Yourself?

24 people? There are certainly far more than that, both in zion and in the Matrix. And remember, it is 21st century only in the Matrix. In the real world (Matrix 1) Morpheus makes a rough estimate at about 2199.

If the mainframe is reset I suppose they will have power storage supplies for backup. The machines probably aren't dumb enough to neglect that. The human minds simply disappear, and the body dies. Like what happened when Cypher disconnected almost half the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar.

And it's not easy to cheat in the Matrix anyway. he is able to do so because, as you said, he is a superuser, THE superuser. But why this is so I have no idea. My speculation is that since the Architect and The One ahve almost the same powers, perhaps The One ends up being the next Architect when he exits by the door on the right (i.e., the Architect picks a usccessor, who becomes The One and eventually meets him and takes over). But that's a pretty sick thought.

posted by k @ 8:34 pm