List of programs and machines in the Matrix series

Below is a list composing of all the artificial characters from "The Matrix" series of science fiction films, comic books and video games.

Films

The following characters appear primarily in the Matrix films, but many are also present in the comic books and video games.

Programs

The following characters are programs that are still fulfilling their purpose within the Matrix.

Agents

Agents are a group of anti-virus programs within the Matrix. Their purpose is to police the system and terminate any entity that may threaten the stability or function of the Matrix, such as Redpills and Exiled programmes.

Original Agents

These are three Agents who originally appear in the first movie, "The Matrix". Smith also appears in the following sequels, but loses his status as an Agent.

Agent Smith

Agent Smith leads Agents Brown and Jones in the mission against the crew of the "Nebuchadnezzar" in "The Matrix". He is destroyed by Neo at the end of the film, but instead of returning to the Source to be deleted, he is compelled to become an exile and causes havoc throughout the Matrix. No longer an Agent, he increases his powers by taking over the bodies of humans and programs alike (including Agents) without leaving his previous body. Thus replicating himself much like a computer virus. He is the system's attempt to balance the 'equation', meaning that he is the opposite (or 'negative') of Neo.

Agent Brown

Agent Brown (played by Paul Goddard) is the agent who chased Trinity across the roof in the first scene of "The Matrix". After Agent Smith is believed to be destroyed, the Machines upgrade their Agent programs, making Agent Brown obsolete. Brown also appears in the comic story "There Are No Flowers in the Real World", presumably set prior to the events of "The Matrix".

Agent Jones

Agent Jones (played by Robert Taylor) is the Agent who tries to shoot Neo in one of the scenes of "The Matrix". He is one of the few characters to appear in both the Matrix comics and one of the Matrix movies. Jones is shot by Trinity (at point-blank range) after his attempt to kill Neo. He is also rendered obsolete after the Agent upgrades.

Upgraded Agents

By the time the story of "The Matrix Reloaded" begins, the Agent programs have undergone an upgrade. They are now strong and fast enough to (temporarily) withstand (and even occasionally block) Neo's attacks, who could defeat their predecessors effortlessly once he realized his powers as The One. However these enhancements came at the cost of their intelligence and weapon accuracy. The original Agents almost never entered battle where hazards could be used against them, failed to make use of hazards themselves, or could miss with their Desert Eagle guns.

Agent Johnson

Agent Johnson (played by actor and martial arts expert Daniel Bernhardt) is the primary member of the upgraded Agents. Johnson succeeds Agent Smith in purpose and appears to be the leader of the upgraded Agents. While more visually imposing than his predecessor, he seems far less effective. Not only does he never successfully shoot a rebel, he is defeated in hand-to-hand combat three times before the trilogy is complete, always because he overconfidently chooses to battle in venues with hazards his opponents can use to their advantage without turning the tables himself. Niobe throws him out the back of an in-flight cargo plane (in the video-game "Enter the Matrix"), Morpheus kicks him from the trailer of a speeding semi, and Ghost flings him into a sparking computer server (electrocuting him). In contrast, Smith chose to engage the resourceful Morpheus in the cramped confines of a bathroom, attempted to pin Neo in front of a train, and later ceased pursuit in favor of ambushing him at the only available hardline.

Agent Thompson

Agent Thompson is one of the upgraded Agents. During the "Burly Brawl" between Neo and a group of Smiths, a Smith possesses Agent Thompson, who arrives at the scene himself. Only the host is overwritten and Thompson returns. He later confronts, shoots and kills Trinity at the end of "The Matrix Reloaded". However, Neo rescues her and subsequently resurrects her using his powers as The One.

Agent Jackson

Agent Jackson is another of the upgraded Agents in the Matrix. He and Agent Johnson attempt to kill the Keymaker, Trinity, and Morpheus in a freeway chase. He later returns to help Agent Thompson fight Trinity at the end of "The Matrix Reloaded". In "Enter The Matrix", Jackson chases Niobe in an underground tunnel at the airport while she was attempting to rescue Axel. Jackson also attempts to kill Niobe and Ghost after the crew of the "Caduceus" is saved.

The Architect

The Architect is first encountered by Neo. Appearing as a manicured, humorless bureaucrat sitting in a room whose walls are covered by television screens in a pivotal scene of "The Matrix Reloaded". He reveals himself as being the creator of the Matrix and is played by Helmut Bakaitis. A sapient computer program, he appears as a white-bearded old man. In an extended period of dialogue, the Architect explains that his role is to 'balance the equation' of the Matrix. This is in order to keep it stable.

The Merovingian

The Merovingian, (played by Lambert Wilson) was named after the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish kings. He is a powerful and dangerous program with the personality of an elitist, bourgeois mannered French gourmet and power broker who enjoys fine pleasantries and scintillating conversations. He is married to Persephone, who resents his philandering. The Merovingian is the leader of a group of Exiles; he employs The Twins and others as his henchmen. He also holds The Keymaker prisoner, and controls The Trainman.

However even though the Merovingian has many guards, and is thus considered powerful, it is unknown if he has fighting capacity. The only time he is face to face with Neo, he flees (in "The Matrix Reloaded", after Neo dispatches his guards).

When The Oracle speaks to Neo of "vampires, ghosts, and werewolves", she is foreshadowing his encounter with the Merovingian and his entourage which includes programs that appear to be ghosts (such as The Twins, who can alter their bodies at will to become incorporeal), as well as vampires. Also among his henchmen are a second set of brothers, Cain and Abel. Named after the real password recovery or hacking tool "Cain", as well as of biblical allusion, Cain and Abel appear to be a middle ground between Vampires and Dobermen. They make their most prominent appearance in the "Enter the Matrix" game. These henchmen are programs that the Merovingian saved from an older version of the Matrix, when they were used to control the humans. However according to Persephone, these monsters created more problems than they solved, therefore they were meant to be returned to the Source and terminated.

The Merovingian's speech that there is "no free will in the world, only lines of causality" closely mirrors the works of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes said that there are only lines of cause and effect in life, and the best one can do is enjoy oneself in life with material pleasures, which the Merovingian does in abundance.

The Oracle

The Oracle is a mysterious but powerful figure, played by both Gloria Foster and Mary Alice. She is incongruously depicted as a cheerful old lady possessing the power of foresight, which she uses to advise and guide the humans attempting to fight the Matrix. Later she is revealed to be a sentient program, who is integral to the very nature of the Matrix itself. Whether her power of prediction is deterministic or not is a concept given much treatment in all three films. She claims that she cannot (like everyone else), see past a choice "we" (i.e. any sapient being bound to logic) do not understand. It becomes clear in the films that her power cannot be used to predict the actions of Neo.

The Oracle is played by Gloria Foster in "The Matrix" and "The Matrix Reloaded", and then by Mary Alice in "The Matrix Revolutions" and "Enter the Matrix". It is explained that this change of appearance was because she needed to find another shell to hide in from The Merovingian. In reality Mary Alice was casted as the Oracle because Gloria Foster died of complications from diabetes, before her role in The "Matrix Revolutions" was shot.

In the "The Matrix Revolutions", the Oracle hints about her purpose which is to bring imbalance, rather than balance to the equations that form and govern the Matrix. In that she is opposed to her counterpart, the Architect. More specifically, the Oracle's purpose is to aid The One and the humans following him by means of the Prophecy (predicting the victory of The One and the fall of the machines), not in order to bring down the Matrix, but rather so that they can voluntarily disconnect themselves from the system. Thus ensuring its stability while also preventing its destruction. As discovered by Neo, the prophecy is the result of "just another system of control". The role of the Architect is then to reunite the One with the Source and bring about the destruction of Zion. The pair together thus ensure that the cycle of the Ones and Matrices continue.

In the final two films, the Oracle succeeds in unbalancing the Matrix (seeing the simultaneous rises of both Neo and Smith) to the extent that it is almost destroyed. However in so doing, she manages to bring about a resolution in which the cycle of Ones and war is ended and peace can be maintained between the Machines and Zion. A 'risky game' according to the Architect, that could have ended up destroying the Matrix and the Machine world.

In conclusion she prepares the elements of the unbalanced equation so that they can be properly expressed and an answer found, it is this answer that will be used in order to create a better revision of the Matrix.

Rama Kandra

Rama-Kandra or probably Ramachandra (a well known Indian name) is a program working in the real world as the power plant systems manager for recycling operations (played by Bernard White).

His first appearance is in "The Matrix Reloaded" when the "Nebuchadnezzar"’s crew are walking towards The Merovingian, he is being escorted away by one of the bodyguards. In "The Matrix Revolutions", Neo meets Rama-Kandra at the train station, along with his wife Kamala and daughter Sati. Sati is scheduled for deletion because she has no purpose, born only out of love. To save her, Rama-Kandra sells the deletion codes for the shell of the Oracle to the Merovingian. He does this at the Le Vrai restaurant, just before the "Nebuchadnezzar"’s crew arrives. In exchange for the codes, Sati is smuggled into the Matrix through the Mobil Avenue train station where she will be put under the care of the Oracle herself.

Rama-Kandra is apparently a program so advanced as to be capable of love. Although this implies having free will, he completely accepts his role, purpose and condition of being, which he refers to as his karma (his way of saying "what I am here to do"). A more accurate term for this would be dharma. Thus soon after Sati is safely smuggled into the Matrix, he will not remain with her but instead return to the Machine world to resume his responsibilities.

Kamala

Kamala is an Interactive Software Programmer from the Machine world played by Tharini Mudaliar in "The Matrix Revolutions". Neo meets Kamala and her husband Rama-Kandra along with their daughter Sati.

Kamala is likely a Mother ("programmer") to other sentient programs ("interactive software"). This suggests that she is directly responsible for the birth of Sati. She may have even been responsible for the existence of the Oracle herself, which might explain how she and her husband could have possessed the deletion codes for the Oracle's shell.

The Trainman

The Trainman (played by Bruce Spence) is a program who works for the Merovingian and is aggressively loyal. He created a virtual subway station called Mobil Avenue Station, the "limbo" (anagram) between the Matrix and the Machine World. Here he is effectively a God and can defeat his enemies with great ease, including Neo. His role is analogous to that of a firewall, preventing Neo from entering the simulated world where his super human abilities could be harnessed and his influence exerted. He also carries a snub-nosed revolver, but is not a very good shot. However, he can fire it far more than six times, the standard capacity. He has long, dirty hair, a half-crazed look, and wears numerous watches on one arm, apparently to track the movements of all the trains in the Matrix.

The Trainman has a very small cameo in the "Enter The Matrix" video game where he tells Niobe some information about the last time the humans fought the machines and failed. He tells her that the previous Zion lasted 72 hours when the machines attacked. The Trainman made a return in "The Matrix Online" as well.

The Trainman may be an allusion to the ferryman Charon,Fact|date=February 2007 reinforcing one of the Merovingian's characterizations within the Matrix as a Hades figure.

Exiles

The following characters are programs that have outlived their purpose or have been replaced by newer and more efficient programs, but have refused to return to the Source. As seen in the Matrix video games and in the Movies, the Matrix is home not only to human minds and the Agents that police them, but also a myriad of other self-aware programs that fill various roles in its maintenance. Everything from weather phenomena to the actions of animals. As long as these programs function properly, they are more or less unnoticeable. But there are those who do not function properly. These are rogue programs — machine intelligences that no longer obey the System — are commonly known, although few humans within the Matrix realize they truly exist. They possess the characteristics, mannerisms and — most importantly — "capabilities" of mythical and legendary creatures such as ghosts or angels, werewolves, vampires, aliens, etc. They are the Matrix's explanation for the paranormal.

The reasons for a program to choose Exile differ, as they are sentient beings with free will: no different from humans. Usually, however, they exist in the Matrix because they face deletion. They may have become inefficient, disobedient, or even obsolete, but the result is the same — there is no place in the machine world for a program without a purpose. The only options such a program has is to either return to the Source — the Machine mainframe — for deletion, or hide in the Matrix. As much an outlaw from the Machine civilization as any Zion infiltrator.

To stay in the Matrix, Exiles requires some interaction with the Merovingian, who through his control of the Trainman, controls traffic between the Machine World and the Matrix. Exiles also use a human 'shell' to occupy in the Matrix, although this is not expanded on in the films. Presumably, a shell is a human body which is still jacked into the power plant which the Exile can occupy. This is similar to how Agents enter the Matrix. However it is known that there exists a "Killcode" for a given shell, enabling the occupying program to be deleted should the Merovingian choose this action. Rama-Kandra and Kamala buy passage to the Matrix for their daughter Sati, by providing the Merovingian with the Oracle's killcode.

They act and look human as much as they possibly can, but their motivations and their perceptions are not human. They possess abilities that Bluepills and inexperienced Redpills would consider to be supernatural, and they seem not to age — they never die unless they are deleted. This is quite a hard feat without the aid of a killcode program, usually related to the weaknesses of their supernatural counterparts.

The Keymaker

The Keymaker is a computer program taking the form of an old Asian man (portrayed by Randall Duk Kim) imprisoned by The Merovingian. Neo, Morpheus and Trinity free him with the help of the Merovingian's disaffected wife, Persephone.

The Keymaker appears to be one of the most valuable and sought-after programs in the Matrix. He apparently played a central role in the early construction of the Matrix, as seen by his control over the maze of hidden corridors that connects doors in the Matrix to each other in a linear fashion. This bears little correspondence to the proximity of the doors in the "real world" of the Matrix (seen by many as a reference to the contrast between the highly-ordered program structures of source code in a high-level programming language and the jumbled-looking assembly code that underlies it . It is implied that the ability to move at will from one building to another in the Matrix was necessary before the current Matrix was fully formed (as when debugging an incomplete and massive program), but his continued access to these backdoors is now seen as a dangerous vulnerability, and the current generation of Agents places a high priority on terminating him.

The Keymaker's cell in the Merovingian's complex is covered with walls of keys, and he is constantly creating more, using the tools of an old-fashioned locksmith. Presumably the keyring he wears allows him to access far more locks than the number of keys he physically carries would grant, as he is seen to always have the key to any door he encounters. Besides having the key for any mundane lock in the Matrix (such as the ignition key for a Ducati 996 motorcycle Trinity steals during his rescue and a Cadillac before the chase scene), he has an endless supply of keys that link doors to the maze of corridors "behind" the Matrix.

In this manner, the Keymaker and his corridors are symbolic of the existence of "backdoors" in massive software programs today. These backdoors are usually locked and accessed through some means of a carefully selected entry sequence, manipulation of the program, altering of a protected configuration setting, etc.

Several characters, including Seraph and the Merovingian appear to own such keys (using them to evade observation and capture by Agents), provided by the Keymaker (from whom Seraph may have obtained keys while working for him). He is shown to carry the key that allows access to the Source separately from all his others, on a chain on his neck, in readiness for when he must give it to Neo.

The Keymaker is killed by Smith copies after helping Neo reach the Door to the Source. He dies with somber acceptance: "It was meant to be." Implying that his purpose has been fulfilled.

Persephone

Persephone (played by Monica Bellucci) is the wife of Merovingian. She is disaffected from her husband due to his philandering. She is envious of the relationship between Neo and Trinity, and offers to help Neo if he kisses her with the same passion with which he kisses Trinity. Reluctantly he complies, and she helps them free The Keymaker.

Persephone also encounters and takes a kiss from either Niobe or Ghost (depending on whose story you follow) in the video game "Enter The Matrix".

In "The Matrix Revolutions", Persephone is seen briefly and warns The Merovingian that Trinity would indeed kill everyone in Club Hel to free her love Neo, from Mobil Avenue.

The character takes her name from the Persephone in Greek mythology, who is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter whom Hades took to the underworld to be his queen. There are allusions throughout the movie that The Merovingian works in the Matrix as an analogue to Hades. In "The Matrix Revolutions", he operates out of an underground club called Club Hel.

Her original purpose was to sample the reciprocal process of love so that it could be correctly simulated by the Matrix.

ati

Sati (played by Tanveer K. Atwal) is a program (also the last Exile), created by her "father" Rama Kandra and "mother" Kamala. She appears in The Matrix Revolutions. Sati is scheduled for deletion because she has no purpose, born only out of love. To save her, Rama-Kandra and Kamala sell the deletion codes for the shell of the Oracle to the Merovingian. He does this at the Le Vrai restaurant, just before the crew of the "Nebuchadnezzar" speaks to the Merovingian. In exchange for the codes, Sati is smuggled into the Matrix through the Mobil Avenue train station where she will be put under the care of the Oracle, who has acquired a new shell. It also appears that Sati has creative power within the Matrix, at least in relation to phenomenon such as aurorae (which she creates in honor of Neo at the end of "The Matrix Revolutions"). In the video game "Enter The Matrix", the Oracle foreshadows that Sati will play an important role in both the Matrix and the real world, but that role remained unrevealed until recently in "The Matrix Online", where she is kidnapped by the General after a lengthy observation, which in turn made the sky turn red, causing catastrophic illnesses for bluepills plugged inside the Matrix. She was shortly rescued by Zion operatives, with the weather returning to normal.

Sati, like every other program and human within the Matrix, was absorbed by the Smith virus. This would explain why he was able to create a storm during the final battle with Neo.

Sati is named after Dakshayani, a Hindu deity (the first incarnation of "Parvati", who is the first wife of Lord Shiva). Sati committed suicide after her parents insulted her husband at a religious function called the "yajna".

Sati also refers to the Sanskrit (and Pāli) word "sati", which is related to the praxis of being mindful (being with what is); "sati" also translates as "consciousness" or "self-consciousness". With this "sati" in mind, she (the girl) is a capacity to see or be conscious of what is, but since this has no pragmatic purpose in a mechanical world, she needs to be smuggled into the Matrix, and there her power expands. She is the lovechild made of energy and creativity.

eraph

Seraph (played by Collin Chou) is the personification of a sophisticated CHAP which guards the Oracle.

In "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions", Seraph is seen acting as a "guardian angel" of the Oracle. In fact, he refers to himself as "Protect [ing] that which matters most", which is further exemplified when he is tasked to help Morpheus and Trinity rescue Neo from the Mobil Avenue train station.

But in actuality he has held this position since long before the timeframe in which the first film took place. It is also learnt in "The Matrix Revolutions", that Agent Smith has tried to hunt him down before. However Seraph managed to defeat him in such attempts. Yet the scenario is different this time, now that Smith has become disconnected from the Matrix and has become an extremely powerful entity himself.

Over the course of the "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" plot arcs, he has three brief altercations with warriors of Zion. The first is with Ballard (seen in the "Enter the Matrix" game), which he stages in order to get to know him and the second with Neo, to prove he is the One. After the conclusion of "The Matrix Reloaded" but before the beginning of "The Matrix Revolutions", Seraph summons Niobe and Ghost to meet the Oracle. He first tests her with another battle, in order to "see her heart's resolve" (or, more technically, a Challenge-response authentication).

In "The Matrix Revolutions", Trinity and Morpheus meet with the Oracle so that she can help them locate Neo. She explains that he lies within a place that is neither the Matrix nor the Real World: a construct created by the Trainman. Seraph she says, knows how to find him, and will lead them to him. The trio departs to the Megacity's subways. Seraph tracks down the Trainman in short order, but after a short chase and exchange of fire, he escapes. Without further action to take to this end, Seraph suggests returning to the Oracle; however Trinity deems that they should meet the Merovingian, for whom the Trainman works. The three make their way to Club Hel and after a battle with a number of the Merovingian's guards, they confront the Merovingian himself. Trinity's threat seems to hold greater gravity than the Merovingian's (due to the standoff she creates, where she, Morpheus, Seraph and the Merovingian all have a gun to their head), and he agrees to free Neo. It is during this scene that the Merovingian calls Seraph "Judas," implying that Seraph betrayed the Merovingian as a parallel of Judas betraying Jesus.

Some time later, Seraph flees with Sati from the increasingly powerful Smith to little avail. In due course, Smith catches up to them and assimilates both. Upon Smith's destruction at Neo's hands, all the minds that Smith had infiltrated are freed from his abduction, including Seraph's.

Seraph makes very brief appearances in "The Matrix Online", composed of one cinematic and as a dev-controlled character in a few live events.

During the Club Hel Coat Check Chaos scene in "The Matrix Revolutions" one of the guards to Club Hel refers to Seraph as "Wingless". In the Christian religion (and other similar religionsFact|date=February 2007) Seraphim are the highest order of angels, overseers of the world. In the story of "The Matrix Online", there are Agents in the system from a previous (presumably the first) version of the Matrix known as Seraphim Agents. The Seraphim Agents in The Matrix Online have wings and dress in white. The names "Wingless" and "Judas" applied to Seraph by exiles seem to reference that Seraph sided with the Merovingian (wingless meaning fallen angel) and then betrayed him (as Judas did to Jesus). Seraph at some point traded in his loyalty to the Merovingian, and has since made his purpose to protect the Oracle.

The Twins

In "The Matrix Reloaded", The Twins are the two silvery henchmen of The Merovingian who can become translucent and move through solid objects. They may be the 'ghosts' the Oracle mentions while explaining exiled programs to Neo.

The twins are first seen with the Merovingian smoking a hookah in Le Vrai. They speak infrequently but do smirk at the fact that neither Morpheus, Trinity, or Neo appear to have the same intellect as The Merovingian. Later when Morpheus and crew free the Keymaker, the Merovingian sends the twins to kill the redpills and recapture the Keymaker. They are dispatched by Morpheus when he causes their vehicle to overturn and explode. They are also shown turning incorporeal as the blast flings them away. In "The Matrix Online", in a set of critical missions where a "cheat code" chemical has managed to scan and attract fragments of the Twins' RSI, strongly indicates the Twins' return. At the end of Chapter 6.1, the Twins are back and fully operational. Along with Zion operative Ghost, the Twins are the only recurring Matrix characters to date, not have voice actors in "The Matrix Online".

In "Enter The Matrix", which chronicles the stories of the crew of the "Logos" during "The Matrix Reloaded", the twins are shown attempting to stop Niobe and Ghost from escaping the Merovingian's mansion via a car chase in the multi-leveled garage.

Adrian and Neil Rayment are professional carpenters who have done stunt work on several movies. They were cast as the Twins because the directors and producers wanted male identical twins skilled in martial arts.

Machines

The following characters are machines that exist in the "real world" of the films and directly threaten the redpills and the inhabitants of Zion.

Deus Ex Machina

Deus Ex Machina is an entity which appears near the end of "The Matrix Revolutions" in the Machine City. It communicates with Neo by causing a swarm of insect like robots to form a human face in front of its own body, which resembles a baby's face.

Neo is able to bargain with it. Neo defeats the program Smith (who has taken over the Matrix and has become a serious threat to the machines in the real world) and the machines accept a truce with Zion. After a duel in the Matrix, Neo submits to Smith, allowing the rogue program to copy over him.

It seems that the Deus Ex Machina is a physical representation of the machine collective, or some sort of a "leader" or emperor of all the machines, or at the very least a representative authorized to speak on their behalf.

The name is Latin, and translated Literally means "god from the machine". The expression refers to Ancient Greek drama, in which many times an apparently unsolvable crisis was solved by the intervention of a god (or sometimes multiple), often brought on stage by an elaborate piece of equipment (the machine). The term Deus ex machina is still used for cases where an author uses some improbable plot device to work his or her way out of a difficult situation.

entinels

Sentinels are described as "a killing machine designed for one thing... search and destroy" (Trinity and Dozer, "The Matrix"). Sentinels are also referred to as "squiddies" and "calamari".

Sentinels are highly effective scouts and lethal combatants. A standard unit of the Machines, and resembling a black-painted mechanized nautilus or octopus, these fast and deadly machines rarely appear alone and are a serious threat for every hovercraft. Besides the ability to float over the surface, each of their multiple tentacles is each tipped with razor-sharp claws and armed with a variety of sensors, limited maintenance/repair devices, and other equipment. The main weapon however is located on the underside of the body: a powerful laser that is able to cut through the metal hull of any hovercraft.

A Sentinel unit can perform different types of mission like patrolling in small groups, escorting bigger units or seek & destroy. They often search out Rebel ships to swarm them and tear them apart. Once they discover their target, it is almost impossible to escape them. Several Sentinels can tear apart a hovercraft and they are intelligent enough to target communication and weapon systems first. Sentinels are most dangerous when working in squads of three or more. They coordinate their attacks and use their tentacles quite effectively, relying on their laser only to cut through hulls and other obstacles. Rebel ships power down when Sentinels are near so they can use an EMP to attack them if the ship is spotted. Later in the series, Sentinels appear armed with silverfish-like "tow bombs", which they can launch at a ship while staying out of EMP range. It is unknown why Sentinels, and probably most other machine-warriors, do not have EMP-safe circuitry to immunize themselves against such attacks. Yet the knowledge about EMP-safe shields is there, as they were able to defend themselves during the nuclear bombing of Zero-One.

Sentinels are frequently used by the Machines to destroy human ships and disrupt their operations ("The Matrix"); they are also the main force during the attack on Zion, the human city ("The Matrix Revolutions"). They are also able to repair or recharge the enormous drilling Machines (known simply as "Diggers" or "Drillers"). The latter are used to drill through to Zion from the surface, thus avoiding the defenses the Rebels had built into the approaching tunnels, and opening a path for the Sentinels to invade the city.

A different model of Sentinel is seen in the Animatrix short, "Matriculated". It possesses a semi-humanoid torso studded with sensors, a tentacle replacing each arm, and a tail instead of legs. It is not to be confused with the Runners, as, unlike them, it has no defined head, it hovers like regular sentinels, and it (presumably) has no ability to transform.

Another only slightly changed Model was seen in the Animatrix short "The Final Flight of the Osiris", one that had knife blades instead of claws.

A great example of post-modern symbolism is at the end of The Matrix Revolutions, when the robotic eyes of the Sentinel machines turn from red to green after they make peace with the human rebels.

=Video Games=The following characters appear primarily in The Matrix video games: Enter The Matrix, , or The Matrix Online.

Programs

Agents

Agent Gray

Gray takes over as the leading Agent as soon as the Matrix is rebooted. He serves as a Controller for Machine-affiliated redpill operatives in The Matrix Online. He is voiced by John Patrick Lowrie.

Gray is one of several Agents trapped in the Matrix during the infestation known as Smith. His program is overwritten with new code, executing instructions which conflict with his primary architecture. When Smith is defeated and Smith's program is withdrawn from the system, Gray is freed, but his ordeal is not yet over.

The Machine Civilization is run by cautious protocols, and there is still some chance that the Smith code has found a place to shelter within the system, or within an RSI. Agents that have been exposed to Smith are quarantined within the Matrix during the reset — something that is usually never done. Bluepills have their connections to the system attenuated so they never notice the event, and Exiles can seek shelter in a construct, but Agents have no such recourse. Those trapped in the system during the reset are literally turned inside out as their code is deconstructed and recompiled with a vicious error-checking routine.

Even afterward, he is not allowed to return to the Source, instead relegated to a buffer system created during the reboot — a gateway construct which acts as a Machine analog to the Merovingian's Mobil Avenue Station. In some ways he is almost an Exile, but for the fact that he believes he will eventually be able to return to the Source.

Description & Style: Due to his current situation, Agent Gray is selected to act as recruiter and Controller for human beings that the Machines believe can assist them in controlling the Matrix. Like all Agents he is normally dispassionate and aloof, with a precise manner of speaking, but his forced dealings with humans have left him with somewhat more understanding of them than most Agents.

When dealing with humans, he uses many euphemisms, as he has found that humans often prefer not to say what they really mean. Death is “cessation of awareness”. Stealing is “expeditious acquisition”. He addresses humans by their gender title and bluepill last name (e.g. "Mister Anderson"), and seems to have a foolproof way of knowing this information about every human he speaks to.

Though Gray resents his assignment greatly at first, he comes to appreciate the fact that he is better at dealing with humans than most other machine Agents. Although he does not enjoy interacting with humans, the fact that he is efficient at it gives him a sense of pride.

Other Agents

Aside from the agents that appear in the Matrix films, many other agents have appeared in the Animatrix, the Matrix comics, and the video games. Agents Ash, Bird, Fine, and White are the only agents named there, but others have appeared as well. Along with other Agents in the game "The Matrix: Online", Agents Gray (that was a leading agent), Skinner, and Pace (a female agent) are named.

The Instructor

First appearing in the short film, "The Second Renaissance", the Instructor (also known as "the Archivist") is a sapient female program in the Zion Historical Archives. She narrates accessed data, including the known history of the Man-Machine War presented in Historical File 12-1. She is sympathetic to both humanity and the Machines, as she never takes either side, but remains neutral and gives her "prayers" to both.

The existence of the Zion Archives and the Instructor seem to contradict Morpheus' comments that the humans of Zion don't know how the war occurred other than that it was the humans who darkened the sky, suggesting either that Morpheus was lying to Neo or the Archive was constructed at a later point in history when man and machine have learnt to live together peacefully. There is also the possibility that the Archive depicted in "The Second Renaissance" is the archive of an earlier Zion that was destroyed by the machines where information regarding the conflict was more detailed.

Exiles

The General

The General (voiced by Jim Gall) is an exiled military program introduced in The Matrix Online. He was revealed to be the commander of the Sentinel army in The Matrix Revolutions in charge of leading the second attack on Zion, and was also implied that he had chased Niobe in either of the tunnel chases in Enter The Matrix and The Matrix Revolutions. Shortly after Neo created the truce in The Matrix Revolutions, the General wanted to continue the attack on Zion, and as a result was removed from military command. Being embittered about losing his sense of purpose, the General and many of his followers entered the Matrix from a computer terminal in a fortress called Stalingrad, assuming the form of Commandos. The General sowed seeds of mistrust in the Matrix by creating Imposter Agents to goad Zion into attacking the Machines, distributed Do Not Trust The Frenchman flyers via Black Hawk helicopters, stole some Agent-related "cheat code" vials from the Machines to give them to Zion, kidnapping Sati after a lengthy observation, and lastly, facilitating the means to assassinate the Oracle.

Flood

Flood serves as a Controller for Merovingian-affiliated operatives in The Matrix Online.

In the Source, Flood was a subroutine of a larger program. He is eventually marked for deletion when a revised, more efficient routine is developed.

Bitter and angry at the Source for deriding his code as non-optimal, Flood makes the decision to jump to the Matrix and become an Exile. He strives for independence and prominence in the Matrix on his own. However, he is discovered by the Merovingian and coerced into working for him. When faced with the threat of being imprisoned in the Blackwood, he instead decides to offer his services to the Merovingian.

In the time since, his work becomes indispensable to the Merovingian, working his way up to a position of great trust and authority. In the wake of the Truce, Flood is given responsibility for running human operatives in the Matrix as a counter to both Zion and new Machine initiative in using humans. He is a vain man, who deeply resents his position as lackey for the Merovingian. Regardless, he plays up his position as one of the most powerful in the Matrix and a role to be coveted. He is always dressed in ultra-stylish clothing, his hair bleached and styled perfectly. In dealing with humans, Flood is sarcastic and sometimes even sadistic, lacing his instructions with qualifiers that suggest his operatives are incompetent. In conversation he hints that he's only biding his time in this subservient position until his true plans come to fruition.

Video Game Exiles

The following exiles are not directly referenced in the films, but are heavily present in the Matrix video games.

Vamps

Vamps, or Blood Drinkers, are Exiles in the Matrix, who were programs that emulated the traits of Vampires from legend. They are pale, tall and skinny, and have a preference for dress in black and leather. In emulating their legend-based counterparts, these Exiles feed on blood (or more specifically, the code present in blood) in order to survive.

They possess great physical strength, resilience, agility and flexibility, and have been known to perform such feats as Hyperjumps, Bullet Evasion, Hyper Acrobatics, and Adhesion (the ability to move across any surface, and stay attached to that surface, without falling off, as seen in the Club Hel Coat Check Chaos sequence) with relative ease. They can also detach at will, and latch onto other surfaces, bounding from surface to surface like a spider).

In the world of the Bluepills, they lead lives that are fast, furious, and dangerous, filled with excesses of lust and wanton violence. If a Vamp does not feed, it becomes weak, and its RSI begins to deteriorate. If they are deprived of sustenance for too long, their RSI becomes unstable, and dissolve into a pile of lost code. Older Vamps can go for long periods of time between feedings.

According to Persephone, "they are notoriously difficult to terminate," shrugging off injuries that would otherwise kill most Exiles. Wooden stakes and crossbow quarrels for the most part kills off weaker, inexperienced Vamps, and seriously injure older Vamps. Older, more powerful Vamps, require at least two stakes to be put down. Also, silver seems to kill them.

Four vamps have names. Cain and Abel are shown in Reloaded. Abel died when Persephone shot him in the head with a gun loaded with silver bullets. Cain died when Neo kicked him through a monument. Cujo and Vlad are shown in Enter The Matrix. Cujo dies when the character drives a stake through his chest. Vlad captures Niobe, and locks her in the chateau's attic. Vlad decides not to take Niobe to the Merovingian, for reasons unknown. Niobe breaks free of her ropes and fights Vlad, who is in the next room. After a lengthy fight, Vlad knocks Niobe to the ground and leaves, saying he has better things to do. Vlad and Niobe later fight a second time in Persephone's bedroom. The only difference this time is that Niobe wins, killing Vlad by stabbing him through the heart with a wooden stake.

Lupines

The Dobermen are lower-level Lupines who have yet to achieve the level of power and influence that mid to upper level Lupines possess. They are noted for their werewolf-like features and appearance. Like all Lupines, Dobermen possess incredible physical resilience towards damage, shrugging off most firearms and injuries as if they were nothing.

Unlike the Vamps, Dobermen are incapable of withstanding involuntary falls, and can die if thrown from great heights. However, like the Vamps, they do possess great physical strength, and use it on occasion to perform Hyperjumps and deliver great blunt force damage. Also, like the Vamps, they possess a similar sense of fashion, and are renowned for their bestial nature they tend to display among the Bluepills.

Their fighting style is similar to Hung Gar, with a few exceptions, adding in moves that are tailored after their bestial nature. Like Vamps, they can be put down by stakes and crossbow bolts, and silver harms them a great deal and is part of their Killcode.

Lupines is the term used for older, more powerful Dobermen. They are what Dobermen seek to be. Lupines possess within their foundation code, the ability to transform their RSI and all of their abilities and powers tied into that form into a huge hulking wolf-man hybrid form. While this has yet to be seen, Lupines have on occasion, manifested very long and sharp claws, which are an extension of the RSI, and another ability tied into their Foundation Code.

They are much harder to kill, requiring twice the amount of silver to put them down, and twice the amount of damage to slow them down. They are unaffected by wood, and are capable of moving very fast, leaping very far, and surviving falls that would kill a Doberman. They are organized into packs, and are led by the Lupine Ookami, who is the dynamic opposite of the Leader of the Blood Drinkers, Malphas. "Ookami" is Japanese for wolf.

uccubus

Beautiful and seductive, these Exiles derive their name from the mythological succubi. They are stronger, faster and more resilient than humans, recovering from most injuries with great speed. A kiss from a succubus can cause euphoria in redpill and Exile alike, and has the potential to kill both.

They are impervious to most injuries, but can be harmed by holy water or water that possesses their Killcode. They are led by Jezebeth, who is leader of the exile gangs, Legion.

Tengu

Exiles that inhabit the Sakura construct Program. They have taken on all of the traits, strengths and weaknesses of the Mythological Creatures they are supposed to be based upon.

eraphim

The Seraphim is the name given to the Agent Predecessors of the Paradise Matrix. Their role was that of Protectors and Guardians, until the Paradise Matrix failed and crashed. The uniforms they wear are similar to Agents, except they are White. They wear Agent earpieces, which presumably function in the same manner as those worn by the current Agents. They also display a pair of beautiful white wings, which allow for them to fly. They are much stronger, faster, and tougher than current Agents, and possess code-related powers that allow them to perform feats far beyond the ability of even Upgraded Agents.

Ethereals

Exiles who are responsible for many of the Alien Abduction Accounts in the Matrix. They dwell underground, and possess green skin, and have the power to become invisible and intangible. They abduct Bluepills and soon to be Redpills, to conduct experiments on them, that vary in what they do and the results they achieve.

Dire Lupine

Upgraded Form of Lupines, that have a unique routines and subroutines added to their Code Structure, that allows for stealth and infiltration. They were created by the Effectuator, to be his bodyguards, and to aid in his research.

Gargoyle

One of the Exile Types found dwelling in both Widow's Moor and Ashencourte, Exile Constructs. They appear as large, muscular men, with dark brown skin, thick brow ridge, bald, black eyes, and a body covered in intricate designs, that seem to be etched or carved into them. They serve as bosses in Widow's Moor and Ashencourte. What their roles are, beyond that; has yet to be seen.

The Dwelling of Exiles

A Domain is a Construct Reality that exists outside of the Core System, and thus does not show up in the Code and is not subject to the reinsertion and reintegration process. Domains are found in the Unformatted Spaces, areas in the subsystem where there is a great deal of unformatted memory used to store the code and data that make up the Matrix reality.

These Shielded Worlds are similar to the Construct Programs created and used by the Redpills, except they are self-sustaining and contain a more complex environment. These pocket worlds are created in a manner that suits the Creator. There, the general routines and subroutines that control gravity, time, and the like, are not as powerful as they would be in the Core Network. Here, physics that affect the growth, shape, and function of animal and plant programs are diluted, allowing for hardier lifeforms.

These strange places, which can appear to be dystopian Gothic cities where it's always raining, majestic fairy-tale castles and landscapes, or places beyond conventional description with architecture that would not be possible in the Core Network, serve as homes to the multitude of Exiles that congregate in the Mega City. Here they can dwell without having to worry about deletion at the hands of Agents, nor do they have to worry about concealing their powers and their true nature, lest they be targeted by Agents or other Exiles.

Machines

B1-66ER

B1-66ER is a machine during the time before the Matrix when humans still controlled the machines. He is the first machine to kill a human. He kills his master (owner), another man, and their pets, and claims it was in self defense because they were planning to have him destroyed, claiming that "He did not want to die". He is declared guilty and is destroyed, leading to the genocide of many other machines, and eventually to the war and to the Matrix.

His name is a reference to the character Bigger Thomas from author Richard Wright's book "Native Son". In that novel, Bigger kills his employer's daughter by accident, after suffering constantly from the pressures of economic and social oppression.

This machine is first mentioned and introduced into the fictional universe of The Matrix on the official website, in the comic strip [http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/rl_middles1_wachdarrtframe.html Bits and Pieces of Information] . This story is expanded into Part 1 of The Animatrix episode The Second Renaissance.

Runners

Runners are seen in the Animatrix short, "Matriculated". They are a type of advanced Machine scout/patrol unit capable of multiple transformation modes. Runners are so named after their function to run over ground instead of the typical hovering that most of the Machines use, since they have no capability to hover and are bound to the ground with their movements. They are even able to swim and mostly appear in pairs.

Runners are able to transform to adapt to the needs of the specific situation and environment. For instance, a Runner is able to transform from "a tentacled insectoid that walks on four spider-like legs" to "a form resembling a humanoid that slides along with its head tentacles and uses its legs as arms tipped with huge claws." Runners are equipped for close combat with these claws, but when they are facing a larger group of targets or spot rebels they can drop off a tracking beacon that alerts the nearest Machines and retreat, leaving the dirty work to the more powerful Sentinels.

Alexa, a member of a small band of rebels on the surface, leads two Runners to their base so they can be converted to the side of humans. One Runner is killed by their guard robot, but the other Runner kills the guard. Alexa then blasts the Runner with a plasma rifle. They then plug the Runner into their dreamscape where the Rebels attempt to convert the runner to their side. It is during this reprogramming that the Sentinels attack the base. When it finally reacts, everyone and everything is dead except for Alexa who was knocked out. The Runner hooks her and itself into the dreamscape where Alexa panics and dies.

References