Stop the presses, Sati has a purpose?

Hang on just one gosh-durn minute, now I'm confused.  I thought the whole reason she was smuggled into the Matrix via the Merovingian was because she had no purpose in the Machine world and thus faced deletion.  Now we're being told that she actually has a function: improving the efficiency of power production by bluepills.  If she has a function, why was she threatened with deletion in the first place?

Help me out here?

So Sati always had the power to manipulate the illusion of the Matrix, but the beneficial applications of this capability were unforeseen by her parents and/or the Source?  Because if Ramakandra and Kamala knew that Sati had a capability that would serve the Machine world, they would have no reason to believe that she would be deleted.  They would have no reason to smuggle her into the Matrix in the first place.

I guess that's plausible, but it strikes me as odd that Sati's parents simply overlooked a purpose for their new program to justify her existence in the Machine world (I can't imagine any parent not doing absolutely everything to avoid permanent separation from their child - particularly one that was created out of love).  So assuming they tried to figure out some way to justify Sati's existence, this beneficial application just didn't occur to them?  (Doh.  Apparently Kamala was not "creative" enough.)

Unless . . . and I'm just thinking out loud here . . . someone deceived Sati's parents.  Someone who understood Sati's powers better than her parents did and saw her as a highly valuable commodity that needed to be extracted from the control of the Machine world.  Perhaps Kamala and Ramakandra had an inkling that Sati might be able to serve the Machine civilization, but this certain someone would have an incentive to downplay the value of Sati's power in the Machine world, and persuade Kamala and Ramakandra that Sati was in grave danger of deletion.

Mmmmm, now who could that someone be? 

I see what you're getting at - in the Machine world, nothing is created for creativity's sake, and the default protocol is that any program that is not immediately utilitarian will be deleted.

At the same time, I would imagine that the Machines' preference for efficiency would override any default presumptions such that - assuming Sati's parents knew about and made a case for the beneficial applications of Sati's otherwise frivolous programming - the Machine world would make an exception and accommodate Sati. I mean, it certainly seems that the Machines are now highly interested in rescuing her (and not just deleting her) since it's become evident that she might serve some purpose after all.  What's to say they wouldn't have considered this at the front end, before she fled for the Matrix, if they had been made aware of it?

If that's the case, it still seems a little odd to me that (1) Sati's parents/programmers didn't know about or appreciate the significance of Sati's programming, and (2) they didn't try to exploit that significance to keep her with them in the Machine world. Unless there were some other forces in play that would have interfered (the Oracle?) that we don't necessarily know about.

Based on speculations I've had since I first saw Revs, and possibly confirmed by the article in the right-hand column of the new Sentinal issue, my guess is that Sati is a climate control program of some sort or at least she has the skills of one, which just need to be developed. Considering how much climate can affect a world, she's potentially a lot more powerful than we've probably been speculating. Even if all she can do is manipulate the sunrise, that's a lot there. Think of how the sunlight affects the world: Not enough sun, and your food crops don't grow well, too much and they wither from lack of rain. No wonder the General sent his goons to snag Sati: control the climate or the programs that can influence it, and you can most likely control the simulation.

Something tells me Sati has a purpose far greater than making a pretty sunrise every 7 days.

Sounds like Sati has some emergent properties that neither her parents or the Machines were aware of...and now it seems that she's gone from an exile to a program with a purpose.

I know that some of my fellow Machinists won't agree with me, but I hope this could be the beginning of the Machines being less harsh to their own kind -- less willing to simply delete a program that appears to have outlasted or outgrown its purpose. 

Illyria

Sounds like Sati has some emergent properties that neither her parents or the Machines were aware of...and now it seems that she's gone from an exile to a program with a purpose.

I know that some of my fellow Machinists won't agree with me, but I hope this could be the beginning of the Machines being less harsh to their own kind -- less willing to simply delete a program that appears to have outlasted or outgrown its purpose. 

Illyria

Sounds like Sati has some emergent properties that neither her parents or the Machines were aware of...and now it seems that she's gone from an exile to a program with a purpose.

I know that some of my fellow Machinists won't agree with me, but I hope this could be the beginning of the Machines being less harsh to their own kind -- less willing to simply delete a program that appears to have outlasted or outgrown its purpose. 

Illyria

Everyone familiar with the Kid's blog entry? I thought it was a related, and interesting topic.

1) Paul Chadwick seems to intend to give the Kid an aspect of ignorance and naivity - shown in some of his remarks about the Cypherites, his theories about the General and now this.

I think it's a fact that Sati did not have a purpose before she was brought to the Matrix - basically, what everyone said here. However, she already did have her appearence. Thus, her appearence has nothing to do with her purpose to control the sunshine (or only to manipulate it once a week, whatever) - she clearly hasn't adapted her look to a purpose she didn't have at that point, and the Machines certainly didn't haven't aswell since they were aiming to delete her at that point.

So - who else think the Kid shows some ignorance on events we, the audience, basically understand? He does speak about the incident in Mobil Ave, yet confuses this one.

2) How does he know about the Merovingian being an operating system? It's related to his "knowledge" about Sati, that's what I include this here.

3) Towards the end, the Kid says the following: "In any event, Sati must be saved.  Her sunsets mark our Sabbath -- they are for Neo, every one.  Their skewing and sullying are a blight on his legacy."

Now the rather negative attitude in the very last sentence doesn't seem to be in accordance with the first part, since I assume he means the sunsets by "their". Anyone care to explain?

Sounds like Sati has some emergent properties that neither her parents or the Machines were aware of...and now it seems that she's gone from an exile to a program with a purpose.

I know that some of my fellow Machinists won't agree with me, but I hope this could be the beginning of the Machines being less harsh to their own kind -- less willing to simply delete a program that appears to have outlasted or outgrown its purpose. 

One would think that the Machines would understand the value of life for its own sake, given that BI-66ER's impulse to survive despite his uselessness was the start of the entire AI revolution against mankind.  

At the same time, I doubt that the Machines currently see anything "harsh" in deleting a program that is no longer useful to the collective Machine AI.  Deletion of a program probably is an absolutely neutral act that has zero moral significance one way or another for the Machine consciousness.  It's probably just like the circle of life to them - a cute little bunny has to be prey to the mean old wolf in order to support the health of the overall ecosystem, regardless of the complicated human responses to the violence that we humans superimpose over it with our imperfect understandings of right/wrong, good/bad, merciful/harsh.

Obviously, the Machines aren't hunting down Sati b.c they've had a change of heart and decided that they actually like kids after all.  (It's all about improving the efficiency of the Machine civilization - which was sort of my original point about how they possibly could have missed the implications of Sati being able to control sunlight in the first place.)  If it's true that their haste to delete anything that does not immediately demonstrate a purpose resulted in the unwise exile of Sati, then it's clear that their haste is not serving them well.  Will they begin to see deletion as "harsh" as a consequence?  Interesting question.