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Time And The Terminator
Uncle Geoff ponders the paradox implicit in the statement: 'The
future is not set. 'There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.'
Time travel? Altering the past? What the heck is that all about.
Equally, it can also be false, especially if you aren’t really in control of your own destiny. If anything, all it can constitute is a belief that there might be something better with no real evidence to back it up. You might create a new future but it wouldn’t affect your own reality. However, throughout all three time travel excursions, it hasn’t been a victory for mankind but for Skynet. According to Sergeant Kyle Reese, Skynet came on line 04 August 1997 and was self-aware at 2:14 a.m. eastern time, 29 August 1997, making the decision to remove mankind by causing a nuclear war between the United States Of America and Russia by bombing the latter. What remained of mankind was interned and used to incinerate the bodies as they were systematically killed. An odd occupation considering that Skynet wouldn’t have to worry about infections spreading from dead human bodies. A different reason thus presents itself. Considering that Reese was born after the resistance was set up strongly suggests that this was all part of Skynet’s plan. It needed some humans to survive, fulfil some activity and escape. It especially needed a military trained Kyle Reese if its own survival was to be assured and that meant leaving sections of humanity free and alive for that to happen. This time delay also allowed Skynet to perfect its technology to allow one way time travel into the past. Considering that it only created two advanced Terminators of its own during this period, one has to wonder what else it was doing. I doubt those pesky humans were causing that much trouble for Skynet if it could afford to let them breed. Although the destruction of the majority of the human race was to reduce threat to itself, its total removal was not required. Indeed, there was strong reason not to. As the John Connor resistance broke through to the time travel lab, Skynet sent a cyborg Terminator-800 (also known by its earlier designation as a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101) model into the past to assassinate Sarah Connor. The adult Connor sent one of his army, Kyle Reese, back through the captured machine to rescue her and to preserve his own existence. Reese had been in the army for 6 years, 2 years directly under Connor who fostered Reese’s interest in his mother to ensure he would protect, fall in love and become his own father in the past. Skynet would also be aware of this information. Although Los Angeles was destroyed in the nuclear strike, Skynet was already operational and would probably have pulled the records during the month of developing sentience. It would have discovered any references to itself discovering time travel and Kyle Reese’s testimony had been recorded on tape or very probably through police psychologist Doctor Peter Silberman’s computer records. It would also have been aware of events further along in its own history and might even have influenced the decision to initiate the nuclear strike. As such, it was important to have this time trip take place, the T-800 destroyed at the right place for its damaged parts to be discovered and initiate its own creation. Before his death, Kyle Reese made Sarah Connor pregnant and thus ensuring that there would be a John Connor alive to send him back into the past 40 years later. All of this ensured the success of the first mission into the past to ensure the future. Skynet was fulfilling its own destiny by ensuring the right ingredients were set in place. To deviate from them would risk its own existence. Skynet’s decision to destroy most of Mankind might well have been decided to fulfil history and ensure a stronger breed left in the aftermath than those in the present who could be viewed as loosing interest in their own advancement. As stated above, the first T-800’s destruction was not complete. Its damaged central processor and remaining lower arm fell into the hands of Cyberdyne Systems and with the information gleaned from it, Miles Dyson later developed the Series 4800 quantum processors that would be instrumental for Skynet’s technology and hold its artificial intelligence. It is to Dyson’s credit that he advanced the original Terminator CPU rather than just repeat its architecture. A single processor would certainly not be up to the task of carrying total artificial intelligence or the Terminator would be a far more efficient thinker in its tasks. Even so, what should Skynet do next? Without any time travel interference, there was a possibility that Miles Dyson and his rather expert knowledge could survive the nuclear strike and be a threat to it. Maybe Dyson and his family were holidaying after competing the military project? Whatever. There should be no way any information should be left for someone to attack Skynet’s own technology. To this end, Dyson and Cyberdyne’s computer files had to be destroyed and as its own historical records confirmed. To achieve this aim, Skynet allowed the adult John Connor to send back a second re-programmed T-800 to protect his mother and younger self from the T-1000 model it had sent to kill them. Connor knows this information because he lived through it. From all accounts, this event happened shortly after the first Terminator and Reese were sent back in time. Connor might have given Reese the message to tell his mother to complete the circle but he wasn’t beyond edging his bets and protecting his adolescent self. What the future Connor didn’t know is the ulterior motives that Skynet was playing. If Skynet was already aware of these events as being pre-ordained, it just had to play out its role, confident that Connor would have to play a similar chess game as he remembered what he met as well. Now, both of them were fulfilling their own destinies. Connor, unsure that his future from the past, was pre-ordained couldn’t take any chances that to take no action at all couldn’t make his future worse than it currently is. Without himself in place, the resistance might not have developed and that would have meant Mankind’s destruction and he couldn’t allow that. It would be interesting to speculate what would have happened had the second Terminator not been sent back. Would the T-1000 have killed the young Connor? Such an action might have made for a cleaner action ten years down the line. Skynet would have reached sentience and carried out its nuclear strike. However, doing that without a John Connor in the future would also have meant no one there to start the chain of events that would have resulted in having the advanced technology in the past to build it. As physicist Stephen Hawking has commented, ‘Time doesn’t allow such paradoxes.’ Everything had to continue as dictated in its memory banks even if the humans didn’t have all the right information. Skynet might well believe it had to fulfil its part in time. There is no way to see a T-1000 or even the later T-X model to be technology concealed by flesh to allow them to travel in time. This misinformation was fed to Connor to prevent him sending Reese or the two T-800 models bringing back futuristic weapons. That action that would have changed the balance in the confrontations. Equally, the early T-800 models were effective with 20th century weapons with no serious need for anything that superior. Indeed, their ultimate destruction was dependent on them not being superiorly armed. Skynet was aware of the events that were going to take place and was quite happy to allow the future Connor to re-program a T-800 and release it from its original control. The T-1000’s objective was to eliminate the younger John Connor but as events would show, this mission would and needed to be doomed to failure. Except that wasn’t really the original mission. It needed to manoeuvre Miles Dyson into allowing the Connors and the T-800 into Cyberdyne Systems building to destroy the records and ultimately his own life. Skynet had won this aspect of building its own future. The key man and crucial information about Skynet’s technology and its own possible defeat was removed at the press of a button. If Skynet had truly wanted to kill John Connor, it would have been easier to send a T-1000 or TX on the first mission but then neither model had old enough technology that could have been used by Cyberdyne or with enough background to examine further had someone just handed them the CPU. Besides, events hadn’t happened that way. To continue its own existence, Skynet had to fulfil the history it knew. Things were not over. The problem now was ensuring that John Connor and the woman who was to become his wife, Katherine Brewster, were not killed in the nuclear strike as both were living in the Los Angeles area. They were still instrumental in its own creation by sending Reese and the other T-800 models into the past. With the T-850 model saving them this part of the future was assured. The younger Connor was relieved that the original 29 August 1997 deadline for nuclear strike passed without incident. This date was given to his mother by Kyle Reese who was only told this information which, as we already know, was passed down rather than from actual records. Over 40 years, such information could have been altered or even had some manipulation by Skynet itself. Whatever, it would also be important to ensure their survival. The information given was 5 years 11 months late! For the younger Connor to develop through his adolescence, it was important for him to believe that his mother, Sarah, and himself had been successful in thwarting Skynet’s creation and eventual nuclear strike. This might well have been something dictated by John Connor himself to keep within events and information passed on to his mother. To this aim, Skynet allowed a re-programmed Terminator-850 to be sent back to protect the younger John Connor while sending the Terminator-X model to ensure the right resistance was provided for the actions to take place. A consequence at the start of these actions also proposes the death of the older John Connor although that might just be to instil in the younger Connor the knowledge that he will survive to defeat Skynet. As far as can be seen, the only difference between the T-800 and T-850 was the possession of two hydrogen power cells and ultimately used one of these to destroy the T-X. Its destruction was required lest it continued with its single mission to kill Connor and Brewster. Skynet’s knowledge of events would have known the T-X’s mission futility and destruction but this would have fulfilled events. As such, the circle was completed, leaving the younger John Connor and Katherine Brewster alive, trapped in a bunker to see the demise of 300 billion inhabitants of Earth and forge the resistance that would one day lead to sending the first T-800 back into the past and start the circle again. We only have Reese’s information that Skynet was defeated and as he was already given false data by the older Connor, it doesn’t mean the defence network was turned off. Twenty-seven years hence in the future, with its creation assured, only Skynet itself would know what it can do next. Skynet probably doesn’t know itself as it no longer has knowledge of events or their success from the future. It might well complete its original plan and complete its original removal of mankind from the Earth. Reflectively, it might keep them alive. After all, the nuclear strike was all part of the events that brought it to life and had to be fulfilled for the AI’s existence. Skynet might see this as an opportunity to allow a stronger Mankind to develop and could well allow itself to appear dormant for a time. Looking at this timeline as a whole makes a mockery of the belief that the future isn’t fixed. For a period of some 40 years, all events have been pre-ordained and the only thing knowing the full story of this particular time loop is Skynet itself. Although it looked to the human resistance that John Connor’s life was at stake to Skynet, it was in fact crucial to its survival and keeping him alive was paramount. However, his mother, Sarah, and himself had to be manoeuvred into making certain life-choice decisions if he was to be turned into the leader he was to become in the future. As Sarah Connor reported of herself at one point, she was pretty incapable until Kyle Reese entered her life and established her goals that turned her into a pretty mean potential mercenary. This in turn reflected in the early part of John Connor’s life and once past his adolescent, his knowledge of evading technology proved invaluable to his own future and what he told his followers. Their beliefs that the future wasn’t fixed actually led them to thinking the choices they were making were not pre-ordained and trying to alter any of the decisions they might make. Had the reverse been true, then there would have been attempts to change their future. Quite into what would have been debatable but I doubt if Skynet would have liked leaving anything to chance. This strongly suggests that Skynet has been orchestrating from the beginning knowing that it was fulfilling its own destiny. The only thing that could have been known for sure was that had Sarah Connor been killed when the first T-800 worked its way through the telephone book, then the future of Skynet would have been removed from the timeline. It simply would not have happened as there would have been no John Connor. The older John Connor also had to play out this game. It was important to instil in Kyle Reese’s head that the time travel lab was to be destroyed straight away, ensuring that he would do everything as planned. Without Reese’s unknowing participation, Connor himself wouldn’t have been born and he couldn’t anticipate what would happen without his involvement. For an entirely different reason, his own survival, he had to ensure Reese had only a limited knowledge of events. Would Skynet have still been created? Possibly but nothing like the one created in the time reality loop. Would Skynet be as superior an artificial intelligence as the Terminator-technology based version? Maybe. After all, no one has ever discussed who programmed the software. The difference in technology would have improved how it was used though and from all accounts the quantum-advance CPUs are far faster than the current silicon variety. Without that edge, Skynet’s AI status might not have asserted itself and just remained a defence computer. Was it possible to destroy the time loop in any other way? Now that would have been a bit difficult. Without John Connor’s presence and the knowledge of where to send back Kyle Reese and the two Terminators, it would have been a guessing game where to send them. Without his existence, this future would not have existed. It is entirely possible that other people would have filled the gap in the loop but that’s purely conjecture. The future is perfect only for Skynet in a game that Mankind could not possible win. Welcome to the future where Skynet rules supreme and humans may only be a footnote in its history. Maybe... GF Willmetts (c) gfwillmetts 2004 - all rights reserved
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OTHER CONTENT - April 2004
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What
an unusual message sent from the future. How would anyone know for
sure how right they could be? As far as the future is concerned,
its past is set or it wouldn’t have existed to send back to. Even
with alternative realities, it could only be akin to what is its
own past that created it rather than anything deviating from events.
During
the course of this internment, groups of humans escaped to form
a resistance that was led by John Connor...a man prepared for these
events! Although no exact date is given for this uprising, Reese
describes the events as happening 40 years after 1984, placing the
time he came back from as 2024. Considering Skynet’s plan to destroy
mankind, having them hang around for a further 27 years seems a
rather pointless exercise...or does it? 
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