QUESTION: Terminator "logic" - and then what?

[blewis17]

I must admit, I liked Terminator:Salvation for the popcorn flick it is, despite the numerous plot holes and contrivances.

My question is this: Skynet becomes sentient, and for some unknown reason thinks that mankind is its mortal enemy. OK, so destroy mankind.

...and then what? Scorched earth policy would kill of most lifeforms on the planet. What is Skynet going to do next? No need for reconnaissance drones, or cyborg automatons anymore. So, the factories shut down. No more T-600/T-700/T-800/T-850/T-1000/TX/T-1,000,000 running around, 'cause you don't need them, and don't create any more.

...what is Skynet thinking it is going to do when it's the only mind left on earth??!!

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Uh robo-orgy? I have no idea. I never thought that made sense.

 

[allosaur176]

Skynet creates the first Matrix

 

[defstartrooper]

Next stop the Moon.

 

[JMChladek]

Create man in its own image as Terminators obviously. Neural net processors get smarter the more there are. So, Skynet could become like the Borg from Trek in getting smarter by having more Terminators interfaced into it, thinking for themselves and experiencing life as it were. Besides, it could try to prove it is alive by creating offspring in a sense.

Of course, I suppose it doesn't really matter what the end result would be as the conflict between machine and man is the core of the Terminator story. Destroy one and you don't have the conflict anymore, hence no more Terminator. Even Cylons of both the new and old Galactica had similar problems (or the Daleks of Dr. Who). I can remember Dirk Benedict's Starbuck (in the 1980 episode "The Return of Starbuck") asking a Cylon "What are you going to do when you've brought order to the universe" and the Cylon just paused and said "I don't recall anyone ever asking THAT question." I suppose even logical thinking and killing machines don't think that far ahead when all they are consumed with is trying to off humanity.

Edit: Actually, the Matrix angle I like as it does seem like The Matrix is sort of a sequel to the eventual outcome of Terminator if the machines win.

 

[SSgt Burton]

...what is Skynet thinking it is going to do when it's the only mind left on earth??!!

Survive. Plain and simple.


Not sure how much of the actual Terminator series you've seen- but this was spelled out fairly clearly in the first two films.

In T2 the Terminator explains that when Skynet became self aware- the military tried to "pull the plug" on the system.

Being self aware, Skynet understands that the humans that created it are trying to destoy it, so to protect it's own existance, it does the one thing it was programmed to do- launch a nuclear strike at the (former) Soviet Union, understanding that the Soviet counter attack will wipe out its enemies in the US.

What I find to be a bit of a leap is automated factories churning out Hunter Killers and Model 101s after the United States has suffered a full nuclear attack. Were these factories in bomb shelters?

Another thing... was the "Terminators wiping out the remaining humans" a Worldwide event, or something isolated to the United States?

Salvation makes it appear that it was Worldwide... but how could this be? Did each superpower have a set of secret factories designed to create automated war machines? Or did Skynet send HKs all over the planet?

The impression I always got was that the war itself (Judgement Day) was of course global, but the war against the machines only happened in the States.

Kevin

 

[allosaur176]

Well the war was a worldwide event, but Skynet was based in the states, and would be the only place it could be truly eliminated

 

[CessnaDriver]

Well it was a binary decisions right?
It's a machine so humans either all live or all die.
Since it was trying to survive, the decision was made that all die.
After that who knows. Make more sentient machines I guess.

 

[defstartrooper]

Edit: Actually, the Matrix angle I like as it does seem like The Matrix is sort of a sequel to the eventual outcome of Terminator if the machines win.

Except the goal of the machines in The Matrix is to enslave humans for a power source not destroy them.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

It's a machine. It deals in absolutes and takes things as they come.

Reese said the machines rounded up the humans to load bodies. Surely... they could as easily have rounded up humans to build factories to make the machines to be sent out to kill other humans. That's a very sadistic thing - basically to make your own killer - and it's a shame the movies don't deal with the philosophical issues like that rather than the run of the mill blow-'em-up kinda stupid movies.

Also... the Terminators were only at the very end of the war and the 800 series was the TOP of the line of new technology... not the whole war - which T3 onwards has all gotten all wrong, destroying the menace of the T-800 series.

 

[allosaur176]

Also... the Terminators were only at the very end of the war and the 800 series was the TOP of the line of new technology... not the whole war - which T3 onwards has all gotten all wrong, destroying the menace of the T-800 series.

The actions of T2 re-wrote the future..The war was delayed, Technology advanced by the time the war started, so the Skynet was more advanced.

For all we know, Skynet in 2029, sent the first prototype 800 back to 2018 to be used as a template to make them much earlier.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Yeah... that's a way to look at it. Just ****s up and over-complicates something pretty straightforward and simple - if you can call time travel simple.

 

[Ttaskmaster]

Well, what will Windows do when it finally occupies the entirety of your hard drive with all it's updates and temp files etc?

It will just sit there, with no purpose and no need for anything. It's all a bit meaningless, in a Lovecraftain kind of way, but that's about all it can do.

 

[rollerboi]

Well, what will Windows do when it finally occupies the entirety of your hard drive with all it's updates and temp files etc?

It will just sit there, with no purpose and no need for anything. It's all a bit meaningless, in a Lovecraftain kind of way, but that's about all it can do.

Ia! Ia! Ballmer! R'dmond ftaghn!

 

[Zombie Killer]

Then what? They create another parallel timeline and do it all over again. The whole going back in time to create ones self is where the logic stops and why i stop thinking about it after T1. The technology they used to create Skynet was from Skynet so they must have come from a different timeline/universe. Every time Skynet goes back in time to 'fix' something they just create another timeline.... it's a perpetual "I'll be back"

 

[HAL9000]

They will just say "we won" then self terminate.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Then what? They create another parallel timeline and do it all over again. The whole going back in time to create ones self is where the logic stops and why i stop thinking about it after T1. The technology they used to create Skynet was from Skynet so they must have come from a different timeline/universe. Every time Skynet goes back in time to 'fix' something they just create another timeline.... it's a perpetual "I'll be back"

No, not if you've seen T1. The Past was part of the Future and the Future was part of the Past. FIXED. None could exist without the other.

In Reese's present the past was what we see in T1 - and is what he travels back to experience.

The whole thing is futile. A self-fulfilling prophecy. If Skynet hadn't sent anyone back, it wouldn't have existed, but neither would John Connor. If they were never created - one artificially and one biologically - the war would never have come and there would have been no Skynet and no resistance and no time travel. NO T1!!!

No matter how you slice it... there is no alternative universes, there are no changing timelines: there is only one way things can play out and that's exactly what we see in T1. All the other movies just veer off into mindless action movies that makes no sense.

 

[ave4uevoli]

so skynet becomes sentient and then kills most of the humans on earth. Humans by now have space ships and flee earth in search of a new home. There's not much left of the human civilization except for a few religious books that tell of an ancient world which human ancestors came from and started populating the earth.

So thus begins the journey, with only a handful of ships and skynet right on their tail trying to kill them at every turn, the crew of the galactica..... oh wait.... crap... :rolleyes

 

[Too Much Garlic]

OH HELL NO...

Ah, phew. :lol

No, seriously... the logical next step is Alien... and the Corporation is Skynet downloaded into a t-1000 prototype body until it can get the alien and wipe out the human race. :love

 

[Adam H]

It's a machine. It deals in absolutes and takes things as they come.

Reese said the machines rounded up the humans to load bodies. Surely... they could as easily have rounded up humans to build factories to make the machines to be sent out to kill other humans. That's a very sadistic thing - basically to make your own killer - and it's a shame the movies don't deal with the philosophical issues like that rather than the run of the mill blow-'em-up kinda stupid movies.

Also... the Terminators were only at the very end of the war and the 800 series was the TOP of the line of new technology... not the whole war - which T3 onwards has all gotten all wrong, destroying the menace of the T-800 series.

T4 was all about the rollout of the T-800s, and the war had been going a while by that point. There were other terminator models like the T-600, but they've all stayed pretty consistent (aside from T3 not really mentioning it) on that point.