The T-1000 always took a lot of suspension of disbelief for me.
The T-8xx makes sense mechanically. There's a fuel cell, an advanced computer-on-a-chip with a dynamic AI program, a pair of red LED cameras, a voicebox and a set of powerful pistons and actuators all held together with reinforced alloy and layered over with synthesized meat. Every element is futuristic, but they are all very comprehensible to modern science. It's a believable artifact from circa 2030.
Now the T-1000, a sentient colony of liquid nanobots that can dynamically acquire new patterns to change color, shape and texture, function on-the-fly as a CPU and sensory organs, etc; seems like something from a truly posthuman "100 million years in the future" type of timeline.
I like the idea of having a T1000 but that's about it. The problem is you can't have an actively aggressive T1000 because well, they can't stop it.
Arnold stopped one.
Yes but it was pretty fucking epic, almost completely wrecked him and took a whole film and very specific circumstances to pull off.
If they keep throwing T1000s in and having them destroyed villain decay will set in in a big way
villain decay is already killing me. 5 terminators downed in 8 episodes? glad theyre bringing back cromartie. this last ep was one of the best so far and one of the first to really live up to the potential of the show.
I like the idea of having a T1000 but that's about it. The problem is you can't have an actively aggressive T1000 because well, they can't stop it.
Arnold stopped one.
Yes but it was pretty fucking epic, almost completely wrecked him and took a whole film and very specific circumstances to pull off.
If they keep throwing T1000s in and having them destroyed villain decay will set in in a big way
villain decay is already killing me. 5 terminators downed in 8 episodes? glad theyre bringing back cromartie. this last ep was one of the best so far and one of the first to really live up to the potential of the show.
To be fair, Cameron killed most of them. Terminator on terminator violence is becoming an epidemic.
The T-1000 always took a lot of suspension of disbelief for me.
The T-8xx makes sense mechanically. There's a fuel cell, an advanced computer-on-a-chip with a dynamic AI program, a pair of red LED cameras, a voicebox and a set of powerful pistons and actuators all held together with reinforced alloy and layered over with synthesized meat. Every element is futuristic, but they are all very comprehensible to modern science. It's a believable artifact from circa 2030.
Now the T-1000, a sentient colony of liquid nanobots that can dynamically acquire new patterns to change color, shape and texture, function on-the-fly as a CPU and sensory organs, etc; seems like something from a truly posthuman "100 million years in the future" type of timeline.
Which reminds me, I want to see some T-1000 oozing through small spaces. I mean if you think about it, those things would be just about impossible to keep out of anywhere. Terminator strength + just force yourself through small gaps nanite awesomeness.
Guestion about the original time line in the first movie.
Now, is sarah connor just such a bad ass that no matter what her kid was going to lead the rebellion, or were they sending people back in time to make a leader and the terminator came after her because it was the one that worked?
She wasn't all that impressive at the start, so her raising a leader outside of events doesn't sound too likely. If the original plan was to protect her and the as yet unconceived last hope of humanity, wouldn't not impregnating her and fucking over the timelime be pretty high up on the things to do?
unless that's the whole plan from the outset, and why limit the genes to just one extra trip through time. Hell, the robots are doing it with technology. Why not go the Kwisatz Haderach route, but run it massively parallel and recursive. Imagine the evolutionary pressure of an on going war with unstoppable killing machines, with the best and brightest getting to have their genes go back and run through it again.
I mean, was the original idea, "fuck causality, we need soldiers."
So this is kinda cool (not very spoilery spoilers)
Apparently the SCC gang is going to head to a UFO convention sometime soon. Fox contacted my sister (who is crazy) and her husband (who is Guy Malone) and got some props to use in an episode.
Guestion about the original time line in the first movie.
Now, is sarah connor just such a bad ass that no matter what her kid was going to lead the rebellion, or were they sending people back in time to make a leader and the terminator came after her because it was the one that worked?
She wasn't all that impressive at the start, so her raising a leader outside of events doesn't sound too likely. If the original plan was to protect her and the as yet unconceived last hope of humanity, wouldn't not impregnating her and fucking over the timelime be pretty high up on the things to do?
unless that's the whole plan from the outset, and why limit the genes to just one extra trip through time. Hell, the robots are doing it with technology. Why not go the Kwisatz Haderach route, but run it massively parallel and recursive. Imagine the evolutionary pressure of an on going war with unstoppable killing machines, with the best and brightest getting to have their genes go back and run through it again.
I mean, was the original idea, "fuck causality, we need soldiers."
what? your over thinking shit, there was no original plan, the whole thing is a paradox, thats just what it is, the original timeline is t1, its after that they started fucking with the timeline.
Guestion about the original time line in the first movie.
Now, is sarah connor just such a bad ass that no matter what her kid was going to lead the rebellion, or were they sending people back in time to make a leader and the terminator came after her because it was the one that worked?
She wasn't all that impressive at the start, so her raising a leader outside of events doesn't sound too likely. If the original plan was to protect her and the as yet unconceived last hope of humanity, wouldn't not impregnating her and fucking over the timelime be pretty high up on the things to do?
unless that's the whole plan from the outset, and why limit the genes to just one extra trip through time. Hell, the robots are doing it with technology. Why not go the Kwisatz Haderach route, but run it massively parallel and recursive. Imagine the evolutionary pressure of an on going war with unstoppable killing machines, with the best and brightest getting to have their genes go back and run through it again.
I mean, was the original idea, "fuck causality, we need soldiers."
John Connor the original was untrained by his mother, he was just naturally a good enough leader to lead the resistance to victory. Sarah didn't actually have to train him at all. She doesn't really get time travel. Also the terminator timeline cannot be figured out. at all. don't try.
The timeline for the original terminator goes something like this
Skynet nukes earth -> John Connor leads the last of the humans to victory -> As a last resort skynet sends a terminator (Arnie) back in time to kill Sarah Connor (thus, in it's eyes, ensuring victory in the future) -> John Connor sends Kyle Reese (possibly because he knew that he was his father) back in time to protect Sarah -> Kyle and Sarah create John Connor.
The original John Connor had no training, he was just your average Joe who turns out to be the saviour of humanity. However, Sarah ends up training John because she knows what he will become. She also trys to stop judgment day, however all they ever achieve is setting the date back. Every time they set the date back the war gets more advanced. In T1, skynet does not have access to T1000s and the humans don't have access to any reprogrammed terminators. T2 judgment day happens at a later date to T1 judgment day so everyone is more advanced.
This could be bad for the humans as in later iterations of the future there isn't mention of humans winning. We come to today and the terminators have started branching out from the standard "kill John Connor and profit" scheme. They are much more advanced and are being more creative (planting materials to make terminators in the future, going after other important people in the resistance, implanting viruses in the DoD computers etc) so it is still possible that the future of humanity are pretty screwed (despite winning the war in the first movie).
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Guestion about the original time line in the first movie.
Now, is sarah connor just such a bad ass that no matter what her kid was going to lead the rebellion, or were they sending people back in time to make a leader and the terminator came after her because it was the one that worked?
She wasn't all that impressive at the start, so her raising a leader outside of events doesn't sound too likely. If the original plan was to protect her and the as yet unconceived last hope of humanity, wouldn't not impregnating her and fucking over the timelime be pretty high up on the things to do?
unless that's the whole plan from the outset, and why limit the genes to just one extra trip through time. Hell, the robots are doing it with technology. Why not go the Kwisatz Haderach route, but run it massively parallel and recursive. Imagine the evolutionary pressure of an on going war with unstoppable killing machines, with the best and brightest getting to have their genes go back and run through it again.
I mean, was the original idea, "fuck causality, we need soldiers."
John Connor the original was untrained by his mother, he was just naturally a good enough leader to lead the resistance to victory. Sarah didn't actually have to train him at all. She doesn't really get time travel. Also the terminator timeline cannot be figured out. at all. don't try.
Where in t1 does it say "he was a natural leader, untrained by his mother?"
She raises him to be a super commando, he then leads. The only problem is, like I pointed out, at this point skynet's in a recursive loop where every time it sends a terminator after the connors, it ends up being created later and based on a later model of its own tech, so the more people it sends back to fail, the better it gets. That's the reason why skynet keeps sending back terminators that somehow fail at the last minute.
Guestion about the original time line in the first movie.
Now, is sarah connor just such a bad ass that no matter what her kid was going to lead the rebellion, or were they sending people back in time to make a leader and the terminator came after her because it was the one that worked?
She wasn't all that impressive at the start, so her raising a leader outside of events doesn't sound too likely. If the original plan was to protect her and the as yet unconceived last hope of humanity, wouldn't not impregnating her and fucking over the timelime be pretty high up on the things to do?
unless that's the whole plan from the outset, and why limit the genes to just one extra trip through time. Hell, the robots are doing it with technology. Why not go the Kwisatz Haderach route, but run it massively parallel and recursive. Imagine the evolutionary pressure of an on going war with unstoppable killing machines, with the best and brightest getting to have their genes go back and run through it again.
I mean, was the original idea, "fuck causality, we need soldiers."
John Connor the original was untrained by his mother, he was just naturally a good enough leader to lead the resistance to victory. Sarah didn't actually have to train him at all. She doesn't really get time travel. Also the terminator timeline cannot be figured out. at all. don't try.
Where in t1 does it say "he was a natural leader, untrained by his mother?"
She raises him to be a super commando, he then leads. The only problem is, like I pointed out, at this point skynet's in a recursive loop where every time it sends a terminator after the connors, it ends up being created later and based on a later model of its own tech, so the more people it sends back to fail, the better it gets. That's the reason why skynet keeps sending back terminators that somehow fail at the last minute.
It's pretty easy to assume (and, with Terminator we have to do a lot of assuming) that the original John Connor wasn't trained since no one had any idea, at the time, that an malevolant artificial intelligence was gonna declare war on humanity. John Connor the second wasn't the original John Connor, and with John Connor the second Sarah knew what was going to happen.
I don't buy that Reese was always John Connor's father. I think it's more logical to assume that the John Connor that sent Reese back in time in T-1 no longer exists in the current Terminator timeline, being replaced by the John Connor that Reese fathered.
Guestion about the original time line in the first movie.
Now, is sarah connor just such a bad ass that no matter what her kid was going to lead the rebellion, or were they sending people back in time to make a leader and the terminator came after her because it was the one that worked?
She wasn't all that impressive at the start, so her raising a leader outside of events doesn't sound too likely. If the original plan was to protect her and the as yet unconceived last hope of humanity, wouldn't not impregnating her and fucking over the timelime be pretty high up on the things to do?
unless that's the whole plan from the outset, and why limit the genes to just one extra trip through time. Hell, the robots are doing it with technology. Why not go the Kwisatz Haderach route, but run it massively parallel and recursive. Imagine the evolutionary pressure of an on going war with unstoppable killing machines, with the best and brightest getting to have their genes go back and run through it again.
I mean, was the original idea, "fuck causality, we need soldiers."
John Connor the original was untrained by his mother, he was just naturally a good enough leader to lead the resistance to victory. Sarah didn't actually have to train him at all. She doesn't really get time travel. Also the terminator timeline cannot be figured out. at all. don't try.
Where in t1 does it say "he was a natural leader, untrained by his mother?"
She raises him to be a super commando, he then leads. The only problem is, like I pointed out, at this point skynet's in a recursive loop where every time it sends a terminator after the connors, it ends up being created later and based on a later model of its own tech, so the more people it sends back to fail, the better it gets. That's the reason why skynet keeps sending back terminators that somehow fail at the last minute.
I guess you're right, I was thinking it from the viewpoint of the first John Connor not knowing about the war beforehand. This would mean that Kyle wouldn't have been his father, which means John wouldn't have intentionally sent him back. This means one of two things, either its a self perpetuating paradox or T1 is a few iterations into the time travel shenanigans. It is possible it works like this:
Sarah Connor and Random Joe give birth to John Connor -> John grows up with a normal life -> Skynet nukes earth -> John leads resistance to victory -> Skynet sends back terminator to kill Sarah Connor -> John sends a trusted soldier (who just so happens to be Kyle Reece) back in time to save Sarah -> Kyle saves Sarah and they get busy making John -> John grows up (probally being trained this time) -> Skynet nukes earth -> John leads resistance to victory -> Skynet sends terminator back -> John (knowing his father is Kyle) sends Kyle back to protect Sarah -> Cue Terminator 1
Sarah Connor and Random Joe give birth to John Connor -> John grows up with a normal life -> Skynet nukes earth -> John leads resistance to victory -> Skynet sends back terminator to kill Sarah Connor -> John sends a trusted soldier (who just so happens to be Kyle Reece) back in time to save Sarah -> Kyle saves Sarah and they get busy making John -> John grows up (probally being trained this time) -> Skynet nukes earth -> John leads resistance to victory -> Skynet sends terminator back -> John (knowing his father is Kyle) sends Kyle back to protect Sarah -> Cue Terminator 1
It's been a long damn time since I watched T-1. Plus I was a kid at the time. Is there any indication that John sent Kyle back knowing Kyle was going to father him?
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Sarah Connor and Random Joe give birth to John Connor -> John grows up with a normal life -> Skynet nukes earth -> John leads resistance to victory -> Skynet sends back terminator to kill Sarah Connor -> John sends a trusted soldier (who just so happens to be Kyle Reece) back in time to save Sarah -> Kyle saves Sarah and they get busy making John -> John grows up (probally being trained this time) -> Skynet nukes earth -> John leads resistance to victory -> Skynet sends terminator back -> John (knowing his father is Kyle) sends Kyle back to protect Sarah -> Cue Terminator 1
It's been a long damn time since I watched T-1. Plus I was a kid at the time. Is there any indication that John sent Kyle back knowing Kyle was going to father him?
"John Connor gave me a picture of you once. I didn't know why at the time. It was very old - torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. I came across time for you Sarah. I love you; I always have. "
Is the Terminator timeline sort of like a rollercoaster with a single loop. The loop feeds into itself, so that when you reach it you keep going around and around and around the loop and can never get off?
edit: but each time you go around the loop, the loop changes ever so slightly.
editit: I have to give this show props. I've never pondered any television show as deeply as I ponder TSCC (and, subsequently, the whole franchise). Despite all it's mistakes, this show is probably the best show on basic cable.
Sarah Connor and Random Joe give birth to John Connor -> John grows up with a normal life -> Skynet nukes earth -> John leads resistance to victory -> Skynet sends back terminator to kill Sarah Connor -> John sends a trusted soldier (who just so happens to be Kyle Reece) back in time to save Sarah -> Kyle saves Sarah and they get busy making John -> John grows up (probally being trained this time) -> Skynet nukes earth -> John leads resistance to victory -> Skynet sends terminator back -> John (knowing his father is Kyle) sends Kyle back to protect Sarah -> Cue Terminator 1
It's been a long damn time since I watched T-1. Plus I was a kid at the time. Is there any indication that John sent Kyle back knowing Kyle was going to father him?
"John Connor gave me a picture of you once. I didn't know why at the time. It was very old - torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. I came across time for you Sarah. I love you; I always have. "
This would mean that the John Connor in the future of T1 would have been trained probally. Unless of course the Kyle sent back from the previous John was sent back for other reasons (perhaps, after defeating skynet, he decideds to set up a transtemporal dating agency?). It becomes impossible to tell (from the movies at least) and the great thing is you can work in lots of story lines that don't quite fit together and just explain it away with alternate timelines and butterflys.
People need to read the following wikipedia pages on movies with complex time travel plots. The biggest thing to note is that many timelines can happen off screen.. we are not explicitly shown everything :
Is the Terminator timeline sort of like a rollercoaster with a single loop. The loop feeds into itself, so that when you reach it you keep going around and around and around the loop and can never get off?
It's not an eternal loop, we know that things can change (eg judgment day being pushed back or this weeks episode). This means that it may be possible to kill John Connor or stop judgment day. however one of the themes of the movies is that judgment day is going to happen anyway no matter how far you try to push it back. This means that there may be inevitable events that have to happen in the timeline at some point. Another theory (that I just made up while writing this, but I like it anyways) is that rather than judgment day being inevitable, it may just be because there are so many people working towards what will eventually evolve into skynet. It may be possible to save humanity by destroying most of the world (if you have enouth monkeys working towards shakespear, kill enouth of them and delay it for a good few years).
Do we really need to re-explain Terminator 1 every 20 pages?
REESE
It was an honor. A chance
to meet the legend. Sarah
Connor. Who taught her son
to fight...organize, prepare.
From when he was a kid. When
you were in hiding, before
the war.
So the whole "John Connor the original was untrained by his mother, he was just naturally a good enough leader to lead the resistance to victory. Sarah didn't actually have to train him at all" thing doesn't fly. There was never an "original John" other than the one we have. Period.
SARAH
(continuing)
Should I tell you about your
father? That's a tough one.
Will it change your decision
to send him here...knowing? But if you don't send Kyle,
you could never be. God,
you can go crazy thinking
about all this...I suppose
I'll tell you...I owe him that.
And maybe it'll be enough if
you know that in the few hours
we had together we loved a
lifetime's worth...
So yes, John sent back Kyle knowing that Kyle would be his father.
The boy takes her four dollars and she watches the
snapshot develop. It is a good photograph of her,
the wind lightly ruffling her hair, expression thought-
ful, slightly sad.
We recognize it as the one Reese carried in 2029.
She slips it into her short pocket.
Final confirmation that it's the same timeline.
Anyway, here's what happened. Terminator 1 was written as a self-contained time loop, a causal paradox. That's fine, though, because the you could always say that there was some sort of divine intervention at play here pulling the strings (John Connor = JC. Anytime you see a fictional characters with those initials who's supposed to be the savior for all mankind on Judgement Day, it's going to be significant.). The movie was never written with a sequel in mind.
Then, seven years later, they decide to write the sequel, where the timeline gets fucked over. Cameron decides to make it so that John averts judgement day. They write an ending where John blows up a building and everyone is happy. Except that the audience hates that ending and says that it doesn't fit at all. So Cameron films a new ending that ends on an ambiguous note. We don't know if Judgement Day happens now. The problem is that they have officially changed the timeline, so it is no longer a self-contained loop. Whoops!
Terminator 3 comes in and basically instates the Novikoff principal. The Novikoff principle basically dictates that the laws of probability will manipulate events so that you can make minor changes in history, but not changes that would effect you going back in time (thus creating a grandfather paradox, which is different from the paradox in terminator one. The former is self-contradicting, the latter self-affirming.). Judgement Day isn't prevented, it is only postponed. This makes sense, since it's not like Cyberdyne wouldn't file their patents with the US Patent Office, and wouldn't keep backups off site. It's perfectly reasonable for Cyberdyne to try to sell off their assets for $$$, and for their engineers to continue to pursue their work when they find jobs elsewhere. It doesn't make sense that the entirety of Judgement Day can be avoided by melting a metal arm and blowing up a building. There is one grandfather paradox in Terminator 3 -- the fact that the T-X kills off his Lieutenants. Of course, you could try explaining that by saying that John and Kate simply forced their Lieutenants to go under false names.
TSCC is basically to the Terminator timeline what "Highlander: The Series" was to "There can be only one." The timeline is in completely flux, although still susceptible to the Novikoff theory. Perhaps the biggest changes comes from the pilot, when pre-T3 John jumps forward 8 years into the future, which would mean that future John would suddenly become 8 years younger in the future timeline, and yet all his decisions will pretty much be the same.
The last episode seems to introduce a paradox with Fisher, in that Fisher wasn't a figure in the original future, where as the current future is a self-contained loop (Future Fisher makes it so that future Fisher is possible.). It's possible that Reese made it so that current Fisher would have been imprisoned for an unrelated charge, and that future Fischer performed his mission because he figured "Well, I'm going to be locked up anyway and it turns out fine, and besides, I need to perform this mission for Skynet", although that seems unlikely. Not the fact that current Fisher would have ended up in prison without future Fisher's intervention, but the mere fact that current Fisher wouldn't have become a felon if not for Derek.
If you really want to make your head hurt, however, ponder this: In the original timeline, Derek goes back. Then Derek alters the future to allow Fisher to become a monster. This alternate Derek is tortured, escapes, and then goes back in time. Alternate Jesse then goes after him. Original Jesse was presumably wiped out from the time stream ("That looks new" "Not to me."). However, what happened to alternate Derek, who would have gone back in time prior to alternate Jesse? Shouldn't there be two Derek's running around now?
BTW, my theory for how the series ends:
They don't prevent Judgement Day. However, they install some sort of backdoor into Skynet or observe some type of weakness that allows for victory in the future.
Ok, I'll concede that JC sent his father back to save SC in T-1, thus leading to his creation.
However, I just can't buy the notion that there never was an original JC fathered by an unnamed man. This JC1 no longer exists, of course, but he would have been the one that sent Kyle back which led to JC1 ceasing to exist, replaced by JC2 whose father was Kyle. Following this one incident, there would from that point on be the paradox of John Connor creating himself by sending his father back in time. Of course, I'm stretching my mind as much around this idea as I possibly can. So I admit that, like the notion of infinity, I just may not be able to mentally grasp this sort of time paradox.
As far as Fisher goes, I didn't think he was sent back in time to make sure he helps Skynet in the future. It seemed that he came back to assist Skynet but... shit, maybe Skynet knew that Techcom would send someone back to stop Fisher so Skynet sent Fisher back to make sure he'd go to prison. Oh god... Oh god holy shit...
It's very obvious that the first Terminator was meant to be a closed loop. Those events happened because they always happened like that. Kyle Reese was always John Connor's father, etc. Skynet was trying to alter that timeline, Connor was trying to preserve it. It's kind of a Schrödinger's Cyborg situation, either thing could have happened, we just happened to follow the timeline that preserved the time loop.
The second film is a little more complex. The T-1000 was also trying to alter the timeline, and Arnie-2 was trying to preserve it (There was even a scripted but never filmed scene in the future where it's indicated future John remembers the Arniebot that saved him, and then sends that bot back), but now Sarah decides that she wants to try to change things as well, in a different way from Skynet's plan.
A timeline where the T-1000 succeeded would have given us a world where Connor died as a child and the humans lost, if the Arniebot had succeeded fully Connor would be exactly the same person he was when Arnie was sent back and things would not have changed, but Sarah introduced a bit of added complexity to the situation. She decided to go beyond just preserving the timeline, and took a page from Skynet's book, attempting to actually alter the timeline. Her version would have it that Skynet, rather than John Connor, was never created, and thus introduces a third distinct possible timeline.
In T2 itself, we do not know which timeline comes out of it. The T-1000 failed, so it's possible timeline could not happen, but the Arniebot's and Sarah's timelines are still in play. The alternate ending to the film would have shown us that Sarah's timeline was the one that actually happened, but we got the more ambiguous ending, so either one of those potential timelines has equal chance of having happened.
Sarah Connor chronicles follows one potential timeline that is not the one that any of the previous time travellers were sent from. This is an independant timeline where Sarah succeeded in changing events, and thus breaking free of the time loop perpetuated by the first film. She just didn't succeed quite well enough, so things turn out similarly to how they originally did, but not quite exactly.
For instance, the Kyle Reese that Derek talks about is not the Kyle Reese we saw in the first film, though he is a similar version of him. This Kyle was born before Judgement day, the other after (because of the movement of Judgement day; he was still born the same time). There are many events in their lives that are similar, apparently including being sent back to protect Sarah Connor, but in the show, the Kyle that showed up in '84 and became John's father was actually a Kyle Reese from a different timeline, the one from the original time loop. Kyle himself indicates something like this is possible in the first film when he says he is from "One possible future. From your point of view...", thus indicating that even though he doesn't "know tech stuff" he believes it is possible there are multiple potential timelines, and he is simply trying to ensure that the one he comes from actually occurs.
I've clearly thought about this way too much, so I'll stop now.
However, I just can't buy the notion that there never was an original JC fathered by an unnamed man. This JC1 no longer exists, of course, but he would have been the one that sent Kyle back which led to JC1 ceasing to exist, replaced by JC2 whose father was Kyle. Following this one incident, there would from that point on be the paradox of John Connor creating himself by sending his father back in time. Of course, I'm stretching my mind as much around this idea as I possibly can. So I admit that, like the notion of infinity, I just may not be able to mentally grasp this sort of time paradox.
Kyle says that Sarah started training John as a kid since before the war.
Now, it's possible that Sarah the waitress shacked up with some super paranoid militia guy who was training John for unrelated reasons. But then, we would be talking about how the super paranoid militia guy was the one who trained John -- not Sarah.
Why would Sarah the waitress suddenly start training John for the war, in the original timeline? The only explanation is that the original timeline featured Kyle.
People need to read the following wikipedia pages on movies with complex time travel plots. The biggest thing to note is that many timelines can happen off screen.. we are not explicitly shown everything :
The thing with Primer is it's confusing, but the internal logic of time travel is very consistent. The problem with terminator is they keep switching between closed self-repairing time loops and multiple timelines. It's inconsistent, so even the most dedicated terminator fan couldn't figure out the timelines because there's no canonical explanation for how time travel works in the Terminator universe.
The films exist in a universe where John Connor exists, and Kyle Reese was always his father, because he came back from a future where that happened. For all we know there is an alternate timeline where John Connor never existed, because noone ever came back from the future to 1984.
That timeline may very well exist, controlled by Skynet without any Connor, or resistance. That timeline is not one that we see though, since noone from that timeline's future ever came back, why would they? Skynet has what it wants, so no need to send anyone back to change it. It doesn't even know that there is a timeline out there where humans fought back.
Schrodinger, DredZed, I like you guys. You clearly know the material well enough to understand all the problems present with making the timeline(s) consistent with itself/theirselves.
So then, without necessarily explaining the individual ramifications of the story, can either of you explain the rules of timetravel, as shown in this particular fiction?
Kyle says that Sarah started training John as a kid since before the war.
Now, it's possible that Sarah the waitress shacked up with some super paranoid militia guy who was training John for unrelated reasons. But then, we would be talking about how the super paranoid militia guy was the one who trained John -- not Sarah.
Why would Sarah the waitress suddenly start training John for the war, in the original timeline? The only explanation is that the original timeline featured Kyle.
Perhaps T-1 didn't depict the first time JC sent KR back in time to protect Sarah. The original John Connor, the one with a father other than Kyle Reese, would have initiated the paradox by sending Kyle Reese back in time before JC was born. Sarah and Kyle made with the sexing, and created John Connor. Then John Connor grew, survived JD, defeated Skynet and sent his father back in time to protect his mother. Then again. And again. And again ad infinitum. But, the first time, the very first time this happened it was a different John Connor, one that no longer exists.
The problem with terminator is they keep switching between closed self-repairing time loops and multiple timelines. It's inconsistent, so even the most dedicated terminator fan couldn't figure out the timelines because there's no canonical explanation for how time travel works in the Terminator universe.
This.
I've tried a lot, using the rule that every new time travel creates, from the point of arrival, a branch timeline, which the film/show then follows, meaning that the 'future' mentioned by the arrived characters is the future of the previous branch.
That means I have to explain away the first film's apparent loop as having an original timeline before it where JC isn't Kyle's son.
Another problem with this method is that, as in SCC Terminators are sent back to *before* the time of T1 (to do those various preparations, etc), that in branching earlier, it completely overwrites the T1 and T2 timelines, meaning Kyle and the T-800 (and indeed the later T-800 and T-1000) never arrive. I explain this away by having the JC of the future before SCC realising that this is likely to happen, and subsequently sending them back into the new branch anyway, so that those events can unfold again.
Oh, and though they've said that T3 isn't canon, I don't see why we can't include it anyway, and have it overwritten by SCC.
(As an aside, it annoys me a little that even for things which haven't changed due to time travel happenings, there're still date inconsistencies.)
Ok, I'll concede that JC sent his father back to save SC in T-1, thus leading to his creation.
However, I just can't buy the notion that there never was an original JC fathered by an unnamed man. This JC1 no longer exists, of course, but he would have been the one that sent Kyle back which led to JC1 ceasing to exist, replaced by JC2 whose father was Kyle. Following this one incident, there would from that point on be the paradox of John Connor creating himself by sending his father back in time. Of course, I'm stretching my mind as much around this idea as I possibly can. So I admit that, like the notion of infinity, I just may not be able to mentally grasp this sort of time paradox.
To help you wrap your mind around time travel/timelines/etc, try to stop thinking that one "ceases" to exist and another takes his place. They both exist, just in different timelines, and everything just depends which you're looking at :0)
EDIT: This won't explain the Terminator timelines really, but helps explain time travel in general.
Where in t1 does it say "he was a natural leader, untrained by his mother?"
She raises him to be a super commando, he then leads.
In the original timeline, the terminator was never sent back, she never knew about skynet and thus had no reason to train him as a super commando. His father was presumably someone other than kyle reese. sending back the first terminator changed the timeline.
Do you think there's an internet forum out there where a bunch of engineering enthusiasts get together and brainstorm on all the possible ways so many explosions could happen in Michael Bay movies? They might dig out blueprints for big rigs to prove they could blow up if shot in a specific area or bring up city maps of gas lines and utilities that might add to explosions.
The Terminator is about shooting a bullet-proof robot. Not piecing together timelines.
To help you wrap your mind around time travel/timelines/etc, try to stop thinking that one "ceases" to exist and another takes his place. They both exist, just in different timelines, and everything just depends which you're looking at :0)
EDIT: This won't explain the Terminator timelines really, but helps explain time travel in general.
You, sir, just pulled me from the brink of an aneurysm.
Do you think there's an internet forum out there where a bunch of engineering enthusiasts get together and brainstorm on all the possible ways so many explosions could happen in Michael Bay movies?
Yes.
Welcome to the Internet.
Edit: Time travel itself is an infinitely interesting subject, and the Terminator series is an interesting piece of fiction. Exploding cars, not so much.
Perhaps T-1 didn't depict the first time JC sent KR back in time to protect Sarah. The original John Connor, the one with a father other than Kyle Reese, would have initiated the paradox by sending Kyle Reese back in time before JC was born. Sarah and Kyle made with the sexing, and created John Connor. Then John Connor grew, survived JD, defeated Skynet and sent his father back in time to protect his mother. Then again. And again. And again ad infinitum. But, the first time, the very first time this happened it was a different John Connor, one that no longer exists.
Basically, you're saying that the John Connor that Kyle knew from the future that Kyle came from is different from the original JC, and that Kyle Reese created a self-contained loop.
Really, what's the point?
It's like saying that there was an "original" Marty McFly in the Back to the Future, who went back in time thanks to Doc Brown and who altered the timeline thus creating the "new" Marty McFly, who is the one we saw in the movie who then goes back in time and insures that his parents stay together. Sure, you can believe that. But what's the point? There's no evidence for it, no reason to believe in it, and it doesn't make the story any more satisfying.
Schrodinger, DredZed, I like you guys. You clearly know the material well enough to understand all the problems present with making the timeline(s) consistent with itself/theirselves.
So then, without necessarily explaining the individual ramifications of the story, can either of you explain the rules of timetravel, as shown in this particular fiction?
I say it follows under the Novikoff hypothesis. You can make minor changes in the timeline, but the time/space continuum is self-correcting, and prevents you from making major changes. Events will always play themselves so that Judgement Day happens, and that John Connor will survive it.
I don't see them preventing judgement day 1) Preventing Judgement Day requires a lot of planning to avoid the sort of unsatisfying ending of Star Trek Voyager, 2) because they can get cancelled at any moment or renewed at any moment, and it would suck if they got renewed right after averting Judgement Day, or if they got cancelled right before they could prevent it, 3) Because it's paradoxical as hell, and 4) Because it would undermine the future movie tie ins.
In general, I would say that they can prevent minor changes so long as they don't create paradoxes (e.g., changes that would prevent people from going back in time.). So, for instance, if the T-888 tried to kill the young Reese Brothers, a series of unlikely events would happen to insure their survival. You'll note that most of the missions on TSCC have been maintaining the status quo. However, that's contradicted by several things. On the list, I forgot about Andy Goode. He's alive in 2027, and yet he's dead in the present. Major paradox. Obviously, if Andy Goode is dead in 2008, then he's dead in 2027, which means that Derek would never have met him and never have known to shoot him. OTOH, Andy Goode's creation lives on despite him. So perhaps you can create a minor paradox, but not a major paradox.
Anyway, to make sense of the series, just keep a few things in mind:
1) Judgement Day is likely inevitable, but minor changes can be made.
2) Both Skynet and the resistance will send back their troops to enact these minor changes.
3) Try to ignore the role that "motivation" plays in Grandfather paradoxes (e.g., Andy Goode). Actual Grandfather paradoxes (Future Derek goes back in time to murder present Derek) would still apply.
4) Time is definitely not a closed loop. However, the universe is to some extent self-correcting. So we can make up a hypothetical situation where Charley Fisher would have gone to jail for reasons related to Derek but unrelated to future Charley.
Edit: When I say that "Time is not a closed loop," I mean only after the first movie. It's similar to how the first Highlander ends with "There can be only one," and then the future movies say nay.
OK, here's the timeline I've been working on for a while.
Spoiled because it's kinda large (ripped from a spreadsheet) and for those, like emnmnme who don't care.
Please correct or otherwise comment on areas which need changing or clarifying.
Explanation of the different time travel devices, for those who care:
I kind of realised that as there're competing theories within the films/shows themselves, that I might need multiple rules for time travel. Originally I had the first time machine developed as being called 'Loop time machine', but the whole concept of a time loop is a massively complex one (but where did it come from?, so I replaced that with the tidier original branch.
Either way, that leaves me with two - one called 'Branch' and one called 'Multi-Destination'. The observation here is that, in having a new timeline branch off after every timeline event (which I, and indeed most of you believe is most tidy), means that technically you wouldn't be able to get both a baddie terminator and a goodie anti-terminator to land in the same past as each other, as as soon as one landed, the timeline'd branch off, meaning there was nowhere for a good guy to come from. I explain this away using the concept of a window, which, though small, essentially is a kind of slippage whereby artefacts from the old future can still land in th new one.
The concept of the Multi-Destination time machine is based on the observation that in SCC, you have a bunch of terminators and resistance landing all over this timeline - I explain this away with the MD time machine being able to extend this window.
Note, that some of the more recnt SCC episodes aren't collected in this. I think I'm going to explain the latest one as saying that that window's closed, and thus a new branch began around the time that Derek's girlfriend chick arrived - she's from the future of the other SCC episodes, not the timeline which gave birth to them. This explains why she remembered something that he didn't.
To help you wrap your mind around time travel/timelines/etc, try to stop thinking that one "ceases" to exist and another takes his place. They both exist, just in different timelines, and everything just depends which you're looking at :0)
I always found the idea of parralel timelines amusing. Take "Moebius" from SG-1, for instance. It starts off in one present timeline, and then ends in another present timeline. The problem is that the "original" present timeline that we dealt with for the first 8 seasons is basically completely screwed over, because they no longer have Jack, Sam, Daniel, or Teal'c -- who had all disappeared and got killed in the past. Whoops!
Of course, Continuum showed that time travel doesn't branch off into alternate timelines, it merely alters the current one.
In the original timeline, the terminator was never sent back, she never knew about skynet and thus had no reason to train him as a super commando. His father was presumably someone other than kyle reese. sending back the first terminator changed the timeline.
Except that, once again, Kyle says that Sarah trained him since he was a kid, prior to the war.
Posts
The T-8xx makes sense mechanically. There's a fuel cell, an advanced computer-on-a-chip with a dynamic AI program, a pair of red LED cameras, a voicebox and a set of powerful pistons and actuators all held together with reinforced alloy and layered over with synthesized meat. Every element is futuristic, but they are all very comprehensible to modern science. It's a believable artifact from circa 2030.
Now the T-1000, a sentient colony of liquid nanobots that can dynamically acquire new patterns to change color, shape and texture, function on-the-fly as a CPU and sensory organs, etc; seems like something from a truly posthuman "100 million years in the future" type of timeline.
villain decay is already killing me. 5 terminators downed in 8 episodes? glad theyre bringing back cromartie. this last ep was one of the best so far and one of the first to really live up to the potential of the show.
To be fair, Cameron killed most of them. Terminator on terminator violence is becoming an epidemic.
What do you know?
What do you know?
tell me your mission.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
Son, in my day they were bazookas.
Now, is sarah connor just such a bad ass that no matter what her kid was going to lead the rebellion, or were they sending people back in time to make a leader and the terminator came after her because it was the one that worked?
She wasn't all that impressive at the start, so her raising a leader outside of events doesn't sound too likely. If the original plan was to protect her and the as yet unconceived last hope of humanity, wouldn't not impregnating her and fucking over the timelime be pretty high up on the things to do?
unless that's the whole plan from the outset, and why limit the genes to just one extra trip through time. Hell, the robots are doing it with technology. Why not go the Kwisatz Haderach route, but run it massively parallel and recursive. Imagine the evolutionary pressure of an on going war with unstoppable killing machines, with the best and brightest getting to have their genes go back and run through it again.
I mean, was the original idea, "fuck causality, we need soldiers."
what? your over thinking shit, there was no original plan, the whole thing is a paradox, thats just what it is, the original timeline is t1, its after that they started fucking with the timeline.
and kyle & sarah got horny.
John Connor the original was untrained by his mother, he was just naturally a good enough leader to lead the resistance to victory. Sarah didn't actually have to train him at all. She doesn't really get time travel. Also the terminator timeline cannot be figured out. at all. don't try.
Skynet nukes earth -> John Connor leads the last of the humans to victory -> As a last resort skynet sends a terminator (Arnie) back in time to kill Sarah Connor (thus, in it's eyes, ensuring victory in the future) -> John Connor sends Kyle Reese (possibly because he knew that he was his father) back in time to protect Sarah -> Kyle and Sarah create John Connor.
The original John Connor had no training, he was just your average Joe who turns out to be the saviour of humanity. However, Sarah ends up training John because she knows what he will become. She also trys to stop judgment day, however all they ever achieve is setting the date back. Every time they set the date back the war gets more advanced. In T1, skynet does not have access to T1000s and the humans don't have access to any reprogrammed terminators. T2 judgment day happens at a later date to T1 judgment day so everyone is more advanced.
This could be bad for the humans as in later iterations of the future there isn't mention of humans winning. We come to today and the terminators have started branching out from the standard "kill John Connor and profit" scheme. They are much more advanced and are being more creative (planting materials to make terminators in the future, going after other important people in the resistance, implanting viruses in the DoD computers etc) so it is still possible that the future of humanity are pretty screwed (despite winning the war in the first movie).
Where in t1 does it say "he was a natural leader, untrained by his mother?"
She raises him to be a super commando, he then leads. The only problem is, like I pointed out, at this point skynet's in a recursive loop where every time it sends a terminator after the connors, it ends up being created later and based on a later model of its own tech, so the more people it sends back to fail, the better it gets. That's the reason why skynet keeps sending back terminators that somehow fail at the last minute.
I host a podcast about movies.
It's pretty easy to assume (and, with Terminator we have to do a lot of assuming) that the original John Connor wasn't trained since no one had any idea, at the time, that an malevolant artificial intelligence was gonna declare war on humanity. John Connor the second wasn't the original John Connor, and with John Connor the second Sarah knew what was going to happen.
I don't buy that Reese was always John Connor's father. I think it's more logical to assume that the John Connor that sent Reese back in time in T-1 no longer exists in the current Terminator timeline, being replaced by the John Connor that Reese fathered.
I guess you're right, I was thinking it from the viewpoint of the first John Connor not knowing about the war beforehand. This would mean that Kyle wouldn't have been his father, which means John wouldn't have intentionally sent him back. This means one of two things, either its a self perpetuating paradox or T1 is a few iterations into the time travel shenanigans. It is possible it works like this:
Sarah Connor and Random Joe give birth to John Connor -> John grows up with a normal life -> Skynet nukes earth -> John leads resistance to victory -> Skynet sends back terminator to kill Sarah Connor -> John sends a trusted soldier (who just so happens to be Kyle Reece) back in time to save Sarah -> Kyle saves Sarah and they get busy making John -> John grows up (probally being trained this time) -> Skynet nukes earth -> John leads resistance to victory -> Skynet sends terminator back -> John (knowing his father is Kyle) sends Kyle back to protect Sarah -> Cue Terminator 1
It's been a long damn time since I watched T-1. Plus I was a kid at the time. Is there any indication that John sent Kyle back knowing Kyle was going to father him?
"John Connor gave me a picture of you once. I didn't know why at the time. It was very old - torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. I came across time for you Sarah. I love you; I always have. "
I host a podcast about movies.
Wait... wait... I just lost it.
Is the Terminator timeline sort of like a rollercoaster with a single loop. The loop feeds into itself, so that when you reach it you keep going around and around and around the loop and can never get off?
edit: but each time you go around the loop, the loop changes ever so slightly.
editit: I have to give this show props. I've never pondered any television show as deeply as I ponder TSCC (and, subsequently, the whole franchise). Despite all it's mistakes, this show is probably the best show on basic cable.
edititit: the best action/drama on basic cable.
This would mean that the John Connor in the future of T1 would have been trained probally. Unless of course the Kyle sent back from the previous John was sent back for other reasons (perhaps, after defeating skynet, he decideds to set up a transtemporal dating agency?). It becomes impossible to tell (from the movies at least) and the great thing is you can work in lots of story lines that don't quite fit together and just explain it away with alternate timelines and butterflys.
Deja Vu - actually a fairly decent film
Primer - Requires diagrams to explain
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
It's not an eternal loop, we know that things can change (eg judgment day being pushed back or this weeks episode). This means that it may be possible to kill John Connor or stop judgment day. however one of the themes of the movies is that judgment day is going to happen anyway no matter how far you try to push it back. This means that there may be inevitable events that have to happen in the timeline at some point. Another theory (that I just made up while writing this, but I like it anyways) is that rather than judgment day being inevitable, it may just be because there are so many people working towards what will eventually evolve into skynet. It may be possible to save humanity by destroying most of the world (if you have enouth monkeys working towards shakespear, kill enouth of them and delay it for a good few years).
So the whole "John Connor the original was untrained by his mother, he was just naturally a good enough leader to lead the resistance to victory. Sarah didn't actually have to train him at all" thing doesn't fly. There was never an "original John" other than the one we have. Period.
So yes, John sent back Kyle knowing that Kyle would be his father.
Final confirmation that it's the same timeline.
Anyway, here's what happened. Terminator 1 was written as a self-contained time loop, a causal paradox. That's fine, though, because the you could always say that there was some sort of divine intervention at play here pulling the strings (John Connor = JC. Anytime you see a fictional characters with those initials who's supposed to be the savior for all mankind on Judgement Day, it's going to be significant.). The movie was never written with a sequel in mind.
Then, seven years later, they decide to write the sequel, where the timeline gets fucked over. Cameron decides to make it so that John averts judgement day. They write an ending where John blows up a building and everyone is happy. Except that the audience hates that ending and says that it doesn't fit at all. So Cameron films a new ending that ends on an ambiguous note. We don't know if Judgement Day happens now. The problem is that they have officially changed the timeline, so it is no longer a self-contained loop. Whoops!
Terminator 3 comes in and basically instates the Novikoff principal. The Novikoff principle basically dictates that the laws of probability will manipulate events so that you can make minor changes in history, but not changes that would effect you going back in time (thus creating a grandfather paradox, which is different from the paradox in terminator one. The former is self-contradicting, the latter self-affirming.). Judgement Day isn't prevented, it is only postponed. This makes sense, since it's not like Cyberdyne wouldn't file their patents with the US Patent Office, and wouldn't keep backups off site. It's perfectly reasonable for Cyberdyne to try to sell off their assets for $$$, and for their engineers to continue to pursue their work when they find jobs elsewhere. It doesn't make sense that the entirety of Judgement Day can be avoided by melting a metal arm and blowing up a building. There is one grandfather paradox in Terminator 3 -- the fact that the T-X kills off his Lieutenants. Of course, you could try explaining that by saying that John and Kate simply forced their Lieutenants to go under false names.
TSCC is basically to the Terminator timeline what "Highlander: The Series" was to "There can be only one." The timeline is in completely flux, although still susceptible to the Novikoff theory. Perhaps the biggest changes comes from the pilot, when pre-T3 John jumps forward 8 years into the future, which would mean that future John would suddenly become 8 years younger in the future timeline, and yet all his decisions will pretty much be the same.
The last episode seems to introduce a paradox with Fisher, in that Fisher wasn't a figure in the original future, where as the current future is a self-contained loop (Future Fisher makes it so that future Fisher is possible.). It's possible that Reese made it so that current Fisher would have been imprisoned for an unrelated charge, and that future Fischer performed his mission because he figured "Well, I'm going to be locked up anyway and it turns out fine, and besides, I need to perform this mission for Skynet", although that seems unlikely. Not the fact that current Fisher would have ended up in prison without future Fisher's intervention, but the mere fact that current Fisher wouldn't have become a felon if not for Derek.
If you really want to make your head hurt, however, ponder this: In the original timeline, Derek goes back. Then Derek alters the future to allow Fisher to become a monster. This alternate Derek is tortured, escapes, and then goes back in time. Alternate Jesse then goes after him. Original Jesse was presumably wiped out from the time stream ("That looks new" "Not to me."). However, what happened to alternate Derek, who would have gone back in time prior to alternate Jesse? Shouldn't there be two Derek's running around now?
BTW, my theory for how the series ends:
However, I just can't buy the notion that there never was an original JC fathered by an unnamed man. This JC1 no longer exists, of course, but he would have been the one that sent Kyle back which led to JC1 ceasing to exist, replaced by JC2 whose father was Kyle. Following this one incident, there would from that point on be the paradox of John Connor creating himself by sending his father back in time. Of course, I'm stretching my mind as much around this idea as I possibly can. So I admit that, like the notion of infinity, I just may not be able to mentally grasp this sort of time paradox.
As far as Fisher goes, I didn't think he was sent back in time to make sure he helps Skynet in the future. It seemed that he came back to assist Skynet but... shit, maybe Skynet knew that Techcom would send someone back to stop Fisher so Skynet sent Fisher back to make sure he'd go to prison. Oh god... Oh god holy shit...
The second film is a little more complex. The T-1000 was also trying to alter the timeline, and Arnie-2 was trying to preserve it (There was even a scripted but never filmed scene in the future where it's indicated future John remembers the Arniebot that saved him, and then sends that bot back), but now Sarah decides that she wants to try to change things as well, in a different way from Skynet's plan.
A timeline where the T-1000 succeeded would have given us a world where Connor died as a child and the humans lost, if the Arniebot had succeeded fully Connor would be exactly the same person he was when Arnie was sent back and things would not have changed, but Sarah introduced a bit of added complexity to the situation. She decided to go beyond just preserving the timeline, and took a page from Skynet's book, attempting to actually alter the timeline. Her version would have it that Skynet, rather than John Connor, was never created, and thus introduces a third distinct possible timeline.
In T2 itself, we do not know which timeline comes out of it. The T-1000 failed, so it's possible timeline could not happen, but the Arniebot's and Sarah's timelines are still in play. The alternate ending to the film would have shown us that Sarah's timeline was the one that actually happened, but we got the more ambiguous ending, so either one of those potential timelines has equal chance of having happened.
Sarah Connor chronicles follows one potential timeline that is not the one that any of the previous time travellers were sent from. This is an independant timeline where Sarah succeeded in changing events, and thus breaking free of the time loop perpetuated by the first film. She just didn't succeed quite well enough, so things turn out similarly to how they originally did, but not quite exactly.
For instance, the Kyle Reese that Derek talks about is not the Kyle Reese we saw in the first film, though he is a similar version of him. This Kyle was born before Judgement day, the other after (because of the movement of Judgement day; he was still born the same time). There are many events in their lives that are similar, apparently including being sent back to protect Sarah Connor, but in the show, the Kyle that showed up in '84 and became John's father was actually a Kyle Reese from a different timeline, the one from the original time loop. Kyle himself indicates something like this is possible in the first film when he says he is from "One possible future. From your point of view...", thus indicating that even though he doesn't "know tech stuff" he believes it is possible there are multiple potential timelines, and he is simply trying to ensure that the one he comes from actually occurs.
I've clearly thought about this way too much, so I'll stop now.
Kyle says that Sarah started training John as a kid since before the war.
Now, it's possible that Sarah the waitress shacked up with some super paranoid militia guy who was training John for unrelated reasons. But then, we would be talking about how the super paranoid militia guy was the one who trained John -- not Sarah.
Why would Sarah the waitress suddenly start training John for the war, in the original timeline? The only explanation is that the original timeline featured Kyle.
Deja Vu makes infinitely more sense than Primer. Primer is ridiculous. Here's a chart: http://neuwanstein.fw.hu/primer_timeline.html
The thing with Primer is it's confusing, but the internal logic of time travel is very consistent. The problem with terminator is they keep switching between closed self-repairing time loops and multiple timelines. It's inconsistent, so even the most dedicated terminator fan couldn't figure out the timelines because there's no canonical explanation for how time travel works in the Terminator universe.
That timeline may very well exist, controlled by Skynet without any Connor, or resistance. That timeline is not one that we see though, since noone from that timeline's future ever came back, why would they? Skynet has what it wants, so no need to send anyone back to change it. It doesn't even know that there is a timeline out there where humans fought back.
I'll make a diagram later.
Also, Primer is awesome.
So then, without necessarily explaining the individual ramifications of the story, can either of you explain the rules of timetravel, as shown in this particular fiction?
Perhaps T-1 didn't depict the first time JC sent KR back in time to protect Sarah. The original John Connor, the one with a father other than Kyle Reese, would have initiated the paradox by sending Kyle Reese back in time before JC was born. Sarah and Kyle made with the sexing, and created John Connor. Then John Connor grew, survived JD, defeated Skynet and sent his father back in time to protect his mother. Then again. And again. And again ad infinitum. But, the first time, the very first time this happened it was a different John Connor, one that no longer exists.
This.
I've tried a lot, using the rule that every new time travel creates, from the point of arrival, a branch timeline, which the film/show then follows, meaning that the 'future' mentioned by the arrived characters is the future of the previous branch.
That means I have to explain away the first film's apparent loop as having an original timeline before it where JC isn't Kyle's son.
Another problem with this method is that, as in SCC Terminators are sent back to *before* the time of T1 (to do those various preparations, etc), that in branching earlier, it completely overwrites the T1 and T2 timelines, meaning Kyle and the T-800 (and indeed the later T-800 and T-1000) never arrive. I explain this away by having the JC of the future before SCC realising that this is likely to happen, and subsequently sending them back into the new branch anyway, so that those events can unfold again.
Oh, and though they've said that T3 isn't canon, I don't see why we can't include it anyway, and have it overwritten by SCC.
(As an aside, it annoys me a little that even for things which haven't changed due to time travel happenings, there're still date inconsistencies.)
To help you wrap your mind around time travel/timelines/etc, try to stop thinking that one "ceases" to exist and another takes his place. They both exist, just in different timelines, and everything just depends which you're looking at :0)
EDIT: This won't explain the Terminator timelines really, but helps explain time travel in general.
In the original timeline, the terminator was never sent back, she never knew about skynet and thus had no reason to train him as a super commando. His father was presumably someone other than kyle reese. sending back the first terminator changed the timeline.
The Terminator is about shooting a bullet-proof robot. Not piecing together timelines.
You, sir, just pulled me from the brink of an aneurysm.
Yes.
Welcome to the Internet.
Edit: Time travel itself is an infinitely interesting subject, and the Terminator series is an interesting piece of fiction. Exploding cars, not so much.
Basically, you're saying that the John Connor that Kyle knew from the future that Kyle came from is different from the original JC, and that Kyle Reese created a self-contained loop.
Really, what's the point?
It's like saying that there was an "original" Marty McFly in the Back to the Future, who went back in time thanks to Doc Brown and who altered the timeline thus creating the "new" Marty McFly, who is the one we saw in the movie who then goes back in time and insures that his parents stay together. Sure, you can believe that. But what's the point? There's no evidence for it, no reason to believe in it, and it doesn't make the story any more satisfying.
I say it follows under the Novikoff hypothesis. You can make minor changes in the timeline, but the time/space continuum is self-correcting, and prevents you from making major changes. Events will always play themselves so that Judgement Day happens, and that John Connor will survive it.
I don't see them preventing judgement day 1) Preventing Judgement Day requires a lot of planning to avoid the sort of unsatisfying ending of Star Trek Voyager, 2) because they can get cancelled at any moment or renewed at any moment, and it would suck if they got renewed right after averting Judgement Day, or if they got cancelled right before they could prevent it, 3) Because it's paradoxical as hell, and 4) Because it would undermine the future movie tie ins.
In general, I would say that they can prevent minor changes so long as they don't create paradoxes (e.g., changes that would prevent people from going back in time.). So, for instance, if the T-888 tried to kill the young Reese Brothers, a series of unlikely events would happen to insure their survival. You'll note that most of the missions on TSCC have been maintaining the status quo. However, that's contradicted by several things. On the list, I forgot about Andy Goode. He's alive in 2027, and yet he's dead in the present. Major paradox. Obviously, if Andy Goode is dead in 2008, then he's dead in 2027, which means that Derek would never have met him and never have known to shoot him. OTOH, Andy Goode's creation lives on despite him. So perhaps you can create a minor paradox, but not a major paradox.
Anyway, to make sense of the series, just keep a few things in mind:
1) Judgement Day is likely inevitable, but minor changes can be made.
2) Both Skynet and the resistance will send back their troops to enact these minor changes.
3) Try to ignore the role that "motivation" plays in Grandfather paradoxes (e.g., Andy Goode). Actual Grandfather paradoxes (Future Derek goes back in time to murder present Derek) would still apply.
4) Time is definitely not a closed loop. However, the universe is to some extent self-correcting. So we can make up a hypothetical situation where Charley Fisher would have gone to jail for reasons related to Derek but unrelated to future Charley.
Edit: When I say that "Time is not a closed loop," I mean only after the first movie. It's similar to how the first Highlander ends with "There can be only one," and then the future movies say nay.
Spoiled because it's kinda large (ripped from a spreadsheet) and for those, like emnmnme who don't care.
Please correct or otherwise comment on areas which need changing or clarifying.
Explanation of the different time travel devices, for those who care:
Either way, that leaves me with two - one called 'Branch' and one called 'Multi-Destination'. The observation here is that, in having a new timeline branch off after every timeline event (which I, and indeed most of you believe is most tidy), means that technically you wouldn't be able to get both a baddie terminator and a goodie anti-terminator to land in the same past as each other, as as soon as one landed, the timeline'd branch off, meaning there was nowhere for a good guy to come from. I explain this away using the concept of a window, which, though small, essentially is a kind of slippage whereby artefacts from the old future can still land in th new one.
The concept of the Multi-Destination time machine is based on the observation that in SCC, you have a bunch of terminators and resistance landing all over this timeline - I explain this away with the MD time machine being able to extend this window.
Note, that some of the more recnt SCC episodes aren't collected in this. I think I'm going to explain the latest one as saying that that window's closed, and thus a new branch began around the time that Derek's girlfriend chick arrived - she's from the future of the other SCC episodes, not the timeline which gave birth to them. This explains why she remembered something that he didn't.
I always found the idea of parralel timelines amusing. Take "Moebius" from SG-1, for instance. It starts off in one present timeline, and then ends in another present timeline. The problem is that the "original" present timeline that we dealt with for the first 8 seasons is basically completely screwed over, because they no longer have Jack, Sam, Daniel, or Teal'c -- who had all disappeared and got killed in the past. Whoops!
Of course, Continuum showed that time travel doesn't branch off into alternate timelines, it merely alters the current one.
Except that, once again, Kyle says that Sarah trained him since he was a kid, prior to the war.