I think if he would’ve been like “I’ve rally changed my mind. I can’t do this.” Neo and Morpheus I feel would’ve tried to help him re-enter the matrix.
The whole thing was about “give them a choice” and I think everyone would have at least understood how he fealt and would’ve tried to get him back into the matrix at his request.
I feel like he didn’t even try talking about it before he went to the agents.
I know it’s meaningless just wondering what other people thought.
Morpheus made it very clear to neo that taking the red pill was a one way trip to enlightenment. Cypher references the red/blue pill test when talking to Neo so we can assume he did the same with him. I think Morpheus is pretty clear there is no going back.
Agreed. If he had said anything, they would’ve headed to Zion for some “R & R,” and picked up a new crew member before heading back out.
Zion is definitely portrayed as that kind of “cold calculating choice”
But the crew especially Morpheus and Neo seem very understanding. They violate orders for the greater good a few times.
I feel like they would’ve tried to help.
They let mouse have his women in red as a kink. They aren’t exactly rule tyrants
I agree that they’d try to help if they could but I think we’d have to assume that getting someone plugged back into the Matrix permanently would carry a much greater risk for the crew required to carry out this operation than is acceptable.
I think this assumption is reasonable because:
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When Neo leaves the matrix, within a minute of “waking up” a machine quickly arrives to unscrew his neural connection and flush him down the waste disposal at the back of the pod he was “asleep” in. So we can assume that there’s constant monitoring of the pods and lots of machines to quickly dispose of humans that wake up.
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The humans want to stay as far away from the machines as possible, hence why they use a dish to broadcast a signal from a hidden portion of the world outside of Zion so they can jack into the Matrix remotely and disconnect when they need to move to avoid detection. Getting inside of one of these human pod farms likely would be a nigh-on impossible task as can be seen when A. Neo and Trinity fly into the heart of machine territory in the 3rd film and B. Morpheus and the crew wait until after Neo gets flushed out into what most of the time is a corpse sewer to fish him out.
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During the whole explanation of the matrix from Morpheus we can see that as soon as a human is grown enough to be picked they’re moved into one of these pods. So even if they somehow manage to sneak into one of these facilities without being detected by one of the innumerable monitoring machines they’d either need to A. Time it perfectly between a dead person being flushed out before the pod is repopulated with a new young person from the farms. Or B. Swap Cypher in when someone else wants to come out, when they state in the film that spending enough time in the Matrix to extract someone is already a risky operation.
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They might not be rule tyrants but Zion clearly has a leadership hierarchy and risking a whole crew and a ship which has information on how to find and get into Zion in it’s systems would likely be a completely unacceptable risk to Zion management who already don’t like Morpheus’ recklessness for chasing the prophecy by freeing Neo in his 20s when they normally only free people when they’re younger.
The last point actually says a lot.
A lot of my confusion is “Morpheus was a rule follower”
The correct answer you put forth is “yes and he’s on very thin ice because of it already”
Valid argument. Yeah Zion is 99 percent done with Morpheus Shannagins already. Fair point.
I’m still reading your reply but I have to comment on #1.
I can’t make sense of that scenes logic either way. To the point I just kinda dismiss that whole scene.
If the computers know he woke up why did they release him instead of just killing him?
If they did know he woke up, and didn’t kill hom because he’s the one… wouldn’t the crew find it unusual how easy it was to get him?
It’s always got me ass odd the machines are like “dang another one woke up… we’ll release them to the rebels like normal I guess… this upcoming war we totally know about and planned for is going to be hard…
I just have to dismiss that scenario unless anyone else can explain it?
So I just went and watched that specific scene because you do raise some good points here.
If the computers know he woke up why release him instead of just killing him?
It looks like the machine that releases him is a different one from the usual Sentinels we see elsewhere in the films so I assume it’s just there to monitor the humans in the pods. It is probably programmed to just dispose of humans into the sewer that either wake up due to technical issues or that die in the pod by yanking their neck using the grabby arm and unscrewing the neural spike. Flushing the live/dead body down is just the last step in it’s process because even if they wake up alive in the pod, once they’re flushed down they aren’t going to be fed nutrients to keep them alive and these vat grown humans barely use their muscles so they can’t swim well and will most likely drown quickly. Why bother wasting energy making sure they’re dead when they most likely will die anyway?
If they did know he did woke up, and didn’t kill him because he’s the one… Wouldn’t the crew find it unusual how easy it was to get him?
I don’t think the machines knew he was The One at that stage because he was yet to perform any of the feats that the “prophecy” laid out. I don’t think I could explain the whole prophecy thing they go over in the third film well enough but from the sounds of it, until Neo can see the Matrix for what it truly is the machines don’t know if he’s the one or not so until he gets shit by Agent Smith and comes back to life to the machines he’s just another human that broke free and being a bit of a pest like the rest of them.
You knock my whole argument out with that sewer. Neos eyes couldn’t even adjust to the light when he first woke up. Thefomouters expect people to drown. That’s why the crew are in such a hurry to find him. No one can swim.
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Fair. I guess I forgot that part. Morpheus doesn’t come of as the cold tho person. He might of said that and might always say that as a warning but the way his character comes off I can’t see him being like “to bad so sad. Get back to work”
But maybe his character wasn’t portrayed quite accurately
I agree that Morpheus doesn’t seem like a cold person. But he can’t let any of his crew return to the Matrix because the agents could perform one of their mind-bending interrogations on them and gather intel on Zion. Like Trinity showed us when Morpheus himself was captured - denying an asset to the enemy by yanking their plug out was standard procedure.
Part of the reason is that he didn’t just want to live a life of pleasure… he also wanted to revert to a state of blissful ignorance, and not know that the matrix was a fake reality.
That would go against the moral principles of the ship, whose main goal is to enlighten and bring awareness about the matrix. It would be immoral for them to erase his memory even if they could.
Cypher also was extremely selfish, secretly hated the crew, and had no qualms about selling them all out for his own benefit.
I absolutely don’t want to come off as a cypher support. Yeah the dude was a jerk. We can all agree he was wrong
Sorry had to come back.
No cypher changed his wants. It started with life of extreme pleasure but I’m pretty sure they asked again and he was like “you know what. Just put me back”. Not a direct quote but the essence of what he said after with the agents. He did tone it down.
He was never going to get plugged back into the matrix without the machines replacing all the nerve wires and plugs in his body, and moreover, to get placed in a pod without endangering the Nebuchadnezzar (remember Neo was picked up covertly from the icky pool after being released). Sure, in revolutions Neo and Trinity sailed across the farms without interception but that was at high speed.
Cypher was essentially groomed by the agents, and was guaranteed the high life of the top 1% of the world. Nobody else could guarantee that. There was no incentive to be open with his crew (and he would’ve been banished from access to the matrix, sent to work in drugery in Zion).
I feel this is the correct answer so far. There’s nothing for me to argue against here. Other than maybe “if they can give neo (edit to correct Neal to Neo lol” a bunch of guns they can give cypher money” but the argument is clearly “that was short term. The computers will eventually notice the long term hacking “
Like they can teach a guy king fu in seconds.
I’m sure they could be like “okay will plug you back in at the designated facility where we help people like you, we’ll wipe your memory the best we can and you’ll go back. It won’t be exactly the same but if you commit to forgetting and we scrub what we can… in time it’ll taste like stake again. I empathize with those feelings and I’m sorry you choose the matrix but we understand. It’s actually pretty common around here”
Imagine the power, nourishment and bandwidth drain on a strained society, and then there’s the problem with a stationary facility connected to the matrix will eventually be located.
I’d pretend we are going to plug him back in but then whisper “no refunds” and execute him.
Plug’em back in, disconnect them while inside. Seems like a painless death.
I have to disagree. We already established people in the matrix are the power source.
Maybe Zion can’t fully tap into that mechanic but I’m sure they can hack it good enough that power isn’t a concern.
I feel like admitting that would have led to him getting a bullet in the head.
The machines obviously aren’t interested in reconnecting him - they grow humans by the thousand in their facilities. Like you’re not going to hike for a day to pick up lost carrot when you have them growing in your garden.
The only way the machines would consider reconnecting him would be as part of a deal for something significantly more valuable than one human. If Morpheus is on the table? Sure, now that’s worth it. Which isn’t to say they wouldn’t have betrayed and killed him once they had Morpheus anyway. Our only assurance that they would honour an agreement is a throwaway line from the Architect at the end of Reloaded.
And if there’s no going back, what does a terrified resistance do when one of their fighters starts talking about joining the enemy? He’s too dangerous - he’s gotta go.
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OP, you mentioned Mouse as an example in a comment. You’re on the right path - it would have been trivial for Cypher to program (or have Mouse program for him) a mini Matrix where he’s uber rich and everything he wanted. Of course, it would get old real soon.
I reckon Cypher would even have mentioned it a few times to people… things like “man, I miss meat” or “man I wanna be rich af”. Most would have taken his words as just bluster. Others would equate it with Mouse’s actions - a coping mechanism or just a temporary relief.
But the reality of it - only the machines control the real Matrix. Only they decide what gets in and out, barring a few hacks like the one that got Neo out and the others out.
To plug a full fledged human back in would require quite a lot of work. As the mania of wanting back in would have gripped him, Cypher would have left clues back in the Matrix and the machines, as someone else said, would have groomed him to betray.
You make a good point. If I remember correctly he does those comments in the movie too. Wasn’t it him who says if you close your eyes the food tastes like runny cereal? It might have been mouse. Either way your logic sounds good. He probably made passing comments often and no one noticed.
