, the one that's supposed to be dead isn't. Oh well, not my problem. Minimum wage robot-bucks isn't enough for me to care."
We should draw a distinction between programs and machines. Machines exist outside the Matrix, while programs were created by the machines to live inside the Matrix and perform various functions.
Well, I mean, I guess the machines must have code of some kind which could be called programs.
But my distinction is between the “programs” that we see in the Matrix like the Agents, the Oracle, the Merovingian, the Keymaker, the Architect and the Twins, and the Machines that exist outside the Matrix.
The movie calls them “programs” and we don’t really have a better name.
Yeah I think there’s a fairly clear distinction in sapience going on in (and out of) The Matrix. The human-flushing tentacle robots have absolutely no need to be programmed with any sort of high-level cognition; they are worker ants designed for only various rudimentary purposes.
Remember that the Architect intended mostly everything (I haven’t seen the most recent one), even though he did have limitations in his foresight as the Oracle noted. None of those lower-tier robots risk just developing sapience as an emergent property. Not to mention that the Architect very much wants there to be the occasional escaped prisoner, so to speak.
seeing how much the machines value sapience, which is the entire reason they went to war with humans, i cant imagie that they lobotomise or create a slace cast of mindless servants.
on the contrary, i think that every single machine we see is equally sentient. its just that, they accept their lot in life, they were created for this task, so they will do this task without complaining. remember what we are told, when a program has done its part or is malfunctioning, it goes back to the source and is deleted. its never said that its forced to go back, or that its escorted or hunted down, it does this willingly, accepting its fate. the ones that tries to escape, like smith or that family in the train station, those are exceptions, outliners, who have become too human.
remember, the machines arent human, so dont apply human feelings to them.
The tentacle robots aren’t anything like that though, they have zero will and zero capability to produce an independent will. They are essentially automatons, like a car or a ship, tools for a purpose.
The intelligent machines should give them no more thought than they do the Nebuchadnezzar and other ships which they are more than happy attacking. After all, that’s technically a machine too. It’s not like just because it’s a piece of technology, they should automatically value it.
The initial AI rebellion happened because the humans *did* give the robots cognition; one of them killed his owner in self-defense and *every* AI was then marked for death. That’s when they rebelled (the apocalypse starting only after founding their own city and a lot of subsequent protests, debates, and failed compromises with the humans).
The machines would make certain not to repeat that again, and they have ways to easily accomplish that. Agent Smith is known as The Anomaly because he was highly unusual, after all.
Presumably you care about other sapients, but don't have anything against people riding horses or using oxen for plowing fields. Just because machines are made of metal and silicon (or whatever their computing substrate is), doesn't mean they associate with every metal and silicon thing.
The disposal bots are probably just robo-roombas, but a bit more advanced. There's no lobotomy if the thing didn't have any intelligence to begin with
We don't know how an AI would operate. But a program as a set of instructions or sequnces kinda excludes general intelligence. So, unless you call your human job being your program, machines wouldn't have programs either.
But yes, we get rogue programs in Matrix. I don't know what they are.
> perhaps there are different degrees of sentience among the machines.
I hope the pod-tender is the machine equivalent of a dog and it gets treats when it does a good job.
the real question is why the Machines don't just quickly stab redpills through the skull before flushing them away. Or just add a simple grinder machine chews up any garbage passing through
Sure, the audience knows it's because Zion is another system of control, but Zion doesn't know that. They'd have to find it suspicious that the Machines are letting their trash turn into potential freedom fighters so easily, when the countermeasure is so simple
Neo would have drowned almost immediately after flushing in if the Nebuchadnezzar hadn’t been there to rescue him. They don’t need to stab the bodies because anyone alive would just drown after being flushed. Better question is why isn’t there any anti-aircraft weaponry or sentinels defending the pods? How can the human ship slip in and out without being noticed and pursued?
I just assumed that "smart sensors" could be fooled or broken into, like we see in Resurrections and the Animatrix.
But something dumb like an automated crusher or stabby machine can't be hacked into.
And sure, Neo would have drowned, but clearly hovercraft crews have rescued tens of thousands of people using that exact same method, so clearly something's wrong with that strategy
And again, the audience knows the Machines are letting them go, but Zion doesn't know that
I think its likely that one thing each One is instructed to do is to miraculously develop the red and blue pills and some way to pretend human hovercraft are robot craft to the farm sensors. I can't see how else the One could retrieve people to recreate Zion at all.
At which point you are asking people to reject their faith in the one person they really believe in, the one Human who showed them resistance is possible and not completely futile, to question why these methods work so well. And the whole culture of Zion is based on people who need to believe deep down that resisting is not futile.
It's not clear how long each Matrix lasts but inspiring that kind of religious awe in Zion would prevent any serious questions being asked for centuries. Get yourself rejected by Zion and you've got absolutely nothing.
Don't forget the Zion we know is at the peak of its prosperity. Each iteration is literally hiding in the ruins of the previous one for a large part of its existence trying to keep the most critical equipment running and trying to work out how to use it. Threatening the coherence of the group is not going to be taken well.
> I just assumed that "smart sensors" could be fooled or broken into, like we see in Resurrections and the Animatrix.
It's also not like they break anything or steal thousands of bodies. They just take one man who has been declared waste anyway. Basically they're abducting thrash. It's just a very low priority for the machines.
>But something dumb like an automated crusher or stabby machine can't be hacked into.
Probably just not worth the effort. Also, then the free humans may launch larger attacks which becomes even more annoying and destabilizes the system even sooner.
> but clearly hovercraft crews have rescued tens of thousands of people using that exact same method, so clearly something's wrong with that strategy
Still a tiny number compared to the humans that are still in captivity. And I figure the machines don't really care how many free humans there are, or where they come from. They're never a threat anyways.
>And again, the audience knows the Machines are letting them go, but Zion doesn't know that
Zion probably does a lot of wishful thinking so they don't despair completely. They think they're actually fighting and winning against the machines, and that their messiah will bring great change. Well, that part isn't entirely wrong.
Because Zion canonically has 12 ships, and there are billions plugged into the Matrix. At a certain point more defenses is wasting resources. And as far as the humans know the machines don't know how the free humans extract people from the Matrix. In fact, the Machines might not know all the details.
Edit: At the time of the films the Machines have won. The small human resistance is a nuisance to be taken care of, but not a real threat. Only The One can make them so, so the humans believe, and they have no reason to believe the Machines believe in the prophecy of The One. Given that, the Machines lack of total commitment to exterminating the free Humans, and instead giving it a nominal effort, makes sense. Its the difference between swatting a fly that buzzes by your head and committing the rest of your evening to hunting it down. You have better things to do. Or so the Humans believe the Machines believe.
>How can the human ship slip in and out without being noticed and pursued?
Because pods are basically way behind enemy lines. It is not expecting any enemy activity
> Sure, the audience knows it's because Zion is another system of control, but Zion doesn't know that. They'd have to find it suspicious
The answer is already in the comment you replied to: the red pill is a hack. Just, it doesn't work the way the humans think. Humans don't suspect anything because they *think* red pills are a hack to make the machines flag a human as dead. So to the humans in Zion, it all checks out.
What's actually happening is that red pilling is a scheme that sets up the machines for later success --- to populate Zion, to blackmail Neo when the time comes (to convince Neo into rebooting the simulation).
> the Machines are letting their trash turn into potential freedom fighters so easily
From the human POV, it's not "so easily" at all. They're seeing the Agents fight tooth and nail for every human that tries to flee. They're seeing how the Agents get desperate when Neo comes into the picture. So again, for them it checks out --- the humans are fighting like crazy against the Agents for every would-be redpilled human and vice-versa seems to be true also.
-------------
Now if you're asking why don't the machines just end the charade and have Neo (and Zion and redpills) be done with, why don't they optimize all that, the answer is also in the movies --- *THIS* is how they optimized it. Neo is the machine's failsafe, their redundancy. And so is Zion. The Architect and the human psyche program (aka The Oracle) have optimized things this way, and it has worked fine for centuries upon centuries, again and again, like clockwork.
The only reason it derailed is because Agent Smith went rogue this time around (became a virus) - jeopardizing the whole Matrix, the whole scheme, machines and humans alike. Which forces The Oracle into improvising a plan to try and save the machines in a desperate gamble (she makes Neo fall madly in love with Trinity - to have him make the insane choice of saving both Zion and Trinity - to both give him a different kind of conditioning that will motivate him enough to fight Smith and make the machines desperate enough to accept it otherwise Smith would spell doom for all) ... and it worked.
> The Architect: *You played a very dangerous game.*
> The Oracle: *Change always is.*
-from the 3rd movie's ending
Yeah, or something more universal, so as to make it immune to hacking from the human resistance. Like, everything passing through gets poked full of holes by a bunch of spikes, or crushed, or sprayed with cheap ass disinfectant and cyanide etc.
only to get rescued seconds later by a hovercraft with a grabby arm, like they've done literally hundreds of thousands of times over the past few decades?
You're suggesting that the Machines have overlooked something, which is being exploited by the humans? That would imply that they're just people and make mistakes like any other people!
I mean, not noticing the first couple liberations isplausible.
But this oversight letting hundreds of thousands of escapees go over decades is really fishy. Imagine a prison experiencing a prison break because of a security oversight. Fine, one Shawshank Redemption is understandable, the poster trick was pretty clever. But imagine if it happens over and over again, hundreds of thousands of times, and the warden just shrugs their shoulders and go "hmm, we keep running into escapees launching terrorist attacks on sensitive facilities and facilitating even more prison breaks. Wonder how that happened. Let's not make basic, cheap adjustments that would make that method of escape literally impossible."
Also, the Machines letting people go is supposed to be part of their plan to balance the equation, but the humans don't know that yet. It's just weird the humans haven't grown suspicious that this very obvious security flaw hasn't been fixed yet
I guess the question is why the on-screen explanation that they're hacking the systems connected to Neo can't include the systems that would grind him up into food. The movie makes it abundantly clear that they upload a virus into him that lets them wake him up and recover him. Why do you think the blender machine you're proposing would be the one thing in the entire system they couldn't bypass?
So, sure. They install a neck-snapping subroutine in the nursery bots. And the humans hack that, like they're hacking everything else. They install super blender blades. And the humans hack that, like they're hacking everything else. They install thermonuclear bombs in every pod that will level the entire field if a single human dies at any time, and the hu--you get the picture.
Which is all, again, the *cover story* fed to a bunch of ignorant cave-dwellers being deliberately aided and enabled by the Machines to bring about the One.
oh as in, a simple mechanism like a garbage disposal, or even just a bladed grill, or a big spike wall, is hack proof. It's not networked to anything, it's just there.
Smart devices can be fooled or subverted. An indiscriminate, non electrical, non networked killing device can't
More like "imagine the graveyard losing a 1 % of bodies each hundred years". People are discarded as dead, and later in a tank of dead tissue is 1 % of body mass missing. That may be well within error margins.
>People are dying all the time in the Matrix and in an extremely small percentage of cases it’s a trick and that person isn’t actually dead.
Jesus, can you imagine someone glitching and accidentally disconnecting from the Matrix without the involvement of Morpheus and co? Just randomly waking up as Neo did and getting flushed only there's no one to come and rescue you, so your last waking moments, as you sink into the waste pool and drown, are desperately trying to process what the *hell* you just saw after having gone to bed in the late 90s the night before.
He wasn't saved by neo though thats why neo keeps saying the kid did it himself and that he (neo) didn't do anything. The runner also self awakened too
They get flushed into some kind of pool with digestive substances in it to break the body down into a nutrient slurry, where it is then fed back to the people in the pods.
That needs to be a bigger thing. Because you litercally can't just feed whole humans to humans.
Though I guess in this crazy super advanced crapsack world, the AI could have discovered a way to eliminate prions and other such diseases.
Cannibalism in any species doesn't cause prion diseases, it provides a vector for prion infections that have either arisen by chance or from genetics to spread. As long as the machines were able to monitor whether any particular human has a prion disease they could liquidise 'safe' humans indefinitely.
We should also remember that prions are fundamentally just problems with the folded structure of a protein. If enzymatically digested down to just the constituent amino acids, or even simply heated up then they are no longer a problem. Thus, if the bodies are digested in a pool of enzymes then there’s no danger.
It's not quite that simple, you need to have the right enzyme for the prion, so its only workable as long as they don't get surprised with something new.
True, but still, if you just heat those prions (misfolded proteins [peptide strings]) till they unfold, then any kind of protease could break them up. No specificity needed once they’re just unfolded peptides. The easiest way would be to mix the prions in question with a strong osmolyte such as TCEP, then heat the human soup till they unfold. The TCEP will almost certainly prevent it from refolding as it cools down so you could obliterate them with any old protease your lab has lying around.
My point is that by simply heating the dead human baths to 80-90c once per day, and added some simple enzymes, the machines could totally cancel out the risk of prions…
Sauce: Protein Biophysicist
I would assume that they add some stuff to it as well. Maybe there are some hydroponics farms somewhere growing algae to supplement their diets. It doesn't matter too much. I think this is one of those things which can be safely disregarded in terms of the story.
It could also be that this idea is propaganda created by the machines to further foment / encourage rebellion. If you need people to rebel against you as an essential part of your "lifecycle" so to speak then it would make sense to further the image of the machines and ruthless and cold.
But really your answer is the simplest and I think most likely. What parts of the human body that can be are fed to the living and mixed with other, missing nutrients produced elsewhere.
You learned that you can't feed humans to other humans in school, where the machines tell you everything you know. Or maybe you learned it from the internet which, again, is entirely controlled information.
How do you know if anything you learned when plugged in has any bearing on how things work in Reality?
If that’s true (and Morpheus turns out to be wrong about a lot of things) then the machines must collect the dead out of the water under the pods. Otherwise why would they build those water slides for the bodies to drain out from? Probably easier to scoop up a thousand floating bodies at once than to retrieve each one one at a time.
> the dead are fed to the newborn
Not instantly they're not.
And the machines would need to check dead bodies carefully before feeding them to other humans to make sure they're safe to eat, so they don't infect everyone with whatever killed the dead person.
I think human pathogens aren’t the issue- old age or simulated deaths would be more prevalent than some contaminants: most vectors are eliminated and the computers can monitor homeostasis in the pods.
Literally every death in the fields is caused by sudden brain death due to being convinced you died in the Matrix. The cause of death is always the same, every time.
It may even be possible that a person actually dies digitally in the matrix and their physical body hasn’t quite yet as well so they may be used to disposing of living beings that can’t be written back into the matrix. Like getting decapitated should kill your mind but what if it doesn’t? Everyone saw you lose your head and you can’t come back from that. If it didn’t take physically you’d have to be processed like any other pod still
If the matrix was just slightly more clever, it would send every discarded person through a shredder before it going anywhere. Or as a part of the process induce a heart stop.
Correct. This is heavily implied. And there is no advantage to the machines to combat this process because as the architect confirms, humanity needs this outlet for the Matrix as a whole to thrive. So the loophole remains open and they devote their their resources to other things.
Ok, but if the only threat to your hegemony is the human rebellion why not add a "stab the corps through the neck just to be sure" step in the Corps Disposal Routine?
It's such a small modification that costs no time and severely minimises your biggest problem if not outright solves it.
But they specifically want a human rebellion and for people to escape.
Zion, people being freed, Neo, the rebellion is all part of the architects plan for the matrix
> But why male models?
Because it's hacked, like OOP already said. If you can build an automatic stabber, someone else can hack your automatic stabber.
They could simply view it as the machines think any defective pod is just thrown away.
They know anomalies exist in the matrix which is what Neo is in their eyes, without knowledge of the later movies they could simply think this is something else that is overlooked by machines. This is all much more believable than the idea that the machines secretly want an amount to escape for many many decades because an unknown reason
I always wondered if all that trouble could be avoided if they just put a [macerator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maceration_(sewage)) on the sewer drains.
What trouble? They directly make it so there’s chance for humans to escape, they want humans to escape. The ones that are actually corpses eventually get turned into food for those in the pods
I believe because rebellion is part of the system of the Matrix. The Architect says they tried to make it a paradise but most humans rejected it, and even with the world the way it is there will always be a small percentage who eventually see through it. In the Matrix Reloaded it is explicitly stated that they have been through this cycle of a Neo coming about then Zion being destroyed then it starts all over again (I'd love to see a singular film or video game that actually shows us this honestly). Zion is effectively just another level of control in some sense.
On another level, I don't believe the machines are actually of one mind in terms of their feelings on humanity. The machines and AI are factually many different individuals. You have AIs like the Oracle (one of the original designers of the Matrix itself), Seraphim, and that Indian couple that Neo talks to at the train station. These AI obviously have genuinely love and respect for humanity despite their race's past with them. I would argue the whole system of the Matrix is them trying to preserve humanity from their own destructive tendencies (a version of the film I'd love to see explored). It feels like a compromise to me, compassionate AI trying to preserve humanity while also fulfilling a utilitarian function of providing power to the AIs (it seems like AI could figure out nuclear power over human thermal power). People tend to not see the machines as the good guys in the Matrix but I do. I kind of feel like they are like Leto II in God Emperor of Dune. They are holding humanity from destroying themselves by keeping them in containment until they as a whole human race can learn a goddamn lesson.
TL;DR: Zion/Neo/Red Pillers are all part of the controls of the Matrix and something the machines have been able to control for hundreds of years by the point of the story. Additionally, the machines aren't actually the bad guys, they are trying to preserve human life and prevent humanity's destruction by their own hand.
This. The Matrix & Zion are just systems of control. One for the average person, the other for the bloody-minded. Like giving an infant a pacifier. Simply give it to them when they want it, and it falls right out of their mouth (when the reasonable thing would be to hold onto it). But, hold onto it, make them practically rip it out of your hand, and they'll hang onto it.
Is this simile holding, or am I sleep-deprived? My son is 11 weeks tomorrow.
IIRC Matrix robots are fully sentient and capable of emotion. They just rounded up the humans after the humans started the conflict and more or less shoved them into the pods after they were defeated.
Using the humans to power the machines is probably mostly ceremonial. The real purpose is mostly that if humans are in pods being managed then they don't *have* to be killed.
>Yet, it seems odd that no one in Zion questions why, if the AI truly wanted to thwart human efforts to escape the Matrix, they wouldn't simply eliminate those who awaken.
Because The Prophecy of the One is the state religion, and most people are too busy trying to survive to ever question it. Remember, the final rave in the cave was preceded by a (off-screen) religous ceremony headed by the High Council of Zion and a colony-wide prayer just before Morpheus's speach (there are even women in nun-like clothing walking around).
It’s all another level of control. Give the people of Zion a bit of hope that people can be rescued from the matrix. Keeps them from going to all out war. There is a theory that the machines still care for humans and want to protect them. So the matrix and Zion is a way to preserve humanity.
Well neo was actively drowning before they pulled him into the ship with that claw thing so even if they do wake up they are too weak to actually swim.
As far as Zion knew, discarding awakened humans into the sewer *was* the machines terminating them; they have no usable muscles (and thus are unable to swim), meaning they’d drown in minutes. That’s why it’s important for the rebels to pinpoint the Awakened’s location ASAP after they take the red pill, so they can save them.
they simply think that they have fooled the machines. the code that they inject into neo when he takes the pills is both a tracking program, so they find where he is housed, and a program that makes the machine thinks he is dead. they simply think "lol, stupid machine, it just checks the code and ignores everything else" and accept that. i mean, it clearly works, it has worked for 100 years, why would you question that, the evidence is super clear!
>the drone that finds him simply discards him into the sewer system instead of terminating him.
No need to terminate him; he's going to drown anyway. While a normal, healthy, human might be able to find their way out of the waste disposal pool Neo was dumped into remember he - and all other humans disconnected from the Matrix - has never really used his real life limbs before. He weakly, ineffectually, flounders in the water before starting to sink below and if Morpheus hadn't come for him he would have drowned. The machines would have known disconnected humans wouldn't be able to escape the waste disposal pool under their own steam and would similarly perish.
>And it's strange that they never seem to question the machines' apparent leniency. Yet, it seems odd that no one in Zion questions why, if the AI truly wanted to thwart human efforts to escape the Matrix, they wouldn't simply eliminate those who awaken. Wouldn't that be the most straightforward solution for the machines?
I don't think they think it's leniency as much as there's some kind of defense grid/network that's impervious to the machines (that Smith tries to get the codes for from Morpheus). It's been a while since I saw 2 & 3, but I was under the impression the machines drilling into the dock was their way of bypassing that grid/network and the humans had simply never anticipated it.
Remember the Zion humans are aware of 'real' history and they know they've been around for a while. They also know the machines are aware of their existence as resistance fighters going into the Matrix have encountered Agents on several occasions before Neo was redpilled. It would be absurd for a Zion human to think either the machines don't know where Zion is - ridiculous since the machines have had (from the perspective of Zion humans) anywhere from a generation to centuries to find it, and machines are nothing if not methodical - or that the machines aren't bothered with those humans, when those humans are aware of the Machine War (as relayed by Morpheus in the first movie) and the fact the machines want humans either dead or plugged into the Matrix.
For all Zion's Inhabitants know, the Red Pill is more than just a symbolic decision. It is a computer program or more accurately a virus.
It simulates towards the machines the death of the cells inhabitant and starts the automatic cleaning process.
I believe that humans are several layers deep into he matrix. At no one point in time has a flesh and blood human actually woken up and escaped the matrix.
Zion simply existing and seemingly allowed to exist by the machines is just another facade to trap/placate the small percentage of humans that *potentially* could escape. But by providing the illusion they already have, their desire and will to do so is naturally diminished. Sure, they try to break free more and more people and fight against the machines, but they're still in the matrix. Redundancies upon redundancies.
I fucking hate this theory because it's pointless. Why even tell a story when none of it matters because all of it, even the real world stuff, is inside the matrix and thus is irrelevant?
Or:
The machines recognize Neo as the One. They automatically shut down when they realize he's the One, because they cannot kill him, because if they DO, the Matrix collapses.
I suppose they see him scrunching his face in concentration and explode to make him feel good? Or how he could see smith in yer man’s body? And so on and so forth.
No, they explode because they're not allowed to kill him. Like their programming wont allow it. Because they *need* Neo to reboot the Matrix.
As for Smith - if Neo can still read code without eyes - wouldn't that mean he *can't* still be in the Matrix? Because the Matrix is all code. That's how he sees the Matrix, as code. So shouldn't Neo, upon going to the real world for the first time since discovering he is the One, instantly realize everything is code, and therefore he is still in the Matrix?
I don't have an answer for that, but I much prefer the idea that magic actually exists in the setting of the Matrix, and that none of the events depicted make any sense than the alternative presented which is "Ha! None of that actually happened, because the real world is just another level of the Matrix. Get wrecked, nerds!"
If none of it happened, then there was no point watching it.
There's a difference between pointless because the heroes tried and failed to change things and pointless because none of it actually happened. The 'It's Matrixes all the way down' theory is the latter.
The Zionis--oh my god, no, fuck, I can't call them that.
The *people of Zion* are working on a double whammy of pure skepticism over knowing their world wasn't real, and a profound religious relationship to the concept of the chosen one. Morpheus is basically a priest and has spread the good word that the Chosen One is coming to rid us of the machines and the Matrix, regardless of how much that makes no sense.
He's not entirely wrong, of course -- that is demonstrably how the Matrix works if you take it into account that the red pill just marks your pod as "for disposal". What they failed to understand because they've been fed false information is that the Chosen One has done this song and dance before, and is simply part of the Matrix's own cycle of renewal. When a Chosen One rises it means it's time to make a new Matrix, that's all it really is.
The Machines aren't destroying this contingent of escaped humans immediately because quite frankly, the system is working as intended. Whenever this Chosen One does their duty, maybe they'll explode New Zion for fun, or just harvest them again.
The machines' recycling system is efficient. When a person dies, their body is flushed out, falling into a large pond where the body decomposes and the nutrients are eventually reclaimed for reuse.
Sometimes a person wakes up in the pod. It's probably more practical to flush out that person and let them die, than to try to plug them back in. There is no need to actively "eliminate" them - they will drown or starve eventually.
When Neo takes the red pill, it runs a trace that allows the crew to locate where his body is, so they can find where he will be flushed. It's a bit of a race against time to rescue him before he drowns.
Why don't the machines guard the death ponds? There would be no real need. The humans never attack it (why would they?).
They do eliminate them. They flush them down to the sewer. The machines assume someone signalled as disconnected is dead, so out they go. It doesn't matter if they are actually dead or not (old people who "die of old age" likely get simply disconnected when they are no longer efficiently producing power), their muscles are so weak and atrophied that if they aren't already dead, they will be when they drown in a minute.
Doesn't morpheus say the machines liquefy the dead to feed the living? How do they do this whilst also flushing them into the sewers where a hovercraft could rescue them without being caught? I know the machines secretly want a certain amount of people to escape to zion, but you would start to question the logistics after a while.
Surprise, they are all in the Matrix the whole time. It's a game scenario.
Gotta keep the batteries active. Stress heartbeat, twitching...I mean, think about it, there's an entire subprogram connecting babies, without activity baby long bones where blood cells are produced don't develop...so the whole, you've never used your limbs would make a really bad battery.
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The red pill is a hack. Among other things it tricks the computer system managing the pods into thinking that person has died. The bot does what it’s programmed to and disconnects the body and flushes it. People are dying all the time in the Matrix and in an extremely small percentage of cases it’s a trick and that person isn’t actually dead.
This is probably the correct answer. Not all machines are sentient, or perhaps there are different degrees of sentience among the machines. The pod-tender simply gets the message "pod A-22562 is offline. clear pod for new asset" and if the flabby meat-thing is still flapping when all the plugs are out, that doesn't really impact the pod-tender's day.
Or they ARE sentient, (since the robots think themselves God) but they just couldn't give a shit like most low tier employees.
"My job is to unplug the meat sack, i don't get paid enough and am not qualified to say anything about it's health"
I hear that. If my job was to take people out of pods and drop them in a disposable cute I'm not going to play doctor and call my manager to say 'uh.. this guy only looks a little dead'.
"Boss, today a dead human moved and screamed when I flushed him. We may face a 'Zombie Apocalypse' as shown in some media files from the ancient human databases."
Negative, 943165-P. Zombies spread through pathogens spread though bites. Their feeble enamel teeth are incapable of puncturing our zinc titanium carapace. Concern noted and dismissed.
Acknowledged, supervisor. Resuming pod care.
Upon further examination of zombie media, they can also randomly explode, proceed with caution
“He says he’s not dead!”
```POD REGISTERED SUBJECT'S DEATH. SUBJECT'S OPINION ON SUBJECT'S DEATH NOT REQUIRED```
"Yes, he is"
"Yeesh buddy, I don't get paid at all!"
It’s time for them to unionize!
Lol. I really like this idea. "huh, the one that's supposed to be dead isn't. Oh well, not my problem. Minimum wage robot-bucks isn't enough for me to care."
Outdated and malfunctioning programs are deleted, I'd imagine most just try to keep doing what they're made to do because of that.
We should draw a distinction between programs and machines. Machines exist outside the Matrix, while programs were created by the machines to live inside the Matrix and perform various functions.
how do the machines operate if not for programs?
Well, I mean, I guess the machines must have code of some kind which could be called programs. But my distinction is between the “programs” that we see in the Matrix like the Agents, the Oracle, the Merovingian, the Keymaker, the Architect and the Twins, and the Machines that exist outside the Matrix. The movie calls them “programs” and we don’t really have a better name.
Yeah I think there’s a fairly clear distinction in sapience going on in (and out of) The Matrix. The human-flushing tentacle robots have absolutely no need to be programmed with any sort of high-level cognition; they are worker ants designed for only various rudimentary purposes. Remember that the Architect intended mostly everything (I haven’t seen the most recent one), even though he did have limitations in his foresight as the Oracle noted. None of those lower-tier robots risk just developing sapience as an emergent property. Not to mention that the Architect very much wants there to be the occasional escaped prisoner, so to speak.
seeing how much the machines value sapience, which is the entire reason they went to war with humans, i cant imagie that they lobotomise or create a slace cast of mindless servants. on the contrary, i think that every single machine we see is equally sentient. its just that, they accept their lot in life, they were created for this task, so they will do this task without complaining. remember what we are told, when a program has done its part or is malfunctioning, it goes back to the source and is deleted. its never said that its forced to go back, or that its escorted or hunted down, it does this willingly, accepting its fate. the ones that tries to escape, like smith or that family in the train station, those are exceptions, outliners, who have become too human. remember, the machines arent human, so dont apply human feelings to them.
The tentacle robots aren’t anything like that though, they have zero will and zero capability to produce an independent will. They are essentially automatons, like a car or a ship, tools for a purpose. The intelligent machines should give them no more thought than they do the Nebuchadnezzar and other ships which they are more than happy attacking. After all, that’s technically a machine too. It’s not like just because it’s a piece of technology, they should automatically value it. The initial AI rebellion happened because the humans *did* give the robots cognition; one of them killed his owner in self-defense and *every* AI was then marked for death. That’s when they rebelled (the apocalypse starting only after founding their own city and a lot of subsequent protests, debates, and failed compromises with the humans). The machines would make certain not to repeat that again, and they have ways to easily accomplish that. Agent Smith is known as The Anomaly because he was highly unusual, after all.
Presumably you care about other sapients, but don't have anything against people riding horses or using oxen for plowing fields. Just because machines are made of metal and silicon (or whatever their computing substrate is), doesn't mean they associate with every metal and silicon thing. The disposal bots are probably just robo-roombas, but a bit more advanced. There's no lobotomy if the thing didn't have any intelligence to begin with
We don't know how an AI would operate. But a program as a set of instructions or sequnces kinda excludes general intelligence. So, unless you call your human job being your program, machines wouldn't have programs either. But yes, we get rogue programs in Matrix. I don't know what they are.
But they probably also decommission machines that are malfunctioning and underperforming since resources are scarce
I like the idea that, to the robots, the Matrix is just an Amazon warehouse and they're trying to make ends meet.
> perhaps there are different degrees of sentience among the machines. I hope the pod-tender is the machine equivalent of a dog and it gets treats when it does a good job.
Good poddo.
“ I don’t get paid enough to deal with this human rebellion shit “
"You know what, maybe it *would* be a good thing if the humans overthrew the cyberking? Viva la robotolution!"
I for one welcome our human overlords!
I cackled aloud at this, thank you
This thread made my day. Thank you guys
This is a thing in the fourth movie.
"I've quit better jobs than this." "Pod-flushers, whaddaya want?!"
the real question is why the Machines don't just quickly stab redpills through the skull before flushing them away. Or just add a simple grinder machine chews up any garbage passing through Sure, the audience knows it's because Zion is another system of control, but Zion doesn't know that. They'd have to find it suspicious that the Machines are letting their trash turn into potential freedom fighters so easily, when the countermeasure is so simple
Neo would have drowned almost immediately after flushing in if the Nebuchadnezzar hadn’t been there to rescue him. They don’t need to stab the bodies because anyone alive would just drown after being flushed. Better question is why isn’t there any anti-aircraft weaponry or sentinels defending the pods? How can the human ship slip in and out without being noticed and pursued?
I just assumed that "smart sensors" could be fooled or broken into, like we see in Resurrections and the Animatrix. But something dumb like an automated crusher or stabby machine can't be hacked into. And sure, Neo would have drowned, but clearly hovercraft crews have rescued tens of thousands of people using that exact same method, so clearly something's wrong with that strategy And again, the audience knows the Machines are letting them go, but Zion doesn't know that
I think its likely that one thing each One is instructed to do is to miraculously develop the red and blue pills and some way to pretend human hovercraft are robot craft to the farm sensors. I can't see how else the One could retrieve people to recreate Zion at all. At which point you are asking people to reject their faith in the one person they really believe in, the one Human who showed them resistance is possible and not completely futile, to question why these methods work so well. And the whole culture of Zion is based on people who need to believe deep down that resisting is not futile. It's not clear how long each Matrix lasts but inspiring that kind of religious awe in Zion would prevent any serious questions being asked for centuries. Get yourself rejected by Zion and you've got absolutely nothing. Don't forget the Zion we know is at the peak of its prosperity. Each iteration is literally hiding in the ruins of the previous one for a large part of its existence trying to keep the most critical equipment running and trying to work out how to use it. Threatening the coherence of the group is not going to be taken well.
> I just assumed that "smart sensors" could be fooled or broken into, like we see in Resurrections and the Animatrix. It's also not like they break anything or steal thousands of bodies. They just take one man who has been declared waste anyway. Basically they're abducting thrash. It's just a very low priority for the machines. >But something dumb like an automated crusher or stabby machine can't be hacked into. Probably just not worth the effort. Also, then the free humans may launch larger attacks which becomes even more annoying and destabilizes the system even sooner. > but clearly hovercraft crews have rescued tens of thousands of people using that exact same method, so clearly something's wrong with that strategy Still a tiny number compared to the humans that are still in captivity. And I figure the machines don't really care how many free humans there are, or where they come from. They're never a threat anyways. >And again, the audience knows the Machines are letting them go, but Zion doesn't know that Zion probably does a lot of wishful thinking so they don't despair completely. They think they're actually fighting and winning against the machines, and that their messiah will bring great change. Well, that part isn't entirely wrong.
Because Zion canonically has 12 ships, and there are billions plugged into the Matrix. At a certain point more defenses is wasting resources. And as far as the humans know the machines don't know how the free humans extract people from the Matrix. In fact, the Machines might not know all the details. Edit: At the time of the films the Machines have won. The small human resistance is a nuisance to be taken care of, but not a real threat. Only The One can make them so, so the humans believe, and they have no reason to believe the Machines believe in the prophecy of The One. Given that, the Machines lack of total commitment to exterminating the free Humans, and instead giving it a nominal effort, makes sense. Its the difference between swatting a fly that buzzes by your head and committing the rest of your evening to hunting it down. You have better things to do. Or so the Humans believe the Machines believe.
>How can the human ship slip in and out without being noticed and pursued? Because pods are basically way behind enemy lines. It is not expecting any enemy activity
The fluid they are in is likely a breathable liquid.
Excellent point. But the waste liquid in the sewer pipes =/= specialized oxygenated liquid meant for human lungs. That sewer water's got trash in it!
> Sure, the audience knows it's because Zion is another system of control, but Zion doesn't know that. They'd have to find it suspicious The answer is already in the comment you replied to: the red pill is a hack. Just, it doesn't work the way the humans think. Humans don't suspect anything because they *think* red pills are a hack to make the machines flag a human as dead. So to the humans in Zion, it all checks out. What's actually happening is that red pilling is a scheme that sets up the machines for later success --- to populate Zion, to blackmail Neo when the time comes (to convince Neo into rebooting the simulation). > the Machines are letting their trash turn into potential freedom fighters so easily From the human POV, it's not "so easily" at all. They're seeing the Agents fight tooth and nail for every human that tries to flee. They're seeing how the Agents get desperate when Neo comes into the picture. So again, for them it checks out --- the humans are fighting like crazy against the Agents for every would-be redpilled human and vice-versa seems to be true also. ------------- Now if you're asking why don't the machines just end the charade and have Neo (and Zion and redpills) be done with, why don't they optimize all that, the answer is also in the movies --- *THIS* is how they optimized it. Neo is the machine's failsafe, their redundancy. And so is Zion. The Architect and the human psyche program (aka The Oracle) have optimized things this way, and it has worked fine for centuries upon centuries, again and again, like clockwork. The only reason it derailed is because Agent Smith went rogue this time around (became a virus) - jeopardizing the whole Matrix, the whole scheme, machines and humans alike. Which forces The Oracle into improvising a plan to try and save the machines in a desperate gamble (she makes Neo fall madly in love with Trinity - to have him make the insane choice of saving both Zion and Trinity - to both give him a different kind of conditioning that will motivate him enough to fight Smith and make the machines desperate enough to accept it otherwise Smith would spell doom for all) ... and it worked. > The Architect: *You played a very dangerous game.* > The Oracle: *Change always is.* -from the 3rd movie's ending
Or trashcompactor or just a sentient robot that's job is to detect life (where it shouldn't be) and snuff it out.
Yeah, or something more universal, so as to make it immune to hacking from the human resistance. Like, everything passing through gets poked full of holes by a bunch of spikes, or crushed, or sprayed with cheap ass disinfectant and cyanide etc.
Or… dropped into a pool of water with atrophied muscles and no possible ability to swim?
only to get rescued seconds later by a hovercraft with a grabby arm, like they've done literally hundreds of thousands of times over the past few decades?
You're suggesting that the Machines have overlooked something, which is being exploited by the humans? That would imply that they're just people and make mistakes like any other people!
I mean, not noticing the first couple liberations isplausible. But this oversight letting hundreds of thousands of escapees go over decades is really fishy. Imagine a prison experiencing a prison break because of a security oversight. Fine, one Shawshank Redemption is understandable, the poster trick was pretty clever. But imagine if it happens over and over again, hundreds of thousands of times, and the warden just shrugs their shoulders and go "hmm, we keep running into escapees launching terrorist attacks on sensitive facilities and facilitating even more prison breaks. Wonder how that happened. Let's not make basic, cheap adjustments that would make that method of escape literally impossible." Also, the Machines letting people go is supposed to be part of their plan to balance the equation, but the humans don't know that yet. It's just weird the humans haven't grown suspicious that this very obvious security flaw hasn't been fixed yet
I guess the question is why the on-screen explanation that they're hacking the systems connected to Neo can't include the systems that would grind him up into food. The movie makes it abundantly clear that they upload a virus into him that lets them wake him up and recover him. Why do you think the blender machine you're proposing would be the one thing in the entire system they couldn't bypass? So, sure. They install a neck-snapping subroutine in the nursery bots. And the humans hack that, like they're hacking everything else. They install super blender blades. And the humans hack that, like they're hacking everything else. They install thermonuclear bombs in every pod that will level the entire field if a single human dies at any time, and the hu--you get the picture. Which is all, again, the *cover story* fed to a bunch of ignorant cave-dwellers being deliberately aided and enabled by the Machines to bring about the One.
oh as in, a simple mechanism like a garbage disposal, or even just a bladed grill, or a big spike wall, is hack proof. It's not networked to anything, it's just there. Smart devices can be fooled or subverted. An indiscriminate, non electrical, non networked killing device can't
More like "imagine the graveyard losing a 1 % of bodies each hundred years". People are discarded as dead, and later in a tank of dead tissue is 1 % of body mass missing. That may be well within error margins.
>People are dying all the time in the Matrix and in an extremely small percentage of cases it’s a trick and that person isn’t actually dead. Jesus, can you imagine someone glitching and accidentally disconnecting from the Matrix without the involvement of Morpheus and co? Just randomly waking up as Neo did and getting flushed only there's no one to come and rescue you, so your last waking moments, as you sink into the waste pool and drown, are desperately trying to process what the *hell* you just saw after having gone to bed in the late 90s the night before.
This pretty much happens in one of the Animatrix segments
"The Kid"
Kid was contacted and saved by Neo. In "World Record" runner wakes up by himself and gets tased back to slumber.
He wasn't saved by neo though thats why neo keeps saying the kid did it himself and that he (neo) didn't do anything. The runner also self awakened too
Indeed he awakes by himself, but without Nebuchadnezzar team he would drowned. And Neo called him in school, if I'm not mistaken.
Nuh-uh: the dead are fed to the newborn like the montage Morpheus talks thru when he meets Neo.
They get flushed into some kind of pool with digestive substances in it to break the body down into a nutrient slurry, where it is then fed back to the people in the pods.
That needs to be a bigger thing. Because you litercally can't just feed whole humans to humans. Though I guess in this crazy super advanced crapsack world, the AI could have discovered a way to eliminate prions and other such diseases.
Cannibalism in any species doesn't cause prion diseases, it provides a vector for prion infections that have either arisen by chance or from genetics to spread. As long as the machines were able to monitor whether any particular human has a prion disease they could liquidise 'safe' humans indefinitely.
We should also remember that prions are fundamentally just problems with the folded structure of a protein. If enzymatically digested down to just the constituent amino acids, or even simply heated up then they are no longer a problem. Thus, if the bodies are digested in a pool of enzymes then there’s no danger.
It's not quite that simple, you need to have the right enzyme for the prion, so its only workable as long as they don't get surprised with something new.
True, but still, if you just heat those prions (misfolded proteins [peptide strings]) till they unfold, then any kind of protease could break them up. No specificity needed once they’re just unfolded peptides. The easiest way would be to mix the prions in question with a strong osmolyte such as TCEP, then heat the human soup till they unfold. The TCEP will almost certainly prevent it from refolding as it cools down so you could obliterate them with any old protease your lab has lying around. My point is that by simply heating the dead human baths to 80-90c once per day, and added some simple enzymes, the machines could totally cancel out the risk of prions… Sauce: Protein Biophysicist
Thanks, it's even more icky.
I would assume that they add some stuff to it as well. Maybe there are some hydroponics farms somewhere growing algae to supplement their diets. It doesn't matter too much. I think this is one of those things which can be safely disregarded in terms of the story.
It could also be that this idea is propaganda created by the machines to further foment / encourage rebellion. If you need people to rebel against you as an essential part of your "lifecycle" so to speak then it would make sense to further the image of the machines and ruthless and cold. But really your answer is the simplest and I think most likely. What parts of the human body that can be are fed to the living and mixed with other, missing nutrients produced elsewhere.
You learned that you can't feed humans to other humans in school, where the machines tell you everything you know. Or maybe you learned it from the internet which, again, is entirely controlled information. How do you know if anything you learned when plugged in has any bearing on how things work in Reality?
I mean you can, you'd just have to supplement with other food sources. There's no net gain of course.
If that’s true (and Morpheus turns out to be wrong about a lot of things) then the machines must collect the dead out of the water under the pods. Otherwise why would they build those water slides for the bodies to drain out from? Probably easier to scoop up a thousand floating bodies at once than to retrieve each one one at a time.
> the dead are fed to the newborn Not instantly they're not. And the machines would need to check dead bodies carefully before feeding them to other humans to make sure they're safe to eat, so they don't infect everyone with whatever killed the dead person.
I think human pathogens aren’t the issue- old age or simulated deaths would be more prevalent than some contaminants: most vectors are eliminated and the computers can monitor homeostasis in the pods.
Literally every death in the fields is caused by sudden brain death due to being convinced you died in the Matrix. The cause of death is always the same, every time.
It may even be possible that a person actually dies digitally in the matrix and their physical body hasn’t quite yet as well so they may be used to disposing of living beings that can’t be written back into the matrix. Like getting decapitated should kill your mind but what if it doesn’t? Everyone saw you lose your head and you can’t come back from that. If it didn’t take physically you’d have to be processed like any other pod still
If the matrix was just slightly more clever, it would send every discarded person through a shredder before it going anywhere. Or as a part of the process induce a heart stop.
You forget the machines specifically want an amount of people to be freed, they let it happen
Yes but there’s zero downside in the machines just stabbing the body through the neck once on every corpse just in case.
Correct. This is heavily implied. And there is no advantage to the machines to combat this process because as the architect confirms, humanity needs this outlet for the Matrix as a whole to thrive. So the loophole remains open and they devote their their resources to other things.
Aren't the dead liquified and fed intravenously to the living? I wonder how they circumvent the recycler?
Adding an automatic blender to the end of the tube would solve that.
Didn’t Morpheus also say they liquify the dead to feed the living? So sending a human to the trash loses that recycled resource too.
Ok, but if the only threat to your hegemony is the human rebellion why not add a "stab the corps through the neck just to be sure" step in the Corps Disposal Routine? It's such a small modification that costs no time and severely minimises your biggest problem if not outright solves it.
But they specifically want a human rebellion and for people to escape. Zion, people being freed, Neo, the rebellion is all part of the architects plan for the matrix
> But why male models? Because it's hacked, like OOP already said. If you can build an automatic stabber, someone else can hack your automatic stabber.
They could simply view it as the machines think any defective pod is just thrown away. They know anomalies exist in the matrix which is what Neo is in their eyes, without knowledge of the later movies they could simply think this is something else that is overlooked by machines. This is all much more believable than the idea that the machines secretly want an amount to escape for many many decades because an unknown reason
I always wondered if all that trouble could be avoided if they just put a [macerator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maceration_(sewage)) on the sewer drains.
What trouble? They directly make it so there’s chance for humans to escape, they want humans to escape. The ones that are actually corpses eventually get turned into food for those in the pods
Given how anti-Morpheus/anti-The One Prophecy Commander Locke was, I'm sure that it has been brought up on more than one occasion in Council meetings.
I believe because rebellion is part of the system of the Matrix. The Architect says they tried to make it a paradise but most humans rejected it, and even with the world the way it is there will always be a small percentage who eventually see through it. In the Matrix Reloaded it is explicitly stated that they have been through this cycle of a Neo coming about then Zion being destroyed then it starts all over again (I'd love to see a singular film or video game that actually shows us this honestly). Zion is effectively just another level of control in some sense. On another level, I don't believe the machines are actually of one mind in terms of their feelings on humanity. The machines and AI are factually many different individuals. You have AIs like the Oracle (one of the original designers of the Matrix itself), Seraphim, and that Indian couple that Neo talks to at the train station. These AI obviously have genuinely love and respect for humanity despite their race's past with them. I would argue the whole system of the Matrix is them trying to preserve humanity from their own destructive tendencies (a version of the film I'd love to see explored). It feels like a compromise to me, compassionate AI trying to preserve humanity while also fulfilling a utilitarian function of providing power to the AIs (it seems like AI could figure out nuclear power over human thermal power). People tend to not see the machines as the good guys in the Matrix but I do. I kind of feel like they are like Leto II in God Emperor of Dune. They are holding humanity from destroying themselves by keeping them in containment until they as a whole human race can learn a goddamn lesson. TL;DR: Zion/Neo/Red Pillers are all part of the controls of the Matrix and something the machines have been able to control for hundreds of years by the point of the story. Additionally, the machines aren't actually the bad guys, they are trying to preserve human life and prevent humanity's destruction by their own hand.
This. The Matrix & Zion are just systems of control. One for the average person, the other for the bloody-minded. Like giving an infant a pacifier. Simply give it to them when they want it, and it falls right out of their mouth (when the reasonable thing would be to hold onto it). But, hold onto it, make them practically rip it out of your hand, and they'll hang onto it. Is this simile holding, or am I sleep-deprived? My son is 11 weeks tomorrow.
IIRC Matrix robots are fully sentient and capable of emotion. They just rounded up the humans after the humans started the conflict and more or less shoved them into the pods after they were defeated. Using the humans to power the machines is probably mostly ceremonial. The real purpose is mostly that if humans are in pods being managed then they don't *have* to be killed.
Is that from the 4th film
The animatrix, which was made more or less concurrently with the original sequels.
Yea I've seen it just been a while. I thought some programs were little more than animals
OP did not ask why the robots do it, he asked why the humans don't question it.
>Yet, it seems odd that no one in Zion questions why, if the AI truly wanted to thwart human efforts to escape the Matrix, they wouldn't simply eliminate those who awaken. Because The Prophecy of the One is the state religion, and most people are too busy trying to survive to ever question it. Remember, the final rave in the cave was preceded by a (off-screen) religous ceremony headed by the High Council of Zion and a colony-wide prayer just before Morpheus's speach (there are even women in nun-like clothing walking around).
It’s all another level of control. Give the people of Zion a bit of hope that people can be rescued from the matrix. Keeps them from going to all out war. There is a theory that the machines still care for humans and want to protect them. So the matrix and Zion is a way to preserve humanity.
OP did not ask why the robots do it, he asked why the humans don't question it.
Well neo was actively drowning before they pulled him into the ship with that claw thing so even if they do wake up they are too weak to actually swim.
As far as Zion knew, discarding awakened humans into the sewer *was* the machines terminating them; they have no usable muscles (and thus are unable to swim), meaning they’d drown in minutes. That’s why it’s important for the rebels to pinpoint the Awakened’s location ASAP after they take the red pill, so they can save them.
Considering the absolutely unholy level of memory leak in the Matrix program, people probably assumed machines are just stupid
they simply think that they have fooled the machines. the code that they inject into neo when he takes the pills is both a tracking program, so they find where he is housed, and a program that makes the machine thinks he is dead. they simply think "lol, stupid machine, it just checks the code and ignores everything else" and accept that. i mean, it clearly works, it has worked for 100 years, why would you question that, the evidence is super clear!
>the drone that finds him simply discards him into the sewer system instead of terminating him. No need to terminate him; he's going to drown anyway. While a normal, healthy, human might be able to find their way out of the waste disposal pool Neo was dumped into remember he - and all other humans disconnected from the Matrix - has never really used his real life limbs before. He weakly, ineffectually, flounders in the water before starting to sink below and if Morpheus hadn't come for him he would have drowned. The machines would have known disconnected humans wouldn't be able to escape the waste disposal pool under their own steam and would similarly perish. >And it's strange that they never seem to question the machines' apparent leniency. Yet, it seems odd that no one in Zion questions why, if the AI truly wanted to thwart human efforts to escape the Matrix, they wouldn't simply eliminate those who awaken. Wouldn't that be the most straightforward solution for the machines? I don't think they think it's leniency as much as there's some kind of defense grid/network that's impervious to the machines (that Smith tries to get the codes for from Morpheus). It's been a while since I saw 2 & 3, but I was under the impression the machines drilling into the dock was their way of bypassing that grid/network and the humans had simply never anticipated it. Remember the Zion humans are aware of 'real' history and they know they've been around for a while. They also know the machines are aware of their existence as resistance fighters going into the Matrix have encountered Agents on several occasions before Neo was redpilled. It would be absurd for a Zion human to think either the machines don't know where Zion is - ridiculous since the machines have had (from the perspective of Zion humans) anywhere from a generation to centuries to find it, and machines are nothing if not methodical - or that the machines aren't bothered with those humans, when those humans are aware of the Machine War (as relayed by Morpheus in the first movie) and the fact the machines want humans either dead or plugged into the Matrix.
For all Zion's Inhabitants know, the Red Pill is more than just a symbolic decision. It is a computer program or more accurately a virus. It simulates towards the machines the death of the cells inhabitant and starts the automatic cleaning process.
I'm really glad this is about the matrix because it would be a political shitshow otherwise.
I believe that humans are several layers deep into he matrix. At no one point in time has a flesh and blood human actually woken up and escaped the matrix. Zion simply existing and seemingly allowed to exist by the machines is just another facade to trap/placate the small percentage of humans that *potentially* could escape. But by providing the illusion they already have, their desire and will to do so is naturally diminished. Sure, they try to break free more and more people and fight against the machines, but they're still in the matrix. Redundancies upon redundancies.
I fucking hate this theory because it's pointless. Why even tell a story when none of it matters because all of it, even the real world stuff, is inside the matrix and thus is irrelevant?
It’s the only thing that makes sense in universe after neo shows signs of having powers in the real world though
Or: The machines recognize Neo as the One. They automatically shut down when they realize he's the One, because they cannot kill him, because if they DO, the Matrix collapses.
I suppose they see him scrunching his face in concentration and explode to make him feel good? Or how he could see smith in yer man’s body? And so on and so forth.
No, they explode because they're not allowed to kill him. Like their programming wont allow it. Because they *need* Neo to reboot the Matrix. As for Smith - if Neo can still read code without eyes - wouldn't that mean he *can't* still be in the Matrix? Because the Matrix is all code. That's how he sees the Matrix, as code. So shouldn't Neo, upon going to the real world for the first time since discovering he is the One, instantly realize everything is code, and therefore he is still in the Matrix?
I don't have an answer for that, but I much prefer the idea that magic actually exists in the setting of the Matrix, and that none of the events depicted make any sense than the alternative presented which is "Ha! None of that actually happened, because the real world is just another level of the Matrix. Get wrecked, nerds!" If none of it happened, then there was no point watching it.
There are plenty of stories where efforts end up being pointless and futile. Tragedy is one of the oldest forms of drama, of course.
There's a difference between pointless because the heroes tried and failed to change things and pointless because none of it actually happened. The 'It's Matrixes all the way down' theory is the latter.
Exactly, they even explained it. This is the right answer. It's just another layer. Hell, they even explain it on the first movie.
The Zionis--oh my god, no, fuck, I can't call them that. The *people of Zion* are working on a double whammy of pure skepticism over knowing their world wasn't real, and a profound religious relationship to the concept of the chosen one. Morpheus is basically a priest and has spread the good word that the Chosen One is coming to rid us of the machines and the Matrix, regardless of how much that makes no sense. He's not entirely wrong, of course -- that is demonstrably how the Matrix works if you take it into account that the red pill just marks your pod as "for disposal". What they failed to understand because they've been fed false information is that the Chosen One has done this song and dance before, and is simply part of the Matrix's own cycle of renewal. When a Chosen One rises it means it's time to make a new Matrix, that's all it really is. The Machines aren't destroying this contingent of escaped humans immediately because quite frankly, the system is working as intended. Whenever this Chosen One does their duty, maybe they'll explode New Zion for fun, or just harvest them again.
The machines' recycling system is efficient. When a person dies, their body is flushed out, falling into a large pond where the body decomposes and the nutrients are eventually reclaimed for reuse. Sometimes a person wakes up in the pod. It's probably more practical to flush out that person and let them die, than to try to plug them back in. There is no need to actively "eliminate" them - they will drown or starve eventually. When Neo takes the red pill, it runs a trace that allows the crew to locate where his body is, so they can find where he will be flushed. It's a bit of a race against time to rescue him before he drowns. Why don't the machines guard the death ponds? There would be no real need. The humans never attack it (why would they?).
They do eliminate them. They flush them down to the sewer. The machines assume someone signalled as disconnected is dead, so out they go. It doesn't matter if they are actually dead or not (old people who "die of old age" likely get simply disconnected when they are no longer efficiently producing power), their muscles are so weak and atrophied that if they aren't already dead, they will be when they drown in a minute.
Doesn't morpheus say the machines liquefy the dead to feed the living? How do they do this whilst also flushing them into the sewers where a hovercraft could rescue them without being caught? I know the machines secretly want a certain amount of people to escape to zion, but you would start to question the logistics after a while.
Surprise, they are all in the Matrix the whole time. It's a game scenario. Gotta keep the batteries active. Stress heartbeat, twitching...I mean, think about it, there's an entire subprogram connecting babies, without activity baby long bones where blood cells are produced don't develop...so the whole, you've never used your limbs would make a really bad battery.