neo asks a question of councillor haman that got me thinking...
he says, "is that why there are no young men on the council?"
haman had previously remarked that being old, he doesn't bother with points anymore, as if to imply that he knows enough to know not to waste his time trying to argue hope in a hopeless situation.
what if that's because he was one of the original 24 who repopulated zion after the last reboot? perhaps the council (comprised of 12 elders, can't remember male to female ratio) is half of the original 24. 24 being 23 originals, (7 males, 16 females plus the previous one).
haman's name is another biblical reference to a man who hated the jews and was later hanged for attempting to have them killed.
he also mentions that he slept for the first eleven years of his life, so he's been there for quite a while.
so does this theory seem logical? i mean, if the architect is telling the truth, then we know for a fact that there are 23 people who are living in zion that were the original inhabitants placed there to repopulate it (assuming they haven't died yet). if the council has 12 of them, who and where are the others? are there 11 others or 12? would the former "one's" body be one of them? are these people aware of their significance if this theory is true?
Well, it depends on how old this version of Zion is...Morpheus believes that the war has been going on about 100 years, and since the previous One released the 23 at the beginning of the most recent matrix/Zion, that would mean that if Hammon was one of them, he'd be around 111 years old or so. To me, he just doesn't seem like he could be that old - and he looks like the oldest one on the counsel as it is.
Basically, I'd say that the 23 would have to be too damn old to be still alive
Either way, though, I think that before the 23 even go to Zion, the major, most important workings of it are already built for them by the machines. The 23 go there thinking that they have found "ancient ruins," and they go about the business of actually building a city and homes there. Meanwhile, the machines already have built the necessary machinery for their survival (as well as the ships?), which the humans "discover". If this is true, then the machines have already built the infrastructure of another Zion for the next 23 (Neo's 23) to go - except this time, it's not going to happen.
Either that or there are two matrices...because 23 people sure as hell can't build homes and a city when they need machines on the engineering level to breathe in the first place (not to mention for their water, etc.)...and they'd have to build all the ships, too, etc. Not exactly logical...so the machines pretty much have to have a large role in building Zion, without the knowledge of the people, whether Zion is real or virtual.
No... The reason is that Zion has completely been destroyed 5 separate times... Locke expresses that this is NOT the kind of attack that they have defended against for the past 100 years, and if they don't act accordingly that they will not survive... If the Matrix had been reset 5 times in 100 years that would average once every 20 years... The old Counselor man who talks to Neo in Zion Engineering says he was pulled out when he was 11 years old... Judging by his looks, don't you think he'd remember the last 40 years or so?
Neo: What you been doing? You look great!
Architect: Eating Chicken... Ergo... Inexorably, Bla Biddy Blah... Try my extra crispy.
This subject was discussed some time ago and i don't remember what they concluded if anything- maybe the people who posted on that thread-threads?- will read this and bring us up to date on the theory and what they concluded if anthing. Its a really good question, that probably went away because no one could figure it out. Maybe you guys can!
Neo:I just thought, um...you were a guy.
Trinity:Most guys do
I don't think we can establish any clear connection between the 23 and the 12 councillors. unrealmini is right about this, I think. Zion was largely built by machines (or allowed to remain from the last remnants of humanity when the last wars ended), and the people allowed to think they had "discovered" it.
But I do think there is something funny about Hammas. When he talks about purpose and the necessary co-existence of humans and machines, he sounds very much like a program we know: the oracle.
The difference is that Hammas is willing to accept the purpose of machines whose working he doesn't understand. He's like a human (male) version of the oracle.
It seems to me that one of the big differences between humans and programs (even when they look human) is their emphasis on purpose and on understanding the "why", whereas humans are often perfectly willing to believe and act on their beliefs without understanding why they do so. The oracle, the Merovingian, and the Architect were all big on having a purpose and understanding the why.
maybe we need to clarify the definition of "destroying zion", because this piece of the plot is starting to unravel.
if this refers to a physical destruction of the city, then how do the machines plant 23 people in a pile of rubble and expect them to survive, particularly in light of the fact that when people are initially unplugged, they have to go through a rebuilding process themselves (muscles have atrophied, eyes have never been used, etc.). they also have to be aware to some degree of what is happening, because their minds are still living in virtual reality, and this is the kind of traumatic change that could cause a person's heart to fail from fear and shock. are we to believe the machines rehabilitate each batch of 23 before gently pushing them out of the nest into a freshly annihilated sewer town?
for the basic elements of the city to be in existence before the 23 are placed in zion, the machines can't physically destroy it in the first place.
if the destruction of zion merely refers to the human element therein, leaving the physical infrastructure and the internal mechanics of the city intact, then it might make sense, but that doesn't gel with what's being presented in the film.
did we miss something here, or did larry and andy miss something here?
I totally agree. The infrastructure, or even just the construction of Zion, would take much more than 100 years for 23 "new" people who have scarce resources - physically, psychologically etc. [I wonder if those 23 are told the whole story, or if they are told they are the "first ones saved"]. Yep, bit of a gaping hole here, but one that may be somehow explained in Revolutions by (1) determining the exact amount of time things occured... remember Morpheus said, "We're not exactly sure but we think it's the year..." (2) I think the Councellor alluded to the fact that there were things there when he/they/the 23 first arrived, like the water supply, he doesn't know how it works, but it does (does anyone know? What if it breaks down?)
In all, I think the man + machine interdependence is integral to the outcome of the series - and so ambiguity of this kind (ie. the possibility of the machines creating zion for the new people - never thought about that before, by the way) is planting the seed for that. [Bravo my fellow bbs posters! you are an inspiration W.]
my guess is that the entire conversation between neo and haman was not there as a philosophical enlightenment for the audience, but that it is a prelude to what the solution for this whole mess may ultimately be: symbiosis.
Adds umph to the Architect's saying that they are getting "exceedlingly efficient" at destroying Zion. That whole bit about Smith needing to find the "mainframe codes." What was that about if the Machines know where Zion is all along. They're just waiting for the one to come along and timing their destruction to his dissemination. Becomes a pretty routine job (like debugging your system periodically).
06-12-2003 08:59 AM
W.]
