Human History

It doesn't matter if they made up the war, B116er and all the other stuff, because it comes down to this:

To keep us (Zion) in check for the purpose of the One-Cycle, planting knowledge is a given, that includes (fake) history. The history of us inventing the Machines then wanting to destroy them because we were afraid of them but then being destroyed and enslaved ourself, is probably the worst possible history. That kind of history manages to get people to belief that their existance is easily understood (last bastion of humanity) and justified (avenge humanity, destroy machines, repopulate the earth, etc.). In other words, the history we (Zion) know is the perfect reason for Zion to exist in the first place. In fact, it is so perfect that if you come down to it (people get to know it after the beginning of the truce), it could have been nothing else than fake (the city of Zion that is, while considering that if the first city of Zion really was built by humans, their situation would have been "less perfect", because they didn't have a guideline like the other Zions).

So, since Zion was a system of control, also history has become a system of control, because without a good reason to exist, Zion would be destroyed before the reinsertion of the Anomaly into the prime program. That, of course, doesn't answer the question if the history is real or not, but essentially it does say: It doesn't matter. If humanity did have a different history, fake history would have been planted (system of control; to control the reason to exist is to control purpose and direction of life), if it did happen exactly like that, well, less waste of resources for the planning of Zion.


The only source of recorded history lies within the Machines, but one resource of history is never trustworthy. Heh, that's why I belief, history is utterly useless in the world, that is the Matrix (+ RW).

There are numerous sources of "recorded history", only the most detailed and complete is with the machines.  The Second Renaissance, for instance, is part of the Zion Archives which one could either take as collated archives that Zion has compiled in its present incarnation, or as wholly machine constructed to shape humanity.   Nevertheless, the old idiom that "history is written by the victors" is correct, in this case the Machines have written history and could potentially use it to for control, but as with the Matrix, not all are so susceptible to established truths which are in fact deceptions, and would seek the real "history", something that could be found in one of a million ruined cities on the surface, or in the great burial mounds of machines.  The evidence of Man's sin is above everyone, a ravaging storm designed for one purpose, to prevent sunlight reaching the earth.  Such a purpose would not be beneficial or logical to Machine so evidently there is truth in the lie, and in the history

As for History being useless, that is a strange sentence.  History, the study of the actions of mankind in the past, is of vital importance in understanding human nature, evolution, culture, society, religion...and almost anything else you can imagine.  A poor historian, or a man who knows little of empirical research, might use one resource of history, but most historians do not.  Truth lies at the centre of a web of contradictions and truth is of moral and social importance.

I get a little confused on the historical timeline here, so some questions and thoughts:

The height of human civilization is said to have been some time in the middle of the 21^st century, right?Humanity was united in celebration as it gave birth to AI? The war with the Machines actually started in 2092 and the major fighting was over within 10 years. The Matrix, however, was set to the year 1999 because that was the perfect mix of chaos, conflict, peace, etc. and technological know how for humanity to accept the simulation.

I understand there were at least two failed attempts at the Matrix, a heavenly utopia that humanity rejected followed by a more hellish simulation that was also rejected, which were followed by five or six full cycles of ‘the One’ transition. Morpheus suggested his guess that it was closer to the year 2199 in his first speech to Neo, but he also says that there has been a century of conflict with the Machines before the big battle in Zion.He was also not aware that Neo was just another in a series of ‘the One’ transitions though.Is it fair to conclude that the Machine created ‘the One’ cycle lasts about 100 years on average?

If that is true, then it has only been somewhere between around 600 years since the actual war that devastated the Earth in the Real, right?This is regardless of the ‘the One’ cycle within the Matrix, how long those last, and what happens to its plugged in human denizens upon the scheduled slaughter of everyone in Zion (which may or may not ever happen again, thanks to the now faltered Truce and the building of New Zion?).

So the story has continued here in MxO and we have Zion-aligned redpills operating out of New Zion, and the suggestion that Merovingian and Machinist redpills have their own outposts in the Real as well.During the Truce, it would have been at least somewhat safer to go exploring about some of the blasted surface ruins left behind by humanity, right? This would probably still go on now for scavenging efforts I’m guessing?

What I’m sloooowly getting at is that it hasn’t even been a thousand years. There should be ample evidence of humanity’s history hidden out there among the ruins to be found by those with the courage and daring to scout and scavenge about for them right? I think the movies suggested that the major human metropolises went on for miles and miles, with accompanying tunnel networks beneath that are now hovercraft pathways.I’m assuming here, but surely there were still smaller cities and rural cities that wouldn’t necessarily have been utterly reduced to rubble like the major population hubs right?

For example, it makes sense to completely level massive New York of 2092, but not so much that one stop light coastal town of two hundred people a hundred miles away. If that is true, and they only rounded up the people there or the people just evacuated and abandoned it, what if they had a library? Maybe a buried time capsule with a plaque noting it was there? Maybe the books/contents would be ruined after 600 years, but what about any DVDs that might have been there/inside?

If any of the above is true, isn’t it possible that redpills and free born humanity since the end of the last cycle of ‘the One’ have confirmed humanity’s history by now? Morpheus was aware that there has been a century of conflict, he was just several centuries off in terms of how much time had actually elapsed. Surely in a hundred years some enterprising hovercraft crew would have stumbled upon information in the ruins and made it back with that historical data to share it.