THE MATRIX

[unplug]

THE MATRIX ◀

BASICS 01 - Premise 02 - Rules 03 - FAQ 04 - Taken List 05 - Applications 06 - Reserves OOC 07 - Calendar 08 - Mission Control 09 - CR Meme 10 - Test Drive Meme 11 - Hiatus/Drops 12 - Player Contact 13 - Mod Contact WORLD 14 - History 15 - The Matrix 16 - Reality 17 - Zion Defence Grid 18 - ZDG Fleet 19 - Uploads 20 - Recruitment 21 - NPCs COMMS 22 - Info 23 - Network 24 - Logs 25 - Memes 26 - OOC

It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. [MORPHEUS, THE MATRIX] The Matrix is a tool of control that the machines designed to imprison human minds. It is an expansive virtual reality, a neural interactive simulation, that deceives human consciousness into thinking that it's reality, shielding them from the truth of their lives. This truth is that they are slaves to the machines. Humans are kept unconscious in great towers of fluid-filled pods, with electrical jacks plugged into ports that line their spine, the back of their skulls, their arms and legs, their chest, through which the machines milk them of energy and warmth to power their own race. Human bodies are atrophied and hairless, but they otherwise continue to develop from birth through to death, when they are summarily liquified, their nutrients used to feed their kin. This is how they spend their whole lives, dreaming in the Matrix, sharing worlds with other captives just like them, while the race of machines continues to expand and develop the world they left behind. Unless they are unplugged. ▶ STOP DREAMING It is possible for a human to reject the Matrix, almost exclusively done through their own innate sensitivity and doubt about the world around them even if they cannot express what that doubt represents. It is then through the explanation of other unplugged humans who have reentered the Matrix to retrieve them that they make the choice to be freed, with a more detailed explanation about the fate of their kind awaiting them on the other side. The choices they are offered are simple: take the blue pill, and they will wake up the next morning with all discussion of their choice faded to the dim memory of a dream. If they take the red pill, then so begins their journey. The red pill actually holds within it a code that helps the humans track the location of the target's carrier pod by disrupting its signal. The newly awakened human achieves consciousness for the first time, breaking through the membrane on their pod to witness firsthand the monstrous sight of millions of other carrier pods containing their kin, dormant and sleeping, connected to great electrical towers in a blasted, dark landscape. A docbot (a hovering robot bristling with a diverse array of arms and tools) registers that they are no longer useable, and violently disconnects them from their implanted ports. From there, they are flushed out of their pods through a tube, landing in sewage and presumably left to die, save that the crew that freed you in the first place have hopefully located your floundering form and will rescue you. It is strongly suggested that you review the footage from the film so you know what your character went through, but please feel free to request more detail regardless if you had particular questions. ▶ THE SEVENTH ITERATION This cycle of the Matrix is different to its past cycles. Past cycles of the Matrix have always only housed one world, shared by all humans, with almost all of the humans seen in the Matrix representing “plugged in” human minds. Each of these earlier cycles had undergone improvements from the last. The first iteration was a flawless utopia, whereas latter versions depicted worldwide horrors that the Architect of the Matrix felt humankind expected of itself. Finally, the machines had realized that the illusion (or presence) of free will was key to perfecting the Matrix and would keep the doubters to a low 1%. However, recent times called for a new evolution. With more and more humans falling away to freedom in advent of Neo's truce, machines began altering the energy output and processing capacity humans could generate through genetic engineering. In turn, this made it necessary to alter the structure of the Matrix again to accommodate the needs of brains developed for bigger, better stimuli. The Matrix was fractured into smaller versions of itself. Human minds were grouped off and separated into individual worlds, some far removed from anything resembling Earth, and others that resembled Earth almost indistinguishably. These worlds were also populated with more programmes of artificial intelligence. Though this did not make it easier or more difficult for humans to be freed, it did give the Architect and other machine factions a better sense of control and influence, guarding against unexpected variables. It soon became apparent to the machines that not all fantastical simulations were equally viable. It was projected that many crops would be lost when the reality proved too flimsy or psychologically incompatible to carry through, causing high rates of self-realization and subsequent extraction-- or even death and psychosis. As a result, the Architect and like-minded machines began to create redundant iterations of the worlds that survived, through a careful concert of genetic cloning, replicated AIs, and pre-programmed reality routines (including geological events, the weather, physics). This had interesting implications for the free humans, who discovered the multiplicity of the iterations, or mirror worlds, soon after the inception. Investigation determined that two versions of the same individual from the same world could not be extracted due to the limitations of the Janus Override (see below). However, the Council of Zion decreed amid considerable debate and contention that if an extracted individual is killed, one cloned counterpart may be unplugged, the override allowing. Notably, in the decade that the decree has stood, it has not yet been enacted. ▶ THE JANUS OVERRIDE The Janus Override is a form of social policy and software both, designed to maintain the integrity of an individualistic human society in response to the machine's evolution of the nature of the human race through cloning and redundancies. Practically speaking, it is a string of code that allows humans to leave their Matrix completely undetected by both other humans and machines. This code, written by the Oracle, replaces each extracted individual with a near-identical artificial intelligence who will carry on their lives. It also causes a small reboot to that Matrix, patching over all evidence of the extraction. The Janus Override does come with a catch: a glitch affects 15% of patch-overs upon reboot, scattering extraction teams throughout the Matrix and attracting the attention of Agents. The disruption demands the operator of the mission to get everyone to safety or face the loss of the entire team. It is not known how many iterations of a given unplugged person exist, as it could be anywhere between none at all through to hundreds. ▶ THE AGENTS As mentioned, Agents populating the Matrix present an obstacle and often a deadly threat. They are renegade programmes that the Architect claims to be unable to control, and seem to work in opposition to the Architect's truce. Upon detecting free humans running around a Matrix, they will aggressively pursue them with intent to kill, find out their mission, or prevent an extraction -- or everything all at once. In the original Matrix iterations, they are presented as government men in suits. In the latest iteration, they are as diverse as the worlds themselves. Middle-Earth may find Agents in the form of orcs or wargs. The Twelve Colonies of Kobol may suddenly find that the metal made Cylons are waging another kind of war. The Dementors of Azkaban may break from their duties to tend to a glitch in the form of scattered extraction teams, and so on. When left undisturbed, they continue fulfilling their roles as a part of the fabric of that world. ▶ FIGHT BACK Once unplugged, a human is woken up to the reality of the situation that what they thought was reality was, in fact, a dream. And as with dreams, once one becomes aware that they are dreaming, one can start to change it. Unfortunately, the Matrix is software, not hallucination, and the ability to change it at will is so rare that it is prophesied only One person is able to achieve this per Matrix iteration. That being said, all unplugged humans possess the ability to reenter the Matrix through human-built hardware and hackery, as well as utilise that same technology to upload skills and knowledge into their minds. These skills can range from an extensive knowledge of martial arts, through to piloting a helicopter, or jacking a car. While a human can upload any kind of skill into their brain, some brains are more compatible with holding more of certain kinds of skills, thanks to experience -- scientists may be more technically minded, while soldiers may find it easier to specialise in combative abilities. But a new development, thanks to the evolving of the Matrix and the more fantastical worlds that have spawned, means that people can upload skills that are beyond baseline human ability -- sorcery and superpowers. There are limitations for these skills, for instance they can only be uploaded and utilised in Matrixes that have rules that support them, otherwise it either does not work (probable) or there are catastrophic consequences (possible). Whatever fantastical skills a person had in their native Matrix won't need to be re-uploaded. Their abilities do, however, translate across differently when they enter other Matrixes, adapting to the rules of this new world. You can find more details about uploading and simulations, and how they work in game play, on the Uploads page.