Time travel in the Terminator/TSCC universe.
I have read many articles as to how time travel works in the Terminator universe, and most explanations focus on alternate or branching time lines to hold their arguments together, but I would say that ignores the most important fact about Terminator time travel, why it was created and used in the first place.
And in the Terminator universe that is very important in understanding how it works.
Let me preface my reasoning with the admission that I don’t believe that time travel is possible or ever will be, I look at it in the same way the writer would look at it, as a plot device to move the protagonists into extraordinary situations, nothing more, so the only rule that truly matters is does it make sense in the context of the story, is it logical.
The biggest problem with time travel in the Terminator universe stems right from the very first film, we have two conflicting views of time travel, and unfortunately we have to ignore one or the other.
First we have the chicken and egg conundrum, John Connor sends back his father to protect his mother and impregnate her with him.
John would have to exist prior to sending his father, but can’t exist if he’s wasn't born to send his father back, it’s the preverbal rabbit hole, and bares not looking too deeply into. It’s from this that the alternate or branching timeline theorists use to justify their explanations, but like I have said in the first paragraph, it ignores why time travel exists in the Terminator universe, that is, to change fate!
Time travel is invented and first used by Skynet, as Kyle Reese explains to Sarah in the first film, Skynet has all but lost the war against the resistance and in a last desperate move to survive, it sends back a Terminator to eliminate the mother of the leader of the resistance, John Connor.
This informs us, what happens in the past has direct correlation to what happens in the future, if it didn’t, then there would be little point in using it in the first place, an important fact conveniently left out of the branching or alternate time argument.
So we are dealing with a single time line, one that can be changed, to either the detriment or benefit of the future. But it also introduces an anomaly, If Skynet sends back a Terminator, then from its point of view, whatever that Terminator does should have instant effect on the future, Even if Kyle Reese is sent back one hundredth of a second later, it would be too late, because the past is done and over.
But we can get around this problem with a simple device, let’s call it “time lag.”
Because the very act of time travel is unnatural to universal laws, the time it takes for changes to occur in the future from past actions is played out in real time from the point of entry into the past.
So if it takes the Terminator two days to track down the right Sarah Connor and kill her altering the future, then in that future, John has precisely that amount of time from when the Terminator left before that change catches up to him.
John now has “wiggle room” in which to act, a chance to thwart Skynet’s plans for rewriting history, as long as John sends back someone within that timeframe, there is still a chance of success.
I would also argue that paradoxes don’t exist in time travel, that the very act of traveling in time insulates you from changes you make.
Paradoxes rely on the premise that time moves in two directions simultaneously, which we know isn’t the case, time only flows in one direction, into the future, at no time does it ever flow "backwards."
This is illustrated in the TSCC episode Dungeons and Dragons, Derek’s best friend Billy Wisher confesses to him that his name is really Andy Goode, and that he was in part responsible for Skynets’ creation. Derek uses this information to travel back and kill him, thus erasing Andy from the future Derek came from.
If Paradoxes existed then Derek couldn’t kill Andy because if he did then Andy/Billy in the future wouldn’t exist to impart the information that Derek uses to justify killing him. Because Derek still remembers Billy Wisher and their adventures together proves that paradoxes don’t exist and don’t affect someone already at the point in time prior to the change happening, time didn’t flow backwards and erase Derek’s memory of Andy/Billy because Time flows only forward.
It’s also shown in the last episode Born to Run when John jumps into the future; Because John doesn’t live through Judgement day and become the eventual leader of the Resistance, he didn’t send back either Kyle or Derek, both of which are alive and well in that future, but from Johns memory are both dead in the past, John has negated his own existence it would seem, yet he is there because paradoxes don’t exist to prevent it. John is insulated from changes in the time line by the very act of time travel itself.
I hope these three rules of time travel, single timeline, time lag and no paradoxes, helps to explain what’s going on in the Terminator/TSCC universe, and that you find them helpful when watching to appreciate what’s going on and why it was used.
As Craig Ferguson is oft to say, “I look forward to you letters!”