Zion's Religious Awakening

Gavin Smith wrote in news:NwgehVA8rSTCFwpT@slipgate-adsl.demon.co.uk:
>
> Arrogantly twisting the sterile canvas snoot of a fully charged icing
> anointment utensil, JPM III <jpmccord DeleteThis @hotmail.com> poots forth...
>
> > What are your thoughts on Zion's religious awakening at the end of
> > Revolutions? If you haven't thought about it before, speculate now!
>
> In terms of specific religions, I've always presumed that the Zionists
> were a minority of Pagans (for no particular reason), and a majority
> who followed the un-named religion of the One.

I always figured that, like most societies' religious culture, people just
believed what made the most sense (the most hope) for their time and place.
So, yes, that involved believing in the One, but I'm guessing there was more
to it than just that.


> > Everyone noticed Morpheus' depressed looks and comments at the end
> > of Reloaded and the beginning of Revolutions, but we were so
> > consumed at the end by Neo's fate that we didn't put much effort
> > into discussing how the rest of Zion reacted.
>
> Hamaan's reaction was interesting, I thought. He had the look of
> someone who had chosen the losing side in a battle. There was a
> slight panic in his eyes. Perhaps it was just disbelief, but I never
> quite trusted Hamaan anyway.

I never got that impression. I thought he was the wise old man making
careful decisions and hoping the people below him that didn't like those
decisions would be smart enough to just do their jobs and make things
happen. He never seemed panicked to me -- he believed in Neo and somehow he
knew Morpheus was right, but he knew that there was no logical reason for
that, and it's just like what the Oracle said about Neo and the Architect:
he couldn't see past what he couldn't understand. So even knowing what Neo
would bring for Zion, he had no idea what would come after that. No one did.


> > For that matter, we don't even know how many Zionians even know the
> > truth about what Neo was able to accomplish, or even if any of the
> > machines or exiled programs truly know!
>
> We now know that Neo's accomplishment and sacrifice is now common
> knowledge, and that the reluctance on the part of the machines to
> return his body is causing conflict. In other words, it seems that
> all parties realise the truth of his achievements, but that the truth
> of his current status is still shrouded in mystery.
>
>
> > Life is a collective logical process working its way through an
> > environment, the whim of a few cells or a few electrons to be
> > someone for a while. How do you think the beliefs or understandings
> > of men or machines were affected by what happened between Smith and
> > Neo and with the war between Zion and 01?
>
> Of the central protagonists, Morpheus' belief system was the one that
> was strained the most. He lost a cause when the war ended, and many of
> his beliefs about the nature of the prophecy were shown to be false.
> I'd imagine that his mental state is somewhat unbalanced. It seems
> that the majority of the rest of humanity, and the machines, have
> split into Zionist or Machinist factions as a result of their new,
> entrenched, or validated belief systems.

It does seem, for the first time, that the machines have allowed the current
Zion civilization to survive rather than annihilating them as they used to
do. Maybe the ultimate end to the Matrix saga will have the humans finally
destroying the machines and starting over on a desolate planet Earth. Or
else maybe this will prove to be part of the process that earlier Zions went
through, and the machines will eventually crush the humans and start things
over their way anyway.

Hmm.
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