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Lets say you are on the Nebuchadnezzar jacked into the Matrix. You are also working with crew from the Logos. When the call comes into the hard line it is initiated by the operator on the Logos.

My body is in the Nebuchadnezzar, but my back link is going to the Logos.

So what happens if I pickup the handset?

Jack B Nimble
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    um... don't cross the streams? – Ashterothi Feb 29 '12 at 22:06
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    Comment instead of answer because pure speculation: Probably the mind would end up in the wrong body, so the re-integration protocol on board the ships likely specifies some security precautions to avoid this. This is the one time, we can use the SO default C++ answer on scifi: "Because the standard says so!" :) – bitmask Feb 29 '12 at 22:17

3 Answers3

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I might be wrong, but I am quite sure nothing will happen if wrong person answers the phone. It just won't work.

When the phone rings and there is more than one person around to answer; they are never told who the phone is for - like when Trinity and Morpheus reach the phone booth on Train Station - whoever picks the phone goes into their own body, so there is definitely some way to detect whose consciousness is going where.

As for Agent Smith entering Bane's body, I agree with Jack's comment above, it was still Bane, just taken over by Smith, most probably the tools to detect the right consciousness weren't programmed to check for any such possession, as there has never been anything like Agent Smith ever before.

Aqeel Zafar
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Nothing will happen because the person's consciousness never leaves his or her body -- only a pirate signal is transmitted from the rebel ship (it carries sensory I/O). The phone call is a method of safely terminating the link without killing the person, not a method of returning/downloading anything from the Matrix back to the person. If a person from another ship picks up the phone, whatever handshake that takes place between the Matrix and the ship will not complete and the operator on the person's ship will notice that the connection is still live and will not shut it down.

This is why I argued in another answer that Smith's ability to 'download' from the Matrix into Bane's brain is evidence of Zion being another layer of the Matrix, rather than considering that the interface is capable of transmitting and receiving an entire mind.

Community
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HNL
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    +1 because I agree with Zion being another layer - the problem is, almost every question about the movies can then be dismissed with "Oh, it's just another simulation, so (almost) anything goes..." – Izkata Mar 01 '12 at 17:34
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@bitmask's comment is the answer: They would end up in the wrong body.

There were no protections preventing one of the Agent Smiths from taking over Bane's body, so there's even less possibility of stopping two humans from doing the same thing.

Izkata
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    Well Agent Smith had taken over Bane's consciousness, so it was still "returning" to Bane's body. – Jack B Nimble Feb 29 '12 at 23:09
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    @JackBNimble Returning through Bane's phone. Smith wasn't Bane, so if there was something in the consciousness that gets detected to send people to the right body, then it should have prevented Smith from taking over Bane's body. – Izkata Feb 29 '12 at 23:53