The One

The One is a human whose mind has superhuman abilities as an avatar within the Matrix.

The powers of The One, as they manifest in Neo while jacked into the Matrix, include: extrasensory awareness of changes within the Matrix code; almost unmatchable speed and stamina; the power of flight; practical invulnerabilty to physical damage; clairvoyance (seen when Neo attempts to remove himself from Mobil Station); and telekinesis. Later, Neo learns he has some abilities outside of the Matrix, in the real world. These powers are: An ability for his mind to seek out and enter other Matrix-like worlds and places if accidentally jacked out; an "inner sight" that allows him to see Machines, Machine-built landscapes and other entities endowed or empowered with Machine programming in a luminous manner (discovered after being blinded by Bane); and the ability to send basic commands to actual Machine entities, such as Sentinels, causing them to self-destruct.

The mechanisms of how The One appears are a mystery, but it can be presumed that the Oracle is aware of The One's origin, as she successfully predicts the return of The One to aid the peoples of Zion by telling Morpheus that he would find The One during his duties to free bluepills from the hold of the Matrix (The Matrix). The Architect also refers to The One as an "eventuality". Neo has doubts that he is actually The One when he first meets the Oracle, who appears as an old woman. She claims that Neo has "the gift," but that he appears to be waiting for something. She makes a prediction: Neo will soon need to choose to save the life of Morpheus, or his own; in any case, one of them will die. (This is the first of three paths that the Oracle defines for Neo.)

Neo's powers manifest after he is shot and apparently killed by Agent Smith while trying to escape the Matrix after rescuing Morpheus from interrogation by the Agents. After a confession and a kiss from Trinity, Neo reawakens in the Matrix, his powers enabled, and easily defeats the agents. Neo attacks Agent Smith, apparently destroying him from within.

The Oracle tells Neo that, in order to save humanity, he must reach the Source, the center of programming power for the Machines, where the Matrix receives its programming. Again, the Oracle has defined a new path for Neo.

During his encounter with the Architect, Neo learns a surprising truth about the Matrix. The Matrix is much older than Morpheus and the humans of Zion realize. The Architect explains that, in addition to two unstable versions of the Matrix, there have been five iterations, or cycles, of the Matrix. In each stable iteration, an incarnation of The One has appeared. Neo is the sixth One to appear in this sixth Matrix iteration.

In each iteration, The One is led by the Keymaker to the door where The One gains an audience with the Architect. The Architect presents The One a choice: Enter the door leading to the Source to reload the Matrix by reinserting the Prime Program, or return to the Matrix. The One is blackmailed by the Architect to enter the Source door by offering a handful of humans to rebuild Zion, which is completely destroyed by the Machines approximately every 100 years. . If The One fails to enter the door to the Source, the Architect warns that the humans inside the Matrix will die when the Matrix destabilizes, effectively making the human race extinct.

Morpheus explains to Neo the story of the fifth One in The Matrix:


 * "When the Matrix was first built there was a man born inside that had the ability to change what he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was this man who freed the first of us and taught us the truth. When he died, the Oracle prophesied his return and envisioned that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix."

Neo, as with his predecessors, discovers that the Oracle's prophecy seems to be a fabrication; a form of control to steer The One to the Source (or, in the case of the Architect, a representative of the Source). If the Architect's story is true, it is presumed that each of Neo's predecessors entered the Source door to give humanity another chance at freedom, and that Neo's predecessors never tell the (new) Zion survivors of the truth of the repeated cycle of the Matrix or of the destruction of Zion.

Neo breaks the cycle of destruction because of his love for Trinity, who he saves from certain death as she falls from a building after ensuring that Neo's initial mission to reach the Source would succeed.

After Neo is rescued from Mobil Station, he meets once more with the Oracle, who defines a final path: Neo must still reach the Source -- not the Architect, but the Machine City itself, where "the path of The One ends."

Neo succeeds in reaching the Machine City and successfully destroys the rogue Smith, whose clones have all but taken over the Matrix, threatening a system crash that would kill everyone in it (Machine and man). After Neo's sacrifice, the Machines uphold the terms of the truce that Neo proposes, and the Machine War ends with the sixth Zion saved from the brink of destruction, and the Matrix successfully reloaded.

It is unclear whether another One will appear in time, but the Oracle suggests this at the conclusion of The Matrix Revolutions.