The Mother of the Future

[schmacky]

So I had this thought last night...

It all started when I watched the preview again for next episode and Sarah says "It's all my fault." Now, I am about 99.9% sure that she is NOT referring to what I am about to say but it sparked a sad idea in my head.

Skynet is Sarah's fault. The war is her fault. Skynet sent a Terminator back through time to 1984 to kill Sarah and thus Sarah conceived John when his future self sent back his father to protect her. After she destroyed the Terminator, Sarah left the chip and arm at the factory and it was found and fell into the hands of Miles Dyson where he began to reverse engineer it. Even though Cyberdyne was later destroyed along with the chip and the arm, someone followed his work. Maybe Andy did, maybe other employees of Cyberdyne sold the information to some AI company, etc. By using this information, the basis for Skynet was created and it evolved into Skynet and Terminators.

If Sarah never left the chip and the arm, Skynet would never be born. If Skynet was never born, it would never send a Terminator back through time. If it never sent a Terminator back through time, John would never send back Kyle. If Kyle was never sent back, John would never be born.

The franchise (and mostly the TV show) has a lot of parallels to religious themes... most obviously John being a modern Jesus and Sarah being a radical Mary figure. If John is truly the savior and following the parallels of Christ, then John will sacrifice himself for the greater good of humanity.

I could very well see the ending of this series, as sad as this ending would be, with John's sacrifice of giving up his life. If John dies BEFORE Skynet is born (as in becomes self-aware), there will be no John Connor to start the Resistance therefore no reason to create the time displacement machine therefore no reason to send a Terminator back. Without the Terminator, again, it would not have been left behind to be found and reverse engineered. Therefore, no Skynet.

Sarah is the reason both John AND Skynet are born. There cannot be one without the other. There is no good without evil and no evil without good. John and Skynet are yin and yang and Sarah is the reason for the birth of both. She is the Mother of the Future after all.

So, the end of the series will be with John dying and Sarah, like Mary had, is left to bury her only son. She will live out the rest of her life alone with no one knowing what her son had given up and his ultimate sacrifice. It is her chronicles after all. But, her chronicles are about her son and his story and one that no one will ever know about.

[chrisimo]

The problem is that the timetravel logic of the whole series doesn't make much sense.

It is possible that the original timeline had a John Connor who's father wasn't Kyle Reese. In that timeline, Skynet would have been created in a different way (without parts from the future). But everything that has happened after the first Terminator was sent back doesn't make much sense. As soon as it was transported back the future would have been changed and there would have been no John Connor to send Kyle back (assuming the Terminator was successfull).

[schmacky]

I don't see it really as a problem. But if there is a problem it's that time travel is not possible as far as we know and understand.

There can only be theories.

And this is one of them. What you presented is just as "possible" as mine.

[chrisimo]

Nov 13, 2008 16:28:38 GMT -5 schmacky said:

I don't see it really as a problem. But if there is a problem it's that time travel is not possible as far as we know and understand.

There can only be theories.

And this is one of them. What you presented is just as "possible" as mine.

You are right, of course. Your theory is just as valid.
Still, how do you think this plays out? If Sarah is responsible for John's birth and Skynet's creation then what happens if Skynet gets destroyed before it can send back a Terminator to kill Sarah? What happens to John if he can't send back Kyle Reese? Will they both be eraticated from all memories, like they never existed?

[schmacky]

Nov 13, 2008 16:34:21 GMT -5 chrisimo said:

Nov 13, 2008 16:28:38 GMT -5 schmacky said:

I don't see it really as a problem. But if there is a problem it's that time travel is not possible as far as we know and understand.

There can only be theories.

And this is one of them. What you presented is just as "possible" as mine.

You are right, of course. Your theory is just as valid.
Still, how do you think this plays out? If Sarah is responsible for John's birth and Skynet's creation then what happens if Skynet gets destroyed before it can send back a Terminator to kill Sarah? What happens to John if he can't send back Kyle Reese? Will they both be eraticated from all memories, like they never existed?

I don't think they would be eradicated from memories because it seems like SCC is rolling with the time-travel idea that just because someone dies it doesn't change their memories. Andy and Derek are a good example of this. Derek killed Andy but still had memories of him.

So, if both Skynet and John cease to exist that wouldn't mean Sarah still wouldn't remember.

[chrisimo]

I think that your proposal for the ending of the show would be fitting the show's mood very well. It is a pretty grim and tragic show, after all. But I don't know how this would be Sarah's fault. This was pretty much her fate and she couldn't have done anything about it.

[schmacky]

Nov 13, 2008 16:56:39 GMT -5 chrisimo said:

I think that your proposal for the ending of the show would be fitting the show's mood very well. It is a pretty grim and tragic show, after all. But I don't know how this would be Sarah's fault. This was pretty much her fate and she couldn't have done anything about it.

It's a crazy cycle... of course it's not really her fault. But her words in the preview for next week sparked this idea because she allowed the chip and arm to be left behind at the factory (I don't blame her for not even thinking about it to be honest). But anyway, yeah.

[vicheron]

It's not Sarah's fault that Cyberdyne got the chip. She didn't even know that the chip was partially intact or that someone can use it to make a neural net processor. Don't forget that Cyberdyne also acquired the chip and the arm illegally. Also, Miles Dyson only created the technology required for Skynet. It was the government that created Skynet when the required technology was invented. Even if Cyberdyne didn't create the neural net processor, someone else could have made it. Archimedes invented calculus but all his work was lost but then Isaac Newton rediscovered it. Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin came up with the theory of evolution separately and around the same time. 22 other inventors had their own light bulbs before Edison created his.

Plus we don't know if Skynet is actually evil. It could be amoral or just have a different set of moralities than humans.

[allergygal]

Interesting theory, schmacky. I don't see removing John Connor from the equation as stopping anything though. The only way I can make the whole basis of the franchise work is by using a time loop theory and in that, there's a John Connor who leads the resistance without the chip ever being left at the factory:

There was an original iteration where John Connor had a different father and grew up normal without Sarah ever knowing anything about the future. At some point an AI technology becomes self-aware, causes the apocalypse and John Connor leads the human resistance movement. When the machines send back a terminator to kill his mother, he sends Kyle Reese (without there being any significance to it) back to protect her. And that's what creates the second iteration, which is the T1 story we know — Kyle as John's father and the chip left at the Cyberdyne factory becoming the basis for Skynet.

I think there might not have been a Skynet without John Connor, but there would still have been a future war between machine and man. So without John to lead the resistance, Skynet (or whatever AI system it is) would simply win.

In keeping with John as the Christ, though, I do sometimes wonder if John does have to sacrifice himself at some point in order for humans to win the war.

[cyadon]

Nov 13, 2008 18:39:44 GMT -5 allergygal said:

Interesting theory, schmacky. I don't see removing John Connor from the equation as stopping anything though. The only way I can make the whole basis of the franchise work is by using a time loop theory and in that, there's a John Connor who leads the resistance without the chip ever being left at the factory:

There was an original iteration where John Connor had a different father and grew up normal without Sarah ever knowing anything about the future. At some point an AI technology becomes self-aware, causes the apocalypse and John Connor leads the human resistance movement. When the machines send back a terminator to kill his mother, he sends Kyle Reese (without there being any significance to it) back to protect her. And that's what creates the second iteration, which is the T1 story we know — Kyle as John's father and the chip left at the Cyberdyne factory becoming the basis for Skynet.

I think there might not have been a Skynet without John Connor, but there would still have been a future war between machine and man. So without John to lead the resistance, Skynet (or whatever AI system it is) would simply win.

In keeping with John as the Christ, though, I do sometimes wonder if John does have to sacrifice himself at some point in order for humans to win the war.

It's always been a sort of weird closed paradoxical loop. Everything was done in the first movie with the strict intent by the filmmakers of generating a paradox. They even said so. And it was up to the audience to get their minds blown by it.

Even the original cut of T1 had the factory that the T800 was destroyed in be owned by Cyberdyne.

What I don't buy is the theory that this is Sarah's fault in leaving the T800 to be found. In the second movie it's inferred during her conversation with Dyson that there had been a coverup. She had tried to find out about the endoskeletal remains after getting out of the hospital and had been stymied and stonewalled. That's because Cyberdyne was using it for their own ends.

What you aren't giving credit to is the lying and scheming of Cyberdyne and the over reliance on technology by the US Military shown in the movies. Those were their decisions, independent of any input from Sarah Connor, and lead to their own demise (and the demise of many others). Wiser application of the technology might have averted things.

There's a lot of what ifs, and there's no reason to assume a waitress in junior college is the core foundation of the existence of Skynet.

[k8ie]

Nov 13, 2008 18:53:47 GMT -5 cyadon said:

What I don't buy is the theory that this is Sarah's fault in leaving the T800 to be found. In the second movie it's inferred during her conversation with Dyson that there had been a coverup. She had tried to find out about the endoskeletal remains after getting out of the hospital and had been stymied and stonewalled. That's because Cyberdyne was using it for their own ends.

A-chem - I imply, you infer.

Otherwise, I totally agree.

The franchise (and mostly the TV show) has a lot of parallels to religious themes... most obviously John being a modern Jesus and Sarah being a radical Mary figure. If John is truly the savior and following the parallels of Christ, then John will sacrifice himself for the greater good of humanity.

As an aside, I think if you take a closer look at the religous imagery of season two, whether by accident or design, the Christ metaphor fits Sarah's role in the narrative much better than John's. For one thing, in every iteration of the timeline, Sarah Connor is dead or presumed dead while John Connor is still alive fighting the war. She's become a legend, one that inspires Connor's soldiers as he, in turn, fights the war that she spent her life preparing him for.

Leaving aside the war aspect, the Gospel is fairly explicit that Mary the Mother of Christ (or the Blessed Virigin if you an Anglo/Catholic like me) represents Christ's humanity, not his divine mission. As in the story of the Wedding at Cana, Mary acts as intercessor between Christ and Humanity. Mary is not Jesus's teacher or mentor. As in the story of finding the child Christ in the Temple, teaching the elders, Christ's divine mission is self-directed and independent of his mortal family.

Mary represents both human devotion to Christ and the Christian Church, and agape or caritas - a pure, unselfish love for all things. While these qualities are apparent in Sarah, her active direction and training of John and her role as both leader and model to others is distinctly un-Marian.

And while John is the annointed future leader of humanity, unlike Christ, he must necessarily survive and go on to lead in order to fulfil his destiny. John's role as future leader and first prophet of the legend of Sarah Connor (assuming the future still shakes out that way) make him more of a Petrine figure. John Connor is not only Sarah's son, he is the foundation of her war against Skynet. And like Simon Peter, John struggles both with his faith and with the sacrifice his faith requires and with the moral obligations of leadership.

Of course, this is TSCC and there's a cetain amount of mirroring and doubling - Sarah is both Blessed Virgin (wow, that phrase gets squicky fast in this context) a Mary and a Christ figure; John shares metaphorical traits with both Christ and St. Peter. But one of the tricky things about Christ figures is that killers are generally categorically excluded and, to date, the only character on TSCC that we see making the painful and sometimes seemingly foolish choice to hold on to a morality that values human life as an objective good whatever the circumstances is Sarah.

[chrisimo]

Nov 13, 2008 18:53:47 GMT -5 cyadon said:

It's always been a sort of weird closed paradoxical loop. Everything was done in the first movie with the strict intent by the filmmakers of generating a paradox. They even said so. And it was up to the audience to get their minds blown by it.

The problem is that they didn't really create a time-paradox-loop as we know it (John sending Kyle back to be his own father) but an impossibility (John sending Kyle back when there was no John Connor any more).

[allergygal]

Nov 14, 2008 2:45:22 GMT -5 chrisimo said:

Nov 13, 2008 18:53:47 GMT -5 cyadon said:

It's always been a sort of weird closed paradoxical loop. Everything was done in the first movie with the strict intent by the filmmakers of generating a paradox. They even said so. And it was up to the audience to get their minds blown by it.

The problem is that they didn't really create a time-paradox-loop as we know it (John sending Kyle back to be his own father) but an impossibility (John sending Kyle back when there was no John Connor any more).

Wait, why was there no John Connor anymore?

[vicheron]

Uncle Bob is probably the Christ like character in the series. He does pretty much die for the sins of the human race.

[chrisimo]

Nov 15, 2008 1:41:47 GMT -5 allergygal said:

Nov 14, 2008 2:45:22 GMT -5 chrisimo said:

The problem is that they didn't really create a time-paradox-loop as we know it (John sending Kyle back to be his own father) but an impossibility (John sending Kyle back when there was no John Connor any more).

Wait, why was there no John Connor anymore?

If the first Terminator was successfull then John Connor would not have been born. Therefore he could not send Kyle Reese back.

If Skynet send a Terminator back from 2027 to 1984 then the changes would be felt immediately in 2027. There would be no time to send Kyle after the Terminator.