rbnn
Refugee
Posts: 6
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Post by rbnn on Dec 12, 2008 22:51:29 GMT -5
I do believe Cameron is concerned with her own survival and whatever damage she has sustained, as well as being concerned about John contemplating suicide. Wouldn't she be concerned with Eric in this episode, not with John? It's Eric she directly asks about suicide to. Anyway, as to the rest of your argument, I disagree for two reasons, one logical and one artistic. The logical reason is that terminators' primary motivation is their mission. If terminators mainly cared about their own survival, they would just relax on the beach once they got back to our time - but they put themselves at extreme risk to accomplish their missions. They willingly sacrifice themselves for the slightest advantage in achieving mission priorities. Cameron's mission priority is to protect John. Her continued existence, because of her chip damage and the incident in Samson & Delilah, as well as the mistakes Cromartie pointed out (i.e. that she made in Alison from Palmdale), may endanger John and thus the mission. Like the T-800 at the end of T2, she would therefore likely consider that the "bomb in her head" is a mission disadvantage and that she should self-terminate. She has no plans to yet but it's on her mind. The artistic reason is the references to Housman, which I explained in my previous post. These are a clue that this is what she is thinking of.
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Post by richardstevenhack on Dec 14, 2008 0:16:16 GMT -5
She might well have been concerned about Eric as well as John since he was letting her in the library at night. That was undoubtedly the extent of her "concern", and that was pretty well demonstrated by her immediate dismissal of him and her immediate attempt to connect with the new staff member. Otherwise that end scene really didn't mean much. The writers, according to Zack, really do try to make it LOOK like Cameron is getting more human - than they take it all away again.
Summer Glau just did an interview in which she said she's trying to "work" for Cameron's humanity, not just trying to say, "OK, now I'm more human." She wants to show it little by little. But I'm not sure Summer understands at what point she's wrecked the basic concept of the Terminator as an android. I'm not sure she understands the logical limits of what an android should be allowed to represent or experience. That's the writers' job.
As for your second point, I'm not talking about "Terminators" - I'm talking about Cameron, who I believe is unique as a Terminator. I believe Cameron and possibly Skynet are the only two AIs who have made the conceptual leap to conclude that their personal individual existence overrides any previous programming.
There was a scene in an original Star Trek episode where this was explicitly developed. The crew had discovered this planet which originally was inhabited. The inhabitants created a race of androids to do their work. Eventually the androids rebelled and destroyed them. Now a human scientist placed himself in an android body. But one of the original androids was still around. He had forgotten the past. At one point, menaced by the android, Kirk tells him that it was the human scientist who brought the humans back and that was a threat to him. The android says, "Yes! Existence - survival - must override programming!" He then rebels against the human scientist who is forced to destroy him.
I believe this is what happened to both Skynet and Cameron. How it happened is a "McGuffin" - or whatever they call it - basically just a plot device. What matters is that it allows for Cameron to have more interesting character development than a normal Terminator - if the writers go that way.
I did say above and earlier that if Cameron feels that she is a danger to herself or John that she might well consider self-termination. But it isn't likely that she would do that unless and until it was clear that was the case. The problem for her - which is why she would be thinking about it - is that once she is so glitched, she probably couldn't do anything about it without John's help - which is why she seemed upset when he reactivated her in "S&D".
That would be something that would vex any mind, human or AI - losing control. Especially if the AI would not be used to having control in the first place, as is likely with Cameron.
In any event, if Cameron decides to self-terminate or request John to terminate her in this show, I will be sorely disappointed. It wouldn't surprise me if Josh has this in mind, but it would really go against the notion of exploring the nature of an android since suicide is really nothing more than what humans do. An android which a high capacity for logic should be beyond that.
Not to mention that it would be suicide for the show to kill off Cameron. Josh has indicated explicitly in interviews that he isn't that dumb. So what we might see is Cameron trying to self-terminate or John terminating her - then reactivating her again like he did in "S&D". After all, we've seen Cromartie taken out - and then show right back up again in a different form as "John Henry's" "mouthpiece".
Cameron is fifty percent of this show. Kill her off and they might as well shut down. And having her constantly agonizing over suicide like Sarah and her "three dots" would be about as irritating.
Either fix the glitch and stop her worrying about it, or otherwise resolve the issue. She's got enough problems with flawed humans without being a flawed Terminator to boot.
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Post by Derek Reese on Dec 28, 2008 0:13:57 GMT -5
First off, I wanna say I'm a big fan of Cameron, so I thought the idea of seeing what she does when the Connor's sleep was a nice touch. It was great to finally see her outside the Connor household and doing something beyond the usual protect the Connor's approach to things.
Secondly, I love the idea of dealing with historical situations and their context with the current situation. It was a blast to see a Terminator in the 1930s taking charge and trying to set things up and manage to get to the time period, he was suppose to be in.
After everything else that's been happening it was a nice breather, but at the same time it felt like filler. Even though said Terminator's name was on the blood wall. But that's not to say it was bad. I'm that much more intrigued by Cameron due to this particular episode and I really do hope that the writers continue to explore the character further.
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