Question: Why don't the machines use geothermal energy? What do the humans in the real use to make their clothes? Where do the humans in the real get their food from? Why don't the machines just kill humans when they are unplugged instead of letting them become soldiers for Zion? Why don't the machines just attach a gadget to a hover craft, that when it returns to Zion will either blow up or spread a virus (al la 2nd renaissance part 2)? Why don't the humans in the real plug into the matrix and just carpet bomb the entire planet thereby destroying the machines energy source and they can just repopulate the earth naturally? How come Neo has superpowers in the real world? Without sunlight where do humans in the real get vitamin D?
Captain Defenestrator
14th Aug 2010
The Matrix (1999)
29th May 2009
The Matrix (1999)
Question: It's been stated in the movie (and in The Animatrix) that humans used nanomachines to intentionally blacken the sky in order to cut the machines off from their main energy source, the sun. Firstly, why did the humans resort to such a drastic and desperate plan? They must have known it would be risky? Secondly, once the plan was implemented, why couldn't they halt or shut down the nanomachines when it grew out of control? Thirdly, why were the machines dependent on the sun in the first place? Couldn't they use or invent an alternate energy source? And fourthly, why couldn't the machines use their combined artificial intelligence to somehow find a way of eradicating the nanomachines in the atmosphere?
Chosen answer: Blocking out the sun was an act of desperation, the humans weren't thinking about long-term consequences like unblocking it again. As for the machines, once they had adapted and created the Matrix, there was no need to unblock the sun because their problem had been solved.
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Answer: 1: The machines have found an acceptable fuel source with the Matrix and haven't bothered to pursue geothermal energy (Converting to geothermal may be one of the "levels of survival we are willing to accept."). 2: Their clothing seems to be mainly natural fibers, so it could be that they have cotton, flax, or hemp crops under grow lights underground. 3: They eat either from the aforementioned crops or the synthetic protein that the ship crews eat. 4: The machines have accepted that some people will always reject the Matrix and have orchestrated the creation of Zion as a sort of Trash Folder to deposit and occasionally purge their rejects. 5: See 4. 6: Since Zion is set up by the machines each time, we can safely assume that they're not going to give the humans of Zion the technological means to destroy them. By the time they might develop such means on their own, the purge happens. 7: Neo is The Chosen One, sometimes miracles happen for people like that. 8: See 2 and 3.
Captain Defenestrator