People in the (green-code) Matrix don't know they're in the Matrix. Except ones that work it out, or are helped to work it out. Despite it not being heaven-Matrix, which is unbelievable, there'll always be some people on the edge of the Matrix-bound society who have experienced just a
little too much deja vu, or something, and of course those close to the edge but not yet ready to accept are getting help from the people who 'aren't' permanently in the Matrix, but work in/from Zion, and use the Red/Blue pill scheme or something similar to get potential new recruits. And there are natural-born 'Zionists', of course.
So, Zion... nasty, edge-of-survival and rough-hewn haven that it is... becomes the home of those for whom the not-totally-comfortable world (or extended metropolitan district, masquerading as a world, except for the odd mountain-top) has become jaded insofar as their perception of true reality. Given this premise, how many people would doubt the gritty world of sewer-pipe and cavern living, with a tangible enemy and the possibility of death or worse being at the forefront of people's thoughts for every waking hour, and probably most of their dreams. A very small numbers of people, geographically(/geologically!) concentrated into a single community, except for a few small groups who head out into the greater world on expeditions, largely sealed into tin-cans and those tin-cans largely navigating narrow tunnels, to accomplish whatever purposes they wish to pursue.
There's no obvious deja-vu 'blips', etc, but how much simulation power does it need to dedicate a much more perfect simulation under those conditions and for the more select group of 'VIP players'? Also smaller volumes to maintain consistency within... You don't even need a city-wide "view horizon", when most spaces people are in are close enough to throw rocks at the opposing wall of (even the larger 'party' area and main dockyard/entrance 'bell' don't need anywhere like as large a field-of-view as staring down one of the Matrix's city avenues, and would need vastly less 'rendering' to accomplish, even if that's an issue with the tech involved). The "harvesting" fields are probably the hardest to arrange, being largely open, but being oh so foggy you don't get to see that far, and are pretty much composed of repeated structures, each of which you'd need to be next to in order to distinguish the minute differences (e.g. the appearance of the occupants) if (for example) the finer detail were procedurally generated to the appropriate
LOD for the viewing distance.
And what if someone
does question the nature of the Zion-holding world? Those individuals could be removed from Zion quite easily. Entire hoversubcraftthingy-crews (probably the most adventurous/enquiring individuals) could easily be 'lost' by enemy action, or individual members easily caught up in a carefully choreographed mêlée (assuming there was a need to avoid collateral 'losses'). Even back home in Zion, natural dangers lurk. Fall off a balcony? Get crushed by an auto-cannon loader? Rock-falls? Retroactive starvation? This could mean one is killed (including out at whatever level of reality
was real, in a mirror of the "death through disconnection" of Zion-livers experiencing death in the Matrix), or else brought out (under the guise of 'death', or other explainable disappearance, to those left to witness one's end of simulation) one level to reality (or 'reality') to be greeted by the Better Than Life holotainment centre staff, given a 10 cent trophy with a mis-spelled name-plate, congratulating them on being the winner in their particular group's game of "The Matrix Within", and packed off home, hopefully before midnight so that their parents won't ground them for going down the arcade on a schoolnight... Or something.
(Whatever 'something' that might be, of
course it could still be false... But who's to say that the
real outer level is even anything like our own universe? When one stops playing Pac-Man, there's generally a lack of ghosts chasing one around, food isn't conveniently laid out along the corridors one might walk around in a vain attempt to find any (non-haunted) rooms, and the eating of random (yellow) pills one might find sat out in the open
might cause flashing vision but is very rarely an automatic 'good thing' to have done. And when one has played Civilisation from very nearly the dawn of human settlement all the way up to the launch of one's own expedition to Alpha Centauri, it's quite possible that just one rather long evening (and some of the smaller hours of the next morning) has passed in the world where one does not enjoy anything like the longevity or leadership potential that had been the mainstay of your in-game position.)
Just remember, there is no spoon. There was no spoon in the Oracle's flat, and so why should there have been a small battered spoon in hands of the inspirational urchin seen in the tunnels of Zion? I have no spoon at hand
here, with me, but had I got one... could I even be sure it was real? Spoons, as a concept, might even be as abstract as a floating Police Bribe star in a game of Grand Theft Auto. A handy device in the gaming-world, but bares very little relation to anything one could find in the 'real' world, within empty lots, atop brick walls with strangely handy 'ramps', and in other interestingly contrived locations. (The bribe-stars, that is, not the spoons... However, if the spoon is on a table... Is the table as contrived a construction as an I-barrier handily angled so as to allow one to send ones current vehicle upon a short ballistic trajectory, with the right approach?)
Sure, I may well only be thinking this way because of the Matrix movies, but what if I've already had these ideas about the nature of reality (I'll admit it, I have!), and the Matrix Trilogy is a deliberate ploy by the real-world overlords, BTL-crafters or other 'agents' of the code to do a "Wormhole X-Treme" double-bluff of the "No, it's not real, you're just thinking of that fictional example, and you're crazy if you think it's real..." style. I think, therefore I am, I am largely forced to conclude, but
where is it that I am? And what is my actual form, if this humanoid one that I self-style myself as having is merely an abstract animated sprite as separate from my real-self as a basic and low-res yellow circle (with a missing slice 'chomping' as I move) is to this form?
Assuming I'm not also
just a simulation, dreaming that I'm a butterfly dreaming that I'm a man.
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Topic: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies (Read 137798 times)