confides to that he has visited the surface of the Earth without permission and that he saw other humans living outside the world of the Machine. Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine.Ĭommunication is made via a kind of instant messaging/video conferencing machine with which people conduct their only activity: the sharing of ideas and what passes for knowledge. describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. The story, set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity lives underground and relies on a giant machine to provide their needs, predicted new technologies such as instant messaging, and the Internet. While clearly not identical by any means, there are parts of The Machine Stops that bear a close enough resemblance to the film to make me wonder if it could be yet another inspiration. Many works, both fiction and non-fiction, have been noted as influences and sources for The Matrix. Forster, the author of A Passage to India, wrote a science fiction short story, The Machine Stops, that was published in 1909.
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