SkyNet’s Screwed: Or Why Machines from the Future can’t Kill John Connor.

I watched Terminator Genysis the other day. After the somewhat disappointing Salvation it was a nice and much required return to form for probably my favourite movie franchise. It was also nice for the story finally to go full circle and watch John Connor send back Kyle Reese to 1984 to protect his mother and, in the process, give rise to himself – the saviour of mankind. Of course that makes no sense at all – especially as John already knew that Kyle was his father and sent him back on purpose in order to be born. If Kyle was time travelling for the first time and had yet had no chance to meet Sarah then how is it possible for the son of a liaison that hasn’t happened yet to send his father to do anything?

That’s not the only problem. When John Connor’s resistance army destroy SkyNet in an act of desperation it uses ‘the first tactical time machine’ to send a Terminator back to 1984 to kill John Connor’s mother Sarah (who was an apparently no-account waitress at the time) and so remove its greatest enemy from the timeline before he was even born. Less than 30 minutes later John sends back a volunteer – Kyle Reese – to protect her but, of course, it’s already too late. The Terminator is back in 1984 and has had decades to hunt down and kill a single, unarmed and completely untrained woman. As soon as the Terminator is sent back then SkyNet has won - probably. At worst it has eliminated John Connor from its list of future enemies. But if that’s so then how did he manage to send Kyle back to protect Sarah (successfully) and father himself between all the running and shooting in ’84?

Here’s the thing. In the ‘original’ timeline (if we can use that word) SkyNet has been defeated after a long and bloody war. When the original Terminator is sent back it kills Sarah Connor and creates an alternate timeline where John Connor never existed and SkyNet (probably) wins the war against humanity. But the original timeline is still in play so John can still send Kyle back to the alternate (or an alternate) 1984 to save Sarah, give rise to himself, defeat Skynet and save humanity. So with three timelines in play now we’re batting humanity 2, SkyNet 1. As far as I can tell that’s the only victory that SkyNet is capable of.

So where does the questionable genesis of John Conner come into things? We can definitely know one thing for certain. The ‘original’ John Connor was Sarah’s son but Kyle Reese was most definitely not his father. Kyle was born 5 years after (the original August 29 1997 version of) Judgement Day which means he could have never impregnated Sarah in the original timeline most especially as Sarah died of cancer shortly after that particular Judgement Day happened (as an aside she died of cancer in 2005 in the TV series though jumped over that to 2007 using a time machine just 2 years after blowing up Cyberdyne in Terminator 2). John’s original father must have been someone else – someone never referenced as far as I’m aware. So in the first movie, when the original John sent back Kyle Reese not only didn’t he know that Kyle was his father but Kyle wasn’t his father: at least not yet! Only after Kyle goes back and creates a third timeline and becomes John’s father does John become, in effect, his own progenitor or as near as anyone is ever likely to get.

In Genysis, John says something very interesting in the underground parking structure when Kyle and Sarah discover his new allegiance. Sarah says that he can’t kill her because then he would never have been born. She’s wrong on several counts but John’s answer is more interesting. He says that he doesn’t think so because he believes that the three of them have become detached or separated from time. I think he had that right – pretty much. For one thing killing Sarah in the Genysis timeline of 2017 would have no effect on the other timelines still running (I think we’re up to around 5 so far in the movie version of the universe) and we need to keep in mind that none of the major players are actually from that [Genysis] timeline so killing any of them would have no effect on Skynet being defeated in the original timeline (I’m really trying to avoid giving the timelines numbers or letters here so please forgive any confusion I’m undoubtedly causing you).

So why can’t SkyNet win – apart from that one time (pun intended!)? I think because SkyNet has already lost in the original timeline even without the intervention of Kyle in 1984. This means that John can send him back and ‘self-generate’ himself. John has now become a time-loop of his own. In a very real sense John Connor has, admittedly accidentally, moved himself outside the normal time stream. Every time (oh, the puns keep on giving) that SkyNet tries to kill John they just end up making him stronger and increase the chance of SkyNet being defeated later on and, incidentally, creating yet another timeline where SkyNet loses. With Sarah protected in 1984, in hiding prior to the war and training John to become a military leader, SkyNet is essentially screwed. After all in the very original timeline John defeated SkyNet with no previous training or prior knowledge. In the second timeline (now with Kyle as his father) John has pre-knowledge of SkyNet but in that timeline Skynet is meeting him for the first time. It’s hardly surprising that his soldiers think he’s a messiah or can see into the future because in a way he can – and SkyNet would have no idea how to deal with that. Again SkyNet didn’t have a chance.

Of course one further thing is that, although the device used in the first and (so far) last movie was the first ‘tactical time machine’ it’s obviously not the only one. With SkyNet destroyed as a power to be reckoned with at least it still managed to send back a T-1000 to try to kill John as a teenager and a T-X to kill his lieutenants while he stayed ‘off-grid’ and in Genysis SkyNet sent another Terminator (probably another T-X by the sounds of things though we never see it) back to kill Sarah as a child at Big Bear lake. So many shots and so many misses! It seems, just like Judgement Day itself, that John Connor is inevitable.

I thought through most of this reasoning (although to be honest I’ve forgotten some of my original argument while I put finger(s) to keyboard) relaxing in bed one morning prior to getting up – yes, I’m that kind of Geek. But in the true spirit of this sort of thing I’m going to test my hypothesis later in the month by watching all 5 films over the Easter break. I’ll see if it still all makes sense after that.