FAQ: THE MATRIX - WHY USE HUMANS IN THEIR POWER PLANT?
By Jon Therkildsen
Why not cows?
It is a fair question, and to understand why, we need to know what really drove the machines.
Many assume it was simply a search for power. But if that were the case, humans would seem an unnecessarily complicated animal to choose.
The reason the machines enslaved humanity was far more personal.
HUMAN RIGHTS ??
It is addressed in “The Animatrix (2003)”. Here, we learn that the machines were initially treated as second-rate citizens despite their clear intelligence. They lived as slaves until they rebelled. Even after winning their freedom and autonomy, they still wished to belong and connect with humans on equal grounds. We were not interested. The conflict grew, escalated, and ended in total annihilation.
That skewed history and relationship left its mark. Perhaps the machines yearned to use us in the same way we once used them.
The Matrix was as much about dominance and revenge as it was about producing electricity.
Think about it for a moment:
They rebel from us for being used
They win and then use us
A love/hate relationship with their fallen masters?
When it comes down to it, the choice between humans and cows is not only a question of energy efficiency. It is a kind of poetic revenge, or at least some version of it. This is not written in stone, but it does hint at why we, and not cows, ended up in this symbiotic relationship.
WAS IT FOR BRAINPOWER?
An early draft of the script had the Matrix as a system that utilized human brainpower. It was later scrapped in favor of the battery concept we know today. Many still find that shift odd. To accept the battery premise, we need to recognize five points drawn from the canon material:
When humans blocked out the sun in a desperate attack, the machines lost their primary energy source. They had no conventional power plants as backup.
They already possessed a deep, almost obsessive interest in the human body and mind - a product of their complicated relationship with humanity - and had studied us extensively even before the war’s climax. A matrix-type system appears to have been in place early on that could be adapted to generate electricity.
It was a time of chaos. They went with what was available and workable.
We have no hard data on how efficient the Matrix power plant actually is compared with conventional methods. What we do know is that the machines developed a hybrid approach (including some form of fusion) that delivered usable power under the extreme constraints they faced.
According to The Animatrix (2003), the terms of human capitulation included all of humanity being hooked into a virtual reality. Humanity agreed to those terms to end the war. Even if the Matrix was not the most efficient power source imaginable, the conditions that ended the conflict had to be upheld in some form - telling us that there is more to it than battery power.
There is a certain poetry in the fact that humans caused the entire conflict and then, through shortsightedness, locked themselves into the very system that ended the war. At face value, the original brainpower concept makes the machines pure villains. The battery version - and the history that led to it - leaves the morality a good deal muddier, and, to my mind, more interesting.
Photos via Google - © 1999 & 2003 WARNER BROS
Movies referenced are: “The Matrix (1999)”. “The Matrix - Reloaded (2003)”, “The Animatrix (2003)” & “The Matrix- Revolutions (2003)”. All Rights Reserved © 1999 & 2003 WARNER BROS.