Considering Agent Thompson's reaction during his encounter with Smith moments before being assimilated, it was likely that Smith, having become an Exile, had become such a threat that even Agents feared him.Įxiles had apparently been present since the creation of the first Matrix and some of them were extremely old. However, Exiles like Smith may be considered more than even Humans and caused Agents some degree of fear. For some it opened up whole new avenues and could help them with their continued survival, but for others, like Smith, the concept and experience could drive a program insane. A smart or experienced Exile could easily outwit and even defeat an Agent in battle.įree thought for an Exile could be either a blessing or a curse. As a result, an Exile could plan more effectively and unconventionally in a fight while an Agent was constricted by rigid thought patterns. What made Exiles so different from Agents and what allowed their continued survival in the Matrix is that they were autonomous - independent of the instructions of the Source or their own primary program. Considering how the Twins reacted when faced with an Agent during the freeway chase, it is likely they had many encounters with Agents. In an Agent's eyes, Exiles were less than humans and had to be eliminated to maintain order. Given how Smith referred to Sati as being the last exile, it is very likely that he assimilated all of the surviving Exiles, though the fact Seraph was with Sati at the time (and not assimilated yet) makes it possible that he simply meant that she was the last exile to enter the Matrix.Įxiles deeply hated and feared Agents, who have presumably attempted to hunt and kill them for years for disobeying the Source.
Most sightings of Exiles by humans occured when the programs were going through this stage It is a very painful process that disorients the program to the point it will sometimes appear in public places. The Oracle explained to Neo that the appearance and abilities of Exiles were the result of the system's attempt and failure to re-assimilate the rogue program. This was quite a hard feat without the aid of a kill-code program, usually related to the weaknesses of their supernatural counterparts. They possessed abilities that bluepills and inexperienced redpills would consider to be supernatural and they seemed not to age - they'd never die unless deleted. Rama Kandra and Kamala bought passage to the Matrix for their daughter Sati by providing the Merovingian with the Oracle's kill-code.įor the most part, Exiles acted and looked human, but their motivations and perceptions were not human. However, it is known that there existed a " kill-code" for a given shell, enabling the occupying program to be deleted should the Merovingian choose this action. Presumably, a shell was a human body which was still jacked into the power plant which the Exile could occupy, in a similar way to Agents. Exiles also used a human "shell" in the Matrix, although this is not expanded on in the films.
To stay in the Matrix, most Exiles required some interaction with the Merovingian who, through his control of the Trainman, controlled traffic between the Machine World and the Matrix. To evade this sentence, they remained in the Matrix and existed with fugitive status. If a program had become inefficient, disobedient or merely obsolete, the result was the same: it lacked purpose and thus would be terminated by the machine world. The most common reason was the sentence of deletion.
Reasons for programs to choose exile differed, as they were sentient beings with free will similar to humans'. Because of their seemingly metaphysical qualities, most bluepills mislabeled them either as strange humans or paranormal creatures such as ghosts, angels, vampires, werewolves, aliens or other such beings. Few people saw them and fewer still realized what they really were. These rogue programs - artificial minds that no longer worked for the system - were rarely recognized by people in the Matrix. But there were those which malfunction after a time. As long as these programs functioned properly, they were more or less unnoticeable.
The Matrix was home not only to human minds and the Agents that policed them, but also a myriad of other self-aware programs that filled various roles in its maintained authenticity everything from weather phenomena to animal behavior.