Question in regards to Loyalty...

[QuiDormit]

(19-02-2010, 08:36 PM)Agent Pace Wrote: Well, maybe that is their long-term goal. Thing is, machines need energy to function, like everything. Since humans took the sun away, the need to find a new energy source - and keeping it under control - came way before rebuilding the world on their to-do list.

I don't think so. First of all, I don't think that humans would be worth the effort to use as a main power source. I think that they likely use humans as a cluster (as has been stated before), and on some level, energy. Also, I think that Machines keep humans around to tap into their brains. Human thought is complex and can be very improvisational, which I would think would be useful.

I still see the Matrix as more of an iRobot situation than a Terminator situation, where the Machines imprisoned the humans within their own minds to protect them from themselves. Humans are the Machines' creators, and on some level I'd imagine they revere them, however they also have seen the hateful side of humans directed at them.

If this isn't the case, then someone explain to me why they bother keeping humans conscious at all? Why not just induce a vegetative state where their bodies still produce the energy?

No, there's something very specific about keeping them conscious and "living in a dream world." Once again, why would the Architect bother to make a perfect human world for the very first iteration of the Matrix?