unforum

[...]

It was in a chinatown as far as i know...

[chacko]

dunno, it looked like the market place of any china town in california... but it could have been part of Asia!
With all this doors leading to anywhere crap...

oh yeah, outside the merovingian's lair he's 500 miles south of the heart of a city! So you see there is country side in the matrix

[...]

Maybe not... don't forget that the merovingian is an anomaly....So he can probably modify this part of his lair.... He do this also with the cake ....

[squib]

I've been wondering if they have computers in the matrix they surely would have a space program or is that all made up by the machines? Or maybe the entire planet is recreated in the matrix complete with space? Even the milkyway as seen on the archetects screen?? Sorry if i'm pondering to much

[yanka]

To me, it seems very improbable that the matrix would not be modeled after the real world exactly. First - plot-wise, the Ms are a challenge for us, right? Do we live in the matrix, is reality real, etc... That's why Morpheus says "You think the year is 1999". Well, when we first watch M1, we were supposed to question the reality as it is. Our reality was just like Neo's.

Second, among the plugged-in people, there are surely geodesists, astronomers, oceanographers, etc. They are all studying and discovering things, and for the matrix to run well, these discoveries better be very believable. So the derived circumference of the Earth that has been known for centuries better match "observation". The machines could have, of course, made the "Earth" smaller, but then they better alter all the other things that depend on it - gravity, atmospheric pressure, distance from the moon, amount of water on the surface, amount of heat recieved from the Sun, etc. All of these facts have to support each other - you can't have a wolrd of a smaller size than the amount of gravity suggests. Of course, they could have shuffled everything to make all the factors smaller, but that would envolve an ENORMOUS amount of work - and why? It is much easier to model after what is already very familiar. I mean, if they made the Earth's surface small enough to accomodate only one "megacity", all kinds of scientists would run into logical contradictions that are likely to cause some sort of "massive involuntary unplugging" - because the reality is not believable enough.

[squib]

If you figure the amount of info contained in a computer simulation as vast as a entire world matrix it seems impossible. But the amount of info in our computers now would have been seen as impossible ten years ago. I believe given enough time and resources a simulation like that may be possible eventually.

[yanka]

[...]

Anyone here have play Kult? Talking of megacity remind me that... I can't really tell much about the game because i start playing it (it's a roleplaying game on table like d&d, not the style but the way to play.) This game is in the real world nopt like d&d that is in a fiction univers. You can play yourself or make another one. You play with the event going on in the real life but things happen that can't be explain and all this get near of another realm call megapolis where there is only 1 megacity for all the humanity (this game exist since 1990 maybe before ). It's also about religion... the introduction of this game is the following : Angel and demon are running trought the world and they start forgotting about their lord. Satan is no more present and is only thinking. God went to the abyss but he didn't come back. Ancien god and goddess rise in the street and start dancing on the sound of chaos. Secte and religious faction try to get more power by doing ceremony devoted to the dark lord. Intertionnal enterprise try to discover the meaning of grafiti on metro wall done by fool...

Sorry for that poor english... well Kult is set in that. Too close of the reality to deny that it could be true and too far that only few people accept it. Getting to metroplis in this game is by acting paranormally. Each time, things that are in the metropolis see you like a bright light in a dark place. and they try to get you, to kill you....


This is getting near what Matrix is... but thats machine that control and not other things. No demon, no angel.... Only Oracle and architect, anomaly and paranormal activity.

[Azathoth666]

Pardon for the jumping around here, but I've just got back at the office so my day of Matrix theory can now begin.

With the Chinatown theory: that bunny is generic. Yes the Matrix was filmed here in Sydney, but I promise that our chinatown looks nothing like that.

And yes, in M1, humans are batteries. We know this to be at the insistance of Warner Bros, and remember that when they would've made that insistance, they would've had a lot more control over the production: no-one knew how popular the whole thing would be at that stage. It really wouldn't surprise me if this is retracted in Revolutions: I mean, sure, Morpheus says that humans are batteries, but has anyone asked a machine? Go on, ask a Sentinal. I'll bet they'll look at you funny then tell you "No, we use humans as part of a giant supercomputer cluster working 7/24 on an algorithm which will allow us to pick to a 99.99% accuracy next weeks winning lottery numbers."

(ok, maybe that's what I'd do with that kinda processing at my disposal. A Sentinal would probably just kill you... )

IMHO, the city in the Movie was generic enough to be any city anywhere without representing as a megacity (Gotham, etc). I see bits of Sydney, bits of London, bits of NY and bits of Singapore, and thats just with my limited travel experience. It's like the freeway in Reloaded: the WBs knew that they could get away with building a freeway set, coz we all know what freeways look like and as long as theres a bit of generic city-scape in the background no-one is really going to notice much (I was focussing more on the Twins. I still think they are one of the coolest things in that movie...)

I think the Huxley tie-in with the ARG is a clever piece of work: it is well in keeping with the philosophy of the Matrix universe, and the classical literature and mythology theme which permeates the triology and the ARG, but Brave New World says a lot of things along the same lines as 1981, almost anything by HG Wells, Kubricks' Clockwork Orange and even Animal Farm to a lesser degree, but it does so in a manner much more subtle in terms of the game world than any of the above.

I'm concerned about the symbiosis between man and machine though (and remember in Reloaded when Neo is down in the guts of Zion? More of that theme there too) given that symbiosis requires a co dependancy. Assuming that the machines do need us for power, that's their side of the equation, but what do we need them for? That's what I find disturbing, and may well prove to be part of that final twist. Who knows.

Now, in the 10 minutes (including coffee run) that it's taken me to compose this, I'm going to jump back out to the puzzle thread and learn that the game has been solved...

[Guest]

Giskard: I have read that book and you pretty much have the gist of it. It's mainly about a scientifically achieved utopia. Huxley was worried that new knowledge (science/engineering) coupled with a desire for Utopia would actually succeed. Succeed so well in fact that it would be impossible to resist or even desire a different social arrangement. All humans would be engineered to fit perfectly in their predetermined niche. (This sort of reminds me of Smith's little speech to Neo, right before the Burly Man action, about purpose).

Hmmm.... A scientifically designed/engineered utopia is very similar to what the Matrix is. It would also explain why it is necessary to "control" the coppertops and get them to "accept the program".

My gut says that ALL of the Matrix is simulated, there is no real world- at least not yet.

The WBs are a some bantam weight philosophers, but super smack-down marketers, so I hope they don't have all this build up for a cheesey denoument.

[ecwilder]

azaroth... isnt it obvious? the machines arnt trying to exterminate us... they are our saviors.

human beings are destructive in nature.
one day, it is invevitable, we would destroy ourselves.
by replaying the 21st century time and again man achieves his greatest hour and doesnt become extinct...

[ecwilder]

but yeah. if i was a machine... and certain code was going to 'reject' the matrix....
id build a computer program that houses a 'world' where all is destroyed and the majority of humanity is locked into the 'fake world' computer...

i.e. zion and the 'real world are the Matrix 6.0B

[Azathoth666]

... but now that we know that Metacortex is developing full-sensory VR... who's to say that the Matrix isn't just an elaborate video game? (like Existenz, but without all the crap bits... God I just realised I compared the Matrix to Existenz... I will begin my purgation immediately!)

I've picked up on a few video game references in M1, and there's bound to be some in Reloaded (haven't watched the DVD yet, it was only released here yesterday), and yes it could just be the WBs dropping nods to their target audience, but imagine if at the end of revolutions Neo wakes up in some huge video game parlour... The "matrix" is level one, the "real world" is level two...

Ok, maybe that would suck... But I'd play that over Everquest!

I really don't envy the WBs trying to wrap this one up: I mean we all know there's going to be a massive twist, and it's going to have to appeal to Matrix hardcorers as well as on a visual level... Can't wait!

[chacko]

I think the best ending would be Neo waking up drooling on that book Simulation and Simulacrum looking at his computer monitor.

[Azathoth666]

Ooh... Simulacra and Simulacrum... has anyone actually read that one? It's hideous! I'm makes me feel like the nuclear physics discussion in the Beth McConnell thread is like reading the funnies!

Its a real heavy going text. I think you can find it on Amazon... if you really want to, that is...