films... by the use of Zion for the underground city of free humans populated primarily by black people, suggesting the dream of Christianised slaves to find a safe haven in 'the promised land' and the Rastafarian belief in an utopian society." Another chapter writes, "The Matrix Reloaded displays black 'life' in a scene reminiscent of countless Hollywood jungle melodramas when the predominantly black population of Zion engages in frenzied dancing to the pounding rhythm of drums. In Hollywood, the war between artifice and reality is drawn along racial lines." Adilifu Nama writes in Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film, "The racial politics of Zion appears to be based on a multicultural model of racial equality and participation. In the Zion setting, a racial utopia is presented where blacks, whites, and other people of color live and work together, and in many cases whites are subordinate but not subservient to blacks." Post-September 11 allegory The Matrix in Theory writes that after the September 11 attacks, the narrative shifts from confronting the Matrix in the 1999 film to saving Zion in the 2003 sequels. It writes, "Reloaded and Revolutions plays out this conservative fantasy with Zion as the beleaguered site of humanist values and machines with their terrifying weapons of mass destruction threatening finally to destroy the last remnants of human independence." Io Io is the new sister city of Zion in The Matrix Resurrections. Niobe explains to Neo that in the 60 years following the end of the war, enough humans left the Matrix to cause a severe power shortage for the machines. Zion was destroyed as the machines fought each other over the limited resources, but some of them sympathized with the displaced humans' plight and helped them found the city of Io, leading to peaceful coexistence between human and machine inhabitants. See also Simulated reality References The Matrix (franchise) Fictional populated places Fictional subterranea Fictional city-states