Vorlonagent

At least the Egyptians drew you a picture...

I suppose it's only right that they also invented the "kids these days..." adult lament.

Pandora is getting more out of this than Tedd is.

Once you create a heavenly hierarchy rather than just a group of gods at the top, everything looks like christianity and its host of angels. Or I suppose it looks like the heavenly bureaucracies of the Eastern mythologies. Self-awareness doesn't help the Google search engine do its job faster or better. ...and we all know what a great addition to the canon lore it was. The screencap webcomic Darths and Droids does the best with midichhloreons of anybody I've seen. I never said "hate". I said "destroy all non power-source humans.". That was the point of view Smith gives us and it's the point of view the Sentinels supported with their actions. The Architect's "destroy only what you mean to rebuild" strategy is not present because (IMO) the Watchowskis didn't intend it. The Matrix, Like the 1977 Star Wars was made to be a standalone film. They wedged the Architect and the altered view of view of the machines that came with him into their universe only after the first film was a hit and they contemplated sequels. The ability to feel hatred seemed particular to Smith. All other Agents we see seem very emotionless. If you want to call this an indication that Smith was already broken, I can go with that. I tend to think something of Neo's One-ness rubbed off on Smith when Neo destroyed him at the end of the first Matrix. When Smith rebuilt himself he became a sort of AI-One. We may remember from Reloaded that Neo gets Smith's earpiece in a box, representing Smith having become something unique and going rogue. Point taken. I'll agree that this or something like this was the premise of Reloaded and Revolutions, but not the first film. It's retcon.

Certainly exactly that happened in the Republican Primary. Everybody who got the Party elites' vote of confidence went down in flames. The Democrat Party elites rigged their Primary so that their candidate of choice had just short of a lock before the first vote was cast. (Apologies for the double post)

The US GDP growth tends toward disagreeing with this. Of course that's short-term. We'll see what happens long-term. Most candidates will create winners and losers across the country when they are elected. One thing at a time. There are plenty of conservatives that argue that control over US border comes first, because nobody will join a guest worker program if they don't have to. Trump has created the environment needed to have such a program. Me, I'd like the program in place first so that workers can move to it straight away with no hitch in the economy from illegals jumping ship from their jobs before the program is up and running. Even for Wisconsin, Trump's election and the general improvement it brings to the US economy could be a net benefit. We'll see. Wisconsin got their cheese made and to market before there were illegals, they'll figure out how to get it done if the supply dries up for good. It will probably involve automation and robotics. It will be interesting to see how quickly Canada actually extends its social programs to the US illegals. That would be the measure of how welcome the US illegals actually are. IIRC (Canadians correct me) Canada tends to take a dim view of people running north just because. The government may let them hang out for a while just to see how things in the US shake out, but that is not the same thing as encouraging them to stay.

The machines didn't exactly have a "sorting hat" to magically tell them where everybody was supposed to go. It's implied that there's only one virtual Earth in the matrix. Late-20th Centry earth would hold the greatest number of people. To be honest I'm not sure I'm not sure why the machines wouldn't run multiple parallel earths, but nobody ever went looking for the Oarcle only to find they're on the wrong server. I used "akin" because Gandalf has the same role in a different mythology. Price Comparators are a part of Google's search code. My point was the EU fuly expected Google to be able to exercise control over their code. I would expect that Gooogle's search code is too complex for a single engineer to keep in their head, but I'm not convinced it's too complex for them to understand. Also the google search engine is not self-aware. The first matrix movie is in many ways similar to the first Star Wars film just using a cyberpunk settng. In both cases the relative simplicity and accessibility of the story combined with some extremely innovative visuals and a little philosophy tucked in around the edges to make an entertaining and compelling film. It's the second film in each of the universes where things diverged. Star Wars wisely doubled-down on the good vs. evil aspect wheras the matrix Reloaded put its phlisophical underpinnings center stage and lost the majority of its audience. That philosophy led directly to The Architect. Smith was an extreme even for an Agent, but the Sentinels actions were completely in line with Smith's thinking. Despite any oddities other AIs might see in him, I think he still accurately expresses the machines' attitude towards humans even if he is more obsessed than most other Agents. The machines can afford a "crunch all you want, we'll make more" attitude to a point. But they need a minimum number of Sentinels to keep the human ships away from targets of interest. Maybe they kept those forces in reserve or maybe they threw everything into their attack. If they threw everything in and got chewed up, there comes a point where they would have to consider a retreat in order to have enough forces to maintain security.

I'm ready for an alternative. I'm about as disenchanted with both mainline parties as I can be without taking up arms.

I usually vote Godzilla myself...

Nor is Agent Smith's version of events anything resembling unbiased. Smith only tells us that they tried creating a "perfect world" and failed. Implicit in Smith's saying "Some thought we didn't have the programming language" to create a perfect world is the idea that they tried multiple different versions of "perfect world" at the very least. Building on that, they probably tried multiple historical settings as well. Which is strange, I agree. In fairness fusion wouldn't help you get to orbit very easily either. At least 50 years, agreed. It takes a while for someone to pass into legend. But if there have been N Ones before Neo, N*[50+ years) gets closer to over 1000 years the larger the time between Ones is and the larger N is. Gandalf was/is something akin to an archangel so there might be some point to not questioning. And calling ancient wise powers on their collective crap is a concept which only came in wide use in the late 20th century. over the algorithms of the search and what gets displayed? I'd expect a lot. The EU recently fined Google a heft sum for the way they presented their results. What I wouldn't expect they do is edit the huge amount of data that goes into which search results to display. Bottom line: Humans control the economic power implicit in the google search engine. If you take Smith in the context of all 3 movies, yeah he was already broken. As Smith himself speculated, he had become "humanized" to a degree. But if you take the first movie by itself, a very clear portrait of the machines emerges with Smith as their spokesman: The machines want to destroy all humans that aren't powering them. The Watchowskis made a lot of clumsy and obvious changes and retcons to shoehorn The Architect and his presentation of the machines into their universe. Reloaded and Revolutions were far less successful than the first because of those changes. I'm not fond of them myself. The machines were also taking punishing losses. We're already agreed that the Architect was presented in the movie as being genuine. The question becomes what show of faith would the people of Zion except? Calling off the attack is not enough. And no, Zion probably would not want the machines' help. But they might need it. Especially if they wanted to recolonize the surface. Without the machines to fight, Zion could turn into a 24/7 dance party. If the machines provide the spotlights and mirror balls it might all be good right there.

Morpheus describes most humans as dependent on the Matrix and especially once they get an idea of what the outside world is like, most aren't going to want to go. Things like the environmental damage inflicted by the humans do tend to correct themselves over the long haul but it is possible that the machines don't have much ability to think laterally. Hundreds would be the way to bet but Morpheus says the humans dont know and the Architect's conversation with Neo suggested any number of prior Ones before him I tend to think I was a bit lucky. I pretty much just threw everything at the wall that Gandalf might say to deflect blame. Losing the will to fight has plenty of connotations. if for example Suron's power drove them to fight, removing it could leave them temporarily drained. neither orcs nor Trolls seem a race to turn meek and mild for any long amount of time. Neither marvel nor DC has gambled their universes on your idea, no. I'm pretty sure people have tried stuff like that with worlds intended for the long haul (Marvel's New Universe from the 80s might qualify it's been 30 years since I read the comics and I don't own any because I didn't like the stories much). It's too obvious an idea to stay entirely on the shelf. Morpheus said "we don't know who struck first." But if independent and uncontrolled machines start amassing economic and military power, any smart human *is* going to be concerned about that. And rightly so. Yesh it's probable that the Watchowskis meant the Architect to be genuine. I tend to think that's retcon. I don't think the machines as presented in the first matrix film would have been genuine though. If "talk is cheap" isn't the right phrase, try "information exchange is cheap." Actions show intent much more plainly than an information stream., no matter how detailed or appealing. What is the Architect willing to do to demonstrate his intentions? Are the machines willing to make reparations? During World War 2, there were still American admirals and generals that distrusted the british..

It is worth pointing out that this a bad-faith negotiator could say the same thing. As the humans say, 'talk is cheap".

Because humans were in some way easier or more economical than nuclear or the machines wouldn't do it. I am aware of how little real-world sense this makes but it is the central conceit of the movies. I'm not sure they should consider it a failure. Their old strategy worked for hundreds or thousands of years. Perhaps they don't yet understand that perfection isn't attainable. If so that will be a shock when they figure that one out. Agreed they get nothing from being mean by its own right but it is an acceptable means to an end. If maintaining security means hurting people, they will maintain security. I do not own a copy of Unfinished Tales. I can speculate. The orcs were on the front lines. They got more of their number killed in the field. Also combine that with their personal loyalty to Sauron. They were Sauron's army not an allied army. I don't remember the humans that allied with Sauron dealing with any losses other than troops and materials that they sent to support the war. What I mean is no army from Gondor or Rohan went out and took the war to those humans. The humans just gabled and lost. IIRC at least some of them were mercenaries and a mercenary is loyal to the coin so it's a loss of a job, which is less personal. That's certainly *a* way of handling it and it might be an interesting experiment. The bottom line is what moves more comics. Certainly the conventional wisdom is the "Our earth...with these exceptions" approach. DC has hit the reset button three times rather than continue a timeline. IIRC, Marvel just did their first reset. That's her. My spelling error.

I wouldn't think the machines would have survived this long by being lawful/Stupid. They made a promise based on gratitude not a suicide pact. And the end of matrix Revolutions gives us nothing more than the machines' word that they'll play very slightly nicer with free-range humanity. The fact that they aren't human does not mean they are implicitly trustworthy. "Oh By the way Frodo I shamelessly manipulated your uncle and his dwarf friends, including Gimli's father, but it was all 100 years ago, it was for the greater good and since I died once inbetween there and ascended, I'm not really the same person. No hard feelings, OK?" Unless Sauron has some mojo that makes all orces automatically follow him 9and he might) word would be still be spreading "Sauron's back!" It could even be that the orcs getting their butts kicked at the battle of the 5 Armies was what drove the orcs to Sauron. Definitely. Comics have tended to idolize artists and ignore writers (with a handful of exceptions, Moore, Gaiman, a few others). With the graphic novel Kingdom Come, everybody remembers that Alex Ross did the art but who remembers the guy who actually wrote the scenes that Ross so compellingly brought to life? It wasn't Ross. The more you change the comics earth the less it looks like our earth. That weakens the reader's ability to relate. That's where graphic novels (like Kingdom Come) have a place. Writers and artists can create radically different worlds for a short-term series that wouldn't necessarily hold their popularity for an indefinite length comic. Cathy Lee Crosby? Her name is Artimis. I had to dig a little to find it because her name never stuck with me. Probably still won't.

For a little while yes. It was restored. You might have been. Romantisizing Rome doesn't seem a part of WW2 beyond the obvious of italy. I don't get that from Nazi Germany or japan. My knowledge of WW1 motivations beyond a webwork of alliances that forced a bunch of nations to fight, is a little murkier. A difference that makes no difference s no difference. If Zion ever actually becomes a threat to machine rule over Earth, I seriously doubt they would keep to a promise made to a dead man. They'd go in a wipe it out again. Neo negotiated a brief cessation of periodic destruction of Zion, but the cycle will either return or Zion's continued existence will never be a threat. Status quo maintained. I'll concede this one... Forcing Smaug to the forfront early sounds like Gandalf's goal in helping Thorin Oakenshield, not that he said anything... Sauron may not have sent the orc army. The rediscovery of The One Ring may have been too soon for Sauron to send an army so much as a bunch of orcs banded together and went to try to take the gold. Not all comics writers are on a par with Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore. That not ho w it works. A part of the Joke being ruled mentally ill means he cannot be held accountable for his actions. The sort of summary execution you are talking about is simply not done in the US. Maybe in Texas but I don't think even in Texas. In the comics, Jason Todd has made a big deal out of Batma's unwillingness to kill the Joker in reprisal for killing him (Todd - yeah he's back alive again). As the Red Hood, jason Todd has been built into the sort of batman that marketing always wanted Bruce Wayne to be right down to creating a dark version of DCs trinity with REd Hood, Bizarro and some girl who was more or less a wonder woman wannabe.

The status Quo was "no orcs in Gondor" Suron's presence raised the threat of a destroyed status quo. Destorying the Ring ended the threat, status quo restored. You don't see that as attempting to return to the status quo under Rome? I do. I already agreed that within the matrix Neo was a revolutionary. Except he wasn't. he never fulfilled the promises he made at the end of The Matrix. he never showed the people a world without the AIs. he never exposed the falseness of their world. The end of Revolutions was unsatisfying exactly because the status quo of "machines in power, humans as slaves" was affirmed. Zion would continue to be allowed to exist because it served the machines' purpose of acting as a safety valve for the Matrix, just as it always had. Humanity would continue to be enslaved just as it always had been. The only thing that Neo did was keep a viral AI (Agent Smith) from changing things. That is literally all Neo did. Nothing else mattered. There have been a bunch of "The Ones" exactly like Neo before and there will be a bunch more after him. the legends of The One were just stories about The One before Neo. The next One will hear stories about Neo. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum. ...which is why I discuss The Matrix by itself. I really dislike the endless useless human striving for freedom which only serves to support the actual slavery. Bilbo may have seen the missing scale when he was in Smaug's treasure room but he didn't as far as I remember, relay that information to the human who shot the black arrow. I don't remember Sauron expressing a preference about a time frame for the battle of the 5 armies, but it makes straigthforward sense that putti9ng a big pot og gold in front of the elves, dwarves and humans to have them at each other's throats just as Sauron's armies were on the march would have been optimal timing. That's a writing problem, really. There's an endless number of good stories to tell. It was the real world that changed, not the concept growing stale. The Joker is mentally ill. You don't execute someone because they're sick. What kind of monster are you?

And then pounces upon them because dancing lesser beings are irresistible to cats. Lord Borwnie never plays for long before suddenly falling asleep. Much to the relief of the lesser beings.

If you think of the status quo as people able to go about their daily business as they see fit, then yeah. But he doesn't affirm the gloomy corrupt aspect of the status quo, so you get a mixed bag that is a qualified yes or qualified no depending on how you want to view it.

DC's marketing dept, writers and editors have had a very very hard time making Superman change with the times. That's why they killed him, changed his powers split him in two and the gods know what else. It's as if the character himself is saying "no" to DC. I consider "Kingdom come" to be great commentary on both the classic Superman and the darker more marketable heroes that sprung up since the mid-80s. he breaks the rules but supports the society.

Dissatisfaction with the status quo was why comics writers (and increasingly editors who want to write or plot from their editor's desk) are uncomfortable supporting it. Some loss of quality is also due to ideology, contemporary politics and virtue-signalling being mixed into the writing as well but this isn't the thread to discuss that part. Yes they were. The Scouring of the Shire was a return to the status quo that existed from before Frodo left. Destroying the One Ring aborted a new dark age that would have further changed the status quo of Hobbiton from what Saruman was already doing. Aragorn's ascendance to the throne of Gondor was a "Return of the King", the resumption of a long-buried status quo . Also it was the resumption of a ruler (call him King or Steward) who was, in fact, sane. I presume sanity in the soverign was the status quo for more of Gondor's existence. I could be wrong. IIRC, the Queen had not been in power all that long. Deposing her didn't create something new, but resumed life more or less as before. Same thing for the Empire. The Empire was still consolidating its hold on the Galaxy after nearly 20 years. It was a deviation from the status quo of relatively benevolent rulership and Luke helped push the galaxy back toward that status quo. Fast-forward to the Episode 7-8 timeframe, the trailers for Episode 8 suggest a movement to something new (not resuming the status quo) with Luke's line, "The Jedi must die". Are you sure about that? I'm going to take just The Matrix by itself because the Watchowskis made a mess of their own universe with Reloaded and Revolutions. Neo was fighting for the survival of the human race in any form besides as a power source for the AIs. Zion, the last human city, was the status quo Neo supported. You are correct that in the artificial world of The matrix, he was a revolutionary. If you mean getting Smaug angry enough to attack the nearby town where a guy lives with the convenient means of killing said dragon, yes. Bilbo's contribution to ending the dragon threat mostly got a lot of people killed however. But I would point out the town's status quo was "no rampaging dragon". But after questioning all of you examples, I'll agree with your point. :). Heroes do not always support the status quo. That's clearly too small a box. In fact the archetypal hero of Joseph Campbell is and must be a revolutionary. By definition he or she comes back home with something new. In superheroes that's represented by the powers they have. Superhero stories don't focus on the journey to get the powers, they focus on what happens once they are back home with their powers. When superheroes save lives, homes, cities, planets, galaxies and universes from destruction or worse, that is by definition a support for the status quo. When they act to overturn governments, hurt or kill people that's villainy. The line is blurred in comics today. Both the Punisher and Venom began life as villains. Who they are, their motives and methods haven't changed, but the morals of the real world into which they are published have changed to the point where they are now heroes.

That's kind of a dynamic built into the basic hero-villain conflict. The villain is always a threat to the status-quo and the hero is obliged to support it. Comics have tried to get away from or subvert this to some degree and the value of their work has tended to decline as a result.

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Scammer post in Off Topic Discussions. user: jambore123

"Man that''s the worst case of 80s hair I've ever seen. We're going to have to operate..."

There's always the possibility of using Raven as a hostage for leverage against Pandora, even though Sirleck might not know it is Pandora he is leveraging at first.