Why does the machine ambassador destroy the human leadership after accepting their surrender?

Question

In the Animatrix, the human leadership surrenders to the Machines in the UN building in New York City. The machine ambassador speaks on the terms of the surrender and then "signs" the document to accept it while the human leadership looks on.

This is the scene: Hand Over Your Flesh

After the surrender is accepted, the machine ambassador detonates a hidden nuclear device which destroys much of New York. The human leadership that just surrendered is obviously killed in the blast.

My question is: why did the Machines detonate the nuclear device and kill the human leaders, along with much of New York? What purpose did it serve?

From what we've seen in the rest of the Matrix, the Machines are cold and calculating but not butchers. When there is sufficient cause for violence, the Machines will use it to accomplish their goals, but what goal called for them to destroy the human leadership?

I realize that the instrument of surrender allowed the Machines to take essentially any action without reneging on the terms, but the detonation of the nuclear device seems irrational. For example, at the end of Revolutions, the Architect agrees to free the humans that wish to leave the Matrix. The Oracle inquires if he means to keep that agreement and the Architect seemingly scoffs at the idea of reneging. That suggests that the Machines would not make an agreement they did not mean to uphold, and it seems logical that the Machines would not take any extraneous action beyond the terms of the agreement (e.g. actions out of spite, revenge, etc.).

That is, once the Machines accepted the surrender of the humans, there was no need to kill the human leadership. The humans had been subjugated, the leadership usurped, and the Machines were given complete control. What reason did they have to detonate the nuclear device in the UN building?

Answer 1

There are three possibilities we can glean from what we know. All of them require speculation on our part, however:

Option A - The machines felt that it was a necessary strategic tactic.

The machines may have felt that, despite the treaty, the humans would eventually attempt to rebel or fight back. Therefore, they may have felt that it was a logical, necessary tactic needed to both eliminate the human leadership as well as intimidating the remaining human populace into obedience, in addition to having the treaty signed (for those who would honor such a signing). The machines most likely predict logical outcomes based on scenarios & odds, but the idea of anger & revenge are difficult concepts for them to understand. Therefore, the tactical effects of eliminating New York would far outweigh any side effects such as inciting the humans.

Option B - The treaty was a deception.

Another possibility is that the treaty itself was a deception designed entirely to lure the human leadership into a single location. Keep in mind that one of the recurring themes of the Matrix universe is that the machines had to start thinking like humans to win. Abstract concepts like deception, fallibility & hope are what it ultimately took to make the Matrix work. It's entirely possible that the event you describe was the Machines' first attempt at deception - a tactic they had seen the humans use to great effect.

Option C - The detonation could indicate a rift in Machine philosophy.

While no evidence is seen of this during Animatrix, it DOES appear on-screen in the films. There may be two differing philosophies, or even factions, within the Machines at the time of the signing. Whereas Faction 1 might be legitimately signing the treaty in good faith, Faction 2 could be taking advantage of the opportunity and destroying the human leadership. As we see in the later films, not all machines agree as to what should be done with the humans. Perhaps this incident was an early indicator of that disagreement.

Answer 2

There is some evidence that the machines are less inclined or capable to break the terms of agreements than humans would be. From the ending of Matrix: Revolutions:

The Architect: Just how long do you think this peace is going to last?

Oracle: As long as it can. What about the others?

The Architect: What others?

Oracle: The ones that want out.

The Architect: Obviously they will be freed.

Oracle: I have your word?

The Architect: What do you think I am? Human?

That last line seems to imply that even if it might be to the Machine's advantage to go back on the agreement they made with Neo, something in their nature would prevent them from doing so. Given this attitude, a plausible answer is that they had some sort of moral code about agreements, and that this would include a preference for a surrender agreement in which both sides' obligations were clearly spelled out, even though they had the power to impose the "surrender your flesh" solution without any agreement from the humans. And if the terms of surrender didn't say anything one way or another about the specific fate of the ambassadors, perhaps that was why they had no problem with blowing them up if it they calculated it was to their strategic advantage (perhaps for the reasons Omegacron suggested, decreasing the likelihood of future rebellion by removing the human leadership), once they had already obtained the surrender agreement. If the ambassadors had thought to insert terms saying that they personally would be spared, I imagine the machines wouldn't have blown them up. But if the ambassadors didn't think of this possibility, then perhaps the machines only felt bound to abide by the letter of the agreement, not to any "spirit" of accepting humanity's peaceful surrender that wasn't explicitly spelled out.

Answer 3

To me things are quite simple:

First off, the Machines' faction is not a monolithic block sharing perfectly a single unique value system. Otherwise, the Oracle and the Architect wouldn't even have had those cool conversations, showing their differences.

Second, it has been shown. Not only the Agent Smith which became a "virus", but lots of other programs got "corrupted" (the Wraiths Twins, etc.). Nothing ssays that those kinds of corruptions started only AFTER the Matrix was established. Rogue programs could have been there all along. In fact, maybe it was such Rogue programs that even started off the Human-Robots conflictd in the first place? After all, why would monolithc built to be slaves robots macde to serve down to the way their thought program works would EVER rebel, unless at least one of them went "corrupted" and Rogue in the first place?

So, the Machines society might have tons of viewpoints in it. But to keep things simple for our simpple human brains, let's go with two big ones (which donm't even need a binary distribution "each machien is either of this group or of that group" there may be a lot more or even some contradictory overlaps as in when you have two contradictory opinions and are weighting your options with some amount of doubt on which one is the best choice):

• Some machines just want the end to the war, and live as equals to humans. Those want the signed agreement and intend to fully respect it. Ler's call those machines the "Equalists".

• Some other machines might not thrust the humans enough and want to wipe all of humanity, but they would still find advantage in a signed agreement. Let's call those the "Purists". They would want the treaty signed for the following reasons:

a) Some % of all humans will keep on respecting the full surrender treaty even after the machines wiped the leaders and New York. In order words: this signing would make their intent of getting rid of humanity easier. Even if it is just 0.1% better, its still "better" so why not?

b) Some % of humans would respect a big show of force a bit more (or fall into despair and hopelessness a bit more) if it is demontrated that the humans essentially gave the machines the legal right to do it. Not moral at all, sure. But past human history has shown often enough that a conqueror can ddecide to kill off the surrenderering leaders anyway. Heck some leaders might surrender knowing fulll werlll they're dooomed to die no matter what, but attempt to save their population by doing so. Again even it it is just 1% better, it's better.

c) Crushing the humans but WITHOUT the signing, the machines could have guessed that the odds of the humans just stalling for time to later renege on the agreement, and rally for a counterattac, might vae been high, while crushiign WITH the signing, the little remaining humanity would nssteand tend more to just lose all hope. Meaning, an easier job to control things for the machines. So even if they fully did intend to nuke, the signing costs them NOTHING but will still help them a little bit to manipulate human minds and will to fight back later on.

d) And probably the most important factor of all: the machines sides probably involved a lot of internal arguing that the humans never saw the color of. Maybe the "collective" of all Machines then "votes" somehow to reach a combined "middle ground". Neither sides could achieve "total victory" of it's intents and thus large concessions had to be made to the other side and therefore the final Machine behavior was a kind of "middle point":

• Yes to greatly reduce humanity's remaining numbers and organisation and power.
• No to actually wiping them all out.
• Yes to needing to first get a solid "legal" ground to better justify to the "Equalits" that the "Purists" are allowed to basically commiting a genocide.

To me their behavior is very logical, but them isstakec is thinking that they have one leqader making alll the decisions, like for humans. Their decisions might be muuch more like how the BitCoins protocols decides which transactions on the ledger get approved as "real" and which ones are rejected: it's a consensus of the entire network. Each node might have a different evaluation of the situation, and the final evaluation is determined by minimizing the "stress". Think a big net made up of springs. Each side just pulls as hard it can its way. The entire net however just quickly reaches a state of equilibrium where all springs get pulled both ways more or less with equal strength, something that takes into account all of those forces, yet is not ending up going in the direction of any side, but has it's own dynamics.

Basically, no Machine faction got it's way 100%.

It's like if a bosss thinks paying you 20$/hour is way too much and offers his employees only 10$ an hour. And employees think 20$ an hour is too puny and want 30$ an hour instead.

In a human society, you'd have strikes, scabs, the works. then evenntually the government steps in and say hey i6t's going to ber 20$ an hour, leaving both sides unsatisfied, but at least business can start again and people have work again.

In the Machines world, maybe their internal protocols just force them to rigidly accept that middle ground mediation by the overseeing "the Deus Ex" program. Who knows how many years and CPU cycles the various machines debated amongst themselves before reaching their decision.

Basically, we simply have to not see the machines as a single monolithic "ant farm" intelligence, but as a complex neural network of some kind. Some parts of it might scream "go left!" and some other parts of it might scream "go right!" making the entire system as a whole decide to go straight.

To me that scene made perfect (albeit quite horrible) sense.

Answer 4

Found here it is stated that:

"Eventually brought to its knees by the might of the machines, the U.N. signs an armistice with them. However, after the machines' representative to the U.N. signs the treaty, it detonates a nuclear bomb in the meeting chamber, killing the assembled leaders and destroying New York City, one of the few remaining human settlements, and ending the war."

This implies that the most logical and effective way for the machines to have ended the war, knowing human cunning and deceitfulness (especially when humanity is faced with extinction), was to ensure complete submission. Humans might have decided to submit to the machines by means of survival as well, which explains the signing of the document, but the document was not meant to entail complete surrender:

"An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, since it might be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace." and "The key aspect in an armistice is the end of fighting without the surrender of any party to the conflict."

As a logical machine, knowing human history and the human nature, it would make the most sense to "cut off the snakes head", minimizing human counter-aggression and improving machine-survival dramatically.

Why did the machines sign the armistice anyway, though? The only logical thought behind it is that the machines wanted to make a statement that they did not accept the human ways of war/peace. There would be no further negotiation because the machines saw this as the most effective route, and for the surviving humans humans to understand this, this statement was necessary.

Answer 5

I think that it was a human terrorist attack. Maybe our political heads could sign a treaty with the machines but there is not such a thing as a monolithic human thinking. You can see it in Matrix Reloaded. So, when humanity received the news about the surrender, it is very possible that rebel groups arose.