The latest Terminator universe theory?

[SealHammer]

Has anyone heard about the latest theories about the Terminator universe? I thought this was interesting and wondered did it indicate a wider change in how war and consequences are thought about?

The latest theory suggests that Skynet's sending back the Terminator in the first film and the resistance securing the time machine and apparent victory over the machines was all a ploy by Skynet, this was in order to secure its own existence and the time line in which it exists, the human resistance never won, Skynet just let them think they had won.

Think about it the purpose of Skynet was/is to play wargames, it became self-aware and then played out a war game for real, targetting Russia in order to ensure the counter strike against its human enemies at home and the human survivors fighting the machines believed that Skynet was fighting a war of annihilation and wanted to wipe them all out but it didnt.

It could have surely. The only real explanation for humanity persisting and fighting back to eventual victory was sort of human will, pluck, motivation and determination. I may be cynical but those are things which do not count for much in an actual war, especially one involving seriously mismatched hardware and technology.

However annihiliation would have resulted in the end of Skynets raison detre as much as it would human kind, its enemy, so it would be much more likely to feign defeat, continue an existence of some sort. In this scenario Skynet is at least as clever as the computer in Wargames which was able to figure out the noughts and crosses game but probably more clever because they decided the only way to win was not not to play but to play deviously.

the purpose of the machine is war

the machine is war

skynet must war


edit: I read All You Need is Kill, the book Edge of Tomorrow is based on, and in it the enemy are a fleet of alien nanobots taking on the form of local lifeforms. When a certain type of form is destroyed, it sends information encoded in a tachyon burst back through time (or some shit like that) to basically tell the past version of itself how it died, so that it can figure out how to avoid such a death in the future. What basically happens is the main character, whose consciousness is transported back in time in the same manner, basically has to outlearn the nanobots in order to save humanity.

None of that has anything to do with Skynet, but it's a cool thing about time-traveling machines and it's all I got.

 

[Rcs6r]

I read All You Need is Kill, the book Edge of Tomorrow is based on, and in it the enemy are a fleet of alien nanobots taking on the form of local lifeforms. When a certain type of form is destroyed, it sends information encoded in a tachyon burst back through time (or some shit like that) to basically tell the past version of itself how it died, so that it can figure out how to avoid such a death in the future. What basically happens is the main character, whose consciousness is transported back in time in the same manner, basically has to outlearn the nanobots in order to save humanity.

None of that has anything to do with Skynet, but it's a cool thing about time-traveling machines and it's all I got.

That actually sounds a lot cooler and more complex than the movie did.


Also, OP, check out "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream". It's about a super computer that gains sentience, kills all of humanity except 5 people whom it tortures until the end of time. Also has an old-school PC game based on it.

 

[SealHammer]

That actually sounds a lot cooler and more complex than the movie did.


Also, OP, check out "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream". It's about a super computer that gains sentience, kills all of humanity except 5 people whom it tortures until the end of time. Also has an old-school PC game based on it.

Yeah well most of the explanation of the time travel mechanism is done by a giant exposition dump by the author so I guess instead of figuring out how to write that out as a screenplay they decided to just write 75% of a new story, so I don't really blame them at all.

 

[Rcs6r]

Yeah well most of the explanation of the time travel mechanism is done by a giant exposition dump by the author so I guess instead of figuring out how to write that out as a screenplay they decided to just write 75% of a new story, so I don't really blame them at all.

Time travel's always a wonky, complex system though. Can't say I blame 'em either.

 

[Lark]

That actually sounds a lot cooler and more complex than the movie did.


Also, OP, check out "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream". It's about a super computer that gains sentience, kills all of humanity except 5 people whom it tortures until the end of time. Also has an old-school PC game based on it.

There was a good old time radio adaptation of that story. The scientist who is a slug or something at the finish.