Time travel in the Terminator/TSCC universe.

[intrepid01]

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

Comments

[drenkrelar]

My view on time travel is similar, but not quite the same. It's a plot device in TSCC so how it works really doesn't matter.

However, let's look at the purpose of time travel in the terminator mythology. Both sides are using it to try to do something in the past that will change the outcome of the war at some point in the future.

We also have in the movies time travelers coming back from the same version of the future in each movie. Arnold and Kyle are implied to be from the same future. Both Terminators from T-2 are implied to be from the same future as each other, but not the same future as Kyle and the first T-800. The same rules apply for the T-3 Terminators. This would make it seem that any given version of the future does not just stop the instant a time traveler leaves.

In the series however, it is highly implied that none of the time travelers, human or other wise came back from the same future as any of the others unless it is specifically stated that they time traveled together. The time travel in TSCC is less of a "we have to respond to the fact that Skynet sent a machine back" and more like a complex game of plotting and counter plotting by both Skynet and the Resistance.

As for the type of time travel theory. It changes from movie to movie. T-1 is a stable time loop with a predestination paradox built in. T-2 implies that you can create a new timeline by preventing the things that lead to the creation of the time traveler's home timeline. T-3 also seems to follow this theory of alternate timelines, but adds in elements of predestination with the fact that Judgment Day can not be prevented. As for TSCC, this is where things get complicated. If the actions of every single time traveler creates a new timeline, none of the factions can ever know if their actions in the past are working. Not Skynet, not the Resistance, and not Weaver.

[intrepid01]

I ignored whatever T3 and T4 said about time travel because while both these films did have good points, they are clearly exploitation rubbish made by people who clearly didn’t understand what the first two film were about and went on to piss on their greatness. Sorry to be so blunt.
TSCC was an extension of T2 which nullifies T3 and by its association T4.

Now that I have got “that” out of the way, let’s proceed.

The difference between the films and the series is only in scope, the films take place over a period of a couple of days, the TV series over months and possibly a year, this just makes them both the same in the “plotting and counter plotting” chess game you mentioned, it’s just with the series we see it played out over a longer period of time.

I don’t think T1 is a “stable loop with predestination paradox built in,” while it may seem so on the surface, and does serve that purpose, John’s message to Sarah which he had Kyle memorise was the clue that isn’t the case, which was dutifully further explored in T2.

Lastly, that none of the factions would know whether their time traveling has any causality is a given, because from their stand point its history, only if someone that was sent back came up to them and said, “Hey, you send me back to build a cache of weapons, here they are.” Would they know if they succeeded.
In Skynets case, had the first Terminator eliminated Sarah Connor then it would only know about it if that very Terminator survived long enough to eventually tell Skynet it succeeded, Skynet itself would have no knowledge of the mission but that’s not the point or pertinent, only that it did succeed.