»agents at the the beginning of Reloaded?«

I've been puzzling over something for a while now.. i couldn't find anywhere else on the forum where its been discussed, but apologies if i am mistaken...

anyway.. in the beginning of Reloaded, when Neo takes on the agents at the captain's meeting... what exactly happens to them? he fights them.. but all he really does is kick 2 of them into the walls and one into a lamp-post and then fight ends.. Neo flies off.

now, maybe i'm missing something obvious here.. but at no point have we ever seen Agents being knocked out.. or unconscious.. and why would we? it's a human weakness that would be completely unnecessary (and pointless) to program into the agents... so what happened to them then? it's not the most crucial point, since Neo flies off anyway... BUT... he did pause enough for me to be sure that the agents are no longer attacking him.

it's something we can ignore.. but i think its a bit of an inconsistency...

also on a similar note.. as i said before.. i don't see why the machines would code programs with a human vulnerability such as being able to be knocked unconscious.. but yet it happens at another point too.. in the chateau fight.. when Neo fights with the sai against the asian dude... he uses the sai to trap him against the wall and knocks him out.. the guy is then out of the fight for the next minute before he joins back in..

it's all about the rules, right? if you're in a shell in the Matrix, you're bound by the rules of that shell. Agents are riding around on human avatars, so while they're faster and stronger, they're prone to the same weaknesses when proper strength is applied...something that Neo has an abundance of.

no i cannot believe that to be the right answer.. if you were bound to the rules of that shell.. then the agents would have no powers.. they'd just be humans...

To quote morpheus in the first movie

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They are living in a system built on rules, rules that you can bend and even break.

He goes on later to explain that the agents still havnt been able to break certain rules, rules like gravity. I think that the agents can get knocked out. if enough damage is done to the shell they are wearing. A human shell can survive only so much.

They do "wake up" from their beating and go after the rebels. In "Enter the Matrix," Agent Johnson is shown chasing Niobe and Ghost until they are saved by the Keymaker.

yeah i know they chase the others at the captain's meeting.. but i'm still not convinced by the unconsciousness thing.. to me.. that's a reaction caused by the human brain, but when an agent inhabits a shell, it is not the shell's brain which is controlling the body, so why would an agent pass out?

the way they had it in M1 seems a lot more satisfactory, where u had to actually kill the human shell to get rid of the agent inside.. who then of course jumps to another shell.

see it this way.... their human shells might give out on them to the point that they can't control movement. When this happens in a fight such as when neo takes on the three agents. It may be some time before the agents are able to get the body to respond to their impulses. The agents themselves quite possibly might be completely fine but the shell they are in refuses to answer their stimuli.

I don't think it has anything to do with the shell. It has more to do with Neo's power. Neo can bend and break the rules. And I'm pretty sure no one else can knock out an agent except for Neo.

i like this explanation better

Well appreciated.

Yes good job!

wAkE_uP_nEo wrote:

in the beginning of Reloaded, when Neo takes on the agents at the captain's meeting... what exactly happens to them? he fights them.. but all he really does is kick 2 of them into the walls and one into a lamp-post and then fight ends.. Neo flies off.

Neo is only keeping them occupied while the captains escape. He doesn't need to kill them.

While I was watching it, I wondered why they didn't make it obvious.

Even tho the shells are human shells, when the agents take over, isnt it a virtual world for cryin out loud! why the hell can they get knocked unconcious if they are programs?

humans can get knocked out becuz their brains are connected to the matrix, but the agents are programs so unless u kill the shell i dont see how it can get knocked out

The agents can be knocked out because the system in based on rules which the agents have to follow. Agents are like deathmatch bots set to difficulty 3000,000. Agents can do the maximum that a human should be able to do if they only believed in themselves. However, Neo can go even further, even fly!

I do think that Grendy's shell theory is perfectly reasonable. There are human shells with certain rules which govern them. I think that the human is still linked to what the agent does because otherwise they wouldn't be dead after the fight - this would also mean that agents may as well enter the matrix anywhere they want regardless of people. The agents need a shell linked to a human mind. If the human thinks they are dead they will be dead and the agent will be unable to use the shell anymore.

The fact the agents turn up later doesn't mean anything. Agents can posess new bodies. I think it is likely that the shells of the agents Neo battles are left with broken spines.

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deathmatch bots set to difficulty 3000,000.

lol, Playin 2 much unreal tourney i can see. I see where ur coming from. One thing i dont understand though is why agents just cant get shells of their own, because human shells are limited, cant they just make a virtual shell?

I think that if Agents had one shell they wouldn't be able to travel as fast because they wouldn't be able to jump from person to person as needed. For example, when they chased Neo towards the end of M1, they were able to get closer to him by going from person to person.

Um... the shells ARE the people.

That's what grendy meant - each person has a shell and agents are limited by what that shell is capable of. It's like when they take someone over they kinda 'optimise' their ability.

im saying that the matrix should create a special shell for the agents that is indestructible and since its is a virtual reality it can teleport ne where it wishes, and do anything, even tho that would really suck for the rebels, and would spoil the movie, im sayin y didnt they just do that?

Oh i see, what Maxi was saying now then.

Yeah, for some reason it seems that the Agents are limited by the humans. It isn't obvious why is it?

I agree, it would definately be a lot easier for the agents if they were seperate from humans with a whole new set of rules.

Because then it would be too hard for the rebels to escape the agents and the overall process of the One returning to the Source etc would be much harder.

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even tho that would really suck for the rebels, and would spoil the movie, im sayin y didnt they just do that?

I know it would suck, i said that already, im just saying its a flaw in the reasoning. It "could" have been done

Also, imagine what would happen to your system if you gave your Agents the ability to do virtually anything they wanted. They'd crash your own system! You wouldn't need the rebels or the humans to do it. One agent goes bad, and you've got a huge mess on your hands.

The Matrix is built on a whole bunch of rules and controls. In order for the virtual reality to still seem "real" to the human mind, you have to place limits on the system, with rules that not only govern the humans, but the machines too. The more leeway you give to machines... the worse things get. For instance, Merovigians staff, while not Agents, came awfully close to possessing the same abilities. They couldn't possess human avatars, but they could kick, swing, jump, and do all the supernatural abilities that agents have. Neo beat the crap out of them, but it was only because he was Neo. It still took him... okay, 3 minutes is still pretty damn fast.

I think that if you gave Agents super admin powers (i.e. go where they want in their own shells with no challenge, etc.) then people like Merovigian would just find the loop hole and take advantage of the same thing. The Machines know each other pretty well. They'd be hacking the crap out of the Matrix if you could do that.

But as it is, no one is able to teleport anywhere. You can't even use the "backdoors" without possessing keys and physically opening and closing doors.

That's my theory on that. Once you start giving people the ability to just "travel" at will, you open a whole new can of worms. Granted, Agents could go human hopping crazy, but it's also on the predication that the victims be willing or completely fooled by the Matrix. Thomas Anderson could never be "possessed" by Agents. Again, another limit to the system.

Knocking out Agents does make sense though. If we say that they're just machines... they shouldn't get knocked out cold, then why do they die when they take bullets to the head? Sure, they could probably get shot in the chest, and being agents, just reject the notion of being shot. But they can't. The rules dictate that they're dying. And the Chateau fight. A guy gets run through with a sword and dies? He's a machine, he knows it's not real, right?

My theory is that the machine AI also has a hard time rejecting the rules of the Matrix. I theorize that the Matrix is such a powerful, virtual construct that even the machine's can't resist the rules. If they could, then you'd have a hundred Neo's flying around.

When they take their shells... any shell, whether their own or someone elses, everyone runs on human shells. The machines can readily bend the rules and resist horrible blows, etc., but there are just some rules they cannot break. Only Neo can really break the rules to an extent that even death doesn't claim him unless he wishes it to.

I think that Neo's ability is just so high, that when Agents try to resist the notion of having their spines cracked or they're thoughts "knocked out" as the rules dictate would happen, they just can't resist it. It's too fast, it's too powerful, they can hardly see it coming.

I never thought of it that way. It makes a lot of sense.

i agree, but also, did anyone realise that they miss all the time, the agents never actually manage to shoot Neo until they're really close.

now its not to hard to give them the ability of allways hitting their target, it wont break to many rules.

the agents are knocked out because it is a sign of weakness. proof that they are not really as strong as they would be if the architect wanted them to kill neo.

just like god has a plan for everyone of us, the architect has a plan for every one of the humans.

It's a lot harder to shoot on target than most people realise - not that I'm speaking from experience, of course.

About this shell-business: don't forget the Matrix is designed to keep the humans asleep. A 'government agent' who is kungfu -ed into next week and still gets back up is going to attract unwelcome attention.

Also, I'd imagine they'd be limited by the constraints of the shell they stole - i.e. the humans, which explains why they can't have special shells.

Any thoughts?