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Let's say The Terminator was successful in the first movie. What then?
- Thread starter BFIB
- Start date
yep, Skynet's existence was contingent on people finding the terminator parts in the factory, it would need to replicate that scenario to some degree
Isn't Terminator 1-2 essentially closed-loop time travel? Which is to say that the timeline forever and always involved the T800 getting crushed in the press at Cyberdyne......Reese always fathered John Connor. Sending back the Terminator only set into motion predestined events.
Skynet legit wanted to lose and sent T800 to set in motion events so it would.
If T800 won itd then time travel to make it so itd lose or some shit
If T800 won itd then time travel to make it so itd lose or some shit
I'm pretty sure machines made it. Humans used what the machines made. There's no guy.
Can't self-terminate. So...just hang around, I suppose. Why does it need a directive? What does any computer do when not told otherwise? Wait for further instructions, even if they're never coming.
The Terminator franchise after part 2 is already saturated with bad fan fiction, I'm not adding fuel to the fire.
This is where terminators time travel logic ultimately falls apart honestly. I try not to think about it too much
1 is, 2 isn't.
They kinda retconned 2 to maybe be that too in later movies, but 2 itself most certainly said pretty damn explicitly that the future is no longer set.
I mean I think, it's a pretty subtle movie. :p
What happened is what always happened (I believe it is a time loop that can't be changed).
But let's say the Terminator wins, then someone else would lead humanity against the machines (as John Connor is dead) and the same time travel hijinks would ensue. The Terminator would probably have a contingency to wait or self destruct in a specific place so that the tech could be found by Cyberdyne.
But let's say the Terminator wins, then someone else would lead humanity against the machines (as John Connor is dead) and the same time travel hijinks would ensue. The Terminator would probably have a contingency to wait or self destruct in a specific place so that the tech could be found by Cyberdyne.
1 is, 2 isn't.
They kinda retconned 2 to maybe be that too in later movies, but 2 itself most certainly said pretty damn explicitly that the future is no longer set.
I mean I think, it's a pretty subtle movie. :p
Yup. There was an even a cut of the movie where the Connors had a happy life. John was a father and Sarah a happy grandmother.
It couldn't have succeeded because the timeline is a closed loop. T1 and T2 are by definition unchangeable, no matter what the characters say or think. The later sequels fucked this up, but it doesn't change that the future is not changeable in T1 and T2.
Nope, T2 explicitly confirms an unchangeable future by making the T-800 from the first film the reason Skynet exists. As Dyson says, "Things we would have never..." in reference to the T-800's CPU and arm. What the characters say doesn't matter, because the characters are wrong, and are telling themselves what they hope is correct. It isn't.
1 is, 2 isn't.
They kinda retconned 2 to maybe be that too in later movies, but 2 itself most certainly said pretty damn explicitly that the future is no longer set.
I mean I think, it's a pretty subtle movie. :p
Nope, T2 explicitly confirms an unchangeable future by making the T-800 from the first film the reason Skynet exists. As Dyson says, "Things we would have never..." in reference to the T-800's CPU and arm. What the characters say doesn't matter, because the characters are wrong, and are telling themselves what they hope is correct. It isn't.
I mean they destroy all of Cyberdyne's research. Basically making it like they never found the T-800 in the first place.
Absolutely not. No movie starts with the pretense that 'nothing in this movie matters at all.' Actions take place, and future movies decide to just retcon everything.
Everything that comes over is just corporate greed in the real world. It isn't justified in the fiction at all.
Nah, John Connor of T2 is 1/2 a different person than the John Connor that sent T1 Kyle back in time. Cyberdyne didn't create itself, it created a new timeline.
BFIB
I love these questions. So this is what I think would happen if the original T-800 series 101 was successful.
1: It would continue to kill all women with the name Sarah Connor in the LA area.
2. After deducing that it hunted and killed THE Sarah Connor due to Kyle Reeses' presence and such...it might have secondary directives to ensure Skynet's survival and probably ensure Cyberdyne's success by seeding them the technical know-how to bring SkyNet to full capacity.
3: I like the idea that after it succeeds in its mission that it wanders aimlessly because that was the only directive Skynet set up for it. Terminators possess a powerful learning computer and are designed with the ability to integrate/infiltrate society. I think as time goes on it will eventually learn and develop its own sense of values and core beliefs because it's AI is capable of doing so. We have evidence of this in T2 with Uncle Bob after he spends a handful of hours with John (and no, Uncle Bob never had the cpu restarted, that was an extended scene and not canon as far as I'm concerned). So yea, it would gain self awareness for better or for worse.
Thats my take.
I love these questions. So this is what I think would happen if the original T-800 series 101 was successful.
1: It would continue to kill all women with the name Sarah Connor in the LA area.
2. After deducing that it hunted and killed THE Sarah Connor due to Kyle Reeses' presence and such...it might have secondary directives to ensure Skynet's survival and probably ensure Cyberdyne's success by seeding them the technical know-how to bring SkyNet to full capacity.
3: I like the idea that after it succeeds in its mission that it wanders aimlessly because that was the only directive Skynet set up for it. Terminators possess a powerful learning computer and are designed with the ability to integrate/infiltrate society. I think as time goes on it will eventually learn and develop its own sense of values and core beliefs because it's AI is capable of doing so. We have evidence of this in T2 with Uncle Bob after he spends a handful of hours with John (and no, Uncle Bob never had the cpu restarted, that was an extended scene and not canon as far as I'm concerned). So yea, it would gain self awareness for better or for worse.
Thats my take.
You couldn't follow? Captain Boomerang goes back in time to protect the Queen of Dragons but then they need to jump to the future to stop the Pet Sematary from taking over.
John had a completely different father in Kyle's timeline, just as Cyberdyne had a different completion date, just as Judgement Day shifts.
Absolutely not, the movies make it very clear KR is always John's father.
Depends on your interpretation of time travel and what you think Skynet knows. There is more than one way to look at it. The movies themselves can't even decide which form of time travel to stick to.
In one funny interpretation where time loops around on itself directly, no John means never any need to send a Terminator back to kill him/sarah. No need to send a Terminator back means Cyberdyne never got the t800 and Skynet never existed. Neither did John, there was never a reason to send Reese back to bang Sarah. In this interpretation, the solution was always to let Skynet kill John. They can't exist without each other. The paradox is somehow broken by some outside influence that causes John's death, and the loop disappears. Blip. Life goes on, Sarah is still a waitress looking for a date, and the most shocking death of August 1997 is Princess Diana.
In another interpretation where time doesn't necessarily rely on the feedback loop, changes only affect the new timeline going forward and remnants from previous timelines are now sort of orphans in time. Sarah is dead, John never happens. The 800 remains. I'd guess Skynet probably has some knowledge of its creation, knowing from Cyberdyne's files that they studied from an 800 in 1984. So maybe it has a secondary objective to just lay down in cyberdyne and shut off, right? Or maybe it just goes on a killing spree with the basic objective that any amount of dead humans is a good amount and gets captured, leading to Skynet without John regardless. It ensures its own creation and the result of the war is anyone's guess. Probably not good.
Another way you could run with it is sort of a hybrid result of these two. Sarah & John are out of the game, and the 800 just lies in a ditch. Jumps into freshly poured concrete maybe. Starts selling curtains. Whatever. Its programming is ignorant of Skynet's origin. No other goals, just chill till the bombs drop. But Skynet never comes, because nobody got their hands on this sweet bod. Whoops, no John and no Skynet either. Whatever strays were sent back by Skynet from the previous timeline are just orphaned in time without a purpose. What now? Well, Cyberdyne wasn't the only company working on AI. Plenty of other fish in that sea. Cyberdyne may have had a head start but give it another couple decades and now you've got Google SmartNet up your ass instead. Time for someone new to pick up the slack on behalf of humanity this time.
While the first movie definitely operated on what was assumed to be a closed unchanging loop, the second movie does try to leave it more up for debate. It implies that they're still fulfilling the same bootstrap paradox by relying on the 800 R&D, while simultaneously promoting the idea that the future is not set and that Cyberdyne did not experience these attacks on the path to 1997 in the previous timeline.
We all know about the filmed ending that would have confirmed that the future indeed wasn't set and that Sarah and John had changed it. NO FATE. The final ending was changed to be more ambiguous to allow the viewer to ponder the question without a definitive answer. It's more interesting that way.
Personally I had always considered the events of T2 part of the known bootstrap cycle like you anyway, however the upcoming Dark Fate clearly interprets T2 to be a timeline altering event rather than a loop confirmation. 1997 was apparently pretty chill. So it looks like we have a new answer.
T1 was definitely written to be a closed loop but sequels reinterpreted that. It was inevitable, there's only so far you can stretch the bootstrap for sequels until it just gets unmanageable to write around. T2 was already stretching it thin.
Can T1 & T2 in isolation be viewed as a closed loop together that ultimately leads to Skynet? It can, and that's how I have viewed it for many years. Same as you. But is that answer definitive fact? No, it was intentionally left open for interpretation. Certain events in T2 were definitely feeding into the loop, but those could have also been very close calls narrowly avoided thanks to more time travel intervention. One could argue that while sending the first 800 back fed into a loop, sending the 1000 back accidentally broke it.
What's interesting to me about this interpretation (that T2 starts a new future) is what it implies about prior John. A history we've never seen. It means that the Future War John we briefly saw never experienced the events of T2. He never knew Uncle Bob or attacked Cyberdyne. Interesting to think about how that John's life went, then. Before the T2 timeline. His mom rotted away in that cage and he kept believing she was a nut. He kept on living in Southern California with his foster parents being a little dick.
Judgment Day hit when he was 12-13 years old. How could he have survived that? Sarah must have eventually broken out anyway (you know she could and would) and kidnapped a very uncooperative John, who still believed she was a loon all the way up until the bombs dropped. This time it wasn't until the bombs that he realized the truth about his mom and how hard it must have been to keep him safe against his will. Thanks, mom.
In one funny interpretation where time loops around on itself directly, no John means never any need to send a Terminator back to kill him/sarah. No need to send a Terminator back means Cyberdyne never got the t800 and Skynet never existed. Neither did John, there was never a reason to send Reese back to bang Sarah. In this interpretation, the solution was always to let Skynet kill John. They can't exist without each other. The paradox is somehow broken by some outside influence that causes John's death, and the loop disappears. Blip. Life goes on, Sarah is still a waitress looking for a date, and the most shocking death of August 1997 is Princess Diana.
In another interpretation where time doesn't necessarily rely on the feedback loop, changes only affect the new timeline going forward and remnants from previous timelines are now sort of orphans in time. Sarah is dead, John never happens. The 800 remains. I'd guess Skynet probably has some knowledge of its creation, knowing from Cyberdyne's files that they studied from an 800 in 1984. So maybe it has a secondary objective to just lay down in cyberdyne and shut off, right? Or maybe it just goes on a killing spree with the basic objective that any amount of dead humans is a good amount and gets captured, leading to Skynet without John regardless. It ensures its own creation and the result of the war is anyone's guess. Probably not good.
Another way you could run with it is sort of a hybrid result of these two. Sarah & John are out of the game, and the 800 just lies in a ditch. Jumps into freshly poured concrete maybe. Starts selling curtains. Whatever. Its programming is ignorant of Skynet's origin. No other goals, just chill till the bombs drop. But Skynet never comes, because nobody got their hands on this sweet bod. Whoops, no John and no Skynet either. Whatever strays were sent back by Skynet from the previous timeline are just orphaned in time without a purpose. What now? Well, Cyberdyne wasn't the only company working on AI. Plenty of other fish in that sea. Cyberdyne may have had a head start but give it another couple decades and now you've got Google SmartNet up your ass instead. Time for someone new to pick up the slack on behalf of humanity this time.
While the first movie definitely operated on what was assumed to be a closed unchanging loop, the second movie does try to leave it more up for debate. It implies that they're still fulfilling the same bootstrap paradox by relying on the 800 R&D, while simultaneously promoting the idea that the future is not set and that Cyberdyne did not experience these attacks on the path to 1997 in the previous timeline.
We all know about the filmed ending that would have confirmed that the future indeed wasn't set and that Sarah and John had changed it. NO FATE. The final ending was changed to be more ambiguous to allow the viewer to ponder the question without a definitive answer. It's more interesting that way.
Personally I had always considered the events of T2 part of the known bootstrap cycle like you anyway, however the upcoming Dark Fate clearly interprets T2 to be a timeline altering event rather than a loop confirmation. 1997 was apparently pretty chill. So it looks like we have a new answer.
T1 was definitely written to be a closed loop but sequels reinterpreted that. It was inevitable, there's only so far you can stretch the bootstrap for sequels until it just gets unmanageable to write around. T2 was already stretching it thin.
Can T1 & T2 in isolation be viewed as a closed loop together that ultimately leads to Skynet? It can, and that's how I have viewed it for many years. Same as you. But is that answer definitive fact? No, it was intentionally left open for interpretation. Certain events in T2 were definitely feeding into the loop, but those could have also been very close calls narrowly avoided thanks to more time travel intervention. One could argue that while sending the first 800 back fed into a loop, sending the 1000 back accidentally broke it.
What's interesting to me about this interpretation (that T2 starts a new future) is what it implies about prior John. A history we've never seen. It means that the Future War John we briefly saw never experienced the events of T2. He never knew Uncle Bob or attacked Cyberdyne. Interesting to think about how that John's life went, then. Before the T2 timeline. His mom rotted away in that cage and he kept believing she was a nut. He kept on living in Southern California with his foster parents being a little dick.
Judgment Day hit when he was 12-13 years old. How could he have survived that? Sarah must have eventually broken out anyway (you know she could and would) and kidnapped a very uncooperative John, who still believed she was a loon all the way up until the bombs dropped. This time it wasn't until the bombs that he realized the truth about his mom and how hard it must have been to keep him safe against his will. Thanks, mom.
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Kyle had the picture of her that was taken after he met her though, its the same timeline
The first movie certainly seems like a closed loop to me, and I'd honestly rather interpret it that way
But then the T-800 in T2 leaves his dismembered arm in the giant gear at the steel mill.
Lol, can we agree that all future references to the T-800 in T2 be "Uncle Bob?"
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Send another terminator back to kill the first terminator, so humans can salvage the parts and create skynet
Regarding John's father, if you follow the strict interpretation that all events are exclusively a standalone bootstrap paradox that always existed without an origin as a quirk of time, then John never had a father that wasn't Kyle. This is generally how T1 is viewed in isolation, and sometimes including T2.
But T2 does complicate that and makes it a little ambiguous. If you instead follow an interpretation where time is fluid and events can be changed, this implies that the known paradox in T1 was put into place by prior time meddling, which also implies that John in some pre-meddled timeline had a father native to 1984. His bloodline was changed and we're only seeing the timeline after the paradox has already been established with Kyle as his father.
Perhaps it was the man Sarah was planning to see the next night in T1, coincidentally the same day that she ended up banging Kyle instead due to the 800 attack. 🤷‍♂️
But T2 does complicate that and makes it a little ambiguous. If you instead follow an interpretation where time is fluid and events can be changed, this implies that the known paradox in T1 was put into place by prior time meddling, which also implies that John in some pre-meddled timeline had a father native to 1984. His bloodline was changed and we're only seeing the timeline after the paradox has already been established with Kyle as his father.
Perhaps it was the man Sarah was planning to see the next night in T1, coincidentally the same day that she ended up banging Kyle instead due to the 800 attack. 🤷‍♂️
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Wish granted, that's literally what the terminator fandom normally calls him. Everyone else just needs to catch up.
Is there any better name? It's the only name he's got!
Brace yourself for his brother Carl.
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Probably has a long list of targets. Not to mention can gather a shit ton of Intel until judgment day
I don't think so. I think the original John Connor had a different father and that Skynet was originally nowhere near as advanced.
Then when a Terminator is sent into the past to kill Sarah and Kyle goes back to save her, they actually dramatically speed up the creation of Skynet, which is why the Terminator sent back in the second movie is way more advanced even if they didn't actually change when Judgment Day occurs.
Then, in Terminator 2, by destroying all traces of the Terminators from the future as well as all the data on what would eventually become Skynet, they're able to significantly delay Judgment Day. Originally it was meant to happen in '97, but I'm pretty sure it still hasn't happened even by 2019.
This also implies the original Sarah was never trained to fight and presumably died during Judgment Day completely unaware of Skynet or its plans. So Kyle going back in time changes way more than just who John Connor's dad is.