Was there a way the humans could have successfully defended Zion? If Agent Smith had not detonated the EMP on their hovercraft would have helped. Also, if the previous The One had started people preparing from day one for the next hundred years, would it be possible to defend the city? What would you do differently if you were in charge? If Neo had stayed, he could have used his powers to destroy sentinels.
shareNutshell? I doubt it because they just didn't have the resources that the machines did.
The exo-suits defend Zion until they run out of ammunition, not to mention the casualties. The sentinels are still going strong. As for Neo, he could have used his powers to destroy the sentinels, but those abilities seem to tax him greatly, and who knows how long he could keep doing that? They might have been able to repulse the first attack, but the machines would be back; wave after wave of those mechanical beasties would inevitably overwhelm Zion.
Although, arguably Zion was defendable and Neo and Trinity *did* defend it by their actions in the machine city.
well , they could have started by having a couple of those EMP gizmos ready to go in the dock, instead of waiting for one of their ships to turn up carrying one.
Then they could get all their ed209 machines etc out of the range of it before hand and just wait for the squids to show up and zap them