Matrix System: Mobil Avenue & Exiles

Mobil Avenue is the subway station Neo's mind is in when he wakes up at the beginning of M3. The word "mobil" is an anagram for limbo.

As both the Oracle and Smith confirm, programs are not forced to be deleted. They can either choose deletion or exile, the same way people can choose to reject or accept the Matrix. This is because the Oracle's model of choice is what defines the operations that are most core to the running of the Prime Program.

Because the Merovingian was actually residing in the Matrix when the choice model was proven to work, the Merovingian and many other programs from version 0.9b (including the Trainman, Persephone, the Twins, vampires, etc.) were allowed to deny deletion. This created the necessity of a path by which exile programs can enter back into the Matrix from the Source to escape deletion, and that is the main purpose that Mobil Avenue serves. Presumably, it is also the path taken by programs to return to the Source, since it connects the Matrix to the Source.

The Merovingian cannot deny his purpose, even as an exile: he still continues to traffic information, and he therefore still continues to know all information that is traveling in the Matrix at all times. That is why Neo, Morpheus and Trinity are told that the Merovingian has been "expecting" them when they go to see him at Le Vrai. This ability to know everything that is happening inside the Matrix makes him an extremely difficult exile to kill, because no human or program can set out to kill him without his knowing. This earns him the allegiance of the Trainman and other exiles. The Merovingian protects these exiles from getting killed by Agents in return for their service and loyalty to him, bringing him more power.

So, when a program refuses deletion, it is placed in Mobil Avenue and left to fend for itself. Logic does not require the Architect to promise survival or a happy life to a program once it chooses deletion any more than he guarantees survival to a human once a human swallows a red pill.

The Trainman's original intended purpose was likely to maintain Mobil Ave. as a way for legitimate programs to travel to and from the Source and the Matrix. This makes the Merovingian and Trainman very unique in the way that they are exiles, and they are both (perhaps unintentionally) fulfilling additional system purposes they were not originally designed for: providing a system of choice to programs.

Not only is the word "mobil" an anagram for Limbo, Club Hel is to programs as Zion is to humans: they are both filled with programs/humans who denied their designated purpose within the Matrix system ("sinners"). Both Club Hel and Zion are underground, making the parallel between Hell and Zion/Club Hel even more robust.

The Merovingian in the Analyst's Choiceless Matrix

Once the Analyst becomes the Prime Program for the Matrix, the system would naturally seek to purge the Trainman, Merovingian, and all of his exiles. This would have made them go further underground, no longer fulfilling any purpose within the Matrix. More than likely, the Trainman is a machine in the real world who carries a construct on him that provides a "place" where the Merovingian and his exiles can reside.

Whenever synthient exiles go into the Matrix, they must now hack into it the same way humans do, the main difference being that their hacking generates a "low frequency" portal. There is one big reason why exiles would want to use low freqencies when hacking the Matrix: Distance.

Think of the sound of thunder. When lightning strikes just 200 feet away, you hear with great intensity the high-pitched ripping sound, like there are a thousand hammers around you striking sheet metal. But that same lightning strike, when you hear it from a mile away, sounds very different. Almost all of the "sheet metal" effect is entirely lost by the time it reaches your ear. This is because the high-frequency sounds of lightning ripping a path through air molecules (which you can also think of as "audio detail" or "audio information") dissipates rapidly. Low frequencies travel far greater distances. Anyone hacking the Matrix (whether human redpill or synthient exile) would naturally want to be as far away from the Matrix as possible, so the lower the frequency of the signal, the better.

So, why can the Merovingian and his exiles use low frequencies to hack the Matrix, while humans can't?

Exile programs that are hundreds of years old would naturally be very simple programs, and would therefore require far less bandwidth to maintain a good connection to the Matrix - probably frequencies that are magnitudes lower than what is required to maintain human RSI. Those who are as old as I am might remember fondly how much better audio quality was when talking from one land line to another, compared to today's crappy cell phone quality. A friend of mine even used to play music for each other over the phone just putting the phone up to a headphone speaker when we got a new piano CD we were excited about, and the audio quality was good enough to hear a decent amount of detail. That's because the higher bandwidth of land lines means higher frequencies come through. Those were the days.

Unfortunately, today, we are now stuck having to share limited bandwidth of cell phone towers that transmit as little information to cell phones as they can possibly get away with. Consequently, when we spell our names to each other over the phone, we can barely tell the difference between P/T/B/D, S/F, M/N, or C/Z. The sounds that distinguish these consonants are subtle. They are difficult or impossible to hear without high frequencies. Similarly, think of how much audio detail you miss out on if you listen to music through a wall: all you hear are the low frequency sounds. They are powerful sounds, but magnitudes less audio detail can be heard through a wall compared to hearing the audio directly in the room.

So, it is in the best interest of humans and exiles to stay as far away from machine cities as possible when hacking into the Matrix. The lower bandwidth requirements of ancient exile programs gives them a huge advantage in hacking the Matrix. It's also possible that because of the lower bandwidth, exiles don't need smooth, reflective surfaces like smooth, perfectly-surfaced window panes and mirrors in order to produce a portal. Perhaps the Merovingian and his exiles can create portals in wooden walls and concrete floors.

This gives us additional understanding in the Japanese monorail scene when Seq says, "Portal's clean. Reading our shadows." This is his way of saying that (a) the wireless signal between the Matrix and the Mnemosyne is strong, and (b) his hack of the portal surface is effective - both the hacking itself as well as the choice of what to use as the portal.

Why does the Merovingian now dress like a street rat? [Actually, to me he looks like a human representation of a bird whose feathers have been "ruffled," pun intended.] Most likely, programs can no better control their own RSIs than humans can, and the Merovingian's fall from riches to rags changed his RSI. It could also be because he now has to live the same way the Trainman lives in the outside world, a machine of low value/position in machine society.

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Matrix System: Revision History

Matrix System: Natural Redpills