SAQ: Zion's Location
Other Theories
As I support in the Matrix System: Natural Redpills page, the one percent of people who reject the Matrix do not go free. They are still walking around in the Matrix with "splinters in their minds," as Morpheus would put it. What this implies is that the population growth of Zion is due only to a) people actually swallowing red pills, and b) Zionists reproducing with each other.
| "Consider that in the past 6 months we have freed more minds than in 6 years. This attack is an act of desperation." - Morpheus |
As Morpheus's statement clearly implies, Zion is in the middle of an exponential population explosion. And Morpheus is half right: Although the machines are by no means "desperate" (eradicating Zion has become routine for them), the Matrix is beginning to lose too many humans, and that is why Zion must be destroyed and started over. It is not Zion's people themselves that threaten the machines, it is the fact that they are hacking into the Matrix and freeing too many minds.
Remember that after the Architect finishes describing the "escalating probability of disaster," Neo says, "This is about Zion." It is about Zion's threat to the population loss in the Matrix, which threatens the machines' power supply. Zion does not actually pose any threat to machines in the real world, because the machines could wipe out 2.5 million people just as easily as they can wipe out 250,000, and the machines' city is clearly defended to the point of being impossible for anyone but the One to penetrate.
| SAQ: Zion's Location | Other Theories |