I will refer to the timelines by capital letter, and the movies with bold print.

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A:

This was the original timeline. We never saw this one. We will begin with Sarah Connor.

Sarah Connor was born in approximately 1965. At some point, she has a child, whom she names John Connor. We don't know when, but we'll assume it was around 1995, which would make Sarah around 30. We will also assume that Sarah is not married at the time, due to the fact that she and her child share the same last name. Sometime around 2010, someone, we don't know who, invents AI technology, including a system called SkyNet. SkyNet eventually turns on its creators, leading to machines taking over the planet. A human resistance arises, lead by the now grown John Connor. Eventually, the resistance succeeds, but the machines send a T-800 class Terminator back to 1985, in an attempt to kill Sarah Connor long before her child is born. They include a margin of error, because the machines do not have exact records of when John was born. The Terminator is sent through the portal, and a soldier (who's name escapes me) is sent by Connor to stop him.

B:

The Terminator
A T-800 and a soldier appear c.1984. The Terminator attempts to kill Sarah Connor, while the soldier attempts to defend her. In the process, Soldier tells Sarah that she will have a son named John Connor, and then impregnates her. The Terminator is destroyed, leaving a minor amount of technology behind, and Soldier is killed. Sarah Connor proceeds to assume that her child is the John Connor that Soldier knows from timeline "A," when this is not the case. There are, in fact, TWO completely seperate John Connors. They simply fall into the same role in life.

Cyberdyne corporation obtains the left behind technology, and creates AI technology around 1998. Judgement Day occurs shortly thereafter. Sarah Connor's child John becomes the leader of the resistance, as another of her children by the same name did in "A." The war has the same outcome, with the exception that the machines have more advanced technology, and send a more advanced Terminator to do the same job as the T-800 tried to do from timeline "A." This is a completely seperate event, as the SkyNet from "A" sent the T-800, and the SkyNet from "B" sent the T-1000. Thus, the same computer did not send two assasins two two points in time.

C:
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
A T-1000 appears, along with a T-800, in or around 1994. The T-800 destroys the T-1000, and in the process destroys the technology that was used by Cyberdyne in "B" to create AI and SkyNet in 1998. However, it is still likely that someone will invent AI technology on the same schedule as in "A," namely in 2010. Thus, Judgement Day may still occur, and a John Connor will still be there to fight it.

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The crux of this theory is that there is not a loop. There is simply a third timeline that we never saw, with major, but sometimes superficial, similarities to the ones we did. For instance, in both "A" and "B," there is a man named John Connor, child of Sarah Connor, who leads a resistance against AI machines, who were created at approximately the same time relative to John's birth. Thus, the same events happen in both timelines, but at different times. The John Connor that first fought the machines is not the John Connor that was in T2, as they had different fathers. Sarah Connor simply had another child named John, which wiped out the existance of the first John. However, this is possibly a good thing, as without her impregnation by Soldier, John Connor "A" would have been three years old when the resistance "B" began in 1998, instead of in his late teens.

Another side effect of this is that now, if Judgement Day does indeed occur, it will occur around 2010, when John Connor will be in his mid twenties. This may alter the balance one way or another, as in both "A" and "B," he was around 18 when this happened.

Questions? Comments?

And why bother, unless this is some attempt to explain how they can have a third movie when August 29 1997 came and went and was nothing more than another boring working day? And if so, still why bother, since you can be sure they won't even try to explain it all in Terminator 3?

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Luke Ford: "What's it like having a dick in your ass?"

Either way, it's an excellent example of resolving temporal paradoxes.

As for why, I just do it for the fun of it. Impossible problems are a good thing to worry about in your spare time. Voyager's "Future's End" works out pretty well this way, too.

For my next trick, resolving the Grandfather Paradox.

Anyway, I do like his theory.

And thank you.

My theory is:

T-1: The Terminator and Kyle Reese are sent back in time. John Connor knows that Kyle is his father but doesn't tell him in order to protect the timeline.

Because Kyle is dead, John keeps his mother's last name (this also keeps Kyle from relizing he's John's father related).

Meanwhile the Terminator is destroyed, but all the technology is aquired by CyberDyne (most likely contracted by the Government to research this advanced tech). SkyNet is created and the AI war begins.

T-2: In order to prevent Judgement Day (JD) from occuring CyberDyne and the original Terminator technology is destroyed. However, if SkyNet was never created then a Terminator could not of been created, thus never go back in time and would stop John from being born. So really John should vanished at the end of T2 never existing.

The fact that he continues to exists suggests that JD will still happen and opens the door for T3. It also makes since because the AI should be able to look in it's history records and know that both Terminators sent to the past failed. But perhaps it knew they had to fail in order to set off certain events to start JD.

In conclusion: I don't think James Cameron had all the facts of Terminator plotted out which explains the holes and inconsistancies.

As for John disappearing, the thing with that is the time travel model the creators are using in these movies. In these movies, when history is altered, it simply creates an entirely new timeline, instead of overwriting the existing one. Thus, timelines "A" and "B" still exist somewhere out there, inaccessable to us. The T-800 from T2 was modifying the future of timeline "C," but as he was from timeline "B," this did not affect him. In the same way, Reese was from timeline "A," so therefore any changes to timelines "B" and "C" would not have any effect on his existance, and being sent back by John Connor "A" to father John Connor "B."

As for how this will hold up in T3, that will depend on whether they deal with time travel at all. From what I know of the possible plot, it's not nesecary for it to be brought up. Either way, anything can take place in the future of "C," since no one's come back to tell us anything about what happens then. 'Course, if they did, we'd have a timeline "D" to deal with...

That would be an interesting way to keep the series going, though. We follow the war through, and regardless of the outcome, each side sends someone back in time to do something to the other side, or to prevent that. With some good plotting, you could follow the cycle over and over, creating an unending series of movies.

In one cycle, WE could loose the war, but commandeer the time portal and send our own soldier back to do some assasinatin'.

With good writers, that just might work...

Skynet send it's entire force back to 1900 to fix all the previous mistakes that it made in the first 750 episodes.....

Or it could be a way to generate more money.
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"I find your lack of faith disturbing."

-Lord Darth Vader (Star Wars: A New Hope)

There's prolly going to be a spin-off TV-series with NO blood and NO nudity and the Terminator will be played by a totally unknown body builder from Pasadena, or some other poor schmuck, which will erase any originality and charm that was established with the original movie.

For those of you that didn't read between the lines I was hinting on the fate of RoboCop.

And what's this "T-800"-crap you're talking about, Omega? The script and dialogue in the movies say "Model 101". Are you referring to some comic book?

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Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.

-Tleilaxu Epigram

The T-800 from T2 said that the T-1000 was an advanced prototype (I wonder what the original prototype was, the T-800?) and it was based upon a hevemetepoly (spl?) alloy aka liquid metal.

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"I find your lack of faith disturbing."

You are nitpicking.