On the verge of defeat, and with so much of humanity under Machine Control, the United Nations, acting for Humanity, executed it's most desperate strategy. That was known as Operation : Dark Storm. As part of Operation : Dark Storm, humanity concluded from the failure of the initial invasion and assault on Zero One that mere surface assaults would not address the deep underground protection which many machines would possess, as I discussed in my previous article on How Machines Could Survive Nuclear Weapons.
In short, they had to strike at what they knew was the Machines' Key source of energy as they had created them : Solar Energy. Each machine collected solar energy to operate, and as a governing feature so that they would possibly feel the need to rest in the dark or be unable to go without supplied energy. Using this knowledge, humanity resorted to a more desperate approach of cutting off the main source of energy so that no matter how sheltered the machines were, they would be starved of their energy regardless.
And so, Operation Dark Storm was carried out. As part of Operation Dark Storm, replicating Nanites were sprayed into the upper atmosphere, forming Dark, electrified, clouds. The Dark Clouds carried out two purposes, blocked Sunlight from reaching the surface, and would block off machines from flying out and above the clouds. All in all, the desperate, and ultimately self-destructive, measure, would contain the machines and give humanity a needed advantage, or would it?
What Was Operation Dark Storm?
Operation Dark Storm was a last ditch act of desperation by the United Nations involving spraying special self-replicating nanites,( microscopic machines which replicate) into the upper atmosphere over the lands occupied by Zero One, forming an extensive cover of dark clouds. The Clouds and the nanites in the Dark Clouds would be highly electrified and resistant to EMP, disabling any electronics who tried to pass through the clouds to access the Sunlight above. The Machines, by this logic, should be trapped and blocked from any access to the light of the Sun. The United Nations approved of this desperate measure having failed previously due to the Machines' Previous Deep Shelters beneath the Earth shielding significant numbers of the machines from nuclear weapons in the Assault on Zero One in 2139. I have another article on Machine Survival.
However, the machines had previously been built to receive energy from the Sun and other light sources. If the machines could shelter from the most destructive weapons on Earth, they most likely could not survive being starved of their energy source for prolonged periods of time, as the leaders of the United Nations believed. According to their reasoning, a dark covering over the land occupied by the Machine Nation of Zero One would starve the machines depriving them of energy so that they would lose the will to fight and operate. The Dark Shroud would hopefully end the conflict, or would it?
Operation Dark Storm being outlined at the United Nations, showing the Machines Nuke Shelters in the lower left of the frame
Unfortunately, while there was an apparent initial triumph following Operation Dark Storm, the consequences proved more disastrous. The Dark Storm effect spread out of control, covering the entire Earth with the same Dark Clouds. This out of control spread of the Dark Storm Clouds resulted in mass global famine, along with the elimination of solar power as an energy source for Humanity. Initial counteroffensives regained a bit of captured territory from Zero One, but in the years following, the tide had turned. Geothermal Energy, nuclear energy, and a new type of energy had emerged in the Machine Nation, only adding more horror to discover what the Machines had been doing to the humans in their territories following their initial conquest of much of Europe and Asia following the Assault on Zero One.
Dark Storm envelops the Earth
Human Energy
The Airborne Artillery Used by the Machines in the later part of the War involved an array of human pods with the hybrid nuclear fusion/human body energy used in The Power Plants
The Battles Under the Dark Clouds revealed that ultimately the Machines had developed a new form of power for their operations in the form of nuclear fusion and human bodies as a power source. As shown above, the machines had this "human energy" source during the War, in which the mobile artillery was powered by this new form of energy, which involved both nuclear fusion and collecting energy from human bodies in the form of heat and electricity from the nervous system. The red glow of the human pods giving an image of their captive power source. These formidable artillery platforms were an earlier use of the human energy featured prominently in The Matrix Franchise. Larger power plants would be built to provide greater, more stable energy for the Machines, but alas, the Machines had overcome with a new means to survive what would have been their doom in the new, Dark World.
Power Plant Under Construction After the War
Following the defeat of humanity, Larger power plants would be built by the Machines, along with the completion of the simulation to keep their permanently confined human populace pacified, in the form of The Matrix. But more questions remain as to how life would work under this new dark world, cut off from the light of the Sun, along with other matters such as why didn't humanity use the Dark Storm Effect on the ground in combat during the war? Those are questions which will be answered shortly.
Life in the Dark
How would you live on a Dark Earth, with no sunlight to aid in the growth of plants for food? How would anything be alive on the new dark, dead world, aside from the Machines themselves? Photosynthesis is neccessary for our main food as we know it in today's world to survive, the grains, the fruits, the vegetables, and the animals which eat those plants, and in turn, the food was not enough to support the human population after Operation Dark Storm was carried out. The Machines took remaining humans who survived to become test subjects to the Matrix and their power generation deriving energy from human bodies combined with the energy of a nuclear fusion reaction, outside of The Matrix, and those who set up a settlement in Zion with Geothermal Energy powering their own agriculture and other life support functions, humanity would die off. But due to mutation, and other biological functions, other life survived on the dark world after the Clouds covered the skies.
In the ruins of the Old World, before the Darkness, a new ecosystem formed from Fungi, which didn't use photosynthesis, along with mutant plants performing a new form of photosynthesis which involved other forms of radiation outside of the visible spectrum which fuels most photosynthesis as we know it. Real world science has shown, outside of The Matrix Franchise, that sometimes fact can literally be more strange than science fiction. Studies after the original Matrix films have shown that there are algae on Earth that grow in dark conditions such as under Arctic Sea Ice, or at the dark deep depths of the Ocean where it is extremely dark, surviving off photosynthesis of infrared or other non-visible wavelengths.
When it comes to living in the dark, there are few places naturally as dark as within a cave, under Arctic Sea Ice, or near hot vents thousands of feet beneath the surface of the Oceans. Deep in the Mariana Trench, algae perform a special kind of photosynthesis, as found from 2018, these algae survive under immense heat and pressure, and using non-visible wavelengths of light for their own autotrophic processes. (1). Beneath sea ice, algae persists, as found from sampling in 2015 beneath arctic sea ice off the northern coast of Greenland. (2). Additional laboratory testing has shown some kinds of algae can grow in the dark, in 2021. (3)
Experiments off Northern Greenland successfully sampled algae growing underneath Arctic Sea Ice in a dark environment
Standard porrige fed aboard The Nebuchadnezzar in The Matrix
If exotic algae and pytoplankton can survive off sulfur, one has to wonder if some of the food eaten by the redpills in Zion or on the resistance hovercraft vessels was actually algae, explaining the rather bitter taste reaction by Neo and possibly others recently freed from The Matrix and accustomed to the virtual taste of food within the simulation, compared to food in the real world. Fortunately, some old world food was actually restored.
This is covered in the spinoff comic for The Matrix known as The
Miller's Tale, for which a more in-depth analysis is provided by NeoMatrixology
The Miller's Tale was published in Volume III of The Matrix Comics in 2003, and a limited edition of the comics volume was given away at the 2003 San Diego Comic Con. Volume 3 was republished in 2023 as part of the 20th Anniversary Special Edition of the publication. An early inhabitant of Zion named Geoffrey had found preserved wheat seeds, which were later taken and wheat grown from these seeds. The wheat seeds were genetically altered to perform photosynthesis using UV radiation. The wheat was initially grown in makeshift tents that functioned as greenhouses, at a distance with electricity pirated from power lines between the Machine Cities. The wheat grown at these hidden greenhouses, far from the larger Machine Cities, was then harvested and taken back to Zion. The wheat was used in making bread products in Zion, adding some traditional old world food for those living in Zion. This persisted until The Machines found the makeshift facilities, and destroyed them in The Battle For the Wheat Fields, where a number of those who grew the wheat were killed, including Geoffrey himself.
After The Machine Forces destroyed the surface farms, they left the bodies of the farmers to rot, judging the energy needed for liquifying the dead to be too much for such a distance from a Power Plant. However, not all wheat was gone, some of the wheat and wheat seeds were left and recovered by a later scouting and salvage team. The recovered wheat seeds were taken to Zion, where a new growing facility was built, protected within Zion itself and not on the surface as before, and Geoffrey's death was honored in a new Holiday in Zion known as the Bread Feast, in which the story of Geoffrey would be narrated before eating the Bread. The events of The Miller's Tale occurred during the latest iteration of The Matrix, and even Morpheus himself grew up living through the celebration of the Miller's heroic deeds.
Young Morpheus (Center Left) listens to the story of The Miller's Tale
Why Didn't Humans Use Dark Storm on the Surface?
Well, the answer is, they actually did use the same principle of Operation Dark Storm in combat, only on a different scale than the deployment of Operation : Dark Storm itself. They deployed barriers or "shrouds" to weaken the visibility of approaching machines, as well as prevent physical advances due to the EMP effects of the nanites in the Operation Dark Storm effect. These temporary shrouds did not hold up for anywhere near the same duration as the original Clouds comprising Operation Dark Storm in the upper atmosphere. Troops wore protective, insulated suits in this shroud, likely to protect against the electrical or EMP nature that the Dark Storm nanites in the shroud possessed. Either due to intentionally weakened nanites, or perhaps the conditions near the surface did not possess the neccessary energy or materials to maintain the dark storm nanites such as the original dark storm clouds of nanites possibly absorbing solar energy to remain sustained, or perhaps the chemical substances needed for the consumption by the dark storm nanites was not as available on the surface as in the upper atmosphere.
Troops in insulated protective suits navigating a "shroud" a miniature protective barrier with similar nanite technology as Operation Dark Storm.
Regardless, the "shrouds" proved insufficient to win the war, as machines marched over the already dead bodies in fields and trenches possibly due to the machines using a combination of artillery fire through the shrouds, and/or some form of chemical and/or biological weapons, which couldn't obstruct weapons fire from the machine hordes, or stop physical deliveries of any biological/chemical agents, if used by the Machines. At the end, some form of Dark Storm was used down on or near the surface, but it wasn't at the magnitude or as sustainable as the original sky nanites for reasons unknown.
Machines advancing over positions once held by United Nations Forces with the troops already dead
Could The Dark Clouds Be Bypassed?
One of the other aspects of Operation Dark Storm was that whatever electronic device, whether a hovercraft or machines of Zero One, would be disabled by the electrified nature of the Dark Storm nanites within the Cloud. The Dark Storm Clouds were EMP-resistant, likely due to the electrified state of the Clouds producing their own EMP which would cancel out the waves of another electromagnetic pulse via destructive interference. There have been, however, uncommon cases of those who made it above the Dark Storm clouds, and saw the Sun.
The Matrix Revolutions
In the Matrix Revolutions, when Neo and Trinity used the vertical barrier of the Clouds to bypass the defenses of Zero One and reach the Central Command of the Machines, Deus Ex Machina, piloted the Logos through the Dark Storm Clouds into the upper atmosphere, with Trinity as the only one to see The Sun, however breifly, in the real world for centuries. With the information that the first versions of The Matrix being short-lived due to severe flaws in their system simulating reality, it's estimated that the events of The Matrix Revolutions are close to, meaning shortly before or shortly after, what would be 2699. The next instance of rising above the clouds of Operation Dark Storm is in the Comic known as Goliath.
Goliath
The cover illustration of Goliath, showing the titular character in his Pod and in The Matrix
Goliath was a short story by Neil Gaiman, where the creation of the story has a history going back to the months before The Matrix was released in theaters in 1999. It was included in Volume I of The Matrix Comics, written by Neil Gaiman, and illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz and Gregory Ruth. In the story of Goliath, Earth was attacked by Extraterrestrials, during which The Machines select a man who survived being temporarily disconnected from The Matrix to become a pilot, whom they codenamed Goliath, after the Giant from Biblical Myth, they grant the man uploaded data on how to pilot the fighter craft, before sending him on a one-way mission to space to perform the neccessary counterattack to stop the Alien threat.
In Goliath entering space, it is apparent that the Machines also built a ship that unlike regular machines or aerial vehicles, could either fly through the Dark Storm Clouds unharmed or they were able to temporarily open part of the Cloud Cover to grant his craft, known as PL-47, access through the barrier. The latter sounds more likely, given how The Machines were unable to provide a successful landing for Goliath after his mission was performed. Aside from Trinity and Neo, Goliath was the other case in which a human had physically flown above the shroud of Operation Dark Storm. The events of Goliath that in limited capacity, the Machines had indeed sent satellites into space to help act as eyes in space in a limited extent in spite of the Dark Storm barrier as well.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this presentation which I, Kaos Nova, of Matrix University have provided, you have come to a greater understanding of the new sky made by Humanity with Operation Dark Storm. Hopefully, you have come to know a bit more of the man made phenomena that was behind of making The Desert of the Real World. I want to recommend checking out more work by NeoMatrixology or VesuveusMxO, other contributors to Matrix University Content. Also check out more content using the hashtag of #matrixuniversity.
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