The Matrix – Desert of the Real World

"So, you all want to know what the Matrix is?" Zack asked.

"Yes," Port said.

"An explanation would indeed be useful," Ozpin said.

"I really want to know how things led to that fate for humanity," Ironwood said.

"Well, ok then," Zack said.

Oscar, newly rescued by Ozpin and his crew, was in a robe as Ozpin walked towards him.

"You wanted to know what the Matrix is, didn't you?" Ozpin asked. "Ruby."

Ruby guided Oscar to an old and torn chair with high tech equipment on it.

Oscar sat in the chair and Ruby strapped him in as the others prepared.

Ozpin placed his hand on Oscar. "Try to relax."

Ozpin had Oscar lie down. "This will feel a little weird."

A cable was inserted into the port at the back of Oscar's head, who gave out a silent scream.

Ozpin looked at one of the men, who pressed 'LOAD'.

Oscar opened his eyes and found himself standing in an empty, blank-white space.

"Whoa," Oscar said.

"That's a drastic change in background," Coco said.

"Are they back in the Matrix?" Velvet asked.

"No, just something similar," Zack said.

"Well, whoever designed that needs some decorating lessons," Yang said.

"It's a highly realistic virtual reality," Weiss said. "I think they can make it look however they want."

"All white does send home the message that they're no longer in the normal world," Blake said.

"This is the Construct," Ozpin said.

Startled, Oscar whipped around and found Ozpin now in the room with him. Ozpin was dressed in a smart black suit with a green tie and was wearing sunglasses.

"It is our loading program," Ozpin said. "We can load anything from clothing, to equipment, weapons, training simulations. Anything we need."

Ozpin walked forward and suddenly there were two chairs, a television, a small table and a remote between the two of them where there wasn't before.

"Well, that's useful," Ruby said.

"I wonder what kind of simulations they can run," Clover said.

"A lot," Zack said. "They can also tell physics to take a walk if they want to."

"What, they could fly if they wanted to?" Saphron asked.

"Among other things," Zack said.

"None of it is real though," Robyn said.

"Right now, we're inside a computer program?" Oscar asked.

"Is it really so hard to believe?" Ozpin asked. "Your clothes are different, the plugs in your arms and head are gone."

Oscar looked and found that his hands were plug free.

"Your hair has changed."

Oscar felt his head.

"Your appearance now is what we call residual self-image," Ozpin explained. "It is the mental projection of your digital self."

"That explains it," Penny said.

"So, if our mental self is different from out physical self, does that mean our appearance there would reflect it?" Winter asked.

"What?" Nora asked, confused.

"Basically she's asking if you have to look exactly as you are in the real world," Nicolas said.

"Not necessarily," Zack said. "I mean, I guess a change in gender is possible. Things like hair and skin colour shouldn't be too difficult. I think it's a matter of preference."

Oscar's walked towards the chair and ran his hand over the cracked leather. "This -- This isn't real?"

"What is real?" Ozpin said. "How do you define real? If you're talking about what you feel, what you can smell, you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

"That makes sense," Ruby said.

"Hmm... does that mean I'll be able to feel things from a human perspective?" Penny asked.

"Well, I suppose I could make you a real girl," Zack said.

"Really?" Penny said hopefully.

"I'm not helping you understand puberty though," Zack said.

"Not it!" most of the women there said. Most of them.

"Damn it," Winter cussed.

"Can't be any worse than when you explained it to me," Weiss said.

"An experience I never want to repeat," Winter mumbled.

"Ice Queen giving the Talk?" Qrow said. "Now this I have to see to believe."

Ozpin picked up the remote control.

"This is the world as you know it," Ozpin said, clicking on the television.

The tv showed a normal bustling city. "The world as it was at the end of the Twentieth Century."

Ozpin sat down as various other images were shown of a normal city. "It exists now only as part of a neural interactive simulation that we call the Matrix."

Ozpin changed the channel to show static. "You have been living in a dreamworld, Oscar. This is the world as it exists today."

Ozpin changed the channel again, the tv now showing the ruins of a modern city, dark clouds blotting out the sun.

The camera panned downwards from the city to show that the entire white room had changed to that of a ruined city.

"Welcome, to the Desert of the Real World," Ozpin said.

Oscar looked around himself in horror.

"Hmm, reminds you of anything?" Salem said.

"I wasn't there," Ozpin reminded her. "Though I imagine this is what it looked like."

"Without the skyscrapers," Salem said.

"Are you saying that Remnant was like that once?" Sienna asked in horror.

"Why do you think it's named 'Remnant'," Oobleck said.

"At least there were actual people then," Salem said.

"We have only bits and pieces of information," Ozpin said. "But what we know for certain is that, at some point in the early Twenty-first Century, all of mankind was united in celebration. We marvelled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to A.I."

"A.I.? You mean artificial intelligence?" Oscar said.

"A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines," Ozpin said. "We don't know who struck first. Us or them. But we know that it was us that scorched the sky."

Ozpin pointed at the sky, as thunder rumbled and lightning crackled.

"Why would they do that?" Ilia asked.

"Can't see any reason to blot out the Sun," Roman said.

"Yeah, we need it too," Cardin said.

"At the time, they were dependent on solar power," Ozpin said. "And it was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the Sun."

"Well, they sure shot themselves in the foot," Watts said.

"How are they going to grow anything without the Sun?" Hazel said.

"Cannibalism?" Tyrian suggested.

"Life finds a way," Raven said. "Some people survived, otherwise Oscar wouldn't be there right now."

"Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive." Ozpin chuckled. "Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."

Ozpin looked up as the scene changed to show a human foetus growing in a red pod.

"The human body generates more bioelectricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTU's of body heat," Ozpin said.

The foetus was shown with a cable already connected to its head as spider-like machines crawled over it.

"Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy they would ever need."

"But... the math doesn't check out," Penny said.

"Not to mention how inefficient it is," Watts said.

"Makes no sense to me," Pyrrha said.

"Artistic licence," Nora said sagely.

"Not like the average joe will care about that," Jaune agreed. "All for the sake of the plot."

"How much energy would a billion humans generate anyway?" Adam said.

"Not enough to run a building, let alone a city," Summer said.

Several arms grabbed a few of the foetus pods.

"There are fields, endless fields, where human beings are no longer born. We are grown."

The camera zoomed out to show fields upon fields of these pods, with several giant machines floating over them.

"For the longest time, I wouldn't believe it. But then I saw the fields with my own eyes, watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living and standing there, facing the pure, horrifying precision. I came to realize the obviousness of the truth."

A baby was placed into a pod like the one Oscar was seen in when he woke up.

Pulling back, we see the image of the power plant now on the television as we return to the white space of the Construct.

"What is the Matrix?" Ozpin switched off the tv. "Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dreamworld built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this."

Ozpin held up a coppertop battery.

"Well, that was morbid," Tai said.

"I can't believe that's what humanity was reduced to," Kali said.

"At least there are some who still resist," Whitley said.

"Speaking of said Resistance," Zack said. "Any of you interested in how a fight in the Matrix would go if you took the Red Pill?"

"What do you mean?" Willow asked.

"Won't they still fight like normal?" Oscar said.

"It's a computer simulated world," Ironwood said. "Some rules should be able to be bent."

"Others can be broken," Zack confirmed. "It makes them one man armies in certain cases."

"Ooh, I like where this is going," Ruby said.

"Let's go then," Zack said.