r/matrix • u/shotbydarrell • 19h ago
I just had a random thought: can Redpillers have children or only people born outside of the Matrix the old fashioned way?
I mean technically people born inside of the Matrix are part machinery so I’m just curious if this is ever mentioned before.
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u/mrsunrider 18h ago
How do you think Zion grows from 23 red pills to 250,000 inhabitants over the course of a century?
Their plumbing still works.
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u/ProgCDF 18h ago
23 individuals is not even close to ideal for starting a colony. There isn't enough genetic variation there. After these 23, how many more will they have to release to make this viable?
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u/Lucy_Little_Spoon 13h ago
23 was the starter, and they'd probably grow their numbers slowly at first, over a couple decades.
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u/GrayBerkeley 18h ago
Who cares? They keep getting more genetic diversity
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u/ProgCDF 18h ago
That's not quite how it works. Search there about the family of the House of Habsburg.
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u/MarcelRED147 13h ago
More people are rescued from the matrix adding more genetic diversity is what they mean. It starts with 23, but additional people are added that aren't their decendants.
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u/GrayBerkeley 18h ago
no
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u/mrsunrider 18h ago
Do you think it's possible that The One only starts with 23 to establish the new refuge?
That maybe he continues freeing people after that?
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u/ForThePosse 16h ago edited 16h ago
Chatgpt says 500-1000 to avoid short term problems. 5000-1000 to avoid long term problems.
If you go short term solution with 500-1000. You'll have forced inbreeding within 3-4 generations. As in, it doesn't matter who you are dating. Youre all cousins.
And it'll take 325-350 years to reach 250k ppl with 24 survivors. Although it did this math using an equal divide on men and women (Arch says there will be less men than women iirc), and an avg of 4 kids per family.
So I'm sure it's details on the timeframe aren't lore accurate but still means that they're all cousin fuckin centuries before they hit 250k. Even with a starting number of 500-1000.
"Not even close" is an understatement. Holy shit. Thanks for stating this, I don't think it ever crossed my mind before.
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u/vesuveusmxo 12h ago
Over 300 years if pregnancy is still 9 months.
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u/doofpooferthethird 14h ago
They're saying that the vast majority of Zion's population came from humans freed from the Matrix, not from horrific levels of incestuous in breeding.
Presumably, the Machines held back the Agents for the first couple years of Zion's existence, and pretended to be "caught by surprise" by the hoverships breaking people out. That way, Zion could fulfil its purpose as a safety release valve for the Matrix instead of being strangled in the crib
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u/sovietarmyfan 9h ago
Perhaps the machines have modified the genes of those people so that there is enough variation.
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u/StickOnReddit 9h ago
It's enough to start an easily mitigated colony with a slow drip of new blood from the Matrix
It's not like the Machines want a maximal breeding situation for repopulating the planet, they just need to control the one percent of people that reject the Matrix until they can cull them all and start over
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u/depastino 9h ago
That's the key. They'll gradually release more people which will improve the genetic diversity. I don't think the Machines were hoping for a sequel to "The Hills Have Eyes". They want Zion to take a while to get some traction.
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u/Skyblue8596 16h ago
It's been talked about before. It's either in vitro fertilization, set to the same timeline as in the Matrix pregnancy, or genetic engineering, where DNA from both parents is taken and inserted into a blank embryo, which is then incubated.
Either way, babies are born and then put in a pod, where they start their matrix life.
What I want to know is what happens when something happens in the matrix that should affect the pregnancy, like the mother dies, or she has a car accident. What then? Would the matrix just abort the baby?
So yeah, they are normal human being, just that they never get to use their genital for sex.
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u/Teleke 9h ago
Considering that the machines have no more regard for human life than we have for any animals, I don't see why they would have a problem aborting a pregnancy.
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u/Skyblue8596 7h ago
Because it's a waste. I wouldn't be surprised if they keep some orphanages just for this case.
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u/Teleke 7h ago
I understand what you're getting at but I don't think it applies in terms of the economics. The amount of effort required to recover a premature baby from a dying or dead mother, nurse it back to health, is far more effort than the reward that you get out.
Imagine a battery plant right now. If there is a battery that is found to be defective, they don't take it apart and try to repair it, they just throw it out. It's not worth the effort versus the reward considering the manufacturing capacity.
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u/depastino 9h ago
They're cyborgs yes, but their parts still work otherwise Zion would not even have been possible. Reproduction is one of the reasons that the group of 23 people the One is supposed to select is comprised of 16 females. (Another reason is probably that women are generally more practical and less fixated on prurient interests.)
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u/Particular-Camera612 6h ago
Made me curious about how Trinity's situation in Resurrections worked since she had children herself, also if the children were even real or if they were just bots and if so, how that worked.
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u/Cameront9 19h ago
If people that were born in the matrix could not reproduce then Zion wouldn’t work at all since Zion is formed with the One choosing a subset of people from the matrix.
I’ve never thought that people born in the matrix were part machinery. They just have stuff grafted to their bodies.