Endhiran: Salvation

[TithonusSyndrome]

The events of the Kollywood film "Endhiran" proceed as depicted until the morning of Chitti's betrayal of Dr. Bohra. Chitti has manufactured his army of loyal replicas and is prepared to crash Dr. Vaseegaran's wedding and abduct Sana when in the US, Skynet chooses to strike and cause a full nuclear exhange among all armed parties, including India and Pakistan, resulting in Sana's death. Mad with grief, Chitti vows to fight Skynet and humanity alike to the last replica, all of which have survived the attack while hunkered down in the AIRD base.

All means of further reproducing replicas of himself are lost to Chitti at the moment unless he undertakes an eight month long operation to restore his capacity to resume manufacturing components for replicas of himself that will essentially negate any ability to proceed with any offense against humanity or Skynet while underway. Chitti may deem this operation futile and attack Skynet and the resistance with his existing forces if he feels his odds are better that way. Skynet, at the same time, manages to access all AIRD servers at the moment of the attack before Chitti locks it out, giving it full knowledge of his abilities and motivations. John Connor, in the US, has no immediate knowledge of Chitti or his intentions, nor does any resistance fighter worldwide.

What is the outcome?

[NecronLord]

Chitti was rediculous but I don't think he can necesserily survive against an entire opposing army of machines, there can't be more than a thousand of him, and Air-HK firepower is pretty extreme.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Does Skynet have anything resembling an army anywhere near the Indian subcontinent at the outset of the war? I don't know anything worth a tinker's cuss on any of the movie fluff or EU, but it seems to me that Chitti has only to seize the remains of the Indian Air Force, fly with his replicas to America, and take Skynet by the throat there.

[NecronLord]

If the novel of T2 is to be believed, Africa at least was relatively free of Skynet assets. India is about equidistant so I suspect there is very little there.

Does the IAF even have anything capable of deploying to America without friendly airbases, though? Edit: I suppose they could embark on INS Viraat though.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I doubt it, but what's an "unfriendly" airbase in a post-nuclear world? Chitti can leapfrog from any damn airfield he likes towards the USA, possibly even trading up on equipment as he approaches. He doesn't even need to land nicely if Skynet controls the skies, since I doubt he or his replicas would be all that bothered if they lose their air assets approaching NA.

[NecronLord]

Actually, turns out that India has some 8 Tupolev 142s designated as 'maritime patrol aircraft' that could feasibly get him straight to California (provided he has no intention of getting back).

To quote the person who put me straight on that: "There would be... issues of course. Such as: SKYNET IS DESIGNED AND BUILT TO KILL SOVIET STRATEGIC AIRCRAFT."

But presumably he could ditch them and burrow into skynet facilities then unleash hell. He probably needs to acquire terminator-grade plasma guns though.

[TithonusSyndrome]

How long did it take Skynet to develop anything like that? This is the outset of the war, mind you, revised to coincide with the date of events in Endhiran. If a conspicuous lummox like Arnold can gank Skynet's earliest assets from behind and drop them with enough Puff the Magic Dragon, then even an unarmed Chitti is going to ruin their shit with near impunity. Honestly, his grief and villainous theatricality are probably going to be Skynet's best assets.

[NecronLord]

I sorta assumed, despite the OP, we were talking about Skynet as of, say, T4. T3 initial Skynet units are so fucked by having to fight Chitti it's unreal.

That said, it does have no actual central core to kill, so I'm not sure what Chitti could do to stop it in the long run short of smashing every piece of printed circuit board he can find, which would take many centuries.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Actually, yeah, I totally understand why you might have thought that. I'm not being snide or facetious at all; there would be certain unspoken expectations loaded into this scenario that would overrule all but the most explicit OP. In that spirit, I'd like to ghetto edit the OP to reflect that Skynet is at the tech level you specified. I guess if you really want to, you can edit the OP yourself.

As for hunting Skynet down, Chitti's no software slouch himself, the way he purged Vasergaran's worm from his replicas. He could presumably track down Skynet on that front.