Matrix Games: The Matrix Online: The General's Blog

I recommend that you become familiar with the Matrix Online plotline and read the Kid's Blog before reading this page.

I believe that Anome is the one who runs this blog, and that is why I will be referring to what Anome says on this page. Justification for this theory will be given below. You can see the original General's Blog here.

The Simple Truth - Anome begins by saying the General laughed when he read the Kid's post about the General, and by immediately using Michael Karl Popper (the Kid's real name in the Matrix before he woke up) as an example of people creating mysteries when there is none since Michael believes Neo saved him even though he saved himself.

This point, along with several others, is why I believe Anome is the one who keeps this blog on the General. Putting these points together:

Anome obviously likes the General since he was so eager to please him (see Matrix Online: Chapter 4.1 (Zion)).
The Kid knows some things about Anome that Anome surely wouldn't be proud of (apparent from the Kid's blog). Anome confirms this history with the Kid in the MxO storyline as he makes it clear he hates the Kid (he calls the Kid a "no good punk" - see Matrix Online Chapter 4.2).
As soon as the Kid posts a message about the General, Anome responds to the Kid with another blog because of his admiration of the General.
The very first paragraph of Anome's first posting attacks the Kid .
Anome eventually consumes the case of vials, and one of the posts below show that the blogger comes into possession of the case.

At first, it seems strange that Anome would say "put us in control" in the Kid's Blog (see "Theories of the General" blog), because it suggests the poster is actually a machine. However, considering that Anome was part of Machine experimentation, it is easy to believe that Anome could be a machine program trapped inside of (or taken over) a human mind.

Anome continues by confirming that the General self-exiled himself to the Matrix (without the help of the Merovingian), pointing out that there are still several active terminals on the surface of the Earth that serve as gateways to the Matrix, the Source, "and the other places of virtuality." Apparently, the General is one of many machines "rusting in the rain" from old wars, but whos programs still survive in virtual reality and will never be used again.

According to Anome, the General studied the history of human war and became an admirer of humanity "and its endless martial inventiveness". He therefore decided to help humans, and Anome cites the "case of exilirs" as an example of that help, no matter how unfortunate circumstances of that help may seem (referring to Anome killing other redpills and taking them for himself). The user comments don't say much beyond acknowledgement and fascination by Anome's post.

About Weit - Anome says that the General congratulates all involved in killing Weit, probably referring to some special mission that Matrix Online players were sent on (he congratulates certain players, probably for delivering the final blows). The General also apparently asked Anome to tell the story of how Weit approached the General's commandos, offering information about Zion in exchange for level powers equivalent to a commando. The General turned him down ("since he is here to help Zionites"), but was able to stall long enough to measure Weit's character.

The General determined that Weit was power hungry and only wanted power in order to impose it on others, and that Weit didn't think anything had meaning (that survival alone wasn't worth carrying on). Therefore, the General is happy Weit is gone - "one less digital rat in the maze". There are no user comments to this post.

An Anecdote - The General says that long ago, he helped with the human brain stimulation experiments performed on humans in the human/Machine war (see Pandora's Boxes). He says researchers wanted to see if they could turn a human into a "laughing athlete", stimulating laughter to the point of exhaustion, followed by periods of rest for muscle growth. The subject laughed for 3 hours, slept for 4 hours, laughed for 3 hours, etc., repeating this cycle over 11,000 times. [This would be almost nine years!]

The experiment worked, creating a freakishly-fit torso with very weak limbs. The machines put him in with a community of humans "to see if he'd be a big laugher" (what a demented experiment - shows just how much machines had to learn about humans in order to get the Matrix to work). This experiment failed, because the human begged another man to choke him. After a few weeks, the man did choke him, and everyone in the community was happy to see him die since he was also the loudest wailer and sobber anyone had heard.

User comments are fairly insensitive, including one that says, "Hahahahaaha ... ack!"

The Bad Old Days - According to Anome, the General says the 01/Human war was driven by economics (we already knew this by watching "Second Renaissance" from The Animatrix). We learn that Machine City is located in the former Iraq, and that "chaos in the early 21st century created a failed state in the region", which allowed Machines to purchase the land very cheap. (This is clearly a prediction about the Iraq war under the G.W. Bush administration.) We also learn that depleted uranium contamination "sapped the blood" out of the rest of the world (but of course didn't affect machines).

Humans couldn't compete with machine workers who worked 24/7 and never complained. And, all humans could do was rack up debt to produce more weapons, and there was very little they could sell to machines other than energy, raw materials and "oddly, movies". Machines never grew tired of Hollywood, Bollywood and Hong Kong cinema because they found humans and their "unemulatable emotional lives" so fascinating. Ironically, humans in the Matrix are generally enjoying the ultimate "movie" that Machines are providing to them through the virtual reality of the Matrix.

Anome continues by saying the result (the 01/human war) was predictable because, in the end, all of this led to "bankrupt human governments bristling with weapons." The General didn't like killing humans in the war because of reverence for human life that machines can't shake from their earliest source code. He says this reverence is "inextricable" because Machines wouldn't function at all if they tried to root parts of it out.

Anome continues to say this is why the General wishes to help humans. He says the Machine system supresses this impulse to help humans so that the system can work as a whole, and I presume this means the General has managed to escape this supression. He concludes by saying, "He's willing for there to be some messiness to ensure human freedom. Like Anome." The bold print appears in the original post, and I take this as another clue that Anome is the writer of this blog. He's defending his actions.

User responses point out (and most agree) that Machines may decide the Truce is no longer valid if Anome keeps disrupting operations. What will be interesting is to see how in the world Anome expects to help humanity by attacking other redpills using the "cheat codes" he stole and drank.

The General on Anome - Anome says that the General thinks Machiavelli got a "bad rap", and that Europe wasn't ready for what was written in The Prince. He says the alternative to "sneaky and treacherous leadership" was chaos and civil war. That is why the General apparently "doesn't frown on what Anome did" - he sees it as a natural part of the human power struggle. He is also glad that Anome got the elixirs instead of Agents, for whom they were originally intended.

This whole post sounds like a defensive argument meant solely to justify Anome's actions. Anome's only outside justification for his insanity can only be found by turning to a machine that is five or ten centuries old. Also, a user response points out that the General's only possible motivation for giving humans the exilirs is to disrupt the peace between Machines and humans, saying that Agents would have just destroyed them.

Leon - The picture along with this post shows what is probably Corporal Leon (one of the General's subordinates) before he is killed. The only text for this blog reads, "This should be remembered by all," and it links to an address that seems to be invalid now. Please contact me if you are able to find what this link originally pointed to. It may tell quite a story since one user responded that Anome's goals may be the same as his own. Because of this, I think this and the previous post foreshadow a hidden purpose of Anome's to do something great for humanity using terrible means.

Win Without Fighting - Anome says that the General can quote Sun Tzu verbatim in the original archaic Chinese if he wishes since the General is a program. This would be another example of how the General has studied human masters of war and their "endless martial inventiveness." The General then quoted Sun Tzu:

Generally in warfare, keeping a nation intact is best, destroying a nation second best;

Keeping an army intact is best, destroying an army second best;

Keeping a battalion intact is best, destroying a battalion second best;

Keeping a company intact is best, destroying a company second best;

Keeping a squad intact is best, destroying a squad second best.

Therefore, to gain a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the highest excellence; to subjugate the enemy's army without doing battle is the highest of excellence.

The General is obviously following Tzu's advice by trying to cause fighting among humans and machines without engaging in battle himself.

Gee, You Think? - Anome begins by saying, "Of course they'd say so," linking to yet another webpage that no longer works (click here). My guess is that he is referring to Machines accusing the General of trying to stir things up since Anome says, "The General doesn't deny he's here to stir things up." The General admits to wanting to get leverage against the machines: while the Machines are about self-limiting of liberty, the General is for more liberty.

Some user comments expresses distrust toward the General and believe that Niobe's alliance with the General may spell trouble in the future, while another insists that Niobe's anger toward the Merovingian over Morpheus's death gives her more focus. Another acknowledges that the General is the only way to bring down the Merovingian. Perhaps the most interesting user comment discusses the possibility that an alliance with the General may someday lead to humans and machines fighting side by side on the surface.

Case - This posting is perhaps the strongest clue that this blog belongs to Anome. It says Anome has come across the case of vials, saying it is "suppoed to be pretty important". He acknowledges he wasn't supposed to see it, and that he'd gladly delete the item if anyone wants him to. We know Anome and his followers are the ones who eventually drink the vials. One of the users even directly says that he thinks this is Anome's blog, but someone else says, "If this is Anome's blog, it's not the Anome I know. :O".

Another user points out that the case of vials is only consumable by programs/exiles. Since Anome was able to consume the vials, this helps to support my theory that Anome is a machine program trapped inside of (or taken over) a human mind.

Napoleon's Dictum - Anome says that the General spoke today about Napoleon's famous dictum that states "morale is to the physical as three to one." In other words, fighting men who believe they are winning do things that cause them to win, while fighting men who believe they are losing do things that cause them to lose (such as abandoning posts, breaking formation, etc.). The aim of warfare is not exactly to defeat and kill the enemy, but rather to get the enemy to accept that they have been defeated. Anome says that the General started talking about the Matrix after that, but he didn't catch the meaning since some of the General's men hustled Anome away.

The missing link here (having to do with the Matrix) is easy to fill in. The suggestion here is that the Machines fought in the 01/Human war with the goal of convincing humans that they should give up fighting, rather than to destroy humans. This goal is certainly in line with the "reverence for humans" that makes up the underlying source code of every machine. This may also suggest that humans would have otherwise stood a chance of winning the war if they had not misunderstood the situation and believed they were already defeated.