I like to think the machines actually were using them for processing power, and the humans themselves just misunderstood (or oversimplified for Neo) what was actually going on.

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bee_rider 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Processing power is my second favorite explanation.

My first favorite would have been: they don’t use the humans for anything, the pods are just the most efficient way to store humans. The machines think they are being benevolent, just want peace and quiet and for humans to stop doing dramatic things like scorching the sky. But I don’t know where the plot would go from there.

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jemmyw 2 hours ago | parent [-]

There is backstory that the films could have gone into, though I don't know if it was written before or after the first film. The humans in the matrix were allied with the machines and they put them in the matrix to protect them from the war. They were being benevolent.

	▲	unsupp0rted an hour ago \| parent [-]
		They benevolently feed the dead to the living

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unsupp0rted an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What the humans thought they knew came from the Zion archives mostly. And guess where the Zion archives came from…

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4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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