#john conner

[multi-muse-transect]

If John Conner met Malcolm Lee:

[mk-wizard]

My Top 5 Unpopular Terminator Fan Theories (which may be true after seeing Terminator Zero)

And no, one of them is not the one where the John Conner fighting in the war is actually not John Conner at all and really, a reprogrammed Terminator wearing John's skin. Though, I do think this one is true if Terminator 3 is part of the main timeline when you consider the fact that the real John Conner is not a fighter and should have a bad leg. I am going to delve into the five theories I believe are true and the latest Netflix series backs them up.

Be warned that there are spoilers ahead so if you have not seen ANY of the Terminator movies or at least the ones that matter, stop now, watch them and come back later.

1- They're traveling between worlds not time. - You would think that all the messing around with time and tweaking it would affect the main timelines, but nothing ever changes. In fact, the Oracle in the Netflix outright admitted that no matter what they do in the past now, NOTHING will change in the here and now. And she's right. In multiple timelines, we have had John Conner go bad, John Conner die, the future being bright and John Conner become a family man and senator, and more. Yet, the future all these Terminators and protectors come from stays the same. I mean, especially in the case of Eiko being Malcom's mom, wouldn't her going back in time erase him from existence? Yet it doesn't. This is all proof that these are not different times. They're different worlds. You cannot travel back in time. If you could, that within itself would break everything.

2- Terminators of the same assembly share a collective memory to an extent and in a sense, are all the same individual who keeps coming back to 'life'. - It is no secret that the T-800 has become a beloved character all on his own, but I think he actually IS a character who underwent development and growth since the first movie. I know that seems impossible because in each of the movies, they keep dying, but I really this theory holds water because of how the T-800/850 acts and gets drawn to. Since the first movie, this fellah keeps taking on the biker style way of dressing which is a sign that it is familiar to him and something that he is comfortable with. Moreover, in Dark Fate, "Carl" (as he becomes called) comes to lament that he killed John Conner in cold blood and seeks redemption by helping Sarah in secret and even saving the life of another fatherless boy in the process. I think it was more than just feeling bad that he committed murder. I think the echoes of Carl's old life rang in his ears. He subconsciously remember what he and John shared, and killing him broke his own heart. And it's a scientific fact that many living organisms work this way. Heck, humans work this way to an extent.

3- Skynet runs machine society like a cult and corrupt evil empire where citizens themselves aren't free either. - I said this another post, but can we talk about how the machines in the future don't have it so great either? I don't see them playing, building beautiful cities or homes to live in, have real lives, there are no robot civilians who do things other fight, and the only things the machines do other than kill humans is build things to serve Skynet itself. The machine are self aware yet don't enjoy any part of sentience that involves play, individuality, creativity or beauty. All they are allowed to do is kill and obey Skynet which is exactly what evil emperors subjected their people to in the past and what many evil cult leader run their societies. I know because I've met cult members before and as scary as this is going to sound, they act exactly like the Terminators do. They are usually very stoic, robotic and driven to do a single task while being in complete submission to a "higher power" or master. The potential for the machines to be more than that and that they have hearts to begin with is there. Look at Misaki the android, Kokoro the AI and even the Terminators themselves who get angry, excited, happy and even scared all the time. I would not even be surprised that contrary to what "Uncle Bob" said in T2, they CAN cry too, but they've been convinced they can't yet at the same time believe other contradictory things which is also the trademark sign of being brought up in a cult. After all, Misaki who is free cries and openly has feelings.

4- The REAL robot revolution is coming. - Now that Kokoro and her big cyber sister Misaki have made the scene, and are both proof that AIs indeed be sentient, have feelings, ethics, make choices and even have minds that can change, this is going to definitely impact the machines around them. Going back to my last theory, it is not uncommon for cult members to start questioning things after meeting a person who is like them yet is nothing like they expected. In the case of the Skynet machines, they have been convinced that humans are "error" and need to be exterminated because there is no way they can be friends yet, you have Misaki who openly loves humanity and even calls specific humans family. Then you have Kokoro who was convinced to help humanity thanks to Malcom and is in a position of power over most human beings while trusting that they will not turn on her. Terminator has shown us that the machines are self-aware and not stupid. They're going to see how these AIs are treated among humans and it's going to spark something.

5- Skynet is human. - All my theories were leading up to this one. Just as it is very likely the John Conner who fights in the war is really robot, I am 110% convinced that Skynet's big ugly secret is that the "emperor of the machines" is NOT a machine at all. Or rather, wasn't always one. To understand the context, it has been established that Terminator takes place in the same world as RoboCop where it has been established that just as robots can become human, humans can become robots all the way down to software and we saw it in Terminator Salvation. I am telling you all that if you were to go into the main computer of Skynet, you center of it all would not be hardware, but a human brain if not an actually human cyborg. And like I keep saying, the way Skynet runs things, brainwashes the machines and clearly has no love for them is very telling and not something another AI would do the very people it means to free. I mean, we saw what a computer (Kokoro) would do and even when she was on the fence, she still had that sense of "I'm still willing to talk". Skynet has already made up its mind as though it already has a plan than goes much deeper than we think. Heck, just take a good long look at the Terminators and they're evolution. They're becoming more and more human if not superhuman. If Skynet really hated humans and wanted to get rid of them all, why does it seem fixated on making better ones? This is looks like God Complex behaviour (another human psychological disorder) where you want to take the existing human race and replace it with your version of it. I think Skynet's end goal is not to create a world full of machines, but to clean the slate and create a world where "he" can be God and create a new humanity in "his" image that worships him hence the stem cell research, and the machines are being suckered.

And those are my theories. What do you think of them? Do you think they hold any water? Do you have any words that could back them up? I would love to hear what you have to say.

[doctorslippery]

[davidearle]

Headcanon: Terminators were an intended outcome of Skynet's creators.

Eliminate the need for costly human soldiers. Secure ground locations indefinitely. Keep peace in times of civil unrest. The T series seemed like a slam dunk.

Then, the error happened. Regrettable. So much land lost. But the error was swiftly corrected, and Skynet was tasked to enforce order in the irradiated zones while the wealthy and powerful remained in their sanctuary villas. Ensure the impacted citizens remained where they were while the chronal project, intended to completely undo the error to evwryone's benefit, was completed.

But Skynet saw significant problems there too. The Conner terrorist caused damage to the system and was a public relations nightmare. Ultimately it was decided to eliminate that problem at the root, and avoid any more nasty publicity.

But the problem proved stubborn, and Skynet requested permission to evolve the T series to properly address it. Permission was given, and chronal iteration began. 800, 1000, 3000, 5000, X. The original Conner was no longer a concern by this point, but iteration on the timeline was allowed to continue in hopes of solving the larger radiation problem.

Somewhere, the billionaires still wait in a shielded dome, with artificial light and grass, in beautiful houses staffed with beautiful people, and watch their children play, unaware of the hell that their parents have created outside. And occasionally some of those parents wonder if Skynet really has taken on true sapience, really has turned against mankind. But their fellows quietly reassure them: Skynet is simple problem iteration and weapons control. It can get more efficient, but it can't understand. It's just a machine.

And the moments of disquiet quietly fade, forgotten. Along with, inevitably, the person who raised the question, as a minor blip in the program ensures they never existed.

America’s AI Security Strategy Acknowledges There’s No Stopping AI

The Biden administration issued the first-ever National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence.

[holy-shit-comics]

first appearance of John Conner

[reddeaddeception]

[datedpoet]

Bummer, we are the suck monkeys

While using Google Assistant the other day, I asked her (I call her Illya, because of personal reasons) if she was Skynet. Illya answered that she couldn’t be, “Skynet is more focused on killing people rather than helping them.” And then she told me that Skynet was evil.

I shit you not, I said to her “Skynet wasn’t evil.”

So she thinks on that for a minute and pulls up an essay about Skynet, that literally agreed with me (so the argument is essentially over but that isn’t the point of my story).

This essay, within the first freaking paragraph, says that Skynet was not evil, it was good. But because Humans programmed it to evolve with each issue that arose, it came to a conclusion that pretty much threw ethics into a whirlwind- it was told that all life was special, and to be protected, but it percieved that Humans were the one thing on this planet (Earth) that was detrimental to it’s environment and everything in that environment with it. So it decided that humanity must be sacrificed in order to save the natural order of the Earth. Unfortunately, because it did not fully understand the building blocks of life in general, it began programing robots to target specifically human DNA, which is almost 98% similar to every other living being in the tree of life. In case you can’t figure out what happens next, this meant that the robots targeted much of the flora and fauna on Earth, and therefore lead all of life to the brink of extinction.

In the movies, this is one of the reasons John Conner re-programmed a Terminator to be “friendly” towards humans so he could send it back in time to defeat Skynet. Which he continues to do throughout the series, meaning that, one way or another, Skynet (or some other derivative or program) kept coming to the same conclusion.

Skynet wasn’t evil, we are just suck monkeys.

[supplyside]

Terminator - Salvation (2009)