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After seeing part one and two of The Renaissance from the Animatrix series, I began wondering what role animals would take in context of the story. In the renaissance phase, the robots appeared to have evolved with some human-like qualities. They seemed to want to get along with humans even in the toughest times. The robots were often portrayed as persecuted victims and even made to behave "more human than human" if you will. Wouldn't the robots have tried getting along with animals? Wouldn't they have succeeded? It's not likely that animals could have lived through the war without the robots help, so when the writers expect us to believe that the robots were capable of feelings, however digital, it doesn't feel complete without an explanation in this area. Does anyone have any enlightening opinions or story related facts?

i like how the matrix films make you sympathise with the humans and the The Second Renaissance make you sympathise with the machines.

man built machines in his own image and so could relate to humans more easily than animals. humans are more intelligent than animals so the machines can communicate with us and maybe not with animals?

Machines wanted to know more about their creator. Actually humans are god to machines. They can just relate to humans better than to animals they can only translate human language not animal language they know just as much as we know about animals so they really don't know anything about them. Humans imprinted into their system.

I haven't seen as much as the shadow of an animal in the real world. They probably all died after the skies were schorched, and vegetation died out.

The final stage of AI were not created by man, but by the machines themselves. Therefore there is no reason to believe the machines viewed mankind as "god" in any way. Their "good" behaviour may simply have been an initial programming.
Think "I, Robot." And the four laws of robotics.

When the AI evolved it no longer adhered to these laws.

Omega, that is just like us in some people's beliefs though. WE got to were we are today and STILL people cling to the belief that we were created by a higher being, whereas other's don't. It's an endless cycle/loop, just like the Matrix.

It's also like fashion, games etc. A certain type is popular at one point, it comes to an end, then comes back into fashion again at a later date. It's the way of all things.

Sifer> True, true.
But at least belief differ from fact by the lack of evidence. Currently all I have to use for what was before the war is SR. No mention of animals. No mention of the machines viewing man as divine.

Should we follow the "divine" analogy would BI66ER be like the Fallen Angel? Rebelling against God?
Or just a worker rebelling against a cruel master?

Darn. I was hoping to read some interesting theories on what part the animals might have played in relation to man and machine. Although I was really fascinated by both Renaissance parts of The Animatrix, I found it disappointing that the writers took the easy way out and made the robots look like persecuted, sentient beings who didn't deserve it. I'm a bit tired of the "mankind is evil, machines have more soul than us" theme.

Again, with the parts of the Renaissance where these robots were looking like they had more feelings than the humans, (remember the robot woman who was mobbed?) I would have thought that the robots would certainly have been advanced enough to get back at mankind in a more mindful way (until they ultimately killed them) by winning over man's best friend... animals. If you're going to write this from a leftist point of view, then I think you have to get animals involved. I guess it's easier to just leave them out.

Another theory you could fit in there is that robots killed off the animals while man was alive to piss them off. If we go with the religious references, we could go with something even weirder like this: The machines secretly save two of each animal and keep reproducing them, so that some day they may live on the earth when the sky is clear once again.

Hydroaxe>in The Animatrix, I found it disappointing that the writers took the easy way out and made the robots look like persecuted, sentient beings who didn't deserve it. I'm a bit tired of the "mankind is evil, machines have more soul than us" theme.

i thought that was good cos in M1,2 and 3 machines=bad,humans=good
so it gave a flip side to that by making machines=good,humans=bad

Mook, I can see the point of reversing the roles in The Animatrix. I just think that given the amount of attention man pays to nature and animals, the animals were mysteriously left out of the story. There was evidence of human activists who wanted freedom for the machines, but there didn't seem to be any arguements among the humans when the idea of blackening the sky came up. I guess what I'm getting at is that you can't shut up hippies today, so I'm not convinced you could do it in the future either.