The Matrix trilogy left the fate of simulated humans unanswered.

The Matrix Still Hasn’t Explained Where Children Come From In The Digital World

The Matrix franchise is dense with lore, but one of the longest-running mysteries remains unresolved: the origin of children in the digital world. While traditional procreation is possible among humans, the rules for each version of the simulation remain largely the same, leading to decades of debates about the finer points of how things work both in and outside the Matrix. Most humans living in the Matrix are unaware their reality is generated by machines, making their existence particularly interesting.

The problem lies with the fact that those trapped in the Matrix have physical forms in the Real World, but they’re submerged in tanks that the Machines use to harvest their bioelectricity. This makes it difficult to understand where children come from within the simulation. Two people getting frisky in the simulation are doing so with their minds only, and their bodies in the Real World are likely to be very far away from one another.

There are two main theories that can explain where children come from in The Matrix. The first is that the Machines may need to lend a helping hand when the trapped humans want a baby. According to this theory, the Machine monitors human couplings in the digital world, finds the humans’ bodies in the Real World, harvests their DNA, and grows a new human from that to enter the Matrix.

The second theory is a little more complex while also being far more simple when viewed from a certain point of view. The Matrix Revolutions reveals that Trinity has two children, but they later turn out to be Programs designed by the Matrix to keep her complacent. Therefore, all children in the Matrix may be Programs, and when people are pulled from the simulation, they’re devastated to find out their offspring are works of fiction.