The Matrix: Everything That Happened Before The First Movie

These are the biggest events in the Wachowskis’ dystopian mythology that occurred prior to the Matrix trilogy. First unleashed to unsuspecting audiences in 1999, The Matrix became a cultural sensation, its influence seeping through the boundaries of cinema and into mainstream consciousness at large. Keanu Reeves’ Neo discovers the world around him (something vaguely resembling our own pre-millennium reality) is a fabrication. As Morpheus explains, a race of sentient machines overtook Earth and subdued humanity long ago, trapping the remainder inside a simulated existence and harnessing their energy like a battery. Morpheus and his people have been working to liberate humanity from enslavement, and win the war against the Machines.

Since The Matrix begins so long after the fall of man, the Wachowskis’ movie trilogy represents merely the tip of a far larger post-apocalyptic iceberg. The arrival of Neo, his battle against Smith, and peace in Zion is the final chapter of a much larger tome, of which the earlier acts are told elsewhere. Some key events get explained through the abundance of exposition in the Matrix movies, but while Morpheus and The Architect can’t help but regale history, they can’t cover everything, and other sections of Wachowski lore are detailed in spinoff media, such as The Animatrix.

With The Matrix 4 on the horizon, the franchise is due an expansion before 2021 comes to an end. Before moving Neo’s tale and the mythology of The Matrix into the future, however, which aspects of fictional history occurred ahead of 1999’s opening gambit?

The Second Renaissance

The true beginning of the Matrix tapestry begins when mankind first designs machines bearing artificial intelligence, thereby setting itself upon the slipperiest slope in science fiction. Although The Matrix doesn’t reveal exactly how and when AI came into being, The Animatrix shows robots were prevalent across Earth as the primary source of labor by the mid-21st century. The introduction of intelligence synthetic mechanoids led to a period known (ironically, given what was to come) as the Second Renaissance. Humans reaped the benefits of having a workforce that didn’t require a living wage, time off, or coffee breaks, and the machines, in turn, willingly carried out their programmed functions. Things couldn’t be going better.

B1-66ER

Arguably the most significant Matrix event not mentioned in the movie trilogy is the case of B1-66ER. The rich owners of this curiously-named unit wanted to decommission the robot, effectively ending his life. In a test of B1-66ER’s capacity for emotional understanding, he acted in self-defense, brutally killing his master, another employee and several dogs. Though many believed this ‘malfunctioning’ machine should be destroyed for its actions, others defended his right to sentience, and the trial went to court. Predictably, the verdict did not fall in favor of robot-kind. Not only was B1-66ER sentenced to be decommissioned, but the Machine race as a whole was deemed too dangerous to exist, and the computer culling ensued.

B1-66ER’s death inevitably sparked a movement among robots, supported by small groups of humans who empathized with their plight, and the so-called Million Machine March began. An early hint of the war to come, Earth’s police forces and military were charged with putting down as many robot units as possible, while the Machines themselves argued and protested their right to exist, demanding nothing more than the same status their fleshy creators enjoyed.

01 Is Created

Humanity’s Machine crackdown left robot numbers dwindling, but since their method of reproducing is considerably more efficient than ours, wiping them out completely was all but impossible. The Machines retreated to the Middle East and established 01, otherwise known as Machine City, which would serve as their hub of operations all the way through to the Matrix trilogy era. The founding of 01 ushered in another period of peace between the warring races. Machines upgraded and improved, developing new technologies at a staggering rate, such as the hover system that would later be used in Zion. 01 sold these products cheaply to humans, and a cooperative bridge was built.

Once again, however, man sealed its own fate. As 01 became an economic powerhouse, United Nations economies suffered, and relations became frosty once again. Unable to reach a solution, the U.N. launched a nuclear attack upon 01, ending all possibility of peace, and triggering all-out war.

Rage Against The Machines (& Operation Dark Storm)

The resulting conflict proved rather one-sided. Not only were Machine troops infinitely more efficient, but the human economy had become deeply reliant on tech imported from 01, putting man at an immediate disadvantage. Outnumbered and outgunned, the United Nations, in its wisdom, settled on a final gambit known as Operation Dark Storm, which entailed blanketing the planet’s atmosphere in an unyielding layer of perma-darkness, thereby cutting off the Machines’ access to solar energy. Dark Storm was a nice idea, in theory, but the ever-developing Machines once again proved harder to kill than anticipated, and the war rumbled on. Nevertheless, Operation Dark Storm explains why the world above Zion is shrouded by constant darkness in The Matrix, and also why the blue sky emerges during Neo’s final flight in The Matrix Revolutions.

Victory & Early Matrix Failures

Although Operation Dark Storm weakened the Machines’ war effort temporarily, the metal-folk quickly bounced back by unleashing the insectoid units used throughout the Matrix trilogy, which were far more effective against humans. 01’s victory was cemented with an attack on United Nations HQ, crushing Earth’s fleshy leadership and officially replacing it with the cold and metallic soul mankind itself arrogantly brought into being.

During the decades of war, Machines had already devised methods of transforming captured soldiers into energy sources for their newest weapons, but with the sun still blocked out, this needed to be replicated on a far larger scale once the fighting ended. Consequently, human battery farms were built and pods were built – the kind glimpsed when Neo first awakens in The Matrix. For maximum efficiency, the “crops” were sedated using a shared digital realm for the enslaved human minds to inhabit- the titular Matrix.

Naturally, The Architect’s first Matrix build was a veritable paradise, but as Agent Smith explains, the lie was rejected, causing thousands of physical bodies to perish. The Agents themselves were born at this stage, intended as a police force inside the Matrix, acting on behalf of the Machines. A second, nightmarish variant of the Matrix proved equally unsuccessful. It was during this build that The Merovingian, vampires and werewolves came into being, with the slimy underworld boss escaping deletion and founding a population of “exiles” that existed through future versions of the simulation.

The Machines designed The Oracle to tell them where the Matrix was going wrong, and found that a subconscious decision to accept the fabricated world was required, resulting in the Matrix fans are most familiar with. Unfortunately, this process meant 1% would choose the truth, and Zion would be formed as a new resistance to the Machines. The Machines’ solution was to create The One – a program inside a human that would essentially absorb the subversion of the 1%, then reboot the Matrix from scratch while Zion was destroyed. This cycle occurs 5 times before Neo comes along.

Early Years Of Trinity & Morpheus

Based on dialogue within the Matrix trilogy itself, some preceding events involving the characters audiences know and love can be pieced together. Morpheus was unplugged at an unknown time, followed by the rest of The Matrix‘s human characters. We know Trinity was likely a hacker in her old life, and the Nebuchadnezzar crew rescue numerous other humans from enslavement during their early, off-screen adventures. The Animatrix‘s “A Detective Story” tells of one such instance with a man named Ash, who was taken by Agents before Trinity could help him.

Also before The Matrix begins, The Oracle tells Morpheus the prophecy of The One, sending Laurence Fishburne on a long and unlikely quest to find the hero who would free Zion and end the war. There were, apparently, other candidates before Neo. The Oracle also revealed to Trinity how she’d fall in love, anticipating Neo’s breaking of the cycle.

Another snippet of Matrix history can be found in a comic called “The Miller’s Tale.” Set during the early years of the current Zion reboot, Geoffrey and his companions venture out from onto the surface in a mission to learn the process of making bread. They succeed by finding video instructions and equipment on Earth’s ravaged surface, and build a facility for food production, kept secret from the Machines. This helps to explain how the people of Zion keep themselves sustained in The Matrix‘s real world.

About The Author

Craig Elvy
(3631 Articles Published)

Craig first began contributing to Screen Rant in 2016, several years after graduating college, and has been ranting ever since, mostly to himself in a darkened room. Having previously written for various sports and music outlets, Craig’s interest soon turned to TV and film, where a steady upbringing of science fiction and comic books finally came into its own.
Craig has previously been published on sites such as Den of Geek, and after many coffee-drenched hours hunched over a laptop, part-time evening work eventually turned into a full-time career covering everything from the zombie apocalypse to the Starship Enterprise via the TARDIS.

Since joining the Screen Rant fold, Craig has been involved in breaking news stories and mildly controversial ranking lists, but now works predominantly as a features writer.
Jim Carrey is Craig’s top acting pick and favorite topics include superheroes, anime and the unrecognized genius of the High School Musical trilogy.

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