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In the first movie, we see Agents possessing several bluepills to be able to communicate with the Matrix. Every time something that is incompatible with survival happens, that bluepill's RSI is restored; that is, the Agents stop possessing people when they die. However, said person is still a viable source of energy, and that person was just flushed down the toilet (literally).

My question is, why didn't the machines do something to prevent that? For example, for the time that the RSI is in use, put the person in a coma. Or create a layered structure: the bluepills are in a sort of Construct, and that Construct is used as a proxy to the Matrix; whenever the person dies in the Matrix due solely to reasons simulated by the Matrix (for example, being shot), that person is then connected to a different RSI: of someone else of the same age who has died, for instance, or a new one altogether. (I believe something similar had happened with Trinity in Reloaded: she was killed within the Matrix and subsequently revived within the Matrix. She was a redpill, however, and wasn't generating energy for the machines, and was anyway on a hovercraft during the time, so that doesn't count.)

And yes, I am aware of this question, but mine is about the bluepills and not the redpills.

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2 Answers 2

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Agents don't (usually) die.

Morpheus: ...Every single man or woman who has stood their ground, everyone who has fought an agent, has died. I've seen an Agent punch through a concrete wall. Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air

The Matrix: Agents

Hence the need for a system that preserves the host body in the event of Agent death is essentially worthless.


You may also wish to note that although we spend a lot of time watching them, there are relatively few Zionese rebels and even fewer Agents. The general population (of several billion) can easily stand to lose a few people without even noticing the loss.

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  • Good point, but I was thinking of all the cases in which the human is killed in the Matrix but mostly alive outside it. To quote my previous example, Trinity would have been saved even had Neo not had the ability to revive her. I believe that those cases are more common than deaths of hosts of Agents. That means that, had such a system existed, there would be less wasting of humans, which means more energy. (Assuming that generating energy via humans is even viable.)
    – Danya02
    Commented Dec 10, 2016 at 18:31
  • @Danya02 - Sure, but what's the biggage. Humans die all the time. Just chuck her body in the mulcher and grow an extra young 'un.
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 10, 2016 at 18:34
  • I just thought that it would have more sense logistically: those pesky humans need transporting from the fetus fields all the way down to the power plant. Then again, it depends on the exact architecture of the Matrix and the transportation method.
    – Danya02
    Commented Dec 10, 2016 at 18:40
  • @Danya02 - My instinct is that it's a negligible loss of life. With six billion people in the Matrix, assuming a normal life expectancy and no accidental deaths, you'd still be dealing with 100,000+ deaths per day. Factoring in Zionese rebel vs. Agent deaths, you might have 5-10 extra deaths per hundred years.
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 10, 2016 at 18:46
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    Besides being unnecessary, usually, it’s also unclear whether it is possible at all. This boils down to the unanswered question, why the agents need to take over a human to interact with the matrix in general. Depending on that reason, it might be possible, that they can’t guard the human from what happens in that time. It would make little sense if they have to take over a human, but could detach the human entirely from what they do while having taken over the human.
    – Holger
    Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 18:14
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Every time something that is incompatible with survival happens, that bluepill's RSI is restored; that is, the Agents stop possessing people when they die. However, said person is still a viable source of energy, and that person was just flushed down the toilet (literally).

Actually, the dead bluepill would not be flushed down the toilet, literally or figuratively. According to Morpheus the dead bluepill would be used to feed living bluepills:

There are fields, endless fields, where human beings are no longer born. We are grown. For the longest time I wouldn’t believe it, and then I saw the fields with my own eyes. Watch them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living.

The Matrix (transcript)

The scheme you suggest sounds rather complicated -- the machines would have to plant false memories into a bluepill who happened to "die" along with all the other bluepills who knew/know the bluepill (both in his former life and his newly constructed one). It's probably not worth it to the machines considering

  • the rarity of an Agent's death (usually only when fighting the One, or possibly when a redpill gets a lucky kill)
  • the fact that the loss of one bluepill among billions constitutes an insignificant loss of power
  • the machines can and do recycle dead bluepills to feed living ones (it's not a total loss)

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