man, I hate coming to the party late...especially as Rare is now officially gone 
but, yeah, I think this story is really pretty d*** awesome overall. There are some things I would have maybe seen differently, but overall, I think this is spot on.
Rarebit wrote:
cloudwolf wrote:
Remember the bros supposedably O.K'd the storyline up to and including Chapter 9. That includes the Oligarchs and their background.
The same can't be said for Neo/Trinity though 
No, that part was in there too even way back then.
Thank you for clarifying that. Maybe all those "ZOMG, the story isn't Matrix-y" people will clam up now.
Villemar_MxO wrote:
Neoteny wrote:
Oh yeah, I second Othinn's question. I'd almost forgotten about that.
I also have another one: A while ago, I believe it was in one of the ask a dev threads at least a year if not two years ago, you said that one of the ideas you posed to the brothers (via Chadwick?) was shot down. Do you think you could tell us what it was?
I believe he stated recently that the only idea shot down was the idea that humans were not used as batteries/energy sources for the Machines, that that was a Machine lie (ie. they were being imprisoned for other reasons).
See, that contradicts with this though....
Rarebit wrote:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 9: Intrusion
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9.1
[Oligarch Backstory:
(...)
The darkening of the skies by humanity was a setback, but one to which the Machines were able to adopt simply by switching from solar to nuclear power. The role of caretaker still deep in their programming from their days as man's helpers, the Machines built the Matrix to house a remnant of humanity--preserving every genetic variety they considered sufficiently efficient, in large enough numbers to avoid the danger of eventual inbreeding. The number of humans preserved in pods is far less than Morpheus' estimate, however--only about five million, the population of the Matrix' simulated city.
This is one thing that I would love to have some further clarification on, seeing as it has always been the weakest point in the whole Matrix Story (I know its Science Fiction, but I usually find stories better when its not the science part that is fictional. Anywho...)
Rarebit wrote:
ZaneZavin wrote:
As far as the genetic thing, I think back to Neo's conversation with The Architect and it wouldn't make sense unless pretty much everything Archy said was a lie. [...] If Neo is an anomaly that was beyond his control, then he wouldn't have been specifically created with that purpose etc.
It was the Oracle who came up with the inherent error scheme. The Architect allowed it, but he did so knowing that that part of it wasn't something over which he had direct control.
Heyyy this is a good opportunity to mention that personally (I wouldn't enforce this on others, mind you, since it's pretty touchy in some ways), I don't think Neo was "the anomaly." The Architect calls him "the eventuality of an anomaly," which is different than actually being the anomaly. If you have to pick a character as the anomaly, it seems to me that it would have been Smith; but I think it's more accurate to say that the "anomaly" he was talking about was the cascading system of errors that inevitably result from the current Matrix program's built-in imperfection that allows for a small percentage of the populace to reject it ("the anomaly is systemic," etc). The tricky part about this interpretation is that one of those knuckleheaded Agents later says "The anomaly" when he finds Neo; I explain this away for myself (whee magic!) by making excuses like "Agents didn't know everything" or "the Agent was simply referring to Neo as one of the primary manifestations of the consequences of the anomaly."
I always took the whole anomaly thing in a slightly different way than this...
In the movies, the Architect claims that he designed two different Matrix's, that both failed. The Third succeeded when the oracle "stumbled upon a solution whereby 99.9% of subjects would accept the program if given a choice, even if only at a subconscious level."
In addition, from other comments made by the Oracle ("that man can't understand any choices..."), I came to the conclusion that the previous versions of the Matrix didn't really allow for choice at all. It was a more scripted experience, and this is what ultimately led it to be incompatible with the human psyche.
so the redesigned Matriz allowed for choice, but this led to problems. The problem was not merely that people would leave, and Zion might get out of hand. The problem was that a system that allowed for choice allowed a human brain to interact directly with the system. Eventually, someone might learn how to hack the system with their brain, or, even worse, become symbiotic with the system.
As a wierd analogy, i think there's a parrallel here with the second Spider-Man movie (I'm going to assume people have seen it... if not, umm, spoilers). Early on, when Doc Oc is first putting on his arms, he explains to the crowd how the arms have AI, and so can do stuff on their own. Someone in the crowd asks, basically, well if the arms have intelligence, whats to stop them sending signals back to your brain? Of course, the Doc explains that he has a little chip that makes commands ONE-WAY, and the remainder of the story explores what happens when that chip breaks.
I interpreted the early Matrixes as having something akin to the Doc's chip, that kept humans from being able to control the simulation. They sensed this blockage, and rejected the program. The Oracle's solution was to take the block out, and most people would be content with living day to day lives. however, this ran the risk that SOMEONE would eventually try to control the system.
As such, Neo was THE Anomaly, the human who learned (really more accurately was in the process of learning) how to control the system. That the Machines found a way to manipulate him was a check mechanism, to make sure that he never totally overan the whole Matrix.
So... thats my idea, doesn't exactly Jive with the version we now have in the account here. I think i still prefer the concept of Neo as a human who became symbiotic with the system, over a program seeded into a human. Maybe the DNA control cloning thing only developed over time? Maybe the First Anomaly was truly an Anomaly, that developed without the architects or Oracles intervention? And then they took and cloned him, so that they could repeat and control the process?
Anyway, again, if you still get the opportunity to read this Rare, I think you've done a bang-up job overall. Thanks for answering so many peoples questions. I think it will be really hard for anyone to come in and one-up this, or for any of us players to come up with a better story line. And while you've stated that this game is meant to have an endless story-line, remember...
"Everything that has a beginning, must also have an end."
