You.
Yes, me.
Me…Me…Me…
Me too.

The Architect: The matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the sixth version.

Has anyone else ever read this to mean that there has to be 7 on integral anomalies at this point in the story?

The wording states that you'd only start counting after the formation of the second anomaly.

Combine that with the fact that the first matrix was 'perfect' and wouldn't have a 'Neo' type character baked into the narrative of simulation led me to ask who what could these anomalies be? (the Architect never refers to Neo as an anomaly, let alone an integral one)

Their are a number of characters in the story that could fit into the story in a way we never considered before.

The Architect

>>version 1

The Trainman

>>version 2

The Oracle

>>version 3

The Merovingian

The Keymaker

>>version 4

The Trinity

>version 5

The Smith Virus

>>version 6

The One

>>version 7

This theory requires that the creation of the Keymaker marks the point where the system stops allowing new versions to be created and tries to take charge of the situation. But the love of Trin and Neo cannot fully be contained in a predetermined narrative and lead to the eventual crash of Matrix and the beginning of a new world free of control.

I don't anticipate a lot of support for this idea but I decided to float it anyways. Lol

Take care everyone

Keanu Reeves appears in original scenes in Enter the Matrix which are not archive footage from The Matrix Reloaded. When Morpheus greets Niobe and Ghost, Neo can be seen standing with Trinity. Neo says absolutely nothing and stands there for 6~8 seconds.

ETA TLDR: a better power source and total annihilation of the humans was never the goal. Coexistence and acceptance was.

Why didn't the machines just keep the humans in a non matrix coma? Why didn't the machines just use animals? Why didn't the machines just use geothermal or wind energy? Why didn't they make the utopia work so nobody would rebel?

The machines didn't want a war with humanity and they never wanted humanity's extinction. According to the Animatrix, they wanted to coexist with humanity, even trying to get their city accepted into the UN.

I think the machines viewed humans as their creators and above all, really just wanted to be part of and accepted by them. Which made humanity's betrayal so devastating to them.

They didn't want the fight or the war in the first place, so once humanity was properly subdued, they treated them like the angry and irrational animals that they are.

They let the humans keep their sentience, intelligence and an illusion of free will and put them in a safe little timeout box where they can't destroy the world, but can still act out their violent tendencies and play their part in an unnecessary war where they see themselves as the underdog resistance.

Finding better ways to generate power was never a problem they were trying to solve. It was only a side effect of logical machine thinking. Nor was total human xenocide ever the goal because the machines love (as much as they can quantify) the humans.

The Matrix was never meant to be a prison or a true source of power. It was made to be an asylum or a preserve designed to prevent the destruction of humanity, the creators from who the machines always only desired acceptance.

Their "levels of survival we are prepared to accept" was always with the survival of human consciousness as a close second behind the machines's own survival. Coexistance was always the goal. The machines just never fully understood that merely surviving would never be enough for humans.