Wednesday, 08 October 2008

• Terminator Timeline Break Down (in progress)

  
  Intro:
  
  

  This post is a work in progress.
  

  
  Here I'm going to explain my latest progress in unraveling and re-raveling the Terminator time travel mess.  I'll give my assumptions and method, the curve balls I have little choice but to present, what I still have to do to the graph below to bring it up to speed, and then run down what each "beam" entails and why.  If anyone out there is watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles and wondering, "How in the world can this all work out and make any fucking sense whatsoever?" I've taken the liberty of doing just that...at least in terms of the time travel aspect.  It makes watching the show that much easier for those of us that have critical thinking to deal with. 
  
  Notes on abbreviations: "SCC" means "Sarah Connor Chronicles." A "T" with a "-" and CAPITAL LETTERS spelling out a number are not movies, but instead the timeline a movie creates.  For instance if you see "T-TWO" that means that alternate timeline is the result of what happened in the movie Terminator 2.  A "T" with just a plain old number (like 1, 2, or 3) refers to the movie itself and the events that happen in it (such as "T2").   So if you know what SCC, T2, and T-TWO are, you are good to go.  If not, it's not going to get less confusing from here.
  
  

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  My assumptions/method:
  
  Time travel is possible.
  
  There are no such things as literal paradoxes.
  
  Everything in the movies and TV show happened (with the exception of date retcons, bloopers, and primitive special effects).
  
  They can only travel to their own past (just to keep things simple).
  
  They cannot change their own past, but can only create alternate realities (to avoid paradoxes).
  
  Skipping ahead in your own timeline does not create a new alternate reality (simplicity again).
  
  Every "duet" of killer/protector landed in the past at the exact same moment as each other (simplicity again, even though if they could they would always want to give their hero a head start, maybe it just doesn't work like that, and the best it can do is lock onto the previous temporal portal's destination).
  
  Supercomputers aren't stupid and would only make use of time travel as a ruse to waste Resistance resources (see here for further explanation).
  
  I was no more elaborate than I had to be and erred on the side of conservation as much as possible.
  
  
  
  

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  Curve balls: 
  
  T-ZERO is the base timeline where no time travel took place in the past to cause anything.   It is not represented in a movie, but only assumed to avoid paradoxes.
  
  In order to preserve the continuity of Kyle Reese's character/story in T1, I thought it was necessary to add in a T-PTFIVE (see here for more explanation and below).  That's why you can see that T-PTFIVE and T-ONE are similar colors because they are very similar timelines.
  
  As you can see below the T-ZERO_SCC-Engineer really messes things up (as I elaborated on here).    This means the events of the movies T1 and T2 happen twice.  This is unavoidable since the engineer from the SCCs was sent back to so early a date.  His time machine building efforts would have completely missed everyone who would have known about them without this solution.  You can see I've tried to make this easy to understand by making the second round a slightly diminished version of the same colors from the first go around. 
  
  Notice, there are two red dotted lines coming off of T-TWO as they represent two parties (the engineer and then the T-X and T-850), one which creates the T-THREE beam and the other which creates the T-ZERO_SCC-Engineer beam.  I will explain why this is below, but I wanted to make sure people spotted the time travel line that crosses over T-THREE...it doesn't come from it. 
  
  Obviously the gap between 1960 and 1985 is not proportional to the rest of the graph. 
  
  The red arrows on the 4-D point to which direction the dotted red lines flow. 
  
  Pretty much everything in green is subject to change, and there is no telling how many more alternate universes will be added by the time the SCCs connect to Terminator Salvation. 
  
  There are actually like a zillion other random time traveling events that are not followed here.  I'm not talking about comic books, games, and novels...I'm talking about duplicate time travel missions.  For instance, what if the John Connor on the T-TWO beam thinks he needs to send Kyle Reese back again?  Didn't the John Connor from T-PTFIVE already do that for him?  T-TWO John Connor, if he is a moron, can still do it though can't he?  And that would just multiple this graph many times over.  If humanity is stupid enough to follow Skynet back in time at all, surely it will think it is obligated many times over to satisfy things that have already been taken care of.  However the graph is complicated enough already.  I may add new layers just for fun when I've worked all the important stuff out to my liking.  ;)
  
  

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  Behold (what I have so far):
  
  

  
  
  

  What still needs work:
  
  I need to peg down the dates for all the Judgment Days (and estimate some of them) and specifically for when each group of time travelers departs.  And then I have to make alternate versions of this with shifted dates because they kept changing them as T3 and the SCCs came out.  I just noticed I didn't put a helpful note on when Cameron, Sarah, John, and Cromartie's burning head skip 8 years.  [edit:  after adding it, I realized that if the T-1001 and the misc. endoskeleton hit 2002 and 2005, they will miss them, since John, Sarah, Cameron, and Cromartie would jump to their own future (the SCC-CromartieCameron beam).  Hence my timeline is wrong again!]  Of course, some of the SCC "beams" are subject to revision as we proceed into new episodes.  Who knows what surprises Terminator Salvation will have, too.  There may be some complaints on just general graph clarity and I'll have to figure out how to make the "eye candy" factor work better for everyone. 
  
  

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  Many of these beams represent an "untold story" of alternate realities that went "one way" before time travel in their future made the additions we are more aware of.  So, briefly I will summarize what I think needs to happen in each to make everything work out smoothly.  I'm not so concerned with dates as I am the basic contingencies.  Eventually I will give all the alternate shifts of dates.
  
  T-ZERO:  John Connor has a different father other than Kyle Reese (probably another one night stand), Sarah Connor is never harassed by any time traveling terminators, Skynet comes about through the natural progress of military computer technology.  After (a late) Judgment Day, John Connor leads the Resistance with his natural talents and abilities (or perhaps some random background in the art of war we don't know about) and Skynet plants the seeds of a ruse to convince them to waste resources chasing down a terminator into the past...  Kyle Reese has no photograph to oogle, nor built up romantic feelings and respect for the "legendary Sarah Connor" (since she didn't know J-Day was ahead).  He leaves T-ZERO  to go back in time because he gets ordered to.
  
  T-PTFIVE ("point five" or "0.5"):  This alternate timeline plays out much like the T1 movie starting from 1984, with the exception that Kyle Reese has no special feelings for Sarah Connor as mentioned above.   He's pretty much a down to business soldier throughout the T1 movie anyway with the exception of the one evening, so it doesn't seem like much would necessarily change other than a few convenient lines of dialog, mannerisms, etc.  Perhaps this Kyle Reese actually succeeded in living long enough to destroy the  parts of the terminator left behind, but died from injuries leaving Sarah on basically the same course as she is on the T-ONE timeline.  When it comes around to the future again (bypassing all other time traveling events), there is now a photograph of Sarah Connor in the mix for a new Kyle Reese to kindle his interest in a serious way as well as a legendary Sarah Connor who knew the T-PTFIVE Judgment Day was coming.  All of the things Kyle says about the war in T1 are basically true with the exception they hadn't actually won.  He was just led to believe they had. 
  
  T-ONE:  This starts out as the movie, "The Terminator" (T1), but when it comes to 1995 when T2 would take place, there aren't any new terminators.  Katherine Brewster and John Connor continue being involved with each other after their first kiss and hence John has an "insider" into the Skynet program.  Given the leap in technology presented by a damaged T-800 chip and hand though, a more advanced Skynet is born which begets not only the T-800 series, but also the T-1000 liquid metal series.  And similar circumstances like those from the first two beams lead to a similar time traveling ruse.  Great supercomputers think alike.
  
  T-TWO:  "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" in ~1995 as is, begets this beam.  During the would be events of T3, John and Katherine meet up just as they do in T3, with the exception the T-X and T-850 are not after them.  It seems they manage to survive Judgment Day that happens soon after in some other way than being in the Presidential bunker.  Also in the plus column, John's lieutenants haven't been assassinated and the people in the Skynet facility aren't wiped out prematurely.  Maybe Kate's dad gives them a call and asks them to meet him down in the bunker after all when he realizes things have gone terribly wrong and the bombs are about to fall.  An untold tangent based from here is that a different Cameron chases Cromartie from this beam to a different 1999 where Sarah Connor is already dead and there is no time displacement equipment to make use of.  It's just her and John...if she can find him.  The mission is no longer to pop Sarah ahead to avoid dying of cancer before Judgment Day...it's just to save John from Cromartie and prepare for their Judgment Day. 
  
  T-THREE:  "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" in 2004 as is, begets this beam. Technically speaking, the T-X and the T-850 could just as easily come from T-TWO_SCC (and there's probably a "T-THREE_SCC" not worth including), but I put it here for simplicity sake.  It is notable that this John Connor is more handicapped in several ways in comparison to other John Connors we know of.  He lost his mother (and hence more training) early (as opposed to the John of the SCCs and Terminator Salvation), all of his would be lieutenants are dead.  If there was anyone in the Skynet facility that would have helped him, they are now dead as well thanks to the T-X. As it stands on my timeline...there's really no reason that John Connor couldn't just plain lose.  Maybe he doesn't though. 
  
  T-ZERO_SCC-Engineer:  Given that the T-TWO John Connor has a bit more of an advantage, it seems he would be in a better position to facilitate sending back in time "the engineer" to 1963 for whatever reason.  It should be noted, this is not the same engineer that the T-TWO_SCC originating Cameron we know knows about.  The one sent from her timeline creates yet another diverging branch from 1963 not shown on my graph.  But since T-TWO and T-TWO_SCC are virtually identical, her information is still correct.  I still don't know how to take her comment that the engineer spent 8 months building the weapon she assembles in the bank.  Perhaps that's an educated guess of hers she neglected to clarify.  See T-ZERO for what happens on this beam otherwise since the only difference here is that there's an engineer working in the 60's to put a time machine in a bank.     
  
  T-PTFIVE_SCC:  See T-PTFIVE for what happens on this beam otherwise since the only difference here is that there's an engineer working in the 60's to put a time machine in a bank.     
  
  T-ONE_SCC:  See T-ONE for what happens on this beam otherwise since the only difference here is that there's an engineer working in the 60's to put a time machine in a bank.     
  
  T-TWO_SCC:  See T-TWO for what happens on this beam otherwise since the only difference here is that there's an engineer working in the 60's to put a time machine in a bank...with the exception (and this applies to the last four beams) that "somehow" the influence of his presence makes all these Sarah Connors die of cancer in 2005 instead of 1997 (see here for "explanation").  
  
  SCC-CromartieCameron:  This begins from when Cromartie and Cameron arrive in 1999 from T-TWO_SCC as seen in the pilot episode of the SCCs.  Thanks to the engineer's time displacement equipment (from T-TWO, remember), Cameron, Sarah, John, and Cromartie's flaming head travel forward in time on this same beam to arrive in 2007. 
  
  SCC-PlaneCrashEndo? (miscellaneous endoskeleton):  They mention this plane crash in 2002 (see episode) and the T-1001 has photos of the remains of a miscellaneous endoskeleton with an unknown mission.  The first assumption might be that this is near the time it came back...but since this poses a problem for getting both these photos, and the T-1001 into the same timeline as Cameron, Sarah, John, and Cromartie (not to mention his body that didn't time travel forward), I'm going to have to insist (contrary to my own graph at this point) that they arrived from the future before 1999 and after the events of T2.  I'll switch things around on my next pass.   
  
  SCC-T1001:  Same as above.  We don't know enough yet to really nail down any details about what her mission really is.  She seems very ignorant about reprogrammed terminators fighting for the resistance and is almost a "freelance agent" though as amoral as Skynet itself  is.  Maybe she was part of some time displacement fluke and in fact has been buried in history for thousands of years.  She does have something of an obsession for ancient culture. 
  
  SCC-Coltan+0(I'll relabel this SCC-Carter+0?):  (see episode) Either this would represent a failed ruse (as in no one followed him back) or it might represent a successful WIN for a terminator on a Skynet mission.  Temporarily at least, since it loses to someone else instead. 
  
  SCC-VicDerek+3:  (see episode for background) I'm assuming without much cause necessarily that Derek and the 3 other Resistance fighters followed "Vic" back.  I could be mistaken about that, but it makes fewer beams if I pretend like it's so.  :)
  
  SCC-GreenwayRedhead: (see episode) I still don't understand how a T-888 infiltrator is able to have an accurate bio-replica of a person from the past (minus the scar of course)...or how plastic surgery could ever hope to really fool someone that knew Greenway. 
  
  SCC-Bedell888+0:  (see episode) Note, I haven't added this to the timeline yet.  Either there is a failed ruse in the future, the T-888 already killed the "protector," or the protector just hadn't shown up yet (FAIL).  Naturally I'm going with the theory that Skynet doesn't send terminators back because it thinks it is actually going to accomplish anything (other than create alternate and unhelpful realities for other Skynets).  If we really wanted to be silly, we could say the Cameron who shows up in the woods and just stares at everyone is an alternate Cameron we never happen to hear about again.  hehehe.  I guess we might compare her clothing to the SCC standard Cameron... 
  
  SCC-Victoria+0:  (see episode)
  
  SCC-Jesse:  (see episode) Not in chronological order.
  
  SCC-Ellison+0:  (see episode)
  
  SCC-Fischer:  (see episode)  Not in chronological order.
  
  Terminator Salvation: As noted previously, there will likely be other beams before a direct connection is made to the new terminator trilogy.  It likely won't be it's own beam.  I have no idea where they are going with John Connor, but if anyone has seen the Gargoyles episode, "Future Tense" one might surmise John has a bit of a "Lexington" complex.  Overbearing apparent destiny has suffocated him his whole life, and it wouldn't be much of a surprise if this John Connor decided things were going to be a little different this time around... 
  
  

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  Outro:
  
  I'm going to leave the "untold stories" from all the SCC beams alone for now.  I already have to revise them and will have to do so again by the time the series is over. 
  
  Ben
   
  

  • 12:59 PM
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