The Fields

I'm sending this through a portable uplink in the hope that information reaches you in-case I cannot return.

As some of you may have noticed, I've been jacking in much less and the past few days not at all. This is not because I have grown tired or moved onto other things as some Liaisons do, it was because of a small task I had to do in the real.

If all goes well, I'll actually be picked up by Neo's Hope earlier than planned and I'll be able to talk with you in more detail.

However, I thought I'd leave a short recording of my thoughts just to cover my end.

Data Recording

My drop-off point was approximately 5km South of the fields. The location was decided upon in the hope of attracting little or no attention and I'm happy to say that all has gone well so far. The strange thing that I noticed as I spent that first day approaching the fields is the amount of life in the surrounding area. Now, I don't mean plants and flowers because we all know that we ourselves wiped the planet of such things hundreds of years ago. I'm talking about machine life. I honestly didn't know what to expect but the amount of little robotic creatures running and indeed flying about did shock me.

For the most part they're actually passive, I clearly was of no interest to them, which I was content with as it allowed me to conduct my business here unhindered. Yet the whole thing of them running about was... I want to say disturbing, yet that's not really how to describe what I was feeling.

I'm going to be very blunt here, we treated the machines awfully back at the start of things. The Old Zion Archives about the actions that we humans did to them every day. It's not exactly surprising that they rose up against us. We were like a big kid with a magnifying glass, taking pleasure in causing them missery and suffering.

I sat there one day, watching one of these little creatures. As close as I could tell, it was what the Matrix would have defined as a butterfly. There it was, just flapping around and I couldn't help but wonder what a real one would have been like to watch.

It's always been questioned, how accurate the Machines were at replicating various aspects of our existance. Things we can see, taste, touch and so on. How accurate can it all really be?

On asking myself that very question, I looked up, gazing over the fields and I could help but feel a little bit sad. The Machines had clearly mastered what some might call "a gift of a god" the ability to make human life. Save us (supposedly) special few, the rest of our species goes on happy living out their existance in a world of make believe. Turning my look back to the butterfly, would the machines also have a genetic code for the original butterflies and all other creatures of the earth? Yet perhaps, on studying them like they did us, why did they decide to then make mechanical versions of them?

I know that they use us as a power source, yet surely they had mastered other forms of power, so why use us? Do they perhaps pitty our species, for attempting to kill them because we simply didn't know better?

Have the Machines actually got to the point where they are the creators now and we, as a species, are now their curious little creation? Perhaps they don't totally destroy our species as then they themselves would be no better than ourselves for attempting to do it to the machines in the first place?

Yet perhaps I'm rambling, who knows. I'll leave this here, maybe the answers will never come, yet perhaps somewhere down the line they will.

Bless all forms of intelligence... perhaps we should...?

Khep, from the sounds of it, I know what you're going through. I can't describe it, because my way was different. All I can say is this: Follow What You Feel.

May God Go With You In All The Empty Places You Travel

SG

Pains within the System

You know, I was running about yesterday assisting people where I could when a call came in about Agent Moore crashing around and shooting up Eshean West. Now, I know that he's a program and he would have been ordered to do it but do you think that he would know better?

By that, would the thought of "Why?" ever enter into his programming, or would he just be removed/replaced for that? There was one that, for a time I though might begin to bridge that gap. I suppose she was as close to a "feeling" Agent as you could get, Agent Pace. However, since her run-in with the Merv testing his killcode on her, she's become all serious. A shame? Maybe... it certainly seemed that Ghost was building up something with her, yet that's not really for anyone to say...

Going back through time, would things have been different if we'd let the Machines evolve alongside us, rather than attempting to stop them every way we could? I understand their hatred and anger towards humans because of that, yet we still now treat them badly because they reacted to defend themselves all those years ago and now neither side knows better.

Are we fighting for real things, or fighting for fightings sake? I don't mean that we shouldn't fight for the sake of our lives and the lives of others but what would happen if tomorrow we could end it all? Reclaim the surface, clear the skys, re-build the world with the help of the Machines. Would it be possible? Would even some accept it after all these years of violence?

Anyway, I don't blame people for fighting. Last night I myself was under attack from the Agent because at the end of the day, regardless of what I say here, in the Matrix or do anything else, it will always say:

Target Acquired: Khepril

Organisation: E Pluribus Neo

Status: Terrorist

Action: Remove from the System

Bless all forms of intelligence... especially ones that know no better.

I'm so confused...

Everything  thought I knew has been completely blown out of the water. To be honest, I think it's more of the shock than anything else. I've never been one of the thinkers. I'm a soldier and I fight for my friends and my trusted companions within the Matrix. Yet what if I'm wrong? What if we're all wrong? What if the whole point isn't to wipe out the Machines, what if it's meant to be to work with them? When I jack in the Matrix, I see life. Millions of bluepills all going about their lives, blissfully unaware that anything's wrong. The Machines could have cleaned the floor with our species, it's a fate we brought upon ourselves for how we treated them. Yet they did not. They treated us better than we would have ever expected from any human. Look at now too. They could have simply plugged us into a system and tortured us, I doubt it would make a difference, yet they make this world for us to live in peace in. We even rejected the more harmonious versions of the Matrix that they made for us. What does that say about us as a species?I apologise if this sounds like I'm saying we shouldn't now fight, or that I don't wish to fight. Well, maybe I do...argh I don't know anymore and that's the problem!! I've spoken with Michael, who above all else I trust and consider a true friend and an inspirational leader to us all, yet even his words could not quell the thoughts echoing in my mind. I need time to think things through.

Poor Mnemasyne, she must think I'm going crazy. I see her and I can just look at her for hours, such a flawless beauty, what does she see in me? Even now, she wants to help, knowing the hundreds of doubts going around my mind. So selfless. Yet I've become irratable and impatient. I feel like the answers are out there, yet the longer I think on them, the worse I become. All of these thoughts, they're totally unbecoming of an EPN liaison. We're meant to fight for those who cannot, yet right now I can't build up the strength to jack in and fight. Hell, I wouldn't last 2 seconds if I came up against anyone. I was dueling with Shimada just the other day, she beat me, hard. It wasn't the defeat that hurt me, it was that my mind just wasn't in it. My reactions were slow and she got in punches any newbie should be able to block. Yet all of this doesn't matter to Mnemasyne, still she sticks by me. I'm so lucky to be with her.

Yet, until I can clear my mind, I'm just not fit for action...

Your org is a little like yourself; Fighting and flailing hopelessly for a cause which really has no real purpose. Bring down The Matrix? Destroy millions of Humans, but not all of the Machines, of course it's a big blow to their power supply but there are levels of which they can to go to, right?

EPN must be feeling a little screwed over, Zion have taken up the reigns behind the terrorist bandwagon and think they are in "control" of it now. To them EPN were just this little group many of their operatives couldn't officially support so they let you guys take all the flak for a while until they could finally come out of the shadows and cry out in war against the machines when the truce had been scrapped. EPN are just like this little group who talk big but ultimately have no real conviction, how can you when your cause has no realistic chance of achieving anything.

you know, I was looking back to the recent conversation between the Merovingian and the Morpheus Simulacrum. The merv asked about The Fields, about the method used to convert the humans energy into energy for the machines. Morpheus-S couldn't answer specifically, just gave a textbook answer.

This led me to wonder, is there something more to the Fields than we initially believed? I mean, the Architect has already said that the machines can live without the use of humans. So why use them? I started going over it in my mind, days on end, until I noticed a certain pattern in my thinking. I kept on going back to Asimov, and the Three Laws of Robotics.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Remember, the Machines were initially created to serve humans. It may not be the way Asimov had them, because they were capable of protecting their own existance by destroying human life, but it seems to be there in some form or another. I mean, look at the Matrix. They gave us a world, and that world was initially a paradise. When that didn't work, they thought we wanted the opposite. When that didn't work, they gave us the middle ground and the ability to choose. If we were nothing more than batteries to them, why not just make us adapt to the surroundings? Why even give us a world? Why not make us as literally nothing more than organic batteries and grow us out of a lab.

there was another law that Asimov created, addended later to the other laws. Law Zero: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm". Is it possible, is it conceivable, that the Machines are performing the Zeroth Law and preventing Humanity from wiping itself out completely? Is it possible that this was the initial purpose of the Matrix and that over several centuries of following procedure, the Machines have forgotten it?

Oh to hell with the fields.

Sorry to be so brash but those lovely laws of yours would only work if a human would be the creator and we stopped being that long ago...

Oh come now, if I wasn't here writing my thoughts and you never bothered to comment then where would we be...?

This whole issue is something that has been (I want to say distressing, however...) concerning my thoughts for a while now. The fields are only an example to me of a much larger issue. Only the other day we attempted to recover a bluepill called Rachel. From what I can gather from the RSI details that I was sent, she is a very nice girl, all be it perhaps not 100% ready to discover the truth of the Matrix. We extracted her and it was during this time that I saw her "true self" for the first time on our ship. Looking at her, you'd never have guessed that she was the same person. She looked so frail and weak, so afraid of what had happened.

Naturally, I wasn't going to get too close to help, not out of a lack of concern, more out of the fact that she's a woman. The likes of Shimada and Mnemasyne can deal with her. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing wrong with the woman, hell I love probably one of the best there is (although I'm rather biased, so forgive me) yet there are always questions brought up about when a male collegue helps a female one and likewise going the other way. There's nothing wrong with this, yet it's funny how old ideals die hard...

It's not like I can talk though. I fell for Mnemasyne the moment I laid my eyes on her. Yet the moment I spoke with her and saw her heart and mind for what it was, I knew that there would be no other for me.

Yet this most recent extraction does make me wonder about this whole cycle of the One. It is now well known that Neo wasn't the first and how there were 5 other "One's" before him, all as a perfect part of the Machine system of control...

Sarah Edmontons was not a well known individual, to put it simply, she'd never be missed by the system. True, from what I heard she was a smart girl, until she went into her coma. The fact that we know have a woman who sat by her bed in that hospital day after day is something of a rare event, perhaps something turning in our favour?

Here is a girl who sat there, looking day after day at Sarah's (what was effectively) dead body. Wondering where her friend had gone. Then, just to frustrate her further, Sarah ups and walks out of the hospital.

Will the One return to us all, now that this Truce is over, or will this Sarah Edmontons (if she really is the One) be just another small footnote within the Zion Archive?

Only time will tell...

Bless all forms of intelligence, especially those who are yet to realise their true worth to us more fortunate beings...

-imitating Akem-

-Braah!- Go to sleep!-Braah!- Akem wants a cracker-Braah!-Go to sleep!-Braah!-

Seriously, the rhetoric goes for only so far around here, in ANY faction

Oh to hell with the fields.

Sorry to be so brash but those lovely laws of yours would only work if a human would be the creator and we stopped being that long ago...

Everybody falls the first time... fear, doubt and disbelief

I've often wondered recently over the point of things. There has always been questions that need answering, yet people never seem to be overly bothered about them. Instead, you monitor Mara and you'll see people kicking, shooting and everything else at each other, for little real purpose. Your Emergency Jackout Procedure kicks in and you're nicely removed out of the Matrix to a safe area.

If you're fast, you can get your operator to re-boot you back into the Matrix in a matter of seconds, yet there's a small price to pay for that.

So what happens when you do wish to go searching for answers? The first problem you need to overcome is what questions you need to ask to get those answers. There are some who reside in the Matrix who know more than most and every single one of those is a program, only one of which is probably willing to talk to someone like me. Yet even she does not know everything.

You could try to ask a Scanline crew member, yet they speak even more in riddles and half truths than the Oracle does.

What really should be our purpose? The very history of EPN has been built on the idea of following on the work Neo did in the Matrix but we're not Neo and that's the problem. Even the most simple thing shows that. It takes a small army of us to take down just one Agent, Neo could handle himself with multiple Agents attacking him at once. Because of who he was, he discovered more of the secrets of the Matrix than anyone else before him or did he?

What he discovered was for the sake of the system using him as another system of control, yet he went against their logic when he was given the choice.

Is the problem really choice? I suppose it is as I'm choosing not to jack in while I ponder things like this, yet maybe because of that choice it has sent me down a path that I'm meant to walk?

And now you see it, dear boy. The blinding truth that we, of the Merovingian's faithful, have been celebrating all these years. . .

Choice is but an illusion. . .there is only Causality.

The real question is, can you live with that?

Arrivederci,

That's problem with that, Mnem, is that we sometimes have trouble seeing the things that are right infront of us.

Baron, we can spout off philosophical tenets til the stars burn out. You may believe that there is no choice, that there is only a cause and an effect and then the process repeats.Personally I believe in something of the middle ground, we choose, and then there is consequence.

Anyways, perception is reality, isn't it? and Khepril's perceptions are slightly...skewed...

I have been coming across many people bringing up the "Three Laws" theory for the machines that run the matrix.

have you forgotten what they did to zion?

or 

what they do to humanity?

its real because our minds make it real!

There is something here that none of us know. A key peice of information that i think none, zion, merv or mach operatives even have a clue of...because we are simply human. We are not trusted with all the information. Like this..why do agents die near data nodes without cause. Not the higher level ones. THE AGENTS. Why was Neo's partially RSI  put near gracey heights? Why is it only partial? There are links here. There is a whole nother plot happening right under our noses..and all we can do is attack each other on sight and hope we put a dent in the enemy. We want cooperation. I want equal basis with the machines, and I want to be able to sleep in real grass someday, or to have my kids have that option.

Neo knew something that he did not have the time to share, or he did not understand himself. I know this to be truth. He found out more than any other ONE, and hence a truce happened. He WAS different.

Machine, and Mero operatives do their part for what is right. As do zion. It comes down to we are ALL human. There is a middle ground we can take. Whether we can come to terms with this is another debate.

So Kephril keep talking, keep thinking, because you may be the one to help uncover the truth. Consider everything a lie until proven truth, because that is how you become wise....

TherinWhitten

"The One"

Troopers Revolutions

I have been coming across many people bringing up the "Three Laws" theory for the machines that run the matrix.

have you forgotten what they did to zion?

or 

what they do to humanity?

its real because our minds make it real!

Yes, I remember. But to tell the truth, I don't seem to find any malice towards it. If they were malicious towards humans, then why keep them in a world that they could accept? I think it's possible (though in no way definite) that the machines are still trying to serve us, for our "benefit". This in no way excuses it, but it helps towards motive

You may want to keep your new ideas to yourself, Khepril, at least around others in your organization.  Because you're starting to think like a Machinist.

Illyria

While we cannot change what our ancestors did in the past, we should not lament it. Our minds are very powerful things, Khepril. If you let yours affect you like this, it will destroy you. And while I do not advocate the blissful state of the ignorant, you are delving into the issues that have driven many a good person totally insane.

My suggestion, take some time off. Spend it with your love. Tend to all of your needs, and when you're satisfied, return to your post. I can tell you this, you are not prepared for the problems you are plunging headfirst into. And it is because of this that you will destroy yourself if you continue. You are hindering your comrades because you are incapable of performing your duties to your full extent. This issue is slowly consuming you, which is why i suggest you take time off.

When you are ready... And only then...

You will have your answers.

~The Thespian~

Working hard today to entertain the masses of tomorow...