All 8 Cycles Of The Matrix Explained

There have been eight iterations of the Matrix, according to the original Matrix trilogy and The Matrix Resurrections, with only three of them actually featured in the movies. Although the concept of the Matrix simulation is relatively simple in the first movie, the Matrix sequels expanded upon the idea and revealed a lot more background to the stories of Neo and the Matrix. Thanks to the Architect’s conversation with Neo in The Matrix Reloaded, many Matrix mysteries were answered, including how many versions of the Matrix there were before Neo. However, many other questions were also created regarding all those previous cycles.

Up until Neo’s conversation with the Architect in The Matrix Reloaded, most of the Matrix characters believed that there had only ever been one version of the Matrix simulation. That includes Morpheus, who wrongly told Neo that the true year was around 2199. The events of the Matrix franchise most likely happen around 2699, as they follow the sixth iteration of the Matrix. With Zion destroyed and rebuild roughly every 100 years at the end of each cycle, the Matrix was supposed to be an endless loop. The One, a Matrix anomaly present in each cycle, was essential to keep the Matrix loop running. Here’s every Matrix cycle explained.

Related: How Many Humans Were There In The Matrix? What About Zion?

The 1st & 2nd Matrix Cycles Were Designed As Paradise

Considering that The Matrix and its first two sequels take place in the sixth iteration of the Matrix, any information about previous Matrix cycles comes from subtle reveals throughout the movies and other additional material. For example, when Agent Smith is interrogating Morpheus in The Matrix, the soon-to-be rogue program briefly tells the history of the Matrix simulation. According to Smith, the first two Matrix cycles were designed to be paradise. With the machines wanting to keep humans imprisoned forever in a simulation, it seemed only logical for the Matrix to be designed as the most perfect world for humans to live in.

Neo questions the Architect whether the Oracle was the mother of the Matrix, to which the Architect gives a non-answer. As such, it’s unclear whether all famous Matrix programs like the Oracle or Agent Smith had been part of the Matrix since the very first iterations. However, given that the Oracle’s purpose in the Matrix was precisely to understand humanity in order to improve the simulation, it can be assumed that the Oracle had been around since the very first Matrix cycle. It was probably the Oracle who helped the machines understand why the original two Matrix simulations had failed and what should be done differently in the third one.

The 3rd Matrix Cycle Was Supposed To Be The “Real World”

According to Agent Smith, the first two Matrix cycles designed as paradise were an absolute failure. The machines could not anticipate that the human mind would reject a perfect world and that humans could tell right away that something was off with paradise. As such, many humans started to break free from the Matrix simulation. The machines realized that there had to be imperfections in the Matrix, something that emulated how real life plays out. That is why the Matrix simulation the movies later cover is very much a reconstruction of the real world, with humans having to do mundane things such as going to work.

Starting with the third Matrix cycle, it became much rarer for humans to perceive that they were in a simulation. Even Neo, who was destined to be The One, was not fully sure of why he felt that something was wrong. In fact, in The Matrix’s entire canon, there are only two characters who managed to break free of the simulation without external help — that is, without something like Morpheus’s red pill. The “Kid” from The Matrix Reloaded and The Animatrix and Dan Davis from The Animatrix both woke up in the real world after realizing that there was something off about their “real world.”

Related: Why Smith’s Sunglasses Change In The Matrix Trilogy

The 4th & 5th Matrix Cycles Are A Franchise Mystery

There isn’t much in the Matrix canon about the fourth and fifth Matrix cycles. However, it can be inferred that these were the steadiest Matrix cycles compared to everything that happened before and what would happen in the sixth iteration. Long before the events of the original Matrix, the first two Matrix cycles were a failure, as revealed by Agent Smith to Morpheus; the third cycle was one of transition into the new model, and the sixth cycle would be one of revolution. It can be assumed that everything went well for the machines in the fourth and fifth Matrix cycles, with The One eventually choosing to give up the fight and restart the simulation as planned.

The Matrix Trilogy Happens In The 6th Matrix Cycle

The Architect reveals in The Matrix Reloaded that Neo was not the second version of The One, as Morpheus believed, but rather the sixth. That is what establishes the original Matrix trilogy as being set in the sixth Matrix cycle. There were five versions of The One before Neo, separate for each cycle, yet their stories all ended in the same way. The One was destined to fail, and the Matrix simulation would reset every time Zion’s resistance came close to having a chance of winning the Machine War. Neo would eventually have to make the same choice as all previous Ones — so what exactly made the sixth cycle different?

Instead of being just “another One,” Neo was the hero of the story in the sense that he was able to break the cycle. Neo was special not only because of the Prime Program that had been uploaded on him by the machines but because he could act beyond what had been foretold by The Oracle. After merging with Neo in The Matrix, Agent Smith breaks free of his programming and becomes a third party in the Machine War, which also helps explain why the sixth Matrix cycle played out so differently from the previous five. Essentially, a freed Smith battling Neo changed the course of the Matrix and Zion.

The Matrix Trilogy Ends With The 7th Matrix Cycle

At the end of The Matrix Revolutions, Neo guarantees a truce between humans and machines. Neo was the only one capable of defeating Smith and preventing the destruction of the entire world, machines included, which is why the machines agreed to Neo’s terms. Humanity would never be able to destroy the machines, yet the machines would never be able to exist without humans. The Matrix Revolutions ended with the beginning of the seventh Matrix cycle, one in which humans were free to leave the Matrix if they wanted to. The Oracle and Sati were part of this new, almost utopic new Matrix.

Related: The Matrix: What Happened To The Oracle

The Matrix Resurrections Rebooted The Matrix

Neo’s truce seemed perfect at first, as it allowed the symbiotic relationship between humans and machines to continue without removing humanity’s free will. However, the seventh Matrix cycle didn’t last very long, as revealed in The Matrix Resurrections. The fact that humans were now able to leave the Matrix meant that the machines soon began to deal with power shortages, as there were simply not enough people in the Matrix to generate enough energy for the machines. This led to a Machine Civil War that ended with the Analyst’s victory. The Analyst then rebooted the Matrix in what can be considered the eighth Matrix cycle.

The Matrix Resurrections takes place 60 years after The Matrix Reloaded, meaning that the seventh Matrix cycle was shorter than previous iterations. In the Analyst’s Matrix reboot, free will was once again removed, and a lot of the key Matrix programs from the original Matrix trilogy were pruned. That includes the Oracle and the Architect. Fortunately, Sati survived the end of the original Matrix and was able to help Niobe and Neo find Trinity in the future. The Analyst’s Matrix’s main tricks were Neo and Trinity, who were resurrected and re-uploaded to become this new Matrix’s biggest source of energy.

Was Neo The One In Every Previous Matrix Cycle?

When the Architect tells Neo the truth about the Matrix, there are several TV screens behind them, all displaying Neo. The Architect scene in The Matrix Reloaded plays out in a way that suggests that Neo was The One in every previous Matrix cycle and that the character would always end up in that same room speaking with the Architect.

While The One was indeed limited to a seemly endless loop as the Architect revealed, however, nothing guarantees that Neo was all previous versions of The One. In fact, the screens behind the Architect were most likely just a visual representation of how the prophecy of The One works. Who the previous Ones were before Neo and what the specifics were of each Matrix cycle are questions that the Matrix franchise can still explore with prequels.

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