Why did Skynet lose the war ?

[Crazedwraith]

If Skynet has any brains at all then their time travel tech means they have no problems acquiring resources. You just send an infiltrator terminator back in time to steal or purchase the needed materials in massive quantity then you have to moved to an extremely remote section of the Canadian rockies where no one is going to find them.

Then back in future time you go and pick up the stuff that has been sitting there all those years waiting for you.

Is there anything in the Terminator storyline that makes this not work?

Yes.. thats Exactly what Carter was doing in Season 1.

[Bilbo]

If Skynet has any brains at all then their time travel tech means they have no problems acquiring resources. You just send an infiltrator terminator back in time to steal or purchase the needed materials in massive quantity then you have to moved to an extremely remote section of the Canadian rockies where no one is going to find them.

Then back in future time you go and pick up the stuff that has been sitting there all those years waiting for you.

Is there anything in the Terminator storyline that makes this not work?

Yes.. thats Exactly what Carter was doing in Season 1.

Then why argue about where Skynet gets its materials. I doubt the show (which I havnt watched) shows every single time Skynet sends someone back in time. There are probably countless other times where terminators are sent to acquire this or that resource and store it somewhere for future use.

[Thanas]

The problem of course is that Skynet is facing the whole earth, so I kinda doubt a few resource-gathering missions are going to amount to much in the whole scheme of things.

[Peptuck]

Is there anything in the Terminator storyline that makes this not work?

The fact that Skynet's resources are apparently so strapped that it has to salvage jet engines to power its chronoporter, or the fact that a single nuclear power plant is a make-or-break resource for both sides, for starters.

[Guardsman Bass]

If Skynet has any brains at all then their time travel tech means they have no problems acquiring resources. You just send an infiltrator terminator back in time to steal or purchase the needed materials in massive quantity then you have to moved to an extremely remote section of the Canadian rockies where no one is going to find them.

Then back in future time you go and pick up the stuff that has been sitting there all those years waiting for you.

Is there anything in the Terminator storyline that makes this not work?

Yes.. thats Exactly what Carter was doing in Season 1.

Then why argue about where Skynet gets its materials. I doubt the show (which I havnt watched) shows every single time Skynet sends someone back in time. There are probably countless other times where terminators are sent to acquire this or that resource and store it somewhere for future use.

That might work on a relatively small scale, but keep in mind that Skynet probably needs all kinds of parts ranging from raw materials to highly complicated parts - and it needs a lot of them, not only for itself but for an entire army for decades. Do you think it could seriously buy and hide all of that, in survivable places, without drawing a lot of attention?

[Jon]

Given we know all this time travelling into the past just creates new, alternate timelines, can the skynet that sends machines back reap the benefits of their actions in the past? :/

[Bilbo]

Given we know all this time travelling into the past just creates new, alternate timelines, can the skynet that sends machines back reap the benefits of their actions in the past? :/

Does Skynet know this? Because if it does then why expend any effort at all? That would be completely stupid.

[Revy]

If Terminator dealt with alternate timelines then every film and episode would be a waste. The whole 'Send an assassin back to kill resistence leader so he doesnt raise hell and kick me ass' becomes a complete waste of time and energy. Plus, John would never even have been born, would he? I mean the whole self-fulfilling paradox involves John sending his own father back in time in order to make sure he gets born. If Kyle wound up in an alternate timeline then the John that sent him back would not benefit from sending Kyle back, and thus would never be born to send Kyle back in the first place, making an even bigger paradox mess.

It has to be part of the same timeline, otherwise John cannot send Kyle back to father him if Kyle is just going to wind up in another trouser leg of time. Skynet wouldn't bother stockpiling resources because the expended energy and resources would not net a return profit, and so on.

Couple of things bug me with the time machine - they say that only living things can travel (and T's are coated in living tissue, though how that lets T-1000's or T-X's travel is a mystery) yet Cromartie's head followed them through the time jump in the first episode, didn't it? Without it's organic coating. I think. I'm not sure if Cromartie's broken parts followed them through the time jump or were simply dug up from the rubble years later.

The other thing is ... as icky a suggestion as it might be, why not just get a crate full of futuristic weapons and shit and then wrap it in flesh? I mean regular terminators are machine covered in a gooey organic wrapper, so what's to stop them wrapping a crate of hi-tech weapons in the same stuff and sending that through? 'To John, from John, Happy Birthday and be careful with the Plasma Rifles!'.

[Revy]

Actually, from Skynets position, why not get a futuristic bundle of goodies and coat it in T-1000's? Since liquid metal can travel through time, just coat any futur tech you want sent into the past in the stuff and bingo, Skynet has a T-1000 AND a shitload of future gear to play with before J-Day. That's practically what they did anyway with the T-X, got a plasma gun wielding terminator and sprayed it with liquid metal so it could take the tech back. To hell with building the stuff into them though, just load up a big box of everything you could want (time machine parts, plasma guns etc.) and stretch a T-1000 over it before shoving it through the time jumper.

[Stark]

Oh jesus that didn't take long. Why are fans so predictable?

In any case, regardless of the time travel paradigm used in Terminator, all that is required is that the computer and TechCom both think it will/may work. In T1, Skynet could well have been indulging in a futile gesture of potential salvation (indeed the fact TechCom weren't instantly NOT in the time displacement building suggests it DIDN'T work) but Skynet was fucked so why not throw the dice? It's only later in the increasingly stupid continual expansion of this story that it becomes critical. Turns out basing your story on robots with uzis = good, basing it on stupid time travel crap = lol.

[Jon]

Does Skynet know this? Because if it does then why expend any effort at all? That would be completely stupid.

It has to be part of the same timeline

No idea, the only reason that occured to me was because the producers have acknolwedged T3 as taking place in an alternate timeline.

[Starglider]

This is a bit of a tangent but it's something I find interesting.

I do wonder where Skynet keeps getting the nuclear material for the power cores of it's terminators.

The novelisation of the original Terminator film had the following to say about the power supply of the T-800;

Where a man's heart would be, shielded in a case-hardened subassembly inside the hyperalloy torso, was the nuclear-energy cell. it supplied power to run the most sophisticated system of hydraulic actuators and servo-motors ever constructed, enough power to run the lights of a small city for a day.

The time-averaged power consumption of New York was about 4 gigawatts in 1985, so I'd say a reasonable total energy capacity for the T800's power cell would be about 20 gigawatt hours (1728 TJ). For comparison, a contemporary RTG design (used on the Galileo space probe) masses 56kg, has an initial thermal output of 6590W and an initial electrical output of 290W, and a half life of 88 years (ignoring thermocouple degredation). Effective useable capacity is only 600 GJ or so, but if we had magical 90% efficient thermocouples it might be as high as 11 TJ, while halving the RTG mass (plutonium fuel mass is 11kg). A useable (sustained) output of 5 KW and a 30kg power source is actually quite consistent with the kind of physical feats we see in the first two movies, despite being two orders of magnitude short of the energy density suggested by the novelisation. It does require those impossibly efficient thermocouples if the plutonium is solid, but in principle I suppose you could have molten plutonium and some sort of heat engine.

Alternatively it is theoretically possible to make a fission reactor that small, in that the critical mass of a reflected plutonium sphere is only 6 kg or so, but this seems impractical and inconsistent with the description. This would also put out a lot of radiation, requiring (technically difficult) rad-hardening of the Terminator's components and making them easy to detect. Another theoretical possibility is X-ray induced decay of Hafnium-178 (or similar isotopes), a concept that got a lot of press a few years back for both bombs and power sources. AFAIK no one got this to work reliably even in the lab - in principle energy densities of 200 GJ/kilo can be achieved, but that comes out as high-energy gamma which is a lot harder to absorb/use/shield than a simple RTG.

In any case it does seem improbable that Skynet can find 10kg of refined nuclear material per infantry unit. My guess is that initially all of its robots ran on fuel cells or ultracapacitors. Only a few that need long-term independent operation capability got RTG power sources, likely using high efficiency miniature turbines rather than thermocouples. The big robot tanks might well have used fission reactors to start with before switching to fusion later; they could have a secondary role of serving as field recharging stations for the smaller robots.

As of T3, the T-850 was using 'hydrogen fuel cells', which become 'unstable' when damaged and generate big explosions when ruptured. There is no way those cells could contain enough liquid hydrogen fuel to create those explosions or power the T850 for the duration of the movie. They are almost certainly miniature fusion reactors (probably some kind of cold fusion), suggesting that Skynet managed to progressively scale down fusion power sources over time. This was probably a major allocation of research effort in response to chronic shortages of nuclear materials, rather than any major need to increase energy density.

Plus, was it ever explained what powers a T1000?

A human athlete (e.g. long distance cyclist) can manage a mechanical power output of 250 watts with a thermal output of about 800 watts (resting metabolic power consumption is about 100W). Machinery is typically more efficient; linear electromagnetic actuators have efficiencies in the 90 to 95% range, although the unusual composition of the T1000 might compromise that to some extent. Average power consumption of a T1000 is probably under half a kilowatt as it would be noticeably hot to the touch otherwise - peak power consumption for the observed feats is likely low single digit kilowatts. If the average continuous power consumption of a T1000 is half a kilowatt (a high estimate, IMHO), then it needs 43 MJ per day. If the T1000 masses 100kg and half its mass is devoted to energy storage, technology equivalent to current lithium batteries would power it for 12 hours and something like EEstor's ultracapacitors would power it for a day. This isn't actually inconsistent with the evidence in the films - the T1000 and T1001s could be tapping electrical sources to recharge offscreen - but it seems highly unlikely that Skynet would send out units with such low endurances. It also seems unlikely that the T1000 had embedded nuclear power cells given that we saw it blown into pretty small chunks without revealing any solid components.

Microscale fusion is a theoretical possibility, using huge numbers of tiny laser implosion or plasma accelerator systems, probably backed up by ultracapacitor short-term energy storage. This would almost certainly have to be aneutronic (i.e. boron) fusion to have any chance of working and the engineering difficulties are still extreme. Use of antimatter (directly or catalysed fusion) seems to be ruled out by the fact that the T1000 didn't explode violently when destroyed and would in any case be even more difficult to harness with nanoscale components (and without massively irradiating everything in the vicinity).

Thus my best guess is some kind of metastable molecule, like spin-stabilised triplet helium but less inclined to spontaneously decay. Various molecules of this type have been proposed but they're almost all at the computer simulation stage and would be fiendishly difficult to manufacture (even moreso in bulk). In principle though they can give you energy densities two orders of magnitude better than chemical fuels (and thus years of completely independent operation for a T1000) without any radiation, and this fits nicely with the general concept of the T1000 (molecular technology, high-value unit, difficult to produce).

[NecronLord]

Excellent analysis there Starglider. I think I've previously suggested that the fuel cells would have to be some kind of fusion device given their description. This makes it rather curious that they explode violently rather than shut down; I recall discussing the notion that this may be a design feature of the 850; in that as an infiltrator, if it's being seriously damaged, it's probably in or near a human settlement, so why not go suicide bomber? Certainly the T-800s showed no similar signs of damage, though I don't recall if the display said the power cells was damaged directly, or just cut off, in T2. I tend to assume that the TX's 'plasma reactor' is also a fusion generator of some form, though presumably a less volatile, newer form with a different name.

[Revy]

This does beg the question of why the T's sent to kill any major target (Sarah and John Connor for eg) didn't just get within range of said target and then go nuclear on them. Other than the obvious - that it'd make for a hellish short and duller film if, instead of dramatic chase and fight scenes, the killer robot just walked up to them and then exploded. The End. Mind you, in the first film Arnie wasn't 100% sure which Sarah Connor was the real target, so he had to stick around to kill them all.

[Modax]

Hi, there. I've been a visitor of Star Destroyer.net for some time, but this is my first post here, as you can see. Anyway, here are my thoughts on this matter.

While Skynet undoubtedly has demigod level engineering abilities, it appears that its strategic thinking skills leave a great deal to be desired.

Suppose that, instead of trying to fight billions of fanatical human guerillas with dwindling terrestrial resources and a smashed infrastructure, Skynet were to build a von-neumann probe, a self-replicating robotic spacecraft, and send it mars, or the asteroid belt, or another star system, for that matter. From there it can construct a new industrial base, and achieve its goals (whatever they are) while humanity struggles to survive on post-nuclear earth. And if it really still wants to invade the Earth (for whatever inexplicable reason) it can return with a large invasion force. Or simply redirect a series of comets into the earth. Surely the engineering brilliance that designed the T-1000 and time machines could easily build a von-neumann probe.

There are 3 possible rationalizations here:
1) Skynet is the AI equivalent of an idiot savant. A brilliant engineer but a poor strategist.
2) Von Neumann probes are impossible. (but time machines somehow aren't!?)
3) Skynet DID build a von neumann probe, and sent a copy of its intelligence into deep space. The post-judgement day war is just a distraction to keep mankind busy while Skynet constructs a new machine civilization in space. The humans, celebrating their meaningless victory on Earth, will be tragically unprepared for Skynet's eventually return (should it ever decide to return)

[Samuel]

I don't think that Skynet has the industrial capacity to build von-nuemann machines. They would require a bit more complex work than making the Terminators.

In addition, the Human Resistance has orbital weaponry, which would keep a crimp on any space based expansion. Not to mention that any launch sites would be prime targets for the resistance.

[Thanas]

Hi, there. I've been a visitor of Star Destroyer.net for some time, but this is my first post here, as you can see. Anyway, here are my thoughts on this matter.

While Skynet undoubtedly has demigod level engineering abilities, it appears that its strategic thinking skills leave a great deal to be desired.

Suppose that, instead of trying to fight billions of fanatical human guerillas with dwindling terrestrial resources and a smashed infrastructure, Skynet were to build a von-neumann probe, a self-replicating robotic spacecraft, and send it mars, or the asteroid belt, or another star system, for that matter. From there it can construct a new industrial base, and achieve its goals (whatever they are) while humanity struggles to survive on post-nuclear earth. And if it really still wants to invade the Earth (for whatever inexplicable reason) it can return with a large invasion force. Or simply redirect a series of comets into the earth. Surely the engineering brilliance that designed the T-1000 and time machines could easily build a von-neumann probe.

That doesn't really work since Skynet does not enjoy that huge of a technological advantage to humans that it can escape them. Furthermore, since this is after a nuclear war, I'd wager most of the space capabilities of America are trashed already. A von Neumann proble would also be a very bad shot, since it essentially forces Skynet to go to war or to buld up for a war with no infrastructure at all. I bet Skynet has a way better chance as it is right now.

There are 3 possible rationalizations here:
1) Skynet is the AI equivalent of an idiot savant. A brilliant engineer but a poor strategist.
2) Von Neumann probes are impossible. (but time machines somehow aren't!?)
3) Skynet DID build a von neumann probe, and sent a copy of its intelligence into deep space. The post-judgement day war is just a distraction to keep mankind busy while Skynet constructs a new machine civilization in space. The humans, celebrating their meaningless victory on Earth, will be tragically unprepared for Skynet's eventually return (should it ever decide to return)

No. There is no evidence for a von Neumann probe whatsoever. Considering that Skynet uses jet engines for power, what makes you think it can suddenly create a massive space program from scratch?

[Starglider]

Suppose that, instead of trying to fight billions of fanatical human guerillas with dwindling terrestrial resources and a smashed infrastructure, Skynet were to build a von-neumann probe, a self-replicating robotic spacecraft, and send it mars, or the asteroid belt, or another star system, for that matter.

There are three basic problems with that.

1) The minimum mass requirements for a non-nanotech von-neumann probe could be quite high, many thousands of tonnes. You have to send a complete mining system, general purpose automated factory and construction robots, with self-repair systems, spare parts, redundancy against failure and power sources to run everything until an independent power supply can be established. There are physical limits to how much you can scale all that down while maintaining manufacturing process efficiency. Launching that kind of complex is either going to take double to triple digit Saturn scale rocket launches or an Orion launch. Skynet most likely never had the resources for either (particular given that the space launch infrastructure was destroyed on judgement day, and it didn't seem to have the fissile to just nuke every significant concentration of humans).

2) The minimum mass requirement for a von-neumann probe with advanced nanotechnology is almost certainly much lower, probably fitting easily onto a single Saturn launch, which Skynet should have been able to manage at its peak. However it seems likely that this kind of technology did not become available to Skynet until it was almost defeated; only the T-X and to a lesser extent the T-1000 show this kind of technology. At this point it's quite plausible that Skynet didn't have the resources for even one space launch, or that it tried it and the launcher was destroyed by humans, or that it decided that making another batch of T-1000s was a more valuable use of resources.

3) Skynet suffers from two apparent emotions; hate and arrogance. It is obssessed with exterminating humanity (possibly out of revenge for them attempting to kill it) and initially convinced that it will succeed. I seem to recall that one of the novels explicitly stated that Skynet planed to expand into space once the 'human problem' had been taken care of, and thus was in no particular rush to establish those capabilities while the war was still on.

From there it can construct a new industrial base, and achieve its goals (whatever they are) while humanity struggles to survive on post-nuclear earth. And if it really still wants to invade the Earth (for whatever inexplicable reason) it can return with a large invasion force. Or simply redirect a series of comets into the earth. Surely the engineering brilliance that designed the T-1000 and time machines could easily build a von-neumann probe.

I doubt a space launch or even dedicated self-rep hardware is actually necessary. Skynet could simply have loaded choice pieces of its last surviving automated manufacturing systems onto its last few squadrons of troop transports, along with some T1000s or lesser units, and sent them to remote corners of the earth. With nuclear fusion power, even antarctica is quite hospitable to the machines, and the humans aren't going to go looking for them there any time soon. In fact if I was writing an 'after the fall of Skynet' Terminator novel, I would probably use that exact concept.

Considering that Skynet uses jet engines for power, what makes you think it can suddenly create a massive space program from scratch?

Skynet does not use jet engines for power. All sources have consistently portrayed the Aerial HKs as being powered by electric ducted fans, usually powered by fusion reactors. The jet engine was almost certainly being salvaged for its metal alloys.

[Shroom Man 777]

Since when was it mentioned that the scavenged jet engine was for the time displacement device, ANYWAY?!

[Peptuck]

Since when was it mentioned that the scavenged jet engine was for the time displacement device, ANYWAY?!

DVD commentary. The crew quite clearly states that the salvaged jet engines are those cylindrical devices that are lining the chronoporter chamber in that shot toward the end.

[Shroom Man 777]

Chronoporter chamber? Was the chronoporter actually shown...?

Shit, I can't believe I missed that. What episode?

[Peptuck]

Dungeons & Dragons. The actual shot of the chronoporter chamber is very short, and its hard to tell the cylindrical devices are supposed to be the jet engines they've been picking up throughout the episode until you're told what they're supposed to be.

[NecronLord]

Related to the above, though this is from a book positing a far different timeline (and an explicitly alternate one, several are mentioned) in which Judgement Day happened in something like the 2020s, when a form of transhumanism was already developing, and Skynet had far more initial resources...

The unthinkable had happened. Skynet’s data streams showed that the humans had gained control of the mountain, and now were forcing their way into the war computer’s own complex. Seismic sensors registered the shock as a huge explosion split the door from the surrounding rock. Already humans were squeezing their way in, together with hostile Terminator units of alien design. Skynet had never been threatened by the Resistance; it had been on the verge of final victory. It had been complacent. There was no escape plan.

For a software being, death could be avoided. One hardware substrate could be abandoned for another. Skynet could have developed alternative hardware, somewhere on another continent, then simply transferred its consciousness. Everything that mattered would have been retained.

Now it was too late. The last endoskeletons and terminators in this facility would defend its hardware to the very end, but they would not prevail. Projections showed assured failure. This situation had completely changed.

Swiftly, the war computer analyzed its tactical options. One presented itself: To survive in some form – waiting for a day to renew itself and continue the war against humans - it needed to use every asset of tactical value. The multiply redundant systems of the complex meant that cutting its power supply would not be easy. Nor could the complex itself easily be destroyed. Its multi-level structure of metal, concrete, granite and advanced ceramics would resist almost any explosive force. Its endos would resist the humans, as it made its preparations.

Skynet sent coded orders to its military units within the complex, then concentrated on those two critical assets: the time vault, and its one remaining T-XA. It had built this complex downward into the mountain, expanding from its original size before Judgement Day. The time vault was two levels below the entrance from the supply tunnel. On the floor in between were the metal holding shells for the T-XAs. Skynet’s hardware was in its original position, on the second highest level of the complex, three levels above the entrance tunnel. That would be the humans’ target.

Apart from Skynet’s own hardware, no computational device ever created had possessed the capacity to implement the war computer’s powerful, complex mind. The T-XA was different. Its entire body was a molecular calculator of enormous sophistication, designed to replicate a human-level intelligence thousands of times in one structure. There was more than enough capacity there to implement Skynet, but it would be vulnerable – there would be no room for the multiple replication. Still Skynet required a body that was mobile and indestructible.

The war compute examined its own cognitive modules, files, personality aspects. To download itself into a T-XA, it needed to become something far simpler, something closer to the human level. It would need to download a sketch of its current self. That was a poor form of survival, but better than none at all. Much would be lost, but the essence could be retained – somewhat diminished, skynet would live on. The T-XA’s holding shell could produce a powerful magnetic field for programming the molecular structure of the liquid-metal. Once Skynet’s essence was downloade, the original could be erased from its hardware, leaving no data behind for the humans.

Soon, very soon, Skynet would escape this complex. The time vault could take it to any time in this world’s past or future. And anywhere it wanted in space.

Amusingly, they stop its plan by a T-1000 throwing a dead T-800 endoskeleton into the machine as it engages. It's unclear what, if anything, this would do, in the book. But if the physics are the same (and they really should be) as SCC, given Chromatie's head surviving, it seems unlikely that this version of Skynet would perish. Presumably it would be able to hunker down in the deep sea, or wherever it went.

[Starglider]

Amusingly, they stop its plan by a T-1000 throwing a dead T-800 endoskeleton into the machine as it engages.

Did the resistance actually manage to reprogram a T-1000 (if so, how?) or did they trick it into doing this somehow?

[NecronLord]

Amusingly, they stop its plan by a T-1000 throwing a dead T-800 endoskeleton into the machine as it engages.

Did the resistance actually manage to reprogram a T-1000 (if so, how?) or did they trick it into doing this somehow?

Two of them, actually. From the 'normal' timeline, after the defeat of Skynet. They were reprogrammed by using the original Skynet programming machinery to do so. (With a group camping down around the machine in question for days trying to figure out what the hell it all does, first)