fossilesqueClueless about Biology
Bassman1805The lore is that the saarlac actually keeps you alive while digesting you. Like, it puts roots in that act as life support so it has a constant source of protein or whatever.
That makes as much sense as The Matrix using people for energy. You can’t feed people to keep them alive and get more energy out than just digesting (or in the Matrix burning) that food for energy.
I thought it also used them for neural CPU cycles but maybe I’m misremembering
No, that’s exactly the original thing. “Wetware”, basically… But test audiences got upset and confused, so it was changed to “batteries.”
The batteries things was also Morpheus’s explanation, and not necessarily a definitive fact of the fictive universe. Morpheus could have been talking out of his ass, or deliberately over-simplifying for the benefit of Neo, who he knew was kind of a dumbass.