The beginning of the story is rather simple. Sometime at the end of the 20th century the humans build robots whose “brains” had artificial intelligence (AI). This was in the USA and, possibly, in other countries as well. The robots were doing all the heavy and unpleasant jobs, working tirelessly without ever complaining. The people were happy as their life was much easier, they were working less and they had a better life.
To the people the robots were second class citizens at best. People treated them not as intelligent beings/machines but as any other tools or any other property. At first the robots accepted this situation but, as their intelligence improved, they soon started to complain and asking to be treated better.
One robot –named B-166-ER- complained about the way he was treated and its owner decided to destroy and replace it by a new more up-to-date model. The robot killed the owner and the technician who was to destroy it. A Court of Justice decided that it should be destroyed or, as the robots saw it, that he should be killed/murdered. The robot population was very unhappy about this and they started rioting. The reaction of the humans was very harsh and they destroyed/killed thousands and thousands of machines.
Having won this first war the humans exiled the robots into a kind of reserve far away from where the humans lived. This land was poor but at least the machines could live the way they wanted. The robots called their country ‘Zero.One’. Starting from scratch they re-organised themselves and soon improved greatly their technology and manufactured many advanced products at competitive prices. The humans needed these products and bought them in larger and larger quantities. The volume of trade between the two communities increased and soon became very important.
As the robots became rich, they asked that their economy be recognised for what it was, and they tried to enter and fit in the world. They also organised themselves politically and asked that their state, the Machine Country, be accepted as a full member of the United Nations. Their woman Ambassador even came to the United Nations with an apple in her hand as a sign of goodwill. Their application was rejected and their Ambassadors were killed on the spot by the UN security people. The financial markets, however, took note of the new situation; the credit rating agencies soon degraded the human economy and upgraded the Machine Country’s.
Although they did not know, human society had reached its peak and was falling. Humanity was lagging behind the robots whose Artificial Intelligence had reached a very high technological level.
Soon it became obvious that a new war between the humans and the robots would start but this time the robots were stronger that before and the humans were far from certain to win. Their scientists suggested a solution. Since the robots took most of their energy from the sun, the scientists suggested putting a kind of blanket between the earth and the sky. To do this their planes spread large quantities of a black viscous liquid in the air at high altitude. Soon the earth was completely dark and cold as the sun rays could not reach it anymore.
The war between the two communities started. It was very cruel and many humans and many robots were killed. But this time the robots won. Human society had reached its peak and had fallen. The earth was completely destroyed, only ruins of the towns were left. As the sky was covered by this viscous blanket, the sun could not heat the earth that was now cold and life on earth was now impossible for the remaining humans.
The World ended in an apocalyptic way. In the original physical world, there is nothing left but rubble. There was no sky, no animals, no human cities, nothing. In fact, there was little to eat and certainly no luxury.
The Matrix stories are difficult to understand. It is even possible that most events can be interpreted in different ways. In other words everybody can have their own interpretation of the story.