Were there exiles during the Paradise and Nightmare versions of the Matrix?

Question

Before the current version of the Matrix, there was the Paradise Matrix followed by the Nightmare Matrix.

We know that there are "exiles" in the current version of the Matrix -- programs who have been replaced or who otherwise go AWOL, but do not wish to be deleted. They tend to get hired by the Merovingian, who is also an exile.

Were there exiles during the Paradise and Nightmare versions of the Matrix?

As an example, the Seraphim programs (essentially the "Agents" of the Paradise Matrix) were presumably redundant by the time the Nightmare Matrix came about, so would they not have been considered exiles at the time? If so, the Merovingian wasn't an exile at that time, so where would they have "hidden"? Or were they still useful as "fallen angels", alongside the other "monster" programs of the Nightmare Matrix, and therefore not considered exiles until after the fall of the Nightmare Matrix?

Answer 1

We don't really know, but it stands to reason that at least one program was flagged for deletion and chose exile during the Matrix betas.

Let's recall what the Oracle has to say about Exile programs and how they came to be that way:

The Oracle: Look, see those birds? At some point a program was written to govern them. A program was written to watch over the trees, and the wind, the sunrise, and sunset. There are programs running all over the place. The ones doing their job, doing what they were meant to do, are invisible. You’d never even know they were here. But the other ones, well, we hear about them all the time.

Neo: I’ve never heard of them.

The Oracle: Of course you have. Every time you’ve heard someone say they saw a ghost, or an angel. Every story you’ve ever heard about vampires, werewolves, or aliens is the system assimilating some program that’s doing something they’re not supposed to be doing.

Neo: Programs hacking programs. Why?

The Oracle: They have their reasons, but usually a program chooses exile when it faces deletion.

Neo: And why would a program be deleted?

The Oracle: Maybe it breaks down. Maybe a better program is created to replace it – happens all the time, and when it does, a program can either choose to hide here, or return to The Source.

_{The Matrix Reloaded transcript}

The Oracle gives two examples of why a program would be flagged for deletion: either it breaks down or it is replaced with a better program, and the Oracle says this happens "all the time". It seems quite likely that an early program from the Matrix betas would be replaced with a better one, resulting in the earlier one's deletion or exile. It's also possible that with so many programs (including non-humanoid ones which govern the birds) that one of them broke down; indeed, we see exactly that in the episode Beyond from The Animatrix, in which a "haunted house" of broken program(s) that fail to obey the simulated physics of the Matrix are exterminated by Agents.

Since we don't know of any programs that chose deletion instead of exile it's very likely that a program from the Matrix betas which broke down or was replaced would choose exile. Such a program may not have been an Exile for long before being caught/deleted since it would not have been helped by the exiled Merovingian, but it would nonetheless count as an Exile.

As for the Seraphim programs, we can't say whether they became exiles when the Paradise Matrix ended or if they were re-used in the Nightmare Matrix. We do know that Agents Brown and Jones continued to operate in the Matrix after being defeated by Neo and after the upgraded Agents (Johnson, Thompson, and Jackson) became active -- so there's some evidence that the system is willing to re-use security-like programs such as the Seraphim. On the other hand, the Seraphim are definitely Exiles by the time of the films -- after all, the Oracle specifically mentions "angels" as an example of an Exile.

Answer 2

Yes there were

Persephone: "The come from a much older version of the matrix, but like many back then they caused more problems than they solved."

Here, much is the keyword telling us that they are not just one or two versions prior to the current, i.e., sixth version of the Matrix, they are from an even older version of it.

The question of where these exiles were hiding is not addressed yet we are given several points to make healthy conjectures.

Neo: Programs hacking programs. Why?

Oracle: They have their reasons, but usually a program chooses exile when it faces deletion.

Neo: Why would a program be deleted?

Oracle: Maybe it breaks down. Maybe a better program is created to replace, that happens all the time and when it happens, a program could either choose to hide here, or return to the source.

So, they can hide in the Matrix, i.e., they don't need to be smuggled with the Trainman, as they are already in. Also, they don't necessarily need the help of the Merovingian as well. For example, to the best of our knowledge, Smith never had any help from the Merovingian, although he was an exile.

While I have addressed how they survive deletion, the question of how they survive when that version of the Matrix is rebooted is still open. Yet, Oracle also offers some possible explanation, those programs might be hacking into other programs that would survive the reboot or strong programs other than the Merovingian might be harbouring them, like the Oracle harboured Sati or Seraph.

How Merovingian himself survived the reboot of his version of the Matrix is unknown. Therefore, whether Merovingian had any dealings with Seraph or other Seraphim when he was not an exile is unknown. Although this is pure speculation, knowing Merovingian it makes sense that rather than deleting capable programs, he might have started to accumulate them, even when he was the operating system. Here I have speculated that Persephone might have helped Merovingian to acquire these programs.