»do programs have physical bodies?«

It's fairly certain that the Exiles don't have physical bodies plugged into the Matrix, since the Machines could just find them and shut them down. But are any of the programs capable of transferring themselves out of the Matrix and into a robot body? Rama Kandra described himself as the power-plant manager. Does he have a physical body when he's not inside the Matrix?

Definitly yes, in the Mxo, the commandos programs could go in the reality through Sentinels.

Also, I think that the programs do live in humans bodies, just like Smith could live in Bane. This is exactly why the machines can't kill them easely, because the exiles can look like humans inside the Matrix, this is probably what they call a "shell".

Remember when the Oracle lost her "shell" ? Merv did it thanks to Rama (who gave the "termination code" of the Oracle's shell to Merv), and since Rama is responsible for the recycling tasks in the Real, we can easely assume that he actually gave the necessary infos to kill the human body of the Oracle. Rama has nothing to do with programs in the Matrix (he works in the real), so if the shell is a virtual thing, why would Merv ask him for such information ?

What do you think ?

Maybe the shell is a virtual thing and the information to destroy it came from Rama-Kandra's wife Kamala. She's an interactive software programmer so she might've created the Oracle. Although the Agents possess human bodies, the Exiles most certainly don't. If they did, the Machines could just kill that human in the real world, which would kill the Exile since Exiles can't jump from one body to another. Also, Neo met Rama-Kandra and his family in the train station before they even entered the Matrix and yet they already had shells.

Exactly what is the relationship between the Commandos and the Sentinels? I understand that the Commandos control Sentinels, probably a group of Sentinels each. While they are in the Matrix, do the Commandos have any connection with their original Sentinel bodies, the way a human in the Matrix still needs their real-life body to survive? Can the Sentinels still function when they're not being controlled by commandos?

Quote:

Maybe the shell is a virtual thing and the information to destroy it came from Rama-Kandra's wife Kamala

Indeed, that's a good argument.

Quote:

Also, Neo met Rama-Kandra and his family in the train station before they even entered the Matrix and yet they already had shells.

Don't forget that they're official programs, they're not Exiles, so they don't need to hide in a human brain.

Also, being connected as a human does not prevent you from entering Mobile Ave, since Neo and Trinity were there. So, if a human can be inside Mobil Ave, Rama can do the same. It seems that Mobil Ave is a gate, this is the very place where programs put on their human shell before entering the Matrix.

Quote:

Although the Agents possess human bodies, the Exiles most certainly don't. If they did, the Machines could just kill that human in the real world,

Yes but the whole problem is to know wich human is that specific Exile in the pods. Or maybe that they're not even in official pods, you know, another hack that Merv managed to have.

There is an argument in your favor though : on Mxo, they said that a Vampire program was kept prisoner in a construct for several centuries, if he was in a human, the body would have died.

On the other hand, it seems that when someone enters a construct, his consciousness is momentally separated from his body (that's what happened to Neo, he said it himself to the Oracle "how did I separate my mind from my body") wich means that his brain (in the real) is momentally waiting for the copy of the human mind (that went in the construct) to come back with all the infos.

That's why Neo was comateous, he was not connected (the doctor would have seen it, but yet she mentionned that Bane was connected but that Neo was in a coma).

Quote:

While they are in the Matrix, do the Commandos have any connection with their original Sentinel bodies, the way a human in the Matrix still needs their real-life body to survive?

Apparently not, because in one of the cinematic, when the Sentinels are destroyed, we see the commandos coming back in the Matrix. But they don't specify if these commandos are those who left just in time of they're those who were in the destroyed sentinels.

I think that it would be illogical for the machines to kill a program just because the body is destroyed (same goes for the Agents, you can kill the host but not the program "Agent").

Quote:

Can the Sentinels still function when they're not being controlled by commandos?

Hmmm... I'm not sure, maybe that they have some basic programs in case they lost communication with their program (for example, go back to the base or to a place where they can receive a signal).

But remember what happened when a Sentinel attacked Neo at a virtual level (the famous scene where the sentinel goes through him). We see that the "virtual Sentinel" (thus the program commanding the machine) left the sentinel body to go through Neo.

The Sentinel was not physically damaged and yet, it was turned off. So I would rather think that they are mindless machines.

I don't remember any scene where a Sentinel goes through Neo. When did this happen?

in revolutions, when Neo and Trinity faced the defense of the machine City.

Note : I have just edited my previous post with more arguments, maybe you can re-read it to check the added info's.