vivarey

Does anyone know how long it might take to repopulate Zion (approx 250,000 people),

Keep in mind, they probably snagged a decent number of people from the Matrix.

Spiky

Hundreds of years. And that's assuming all goes well and 1/3 to 1/2 of the people are actually broken out of the Matrix.

Kinda incongruent with the 100 year history they discuss.

jim_cook87

Not as long as you're thinking. I assumed one generation is 20 years, each woman will have 3 children, 50% of the children will be female, during a generation each person in Zion will free one from the Matrix, and assuming 1/4 of the population will die each generation (80 year life expectancy) I arrive at 488,722 inhabitants at the end of the 11th generation (or 220 years) or 188,898 at the end of the previous generation.

And if I'm not mistaken they never indicated Zion had only existed for 100 years. Based on M1, they believe the year is 2197 while people in the Matrix believe it is 1999. This might suggest (though is in no way conclusive) that the Matrix has been operational for 200 years since the last reset...

Either way, slightly more agressive numbers (4 children per woman, for each person in Zion 2 are freed every 20 years) and we hit 333,125 in 140 years. So, depending on the variables I think 250,000 is a reasonable population for a city anywhere from 120 to 300 years old...

nodeerforamonth

Where did come from? It's

vivarey

I was including - assuming that person would be in on the action too.

Mr. Cornell

Well you have to consider that "freed minds" go to Zion, so while initially the rate of growth will be slow, as the restarted Matrix starts rejecting those who do not accept the programming, the rate of growth will increase.

Also note the line of dialogue, "We freed more minds in the last 6 months than in the last 6 years", suggesting that the period of time immediately before the emergence of the One and while the One is searching for the Source is a time of really fast Zion population growth rate.

vivarey