The Oracle is a fictional major supporting character from The Matrix franchise who is integral to the very nature of the virtual reality world of the Matrix itself. She was portrayed by the late Gloria Foster in the first and second film, and the late Mary Alice the third film respectively. The Oracle is a sapient program in the Matrix who was created to investigate the human psyche after two former versions of the simulation failed where she found an answer to creating a functional simulation that humans would accept, which became a stable system that was created with the third version of the Matrix along with establishing the prophecy of the One in order to ensure its continuity in cycles for the past 600 years, therefore being proclaimed as the "mother" of the Matrix by its creator, the Architect. She appears as an elderly African American woman who lives alone in an apartment filled with various children called "potentials," whose ability to control their surroundings suggests that they might be the One all the while smoking cigarettes on occasion with a penchant for candy along with baking cookies. The Oracle has served as a guide to the Resistance, a group of humans that were freed from the Matrix called redpills, giving them advice in freeing humanity from the oppression of the Machines.