MATRIX RELOADED (may contain spoilers)

[Nev the Deranged]

Wow.

Wow.

I had heard plenty of rumors about the movie (and has anyone but me noticed that there was very little commercial hype?  I don't watch much tv so maybe I just missed it, but I can't recall seeing any advertising other than the billboards).  I had heard that it was all flash and bang and no plot.  I had heard that it was bigger better faster more but no groundbreaking.  I had heard that it was good but not as good as the first one.  To an extent perhaps all of these could be considered true, but only to an extent.

Simply put, see this movie.  Not that anyone wasn't already going to of course.

And for the element that makes this a subject worth posting on the Sorcerer forum, does anyone else think maybe the Wachowski brothers are fans of Charnel Gods?

It's a damn good thing we only have to wait 6 months for the next one.  I see it basically as the Matrix was a prequel, a backstory setting up Reloaded and Revolutions, which are essentially one movie split into two screenings.  As for the final revelation of Neo's most unexpected (although I've been expecting it from the first time I saw the first movie) and startling power... makes one wonder if Zion is on the 13th Floor... if you know what I mean...  But that's just my take on one possibility, we'll see what happens.

The Wachowskis have done the ultimate genre melting pot movie... mixing wuxia pian, horror, supers, cyberpunk, sci-fi, philosophy, thriller, action, fantasy... all stirred together in the same batter, baked in a digital oven and iced with a dollop of sappy love story- makes a damn tasty treat!

And does it strike anyone else as wierd that the Agents have crappy aim?  I mean, you'd think they'd be crack shots.  Although I guess it would be a much shorter movie that way. =>

[wyrdlyng]

Okay, now kicking this into gaming concepts, I have the following questions.

If you were to run a Sorcerer game with a heavy Matrix color would Neo be a demon? (I personally have a theory that he's an AI like the Agents.) And therefore the characters would really be Morpheus and Trinity. How would you handle a shared demon? And I don't think it's brought up in the rules but can demons go off and do stuff or are they somehow bound to the Sorcerer's vicinity? (I'm not sure why I have this impression.)

[Nev the Deranged]

Okay, now kicking this into gaming concepts, I have the following questions.

If you were to run a Sorcerer game with a heavy Matrix color would Neo be a demon? (I personally have a theory that he's an AI like the Agents.) And therefore the characters would really be Morpheus and Trinity. How would you handle a shared demon? And I don't think it's brought up in the rules but can demons go off and do stuff or are they somehow bound to the Sorcerer's vicinity? (I'm not sure why I have this impression.)

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***






Hm.  It's interesting to realize that in the matrix, there is no functional difference between a human and a program acting as one.  And apparently, not in the "real world" either.  Which leads me to believe that what the inhabitants of Zion believe is the real world is merely another layer of the matrix, a la The 13th Floor, which explains A) Why Smith could upload himself into a human body, and B) Why Neo could affect the Sentinels outside the matrix; as well as C) Why the Oracle seems to be able to take meatspace events into account in her predictions.  Although the simpler explanation for that is that she's seen it all happen six times before, and in fact played a part in creating it, which then would mean that she ISN'T really helping the humans... but enough speculation, back to Sorcerer.








*** /SPOILERS ***

Your concept of Neo as a demon is interesting, and not outside the framework of the game, I don't think.   Although I'm pretty sure the Sorc rules forbid multiple people binding the same demon, it could be hacked fairly easily.  Unfortunately I'm not sure how, since I still haven't played >.<    But demons are not bound to the vicinity of the sorcerer unless specified in their creation or by events.  The thing to remember is that there is no long distance communication between sorcerer and demon (even with Link it's limited to "COME!" and that's only one way).  You could take a few Perceptions and maybe combine them with some other things to get an approximated "telepathic" bond, but it seems to me it would be asking for trouble, as it would increase the demon's power until it was hard to control in the first place.  You might just end up watching through the Link as it went around disobeying you.

[Le Joueur]

If anything is a demon in the movie, it'd be the Matrix wouldn't it?  Neo has to take control of it in order to have all the 'kewl powers.'  Furthermore, all of it seems at a steep cost, right?

Taken another step, the matrix is also the demon of agent Smith, right?  Except his Humanity is a lot, lot lower already.  Just a thought.

What I really wanted to say was, wouldn't it be neat if Neo 'changed sides' in the third movie?  Realizing that the people in the Matrix are not enslaved but more free than the people in Zion.  In this way, the matrix becomes a metaphor for reality and Zion (and the real world) are the metaphor for the Lake of Fire/Hell filled with demons who want to corrupt and 'steal' the souls of man.  I mean if shutting down the Matrix and killing 6 billion people isn't Armageddon, what is?

So Neo realizes that the people in the Matrix do have complete free will as they go about their daily lives and there's this splinter group who wants to ruin it for everyone, he decides not to be the 'anti-christ' and walls off the Matrix from Zion's influence.

...Not that I expect it to go that way.  I figure Neo will lobotomize MCP and then either slowly migrate people off the Matrix or make it optional rather than required or destroyed.

Still, considering the relationships between the various characters and 'what the Matrix does for them and asks from them,' I'd suggest that the Matrix was the demon.

Fang Langford

[Valamir]

One could set it up in a variety of diffeent ways depending on the relationship that you wanted to emphasize.

Frex the real sorcerers might be the high muckity mucks of Zion, like that old Counciler dude who talks nicely and treats his demons well vs. Commander Locke who treats his demons like sorcerers.  ALL of the "plug ins" (Morpheus, Trinity, Naobi, etc) would be demon's.  The ships would just be manifestations of one of their Travel Powers.  The entry into the Matrix would be another Travel Power and things like Warp and Armor and Boost would be common.  In this case Neo would be the uber super demon with the really high power and the really lopsided binding roll that you're now REALLY worried about having summoned.  The whole white rabbit pill sequence would be a contact ritual while the journey to the pod plant would be a summoning ritual.  Morpheus...being a demon himself...wasn't really behind either, he was just supporting his sorcerer (perhaps providing bonuses in the form of a Lore Boost).


OR...if you wanted a different angle, you could have the "plug ins" be human and the demon be the Operator.  Each plug-in is bound to a single possessor demon who are all housed in the same host (the Operator).  Only the ship's captain's demon has control over the body of the Operator, but all of the demons are still fully functional...subject to the Operator following the captain's orders.

In this case all of the sorcerers powers within the Matrix are of course demon abilities tied to the user but controled by the Operator.  Such as the scenes where Trinity requests a "download" of a Helicopter Pilot Cover.   Here the contacting and summoning rituals would be the scene where Neo was first introduced to the construct...the white room, the dojo.  The binding ritual would likely be the jump test.  The actual demon powers would be fairly standardized...but the precise power and existance of extra powers would likely be secret (even the initial demon) until trial and error in the Matrix revealed "how good you really are"...i.e. how powerful your demon is.  Neo would have summoned up a big baddie and was unaware of the true power of the demon until after the first movie.