Going from T2 to T:SCC

[Starglider]

" Then how are you supposed to get back?

"Can't. Nobody goes home."

I don't think anyone interpreted that as 'time machines cannot send you forwards'. That's a very counterintuitive and physically dubious. I interpreted it to mean 'time machines can send you from the chamber to an arbitrary place, but can't retrieve things from arbitrary places to the chamber' - so did everyone else I know of. The notion of building a time machine to get back probably didn't even occur to Reese - he's a soldier, not an engineer trained in temporal physics, and as the first guy sent back he likely had no idea that others would follow.

[Anguirus]

Actually, no they don't. It's obvious from the pilot, where Sarah and John find a ZOMG time machine built secretly in a bank vault and jump forward to 2007ish, which takes the concept of T1 and fucks it until the corpse is dead and bloated.

" Then how are you supposed to get back?

"Can't. Nobody goes home."

As Starglider has pointed out...so?

If it was possible to build a time displacement machine in the past, without all the tech advances made by 2029, AND, then somehow shrink it in size and power requirements (in T1 and T2, the original time machine was the size of a huge huge building, and it sucked a lot of energy) so that you can fit it into a bank vault, and not short out the entire power grid in California when you fire it up....why didn't John Connor send back Tech-Com people to 1970 to build a time machine to send Reese back?

Because he can't spare the manpower to save his dad from destiny? Every other use of the time machines by the resistance has been to try and save young Connor, to try and stop Skynet, or someone going AWOL. There is no evidence that teams going back can expect retrieval, or that soldiers will be sent back to build time machines in order to send other, individual soldiers home. To pull off the stunt in SCC Connor had to sacrifice one of his top engineers, and the only thing that made it worth the cost was saving his mother and himself from Cromartie.

Let's not forget the entire "we can make terminator's regrow their skin!" schtick; which was created by the writers as a cheap cop-out to get around the uncomfortable question of "how can a Terminator pass as human if their skin is rotting?" because they wanted fast action, with Chromartie taking out entire SWAT Teams; not a more methodical show.

I don't understand what the first part of your sentence has to do with the second part. Like, at all. What does the show gain by having Cromartie play Zombie for a season and a half?

(BTW, John's age works out just about right in T2 if he was born in 1983 or 1984. The movie can then take place in 1993-4, and it was filmed in 1991. T3 made John so old that it set T2 in 1997, and yet the characters don't act like they are mere months from Judgment Day. SCC got the age right and then used time travel. Also, the characters' quest to stop Skynet from being created fits the theme of T2 much closer than T3's "you're screwed" moral.)

I will say that there is a lot of weirdness in SCC, but I'm guessing that we are going to see a lot of it explained. We've already gotten an excellent payoff on the mystery of Cameron, and through Derek we are learning more and more about the resistance. I'm even starting to come around to the thought that they may reveal the character's actions in "Heavy Metal War" may have weakened the infiltrators. And so far, the writing is good enough to let me suspend my disbelief on the whole time travel thing.

[Revy]

Seeing as how post-apocalyptic future is a literal hell-hole ... wtf would anyone want to time jump back to post-JDay earth? If I was lucky enough to get a one way ticket back to the past, and the worst I would face there was the local human police and the occasional termie sent back as well ... I'd be just fine to stay.

Anyway, I think someone had a problem working out how Skynet comes into being if they did such a good job in T2 of preventing its creation. I know answers have already been put forward, but I'd like to suggest one I don't think has been mentioned yet: Skynet sent two terminators back in T2? One to kill Connor, and one to ensure its own creation, and we only got to see the T1000 in the film.

Really, with all the time travel involed, I'd be worried if I were Skynet that John might try and do just that - trash my designers before I get built. Even if the T1000 I sent back managed to nail John, if he managed to prevent me from getting built then it wouldnt matter that he was dead, humanity wouldnt need him. So with that in mind, I'd send a T1000 back to kill him (because I still need/want him dead) and another T to keep a low profile and make sure I get built no matter what.

In fact, what if Weaver is that very Terminator? We dont know how long she's been in the past - perhaps in T2 Skynet sent two T1000's back, and she was the second one, with the mission of ensuring Skynets construction?

[MKSheppard]

I'd like to point out another thing before I reply to other questions.

1.) If Skynet has the capability to send back a shitton of terminators back in time to locations very close temporally.....why the fuck is it fucking with this find magic metal shit and replacing people with Terminators schemes?

Just send a pair of T-1001s to 1984 to assist the T-800, or to whenever T2 took place, to back up the T-1000. Bang. You've kneecapped the resistance significantly.

This leads me to believe that within the canon of the films, time travel is limited in what it can do temporally.

The following rules fit the canon of the films:

1.) You can only go back in time a maximum of 45-50 years (2029 to 1984); explaining why Reese didn't have Tech-Com support in Terminator 1; because he was at the bleeding edge for how far back in time you can go. Otherwise, why the fuck didn't John send another engineer back in time to Los Angeles 1965 to build a secret vault of guns and weapons for Reese to find in 1984?

2.) There is a maximum limit of how many times you can swap things from a certain time period, which seems to run in decades; e.g. you have the 1984 attempt, then the 1990s attempt, and finally the 2003 attempt. Why are they separated by a decade, if Skynet could just reinforce it's 1984 and 1990s Terminators to ensure success?

[Anguirus]

^ While you may well be correct, I think you are referring to Sarah Connor's opening monologue in T2. The "two terminators" she refers to are clearly the T-800 that attacked her in 1984, and the T-1000 that arrived in 1994.

[Starglider]

The following rules fit the canon of the films:

Alternatively, every time the timeline is changed, everything before that change becomes inaccessible. This is suggested by your own earlier post;

In the original timeline, Skynet was almost defeated. It only managed to send one Terminator back before the resistance destroyed its core. That Terminator was sent to 1984.

Cyberdyne got the chip and the arm. Skynet was developed slightly earlier and with more capability. This time, it managed to invent the T-1000 and send that back before the resistance destroyed it. It couldn't send the terminator back before the original, because that would cause a paradox, as the T-1000 can't exist without the events of the first film happening. It doesn't know exactly what happened of course - records only say that the parts were recovered from some kind of disaster at a factory, the exact time and location may even be lost. Skynet could try sending the T-1000 to a time slightly after the arrival of the first terminator, hoping it can trail it, watch the fight and not interfere, then kill Sarah Connor immediately afterwards. However the time machines seem to be both temporally and spatially inaccurate (this is confirmed by the novels) and the chances are the T-1000 will miss the fight entirely then be unable to find SC after she goes on the run. But Skynet has records showing that Sarah Connor is later incarcerated, leaving young John vulnerable, so that seems like a better probability of success. Skynet sends the T-1000, the resistance destroys the Skynet CPU, the resistance sends the second T-800 back.

Sarah and co blow up Cyberdyne (and melt the T1000). This results in Skynet being created later and Judgement Day happening in 2004. Now it gets as far as creating the T-X and may not even be on the verge of defeat any more. The idea of sending it to kill JC and SC right after the T1000 fight has the same problem; time machine inaccuracy and fragmentary records make it impossible to guarentee the T-X will make it to the fight in time, and after it JC and SC go on the run again and cannot be located. Thus the T3 plot of going after JC's allies, who do have addresses on record. At this point Skynet may be getting cautious about futher alterations to the timeline; mess about with the past again and it might well erase its gains or even its own creation. The T-X deployment is a very cautious one; right before judgement day, and with the secondary goal of ensuring that Judgement Day occurs without a hitch.

Applying this rule to TSCC is harder, but it does seem that time is advancing in the 'present' and the 'future' in sync; we never see new time-jumpers sent back who left before one of the existing time-jumpers.

[MKSheppard]

The notion of building a time machine to get back probably didn't even occur to Reese - he's a soldier, not an engineer trained in temporal physics, and as the first guy sent back he likely had no idea that others would follow.

Yet, the Resistance in T:SCC has managed to build a time machine in a bank vault with 1960s technology, and Reese doesn't know about it? "Oh, hey, if you manage to survive your mission, go to x and ask for y. He might be able to get you back."

[Starglider]

Yet, the Resistance in T:SCC has managed to build a time machine in a bank vault with 1960s technology, and Reese doesn't know about it?

That's a different timeline. Reese came from a timeline where Skynet went online in 1997 and was soundly defeated by the resistance. Cameron and presumably the vault builder come from a timeline where Skynet went online in 2012 and the war was still hot when she left.

[Shroom Man 777]

Kyle Reese was the first person ever to be sent by the Resistance to the past. They hadn't even thought of sending the Engineer when Kyle Reese was sent. It was only after Kyle Reese was sent that they started going about engaging in temporal guerrilla warfare, making safehouses, founding banks in the 60s, etc. According to T:SCC, that episode featuring Derek's flashbacks to the future, no one knew what happened to Kyle when he and Connor went into that captured Skynet facility.

So, Kyle was sent first. He didn't know about the Engineer because the Engineer hadn't been even sent yet. The Resistance hadn't thought or planned about that stuff.

Derek Reese was sent with his team after Kyle. The Resistance starts digging into this time war shtick.

Cameron was sent after them, and that's how she knew where they were operating from, etc. She also knew about the Engineer and the bank, so she was probably sent after the Engineer. By this point, you've got the Resistance really engaging in a time war against Skynet.

[Shroom Man 777]

Ignoring the Time Paradox thing, I had an idea. A crazy and silly idea.

So, in T1 and T2, Skynet was defeated by the Resistance led by John Connor. Before it died, Skynet sent the Terminator and the T-1000 back and the Resistance - John - sent Kyle Reese and Uncle Bob back.

The Terminator got crushed and its wreckage, including the intact chip, was used to eventually create Skynet, thanks to people like Miles Dyson. Kyle Reese died, but before he did, he impregnated Sarah Connor and the spawn of her loins would grow up to be John Connor - The Great Military Leader.

Now, this causes the Time Paradox. But... what if there IS no Time Paradox? Or, at least, what if originally there was no Time Paradox?

What if before this happened, Skynet wasn't made by Miles Dyson reverse-engineering the future-tech. I've made this argument before. But, what if before this happened, John Connor's father wasn't Kyle Reese?

What if in the original timeline, John Connor's father was that unseen guy who Sarah was seeing, off-screen?

1.) So thanks to the Terminator's chip, Skynet was conceived through the reverse-engineering of future-tech instead of hardworking scientists making an AI by themselves. This means that Skynet gets an upgrade, this means that its technological basis was from a "direction we could've never imagined" (from the future) as Miles put it.

2.) Thanks to Kyle Reese's sperm, John Connor wasn't fathered by Sarah's unseen off-screen boyfriend - he's no longer the same John as The Great Military Leader of the original timeline, the Great Military Leader who defeated a Skynet made by hardworking scientists (who didn't have future-tech to reverse engineer). What does this mean?

In T3, the year is 2032 and John Connor is dead and Skynet continues to wage its war against humanity. In T:SCC, the year is 2027 and Skynet and the Resistance is waging temporal guerrilla warfare willy-nilly. In the original timeline, the Time Machine was Skynet's last best hope - the result of its research on impossible technologies that bore fruition in the year 2029. In T:SCC, Skynet's using Time Machines like condoms, and the Resistance has its own Time Machines too - everyone has them and everyone is fighting with the time machines and fighting each other for the time machines (Kyle was still sent through a captured Skynet facility... but that Jesse girl, Derek's fuck friend, came in through a Resistance-owned, or captured, machine that got trashed by a rogue robot... or Skynet's forces?).

These discrepancies are obviously due to fucking with the time stream. Namely, Skynet still lives on in T3 and has superior mastery over Time Tech in T:SCC because unlike the dead Skynet in T1 and T2, this Skynet is conceived from future tech and is thus more advanced (the one in T3 was a bodiless incorporeal AI that, unlike Kyle Reese's Skynet, was not based at SAC NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain facility, etc... in T:SCC, it's a chess computer!). And the reason why the Resistance has yet to defeat Skynet in T3, why in T3 John Connor is dead, and why in T:SCC current John Connor is a whiny teen is because the current John Connor is not the same Connor as the one in the original timeline (whose father was not Kyle Reese, but Sarah's invisible boyfriend - the Mythic Original Father of the Future... the MOFF!). Because Kyle gave John Connor inferior recessive genes*, he's no longer as Great a Military Leader as he should've been if he had been conceived from temporally-correct sperm and that's why in T3, he's dead. That's why in T:SCC, he's a whiny dumb teen who's made a crapload of mistakes not befitting a Great Military Leader... either that, or puberty.


This is ignoring the Time Paradox thing, it's just an idea. A crazy and silly idea...


*Just like Liquid Snake, from Metal Gear Solid!