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Zion is the only human city on the planet Earth in the Matrix trilogy. The city is the launching point for the resistance against the Machines that threaten their freedom.
Zion, a city of over 250,000 humans, is actually a massive series of caverns deep under the ruined planet's surface, close to the planet's core for warmth, power, and protection. To the understanding of the human goverment living there, the location of Zion is unknown to the Machines as described in The Matrix.
Zion is composed of several levels. These include:
- The Dock: A heavily armed and fortified area where Zion's hovercraft dock for recharging and repair. The Dock (and Zion itself) has a single entryway for her ships, which opens up to a long corridor filled with gun turrets and other weapons in the event of attack. When open, at least one APU unit is on guard while the defensive systems are stood down while hovercraft enter or leave the area.
- The Living Levels: The largest area of the city, these series of caverns that form a complex series of levels is the city proper for most of its population.
- The Mechanical Level: Generally unpopulated, these series of purposeful but deliberately simple series of machines keep Zion habitable through waste reclamation, water purification, electrical power, and atmosphere services.
Zion also has a complex library, where the history of humanity (in as much as it can be gleaned from the destroyed fragments found after the first Man/Machine War) are stored.
The Secret
The people of Zion believe that they had fought the Machines for nearly 100 years, as told by Morpheus in a speech made prior to the Machines' final assault on the city.
The humans of Zion believe that their city was built shortly after the destruction of the above-ground cities of man, and the creation of the Matrix. Their history tells of The One, who freed the first humans from the hold of the Matrix. The current year is unknown but Morpheus states it to be closer to 2199, as supposed to Neo's 1999.
The Architect tells the story differently. According to the Architect, Zion is in fact a place allowed to exist by the Machines as a form of control of the 1% of humans who would reject the false reality of the Matrix if left inside, which would likely cause serious issues for the Machines in keeping the human population docile.
Zion is part of a series of events to reload the Matrix after its programming begins to seriously degrade because of its Choice-enabled programming. While the Machines need a place to keep the rebellious 1% of humanity in check, it cannot allow Zion to grow indefinitely. Further, since The One has programming within him that is critical to the reloading of the Matrix (an anomalous event that the Architect cannot remove from the system), the Machines know that the Matrix will crash if both Zion and The One are left to their own devices.
To control this, the Machines devise the Prophecy. Told to Zion operatives by the Oracle, the Prophecy is designed to manipulate the humans into leading The One to meet with what he believes will be the Source, the Machine's mainframe computer, whereby The One will end the Machine War. In reality, once The One enters the Source door, he meets with the Architect and not the Source itself. The Architect tells The One the history of the Matrix and is blackmailed into reloading the Matrix under threat that all of humanity will die if The One does not comply.
Zion, according to the Architect, has been completely destroyed five times by the time that the sixth One, Neo, meets the Architect. As a result, the actual year on Earth is estimated to be closer to 2699, not 2199.
Salvation
Unlike his predecessors, Neo defies the Architect's ultimatum and chooses to save Trinity from certain death. In so doing, he reveals a new truth about the Prophecy: It is, in fact, real. The Oracle gambles on Neo and Trinity's love to break the cycle of destruction for Zion by aiding Neo to realize that his mission was not to meet with the Architect, but to travel to the Machine City itself and confront the Source.
As Neo heads for the city, Zion is besieged by hundreds of thousands of Sentinels, tearing through Zion's defenses and readying to eradicate the populace and Zion's existence once more. But the Sentinels are instructed to stop their attack moments before they would break through to the living area of the city: Neo is in negotiation with the Deus Ex Machina at the time to save the city, and brokers a peace on the condition that Neo remove Smith from the Matrix.
Afte Neo successfully destroys Smith and his clones within the Matrix, the Sentinels retreat, the Matrix is reloaded, and Zion is saved, the cycle broken.