posted
If they should avert judgement, one thing I thought was that JC would still have to get the time travel working and send back terminators to try and kill himself and send Kyle back. He'd have to protect the timeline so that he would be born and that past events did happen, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to beat skynet.
Registered: Oct 2007
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Mars Needs Women: So hypothetically speaking, if SkyNet achieved its goal, would it then just mellow out? Would it try exploring what it means to be sentient? What about the bots? What would happen to them? And why don't we see humans from the far future? Gah, so many questions...
Also how exactly did it achieve sentience?
According to Uncle Bob:-
quote:In three years he creates a revolutionary type of microprocessor...In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet funding bill is passed. The system goes on-line on August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defence. Skynet begins to learn, at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 am, eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
And according to Kyle:-
quote:Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.
Basically they created something with the potential to learn and adapt (vital for any bomber pilot) and it accumulated so much data that it gained self awareness. If it sounds silly, remember that we're not even sure how we became self aware or how any creature came into existence (theories abound of course) also a geometric rate is something that really sneaks up on you. I imagine by the time the Pentagon realised there was a problem it was already too late.
As for a virus gaining self awareness, unless all those PC's are operating in sync I wouldn't worry too much. Even then, with all the computer and supercomputers of the world working together it would be about as smart as a lobotomised cockroach that was mentally deficient to begin with.
quote:Originally posted by OverRon: If they should avert judgement, one thing I thought was that JC would still have to get the time travel working and send back terminators to try and kill himself and send Kyle back. He'd have to protect the timeline so that he would be born and that past events did happen, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to beat skynet.
Actually, how do we know something like that isn't happening anyway? Kyle went back under the impression that they'd won and Skynet was effectively beaten. He may have been impressionable and prone to fancying his boss' mother, but I don't think he'd be easily fooled into such a viewpoint. He could have been lying to Sarah but what would be the point? Skynet's end explains why Derek & co. were freed. . .
The deleted scenes in T2 suggest that rather than destroying Skynet's time machine after sending Kyle back, John kept it to then send Uncle Bob back (and who knows what/who else?). The series has now ret-retconned that to, he destroyed Skynet's, but has now built his own. Did he use this one to send Uncle Bob back?
Tim: OK, maybe was overstating the case to have JC as saviour of humanity. The suggested future of T3 implies that may not be the case, that things aren't completely over and done with and some of Skynet still survives. Perhaps then Sarah's choices in the scenario I came up with are:
1. Stop Skynet destroying civilisation. 2. Allow/fail to prevent Skynet's actions, but ensure John survives them on order to destroy Skynet in turn; after that, who knows what happens to humanity but it's out of her hands at least. 3. (my hypothetical series ending) Allow John to die which gets them out of what is almost a time-loop in which Skynet becomes a threat. Do we have any evidence that TV execs in general, or Fox ones in particular, would be queasy about such a way to end a show?
posted
This is a bit of a long one, but here's the cut sequence from T2 as scripted.
quote:EXT. BATTLEFIELD - DAY
THE BATTLE. Human troops in desperate combat with the Machines for possession of the dead Earth. The humans are a ragtag guerrilla army, made up mostly of troops from Southern Hemisphere countries... Africans, South Americans, Australians. The survivors of the nuclear war between the Northern Hemisphere super-powers. This is the reality of the post-Apocalyptic world. North of the equator we all die.
We hear radio chatter in Spanish, interspersed with Swahili and other African languages. The occasional Aussie unit can be heard. The humans use RPG launchers, plasma-pulse battle rifles, and home-built armored personnel carriers.
Skynet's weapons consist of the massive ground HKs (tank- like robot weapon-platforms) flying HKs, medium weight four-legged gun-pods called Centurions, the humanoid Terminators in various forms (600, 700, and 800 series), and small, fast-crawling kamikaze units called Silverfish that look like 5' long chrome centipedes. The Silverfish snake into gun emplacements and explode.
SEQUENCE OF RAPID CUTS
Explosions! Beam-weapons firing like searing strobe-lights. Energy bolts crisscrossing frame. Hand-launched Stinger missiles blowing an aerial HK out of the sky. A Sapper team tries to disable a ground HK. They get riddled by its rapidly tracking gun turret.
A TEAM OF GUERRILLAS is being overrun by terminator endoskeletons in the ruins of a building. One by one, the soldiers fall in desperate hand-to-hand combat. One of the terminators looms over a wounded soldier, its battle rifle's barrel swinging down toward the guerrilla's head. The man stares defiantly into his death. Then... Suddenly, amazingly, the terminator stops, freezing in place...
Aerial HKs tilt slowly, out of control, and crash to the ground. All the terminators stand frozen, unmoving, like a bunch of toy soldiers.
The sudden silence takes the humans by surprise. They slowly emerge from their rat-warren emplacements and approach the frozen machines. We hear a voice speaking over a radio headset. It is filled with awed emotion.
HEADSET VOICE (O.S.) ... The Colorado Division confirms that Skynet has been destroyed... The war is over... I repeat, Skynet has been destroyed.
CAMERA TRACKS along the soldiers, bleeding, frostbitten, wrapped in rags... Valley Forge with better weapons. The wounded soldier in the ruins of the building cautiously approaches the chrome skeleton before him. He pushes against its chest with one finger. It topples with a crash and lies still. The soldier turns to his comrades with an idiot grin. Tears are streaming down his face. A mighty cheer goes up from the men and woman of the Last Army.
INT. TIME DISPLACEMENT COMPLEX - L.A. - LATER
A STAINLESS STEEL ELEVATOR SHAFT, going deep into the bowels of the earth. Tiny figures stand on an open platform which descends rapidly, becoming a speck.
ON THE PLATFORM. An imposing man, surrounded by a team of guerrilla officers stands on the platform as it descends. He is JOHN CONNOR. Forty-five years old. Chiseled. Stern. The left side of his face is heavily scarred. An impressive man, and clearly one forged in the furnace of a lifetime of war. The voice we heard continues now.
CONNOR (V.O.) My name is Connor. It's my job to lead these people. My mother, Sarah, gave me the job... and she's not exactly someone you say "no" to. I wish to God I had. I've sent thousands to their deaths. But let me tell you about death in this world. We piss on the bones of a billion people. Death's not what it used to be. If there is a God, his love and 45 cents will buy you coffee...
The platform reached its destination. Connor and the officers step off. Begin moving down a long corridor.
INT. CORRIDOR
This place was designed by machines for machines. The architecture is alien, without aesthetics, without even such human basics as doorknobs and lights. Connor leads the team past more frozen terminator endoskeletons, deactivated like the ones on the surface.
CONNOR (V.O.) All these machines were controlled by a kind of God, a low-rent self- appointed God called Skynet. Skynet was a supercomputer built for strategic defense back in the Nineties. Today we destroyed it in its fortress in the Colorado Rockies, and all its toys stopped...
As they continue on, they pass other teams of guerrilla soldiers.
CONNOR (V.O.) This place is one of Skynet's toys. A machine built by machines.It is like nothing which has ever existed before... the first tactical time weapon. Before today, no human had seen this place, but I've been here in my dreams many times. All my life I've tried to imagine what it would look like. Now I'm actually here...
INT. TIME DISPLACEMENT CHAMBER
Vault-like doors open. Connor strides through with authority and purpose. He is saluted smartly by everyone he encounters, though he wears no insignia of rank.
There is a bustle of hurried activity here. The chamber is the size of a high-school gym and consist totally of machine surfaces. Nothing in the design makes any sense. We can't tell what anything does. It is a technology we cannot imagine.
CONNOR (V.O.) Skynet, being almost infinitely smart, was also infinitely tricky. It knew it was losing, so it thought of a way to rig the game...
Technicians have pulled up floor panels and tapped directly into cabling of the machine, using portable terminals that they have wheeled in. Many of the soldiers in this war against machines are technical specialists... you have to fight fire with fire.
CONNOR (V.O.) And now, though we've won the war, there is still one battle left to fight. The most important one. It will be fought in the past, almost four decades ago... before all this began... See, the only problem with time travel is... it ain't over even when it's over.
At the far end of the room, a young soldier stands surrounded by a team of technicians. KYLE REESE. Sarah Connor's defender, teacher, and lover in the first film. A simple soldier who is about to walk point-blank into the gaping maw of history. At the moment, he is the center of activity. As he finishes stripping off his battle uniform, the techs begin smearing his body with a conductive so the time-field will follow his outline.
Reese looks around at all the activity. Battle and the prospect of death have never scared him. But the importance of what he is about to do terrifies him.
The techs move aside and suddenly John Connor is standing beside him. Connor... their grim messiah. Their leader. He fixes Reese with an intense gaze. There is so much he wants to say, but cannot bring himself to. Finally Reese speaks.
REESE Did you know I'd be the one who volunteered?
Connor nods.
CONNOR I've always known. Sarah told me.
Reese nods. Suddenly understanding everything.
REESE That's why you moved me to your unit? Kept me so close.
Connor shrugs enigmatically. One of the techs interrupts them
TECH We're ready, Sergeant.
THREE ENORMOUS CHROME RINGS, one inside the other, are suspended in a circular hole in the center of the room's floor. John and Reese approach them.
Reese steps onto the first ring. It bobs under his weight. We see that the rings are freely floating in a magnetic field. Reese steps to the inner ring and looks into the hole. A vast echoing darkness below. He looks back at John. The messiah is waiting for him to step into the bottomless pit.
CONNOR Sometimes you have to put your faith in the machine.
Reese takes a breath, then steps into open space and is buoyed up by an unseen field of force. He floats in the middle of the rings. The techs start the time displacement sequence.
THE RINGS BEGIN TO MOVE, slowly rotating around each other on different axis like some complex gyroscope.
THE FLOOR BEGINS TO SPLIT OPEN, like wedges in a pie which begin to pull back from the center. The rings are spinning faster now, suspended in space in the middle of the receding floor wedges. The rings begin to descend.
JOHN AND REESE LOCK EYES as they move apart. Reese is dropping into an unbelievably vast circular space... the time-field generator. John watches him go, until Reese is a tiny figure. The rings are spinning so rapidly now they almost disappear, becoming a sphere of whirling steel. Technicians pull John back from the edge.
LIGHTNING BEGINS TO ARC across the vast room below. A huge charge of energy is building up. Everyone takes cover behind blast walls they have set up. They put on goggles like they used to do at A-bomb tests. This is going to be big.
The chamber below has become a Hell of energy with Reese at its center. The drone and crackle of the machines builds to thunder, there is a BLINDING FLASH OF LIGHT!
When the glare fades the floating rings are empty. They slow to a stop, seared and smoking. Reese is gone.
FUENTES, one of the officers, turns to Connor.
FUENTES Now what happens to Reese? I mean, what did happen?
Connor's gaze seems far away from this time and place.
CONNOR He accomplishes his mission and in doing so, he dies.
FUENTES He is a good soldier.
Connor solemnly nods. CONNOR Yes... He's also my father.
FUENTES Mother of God!
Fuentes stares at Conner in amazement. He has just been given a glimpse into his leader's private Hell. Connor turns from the smoking chamber. He seems suddenly ten years old as his features drain of strength, shoulders sagging.
Fuentes shouts an order to a waiting Sapper team.
FUENTES Sapper team. Set your charges. Let's blow this place back to Hell.
Connor shakes his head no. Mustering his strength.
CONNOR Not yet. There's one more thing we have to do.
TIGHT ON MASSIVE DOORS OF STEEL, covered with a thin sheet of ice. Locking bolts slam back. Ice shatters like glass as the doors begin to open. We are in--
INT. COLD STORAGE FACILITY
Connor walks into the darkness, followed by a few technicians. They are in a vault-like cold-storage room. Hanging in steel racks from ceiling tracks are hundreds of what appear to be men. They are in rows of ten. Within each row, each of the bodies are absolutely identical.
Connor signals the techs to remain by the door and walks out among the dark bodies. They are UNACTIVATED TERMINATORS. He stops at a row in which they are identical to the terminator which was sent to kill Sarah (the Arnold model).
He walks to the end of the row. There is one empty rack. He faces the terminator in the next rack. Its eyes are closed. John seems distant as he studies that face. Fuentes enters the chamber, pushing past the technicians. Calls for his leader in the darkness.
FUENTES John?... John?...
TIGHT ON CONNOR, his face pensive as Fuentes calls his name. Fuentes voice slowly dissolves to ANOTHER VOICE. A woman's. Echoing as though from a great distance...
So it's implied that he blew the place after he sent back Uncle Bob. From SCC we can presume that before blowing the place they grabbed as much tech as they could, including Terminators, the plans and vital components to the time displacement equipment. Mind you the time machine as James Cameron originally describes it is much more elaborate than the ones in SCC so there's some room for interpretation.
posted
The phenomenon has been endlessly researched without coming to any firm conclusions, but I gather some controversial (and wildly disputed) theories suggest new seasons of TV shows show a strong tendency to start in the Autumn.
posted
This is not entirely correct. Some seasons start at the midseason in January or February, replacing the falltime shows that start strongly and proceed to suck ass. Scrubs is one such success that continues to replace awful shows at the midseason.
posted
The future is saved by Skynet's core program havinga Vista platform.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
Printer-friendly view of this topic
