> Even with other sentient programs such as
the Oracle, Seraph, and the Twins? I thought
they were just software.

Hrm. I suppose I didn't really mean that every
*individual* has a presence in both worlds.
Rather, that both the humans and the
machines have a presence in both. Although
who is to say that the program that is the
Oracle couldn't be loaded into a machine body
in the real world and dispatched to go talk with
some humans? That'd be a novel way to
surpass the problem of the actress' death
before filming the third movie.

> But the machines are *against* Smith, aren't
they? So the sentinels would have killed
Bane/Smith. My hunch is that Smith still had
some control over the sentinels (Remember
that sentinel control was an ability of the
agents). This would also explain how Neo
could stop the attacking sentinels near the
near of the movie, what with his connection to
Smith and all.

I only have one problem with this theory. How
on earth can Bane/Smith or Neo control
sentinels in the Real Worlds without some
form of contact with them? Neither is
connected to them through the Matrix at that
point, so barring telepathy, I don' t see any way
it's possible, unless *they haven't actually left
the Matrix*.

Several people have suggested that
everything that happens after Neo walks
through the Architect's door is actually still
inside the Matrix, that Neo is in a pseudo real
world. Someone else I know suggested that
perhaps everyone is actually still plugged into
the Matrix, and that the reason Neo went into
a coma at the end of the movie is that he really
and truly woke up!

> On another note, the "original AI" that you
refer to is still the single, dominating
intelligence that governs the vast majority of
the machines. The machine race is like an ant
colony, and the intelligence that the Architect
represents is like the queen. Barring Smith, all
machines and agents are controlled by this
one consciousness.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.
Do think the Artichect *is* that original AI, or do
you think he is subservient to it?

Your ant colony analogy doesn't seem right to
me. Ants don't rebel against the colony and do
their own thing, and we seem to have a lot of
that going on here. Certainly there are some
instances, like the sentinels, where there are
mindless drone-type robots that could all be
run by one program, but it seems to me that
most of the programs are autonomous. If all
the software was a subset of the Master AI, the
programs wouldn't be able to go off and do
their own thing.

> Smith, I believe, as an individual, actually
has not enhanced fighting abilities.

Oh, I agree, and that's not what I meant. By
enhanced abilities, I pretty much was only
referring to what was obvious in the movie, his
new ability to replicate himself by absorbing
other entities.

> Smith himself is also somewhat of an
anomaly. He is a sentient program, like the
other agents, a program that was self-aware
and self-conscious. In the first movie, he was
mostly subservient to the main AI. However, it
becomes apparent that he has some beefs
with the system ("I hate this place. This...zoo.
This prison, this reality; whatever you want to
call it, I can't stand it any longer."), In the
Reloaded, he has rebelled aginst the system
and has his own agenda.

That illustrates another of the contrasts
between agents and other programs. Agents
are probably unable to rebel against the
system like other programs because they're
dependent on it. They have no permanent
presence within it. But now Smith *does*
because of whatever it was Neo did to him.
"You freed me" he says.

> When did Smith appear to work with the
other agents? I don't remember any such
instance, at least not in Reloaded.

I may be remembering it incorrectly. I'm
thinking of the scene where Neo first fights the
upgraded agents, then flies away. I thought
after he left, Smith appeared and asked the
agnets "is it done?" or something like that. I
thought there was some cooperation between
them going on there, but maybe I'm
remembering it wrong. I need to see the film
again.

> The agents, while subservient to the main
AI, are still discrete beings. They and the main
AI are not one and the same, and they
probably do not know the Architect's main
plan. They don't know about the Prophecy or
the purpose of the One or what happens if the
One reaches the Source. All they care about is
keeping the peace, which includes finding and
killing free humans and exiles. The Keymaker
is an exile, and so is targeted by the agents for
deletion.

That sounds right to me, but doesn't seem to
jive with what you said earlier about the whole
ant colony thing.

Gri"going on for hours"shny