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the animatrix - Did the Agents know about the history of the Matrix and/or previous Ones?


Did the Agents know about the history of the Matrix (the Paradise and Nightmare Matrix, and the transition to the choice-based Matrix) and/or the existence of previous Ones? Most answers assume that the Agents did not know about previous Ones (see, e.g., the answers to this question).


I've been thinking about the Agents' quotes throughout the Matrix universe and there is some evidence that they might know about the history of the Matrix after all. For example:




  • Agent Smith knows about the Paradise Matrix:



    Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.




    Agent Smith doesn't mention the Nightmare Matrix, and the failure of the Nightmare Matrix would seem to disprove his hypothesis that humans "define their reality through suffering and misery". Maybe he really doesn't know about the Nightmare Matrix, but he's interrogating Morpheus in this scene; we can't trust anything he says because he may be lying to Morpheus. In fact, the only reason we now know that Agent Smith was telling the truth about the Paradise Matrix is because the Architect corroborated his assertion in The Matrix Reloaded.




  • Agent Smith has also been around long enough that he chased Seraph while Seraph was an Exile:



    Agent Smith: I remember chasing you is like chasing a ghost.


    Seraph: I have beaten you before.



    Agent Smith must have chased Seraph after the Merovingian was exiled, and before Seraph began working for the Oracle; this was potentially a long time ago, and Agent Smith (and the other Agents) might have learned about previous Ones due to Seraph's close association with the Oracle.





  • Agents (or Agent-like programs) have been needed in the Matrix for a long time: not only have redpills been hacking into the Matrix in all previous choice-based iterations, but Agents are in charge of chasing down Exiles (many of which have been around since the Nightmare Matrix -- e.g. the Merovingian's henchmen). Thus, it is possible that Agents have existed for all or many of the iterations of The One -- in which case the machines would have to wipe their memories just to keep them in the dark about the Ones. And why would the machines keep the Agents in the dark? The Agents are machines and will fulfill their purpose whether they know about the Ones or not.




All this suggests that the Agents do know about the history of the Matrix. Unfortunately, I have not been able to come up with a quote (or other evidence) that conclusively indicates whether or not the Agents knew about the history of the Matrix and/or the previous Ones. Does such evidence exist anywhere in the Matrix canon (films, Animatrix, comics, etc.)? Have the Wachowskis answered whether or not the Agents knew? Or do we simply not know?




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