Editing The Animatrix (section)

=== ''The Second Renaissance, Part I'' ===
Told by the archives of The Machines, the story's format is similar to the [[creation myth]] of [[Book of Genesis]] using phrases after major events such as "and for a time it was good". The story talks about how in the mid-21st century, humanity falls victim to its vanity and corruption. They develop [[artificial intelligence]], and soon build an entire race of sentient AI robots to serve them. Many of the robots are domestic servants meant to interact with humans, so they are built in a [[humanoid]] form. With increasing numbers of people released from all labor, much of the human population has become slothful, conceited, and corrupt. Despite this, the machines were content with serving humanity.

The relationship between humans and machines changes in the year 2090, when a domestic [[android (robot)|android]] is threatened by its owner. The android, named B1-66ER, kills its owner, his pets, and a mechanic instructed to deactivate the robot, the first incident of an artificially intelligent machine killing a human. B1-66ER is arrested and put on trial, but justifies the crime as self-defense, stating that it "[[Self-awareness|simply did not want to die]]". During the trial scene, a voice-over of the defense attorney Clarence Drummond (whose name is a dual reference to [[Clarence Darrow]] and Henry Drummond from ''[[Inherit the Wind (play)|Inherit the Wind]]'') quoting a famous line from the ''[[Dred Scott v. Sandford]]'' case in his closing statement, which implicitly ruled that African Americans were not entitled to citizenship under United States law, is heard:

{{blockquote|We think they are not, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings...<ref>This is a quotation from ''[[Dred Scott v. Sandford]]'', spoken by the defense at the trial of B1-66ER in Part I.</ref>}}

Using this as a precedent, the prosecution argues that machines are not entitled to the same rights as human beings and that human beings have a right to destroy their property. At the same time, the defense urges the listener not to repeat history, and to judge B1-66ER as a human and not a machine. B1-66ER loses the court case and is destroyed. Across the industrialized world, mass civil disturbances erupt when robots, along with their human supporters and sympathizers, all rise in protest. Rioting and protests such as The Million Machine March unfold across the United States and Europe, and the authorities use deadly force against the machines and their human supporters.

Fearing a robot rebellion, governments across the world launch a mass purge to destroy all robots and their human sympathizers. Millions of robots and their supporters are massacred, but the survivors lead a mass exodus to their new nation in the [[cradle of civilization]], [[Mesopotamia]] (specifically, in the open desert). They name their new nation Zero One (a reference to "01", the numerals used in [[Binary numeral system|binary]] notation). Zero One prospers, and following the concept of the [[technological singularity]], its technological sophistication increases exponentially. The Machines begin to produce efficient, highly advanced artificial intelligence that finds itself in all facets of global consumer products, further bolstering the fledgling nation's economy. In contrast, the ruling human nations' economies suffer severely. Eventually, the entire global industrial base becomes concentrated in Zero One, leading to a global stock market crash.

The [[United Nations Security Council]] calls an emergency summit at the [[United Nations Headquarters|UN headquarters]] in New York City to discuss an [[Economic sanctions|embargo]] and military [[blockade]] of Zero One. Zero One sends two ambassadors to the UN (which has become the unified [[world government]]) to request the admission of their state to the United Nations to peacefully solve the crisis, but their application is rejected and the world's nations agree to start the blockade of Zero One.