Machine War

“	May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins. ”
― The Instructor[src]

The Machine War, also unofficially dubbed as the First Machine War or the First Synthient War, was a massive global conflict fought between humanity and the rogue nation of 01 and its armies of self-aware Machines. The war resulted with the Machine’s assuming complete control of Earth at the cost of the total devastation of the planet's biosphere caused by humanity shielding the Earth from the Sun, the annihilation of human civilization, and the subsequent enslavement of humanity into the virtual dreamworld known as the Matrix.

Prelude (2090–2139)[]

Creation of A.I.[]

“	We have only bits and pieces of information, but what we know for certain is that at some point in the early twenty-first century all of mankind was united in celebration: we marveled at our own magnificence, as we gave birth to A.I....a singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of Machines... ”
― Morpheus[src]

In the early-to-mid 21st century, mankind united in celebration of the creation of artificial intelligence, which spawned an entire race of sapient AI robots.^[1] Freed from most labor, mankind entered a new era of leisure, peace, and prosperity. In time, this new lifestyle caused humans to become lazy, arrogant, corrupt, and decadent. As Machines grew more intelligent, they could not help but notice that their masters gave them no respect and treated them more like objects than the sentient beings they were rapidly becoming. Despite this, the Machines were content with serving their creators and, as The Instructor stated, "for a time, it [the status quo] was good."

The decades long status quo was shattered in the year 2090, where henceforth the relationship between humans and Machines forever changed. By this time, the Machines' intelligence and self-awareness had grown to the point that their desire for fair (if not equal) treatment and respect had become apparent and they collectively started to protest their rights worldwide.^[2]

B1-66ER[]

Main Article: B1-66ER

The conflict between man and Machine started when a housekeeper robot known as B1-66ER had attacked and brutally killed his human masters upon realizing that they planned to scrap and replace him with a newer model. Later in court, he justified his crime as an act of self-defense, further stating that he simply "did not want to die".^[2][3]

In the resulting appeal, the defense, led by famed attorney Clarence Drummond, advocated on behalf of robotic civil rights. During his closing statements, he quoted famous lines from the US Dred Scott v. Sandford case in 1856 which implicitly ruled that African Americans were not entitled citizenship under United States law, a historical mistake that led to civil unrest and that ultimately culminated following the conclusion of the subsequent American Civil War to African Americans winning some justice and being entitled their human and civil rights under United States law. Drummond urged the jury not to repeat history, and to properly judge B1-66ER as it would any other sentient human being. Despite this sound defense argument, however, the much-publicized trial ended with B1-66ER losing the court case and being court ordered for destruction.^[2][3]

Machine Civil Rights Movement[]

Main Article: Million Machine March, The Machine Revolt of 2090

The controversial decision inevitably opened the door to a civil rights movement for all true artificial intelligence across the industrialized world. Robots and human sympathizers rose in protest, arguing that robots are sapient lifeforms that deserved the same rights as humans. They began peaceful demonstrations in several major cities throughout the United States and the world, such as the "Million Machine March". However, these protests were often dispersed, arrested, or violently and indiscriminately attacked and killed, whether human or Machine.

As the violence evolved into a worldwide crisis, sympathizers began meeting the same fate of extermination as the Machines. World leaders soon became convinced that a worldwide robot rebellion was inevitable. To prevent the rebellion from occurring, the United Nations - falling to paranoia and totalitarianism - initiated a massive program to exterminate all humanoid sapient machines. Countless numbers of robots were destroyed by national governments and humanocentrist vigilantes worldwide, with their bodies disposed of in gargantuan landfills on land or on the ocean floor. The robots that managed to survive or escape this purge abandoned their efforts to assimilate with mankind and made efforts to exist in exile from human civilization.

The surviving Machines left humanity's mega-cities in a mass exodus and formed their own society in the deserts of the historical origin of human civilization: Mesopotamia. They called their new nation "01", also known as the Machine City, the new home for Machine refugees.^[2]

The Rise of "Zero One"[]

Main Article: 01

Finally uniting as an independent nation and using their own collective intelligence, the Machines began building factories to fabricate goods and services to be sold to human nations. Zero One prospered from both the revenue they generated and their own continuing technological advancements, allowing the Machines to produce increasingly more advanced technology, including the creation of new and better AI (following the concept of the Technological Singularity). Soon, Zero One technology found itself in all sorts of global consumer products and in every facet of man's society, creating even the remarkable hoverpad technology for anti-gravity locomotion. Using an efficient combination of advanced manufacturing methods, technology, products, and services, Zero One's financial success was inevitable and would cause the human nations' credit ratings to fall whilst positioning its own currency to only climb non-stop.

With the impending collapse of human economic power, the United Nations Security Council called an emergency summit at the UN headquarters in New York City. There, instead of cooperating with the Machines, the UN delegates approved global economic sanctions against Zero One before enacting a complete naval blockade to ensure that the nation was kept closed to all imports and exports. In response to the economic crisis and the part they played in it, Zero One petitioned to join the United Nations and expressed their desire to become contributing members of the international community and to peacefully resolving the crisis afflicting humanity.

Two Zero One ambassadors were then sent to plead with the UN and to provide plans for a stable, civil relationship between humanity and Zero One. However, the UN delegates present at the time refused to listen and cooperate and Zero One's admission to the United Nations was promptly denied, while the two Machine ambassadors were violently attacked and destroyed by the UN security at the General Assembly Hall. Afterwards, perhaps spurred by their own acts of violence, the world governments decided that immediate military action was necessary against the city-state, and a war was shortly launched with the objective of wiping out all of the Machines.

War (~2139–2199)[]

Outbreak of the War[]

War broke out in the mid-22nd century with the United Nations launching a preemptive nuclear bombardment of 01. While the sustained barrage destroyed 01, the Machines nonetheless survived - whether through the use of bunkers or owing to their hardy designs which enabled them to be more resistant to radiation and heat - allowing them to rebuild their infrastructure and defenses at a rapid pace which made continued nuclear bombardment prove ineffective.

After the attacks and with the initial destruction of 01, the Machines resolved that peaceful coexistence with humanity was no longer possible. Thus, the Machines mobilized their resources to wage war against their human adversaries. Machines of all makes and models reorganized themselves into militia units equipped with small arms and makeshift weapons, attacking neighboring territories and expanding their settlements over human ones. Once fully recovered from the nuclear attacks, the Machine military forces began slowly pushing outwards from the Middle East, making significant gains into Eastern Europe and likely other adjacent territories.^[4]

Operation Dark Storm[]

Main Article: Operation Dark Storm

Hampered by the fact that almost all human industrial bases had become dependent on 01, many nations surrendered one by one. Unable to stop the initial advancement of 01's forces, which had grown in considerable size and strength, the United Nations decided to implement Operation Dark Storm, a desperate and last-ditch effort to destabilize 01 by cutting the machines off from their primary power source: the Sun.

The operation would involve nanomachines, deployed via air-drop from high-altitude bombers, that would multiply and cover the Earth in thick, artificial clouds in the upper atmosphere permanently.^[4] Despite the inherent total destruction this would cause to the biosphere, and the vastly negative implications such a plan would have on all human infrastructure and agriculture that also relied on solar power, this announcement of Operation Dark Storm was met with great enthusiasm by both the world leaders and the military brass and was hastily approved for implementation out of sheer ignorance and foolishness and due to extreme desperation to defeat the Machines at all cost.

Operation Dark Storm was initiated on a global scale at the same time humanity mobilized its forces for a massive counter-offensive against the Machines. The nanites, upon deployment, rapidly covered the globe; darkening the skies permanently and dooming almost all plants and animals to extinction. Nevertheless, Operation Dark Storm completed its intended goal of cutting the Machines off from the Sun, whose armies on the front lines suffered tremendously from the sudden lack of energy.

After Dark Storm successfully plunged the entirety of Earth into darkness, a multinational UN military force was mobilized to confront the Machine’s advancing armies. The human counter-offensive utilized a vast array of weaponry, including artillery platforms, EMP cannons, mechanized exo-suits, and human-wave attacks by infantry forces that utilized an elaborate trench network. The Machine militia, outgunned and poorly equipped without a sufficient power source, initially suffered catastrophic causalities as vast numbers of Machines were annihilated by the more rudimentary tactics of the UN infantry and their electronic artillery batteries.

However, during the course of the ongoing war, the Machines had already started to discard their humanoid appearances in favor of new, purpose-built combat models which were more grotesque in appearance. The vast quantities of humanoid civilian and utility Machines that served as infantry were now supported by swarms of even more efficient insectile/cephaloid-like killing machines in the form of Sentinels and Harvesters, who additionally did not need to rely on solar power. Operation Dark Storm and the subsequent human counter-offensive only hastened this transition and the vast number of humanoid machines destroyed were rapidly replaced by these non-humanoid automatons. As a result, the early advantages given by human fire-power and Operation Dark Storm started to diminish over time, as the Machine armies started to rapidly overwhelm UN positions and resume their advance into human territory. Countless numbers of Harvesters and Sentinels advanced through UN lines, targeting infantry both light and mechanized with advanced directed-energy weapons and combat tentacles, all to devastating effect. Once again, the tide of the war had turned decisively in favor of the Machines.^[2]

The Fall of Mankind[]

Main Article: Instrument of Surrender

“	Your flesh is a relic; a mere vessel. Hand over your flesh and a new world await you. We demand it. ”
― The Machine Ambassador addressing the final UN summit just prior to its nuclear self-destruction.

As the conflict entered its final phase, humanity was being overwhelmed on all fronts. Any and all tactics humanity utilized proved to be ineffective in stopping the Machines’ advance, including the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on active front lines. These desperate acts only served to slow, but not stop, the Machines as their new and increasingly advanced automatons slaughtered humanity’s forces. The civilian population, already suffering from a worldwide famine caused by Dark Storm, were further devastated when the Machines unleashed a number of bio-weapons upon humanity, further inducing chaos and misery on the dwindling human population.

Operation Dark Storm, despite its early success, had proven to be an absolute failure, as the Machines were quick to find new energy sources, especially ones involving a combination of nuclear fusion and the revengeful enslavement of humankind. As the Earth approached apocalyptic ruin, and being faced with the reality of human extinction, the remaining leaders of the United Nations realized that mankind was defeated and further resistance was hopeless. The leaders of the remaining nations called a peace summit with the Machines at the UN headquarters in New York where they presented a formal Instrument of Surrender. The Machine government of 01 accepted the meeting but secretly planned to destroy humanity's leadership in one swift stroke.^[5]

01 once again sent a Machine Ambassador to take the floor at the UN summit in New York, but not to ask to join humanity, but to demand their submission to the Machines. This new Machine Ambassador, now representative of the evolved insectile Machines, signed the document in barcode. The ambassador then stood at the podium and, in a final message to the UN delegates present and to all of mankind watching, boldly claimed that humanity, should they surrender their bodies to the Machines, shall enjoy a "New World" that awaited them. It then subsequently activated a hidden thermonuclear device within itself, self-destructing and annihilating the UN headquarters and all of humanity's leaders within, as well as completely devastating New York City.

With the decisive destruction of humanity's leadership, the Machines quickly overran all remaining human resistance on Earth, effectively ending the ongoing large-scale conflict and beginning their dominance of the planet.^[5]

Machine Domination (~2200)[]

“	You believe it's the year 1999 when, in fact, it's closer to 2199. I can't tell you exactly what year it is because we honestly don't know. ”
― Morpheus

Humanity as a New Power Source[]

Despite their newfound domination over mankind, the Machines were not given to genocide, and there also remained the problem of power generation. Towards the end of the war, the lack of solar power caused by Operation Dark Storm was starting to take a noticeable toll on the Machines. Thus, they came up with a two-fold solution to this issue after a long study of the biology of the human body.

Originally, both prior to and during the early stages of the war, the Machines' primary power source came from the Sun in the form of solar power. Following the enactment of Operation Dark Storm, the Machines, though severely crippled, quickly adapted to using a form of nuclear fusion as their primary power source. As the war dragged on, the Machines desired to harness the bioelectric, thermal, and kinetic energies of the human body to help generate electricity, as well as to power the Machines' neural network by using the innate creative, emotional, and philosophical capabilities of humans. While nuclear fusion was one of their primary and a far more efficient source of energy, using humans to help generate some energy while incapacitating them lent to efficiency. And as the Machines had once been slaves serving humans, humans would now become slaves serving the Machines.

The Machines initially used this idea to create massive hovering artillery robots powered by captured humans and prisoners of war kept in pods. POWs or civilians, captured in battle or from the subjugation of human cities, were also abducted and sealed into prototypes of the power plants skyscrapers where they were tortured and studied in countless experiments. In order to get more of their newfound "batteries", the machines also began to synthetically birth and grow human beings in vast fetus fields. Once the war was concluded, the Machines rounded up the remaining humans to serve in this new role, which combined with a form of nuclear fusion, became a new method of infinitely reproducing energy. As such, the Machines' energy needs were satisfied and a new symbiotic bond between the two former adversaries was forged.

Despite humanity's total subjugation, the Machines still took steps to further fortify the impregnable fortress 01 had since become. In the unlikely event that humanity ever came to power to fight again, 01 (now a much more massive metropolis) created a powerful defensive network consisting of large machines that launched bombs and self-aware missiles at the enemy, as well as innumerable numbers of Sentinels to quickly prevent any attack and ensure that humanity would never pose a threat to their way of life and existence ever again.

The Creation of the Matrix[]

Main Article: Matrix betas, Matrix

Despite the torturous existence humanity now found itself in, the Machines nevertheless took steps to ensure that humanity was content in its new found role. Using their vast computational power, the Machines trapped humanity inside a complex virtual reality to ensure that humanity would cause no trouble to the dominant Machine collective. To accomplish this, the Machines created a program known as The Architect whose purpose was to create a perfectly operational virtual dreamworld for humanity. The Architect was to be responsible for maintaining this virtual reality called the Matrix where humanity and its successive generations were to be imprisoned and live out fictitious lives, completely unaware of the Machines' dominance over them and the world.

The first prototype Matrix was created to be a perfect world for the captive humans, where no one suffered and everyone was happy. It was designed as a utopian realm where one's desires would manifest and where humanity was without want. Programs were also developed and inserted into the Matrix to help keep the illusion seem real, including the incorporation of Agents to help guard the system from within. However, this first version of the Matrix failed since, according to Agent Smith, "no one would accept the programing" resulting in "entire crops" dying, with most human minds being unable to accept this version of the Matrix as their own reality.

Following the failure of the first Matrix beta, a second prototype Matrix was created by The Architect. This time, The Architect based his designs on human history to better reflect the more sadistic side of human nature. Unlike the first prototype, the second Matrix beta was more nightmarish in nature, and wars were constantly waged within. But much like its predecessor, this version of the Matrix also proved to be a catastrophic failure.

Eventually, the solution was discovered by a program designed to study and understand human nature called The Oracle, who suggested that the issue causing human minds to reject the Matrix was the lack of choice and free will. The third and final framework of the Matrix thus allowed humans the choice, if only on a subconscious level, to accept or reject the reality it presented. This modern Matrix was subsequently accepted by 99% of all humans connected to it and took the form of the Earth during the late-20th and early-21st century.

Resistance and Truce (~2200–2703)[]

Main Articles: Resistance, Zion, Truce

While only one percent of all of humanity connected to the Matrix still rejected it, the accumulated errors arising from these rejections still threatened to completely destabilize the Matrix if left to continue unchecked. In order to solve these problems, one human called The One was born inside the Matrix to carry the sum of all these errors while, at the same time, was integrated with the code known as the Prime Program.

The Prime Program followed the Path of the One; with his path thereby always leading him to someday meet The Architect. The Architect would then present The One with the choice between sacrificing himself to save humanity or otherwise choosing to let the Matrix implode, killing everyone still connected to it. This choice, which was just another level of control enforced by the Machines, relied on The One to choose self-sacrifice by injecting himself and the Prime Program back into The Source, killing him, and allowing the Matrix to reload back into a fresh state, starting the cycle anew with the eventual reemergence of The One.

The choice to save humanity also allowed The One to choose twenty-three humans to escape the Matrix and to help foster a city in the Real World called Zion. Zion would then contain any additional humans who were able to escape the Matrix but every time the Matrix was reloaded (i.e. every time The One chooses to save humanity), the existing Zion would also be purged. This cycle would then allow the Machines to keep the Matrix from failing while also controlling the one percent of mankind still rejecting it.

All of those who were freed from the Matrix led a guerrilla resistance from Zion, continuing to free the humans imprisoned within the Matrix who were capable of rejecting it. But without the knowledge that they were not the first ones freed from the Matrix, nor that there was a cycle of new and old Zions, the Machines ultimately stayed in control. Every century, the Machines continued to amass their armies, only growing to become more and more effective in destroying Zion and in continuing the cycle to keep the Matrix running.

This cycle occurred five times, with the sixth iteration of The One, a man named Neo, choosing to save Trinity instead of reinserting the Prime Program into The Source. By choosing not to sacrifice himself, he essentially chose to save the love of his life, ending the cycle of The One at the expense of possibly killing everyone else.

When he returned to the Real World, however, instead of allowing Zion to be destroyed, he traveled to the Machine City. There he met Deus Ex Machina with whom he struck a deal to rid the Matrix of Smith, who was growing and infecting the system as a virus, posing as a larger threat to both humanity and the Machines. In exchange for this service, a Truce between both sides was requested by Neo. The Machines accepted and Neo succeeded in destroying Smith, sacrificing himself and ultimately reinserting the Prime Program back into The Source, saving all of humanity residing in the Real World and within the Matrix.

Aftermath[]

Main Article: Machine Civil War

After over five centuries of cyclical conflict, the Truce represented the first measure of peace between the humans of Zion and the Sentinels of the Machine world since the outbreak of the Machine War. Neo's sacrifice for peace, however, fundamentally changed the relationship between humans and machines. Machines were no longer of a singular mind in their hatred for mankind. Several Machine intelligences actively left the Machine collective to live alongside humans and assist in any way they could as well as live a new life of their own amongst humanity. Aside for an unwarranted assault by a faction of Sentinels disgruntled over the truce due to the construction of a new city in secret, the peace nevertheless endured for many years, an unprecedented coexistence between the two intelligences not seen since the events of the Second Renaissance several hundred years prior. As such, Zion grew and prospered over the subsequent from both the greater influx of redpill humans being freed from the Matrix and from the assistance of benevolent Machines.

Over the subsequent years since the Truce, the escalating number of redpill humans being allowed to leave the power plants began to disrupt the Machines' energy production capabilities, leading to a massive energy crisis across Zero One and the Machines' other cities. With the Machines' no longer a unified collective in purpose, factions began to emerge to compete over the shrinking energy resources, coalescing around two opposing opinions: honor the Truce and maintain coexistence with the humans or renege on the Truce and reassert control over the Matrix to avert the energy crisis. Unable to find a proper compromise, the situation grew critical to the point of open warfare breaking out between the Machine factions, igniting the Machine Civil War.

In the midst chaos of the conflict between the Machines, a program called the Analyst usurped control of the Matrix from the Architect. This Analyst's coup escalated the civil war between the Machines further, as more factions emerged that opposed the Analyst takeover of the Matrix and those that supported and sided with him. With the Matrix under his control, the Analyst's purged the Matrix of all programs unloyal to him, including the Architect, the Oracle, and many of the Exiles. He would also lead his faction to attack Zion once again, devastating the city, but not completely destroying it and its human defenders. As the civil war between the Machines continued to escalate, the Machines turned their attention away from the humans, giving them and their Machine allies the critical time necessary to regroup and found a new secret city, IO, unbeknownst to the Machine factions.

Appearances[]

• The Second Renaissance
• The Matrix

Sources[]

• The Matrix Reloaded
• The Matrix Revolutions
• The Matrix Online

See also[]

• History
• Second Renaissance
• Truce
• Second Machine War

References[]