A timeline of the deterioration of the Terminator timeline (spoiler for every Terminator movie)

[Zontar]

So after watching Terminator Genesis I've decided to compile a timeline trying to make sense of how the series' timeline got so messed up. Oh, I'm not going to make sense of the timeline itself, that is asking the impossible. I'm here to document how it got to where it is in the first place. So here we go.

-Terminator.

This 1984 (relatively) low budget R rated action movie that started it all has a human resistance fighting and winning the war against the Machines led by Skynet. In 1997 Skynet started nuclear Armageddon to try and eliminate humanity. In its final hours in 2029, knowing all is lost, it tries a last minute gambit to send a Terminator 800 (T800) back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, mother of resistance leader John Connor, before he was born. The resistance send back Kyle Reves to stop it, and in the end the Terminator is killed, as is Kyle, but Sarah lives, Kyle turns out to be John's father and the remains of the T800 are found by a company which would later go on to develop Skynet. A stable timeloop is established with no instabilities in the timeline and no real plot holes.

-Terminator 2.

This 1991 high budget R rated action movie (which somehow has a budget which is just around how much the first one grossed when adjusted for inflation. How the hell did that happen? Lucky for them it was the most successful Terminator movie to date) is set in 1995, only 2 years before Judgement Day. The plot revolves around a T1000 being sent back in time by Skynet to kill the young teen John Connor, while a reprogrammed T800 is sent back by the resistance to protect him. Long story short the T1000 is destroyed , most of the research regarding Skynet is (believed to be) destroyed and the T800 sacrifices itself to make sure nothing can be used from it to develop Skynet. The movie ends on an optimistic but very open note, leaving to the possibility that things will not end in nuclear Armageddon, though a stable timeloop is still quite possible (there is a non-cannon alternate ending where the world is shown to not have ended, but it is an alternate ending for a reason). Though one can question why the T1000 wasn't sent back in the first place, or why a reprogrammed T800 wasn't sent in Kyle's place, the plot holes are minor and the timeline still makes sense.

-Terminator 3.

This is where things start to loose cohesion for the timeline from this 2003 movie. Right off the bat it's 2004 and judgement day has not occurred. A T1000 (named the T-X but it's just a T1000 when you get right down to it) is sent back in time to kill the leaders of the resistance, not only John Connor but also his generals who have no protection what so ever. It achieves this before the T800 sent back to protect John (again) manages to kill it. John Connor and his wife end up in a nuclear bunker when the nukes start to fly. The plot holes start to take real weight in this one, as the T1000 kills quite a few future resistance generals and other leaders in the war, which it should then not know to kill in the first place as it never would have had reason to kill them in the past if they never become important in the resistance. Another plot hole is that despite the nuclear bombs flying 7 years later things in the future still end up more or less the same, the only logical explanation for the two previous instances of time travel happening in the first place being possible due to a stable timeloop which the universe is dependent on being active and stable. Another plothole is that the reprogrammed T800 supposedly killed John Connor in 2033, 4 years after Skynet was destroyed, though weather or not this is actually a plot hole is debatable as the T800s could be operating independently from the rest of the machine network.

-Terminator Salvation.

This 2009 PG-13 Terminator movie. Despite it all, the movie doesn't contradict that much of what has previously been established as part of the time loop other then having judgement day be in 2004 instead of 1997. The movie takes place in 2018 and had it not been for the date of the date used for judgement day no plot hole would have arisen, though since it does that means it is firmly in the part of the timeline which is a jumbled mess instead of a clean timeloop. (on a site, though it ended up being profitable, due to under-preforming and the company which owned the movie rights to Terminator at the time going under, the planned trilogy it was beginning was axed. Probably for the better)

-Terminator Genesis.

This one takes the cake. Another PG-13 Terminator movie (whoever thought that was a good idea should look at Salvation's sales numbers compared to Terminator 2). The movie starts in by giving us the backstory of the setting, which has judgement day taking place in 1997 once again. Quickly moving to 2029, the movie shows us part of the final battle against Skynet as well as the first T800 being sent back in time to 1984, as well as Kyle being sent back as well. John Connor is shown to be captured in some way by a different type of Terminator, though this doesn't create any plot holes. What does is that minutes after arriving back in 1984, the T800 is destroyed by a combination of a reprogrammed T800 and Sarah Connor, while Kyle is attacked by a T1000 before being saved by Sarah and the reprogrammed T800. Over the course of the movie the following plot holes arise: despite being sent back in time first (and thus writing, or rewriting, history) the T800 and Kyle arrive after the T1000 and years after the reprogrammed T800 which saved a 9 year old Sarah from another terminator sent back to kill her. This physically should not be possible, as the timelines which sent all three terminators (evil T1000 to the more distant past, good T800 to the more distant past and evil T1000 to 1984) will not have exsisted to send them back in the first place, and as such would not disturb them, as doing so would mean John is never born and thus never gives a reason for the original T800 to start the timeloop in the first place. There is also the fact that John is never born at all in this new timeline, judgement day is moved back to 2017 before being averted altogether, and that as a result of the new timeline breaking off from the stable timeloop (which should logically be impossible) no one who was sent back in time except Kyle will ever even exist, and Kyle will not be either (and the him who lives to reach the age of being sent back is a completely different person).

Genesis not only accepts the time travel induced plot holes of the series, it takes them and sees if it can make a whole movie around them. Though it entertains I can't say it's memorable or good by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyway that's a breakdown of the timeline of the Terminator movies going downhill in terms of logic. I'd have added in the Sarah Connor Chronicles, but that's just another layer of headache to try and deal with, coupled with the fact that the cliff hanger ending it got before being cancelled actually manages to make things worst the Genesis and it is never resolved.

 

[Johnny Impact]

This is what happens with time travel. As soon as anybody applies real thought, the whole thing collapses.

Let's suppose all the evil Terminators (something like 2 T-800's and 2 T-1000's?) were instead sent to a single point way back into the past, say during the Ice Age. There was a time when humans weren't doing so well, when we were reduced to a single extended group of fewer than 10,000 individuals. Four Terminators could easily dispatch 10,000 cavemen. Beyond lava or a *really* high fall, there's nothing in the world of that time that could possibly deter them. Spears and rocks already don't hurt them; working in pairs would effectively immunize them from any nets, deadfalls, or what have you that the cavemen could come up with. So what if they're naked? They don't feel cold. They can make spears, and anyway they don't exactly need weapons to kill people. They never eat, sleep, age, or tire, so they could chase humans 24/7 until their power cells wear out in 120 years. Even if the Terminators didn't get every last human, they'd decimate the population to well below the minimum required for survival. There. See? Bad guys win. I thought of that in one second. Would a brilliant AI really neglect this option?

For that matter, just coat a hefty fusion bomb with vat-grown flesh and send it back to blow the entire city away and Sarah Connor along with it.

The original movie already contains a paradox: SkyNet should have known the original T-800's mission would fail. If it had succeeded, John Connor would never have existed. Since he obviously did exist, it follows that the mission failed. The reasoning is simple, yet SkyNet makes the attempt anyway. Why?

Forget continuity errors. The question that always bugs me is "Why didn't the inventor of time travel instantly win all conflicts before they ever had a chance to occur?"

 

[Zontar]

Snip

I always felt as though 1984 was as far back as they could go, since one could argue that the further back one goes the more energy is required.

As for killing humanity or nuking a city, keep in mind that Skynet did what it did to win the war, it was trying to kill humanity in the present, but it also wanted to assure its own survival. Can't really survive unless you're created in the first place, and who knows what nuking 1984 LA would do to that (especially since LA is where most of those involved in making Skynet hail from).

As for not using it right away, I think it has to do with the X factor of it all. Think about it, using a time machine for the first time to send something back with the intent of creating massive changes to history means you have no idea what could happen to you now. For all you know it could destroy you. Sure, another version of you would exist in a timeline effected by the change, but who cares it's not you, you're dead. It makes sense with all the unknowns involved for it to be used as a weapon of desperation and last resort, especially since victory without it is still possible.

 

[Asita]

This is what happens with time travel. As soon as anybody applies real thought, the whole thing collapses.

Let's suppose all the evil Terminators (something like 2 T-800's and 2 T-1000's?) were instead sent to a single point way back into the past, say during the Ice Age. There was a time when humans weren't doing so well, when we were reduced to a single extended group of fewer than 10,000 individuals. Four Terminators could easily dispatch 10,000 cavemen. Beyond lava or a *really* high fall, there's nothing in the world of that time that could possibly deter them. Spears and rocks already don't hurt them; working in pairs would effectively immunize them from any nets, deadfalls, or what have you that the cavemen could come up with. So what if they're naked? They don't feel cold. They can make spears, and anyway they don't exactly need weapons to kill people. They never eat, sleep, age, or tire, so they could chase humans 24/7 until their power cells wear out in 120 years. Even if the Terminators didn't get every last human, they'd decimate the population to well below the minimum required for survival. There. See? Bad guys win. I thought of that in one second. Would a brilliant AI really neglect this option?

Yes. In fact, a brilliant AI would dismiss the idea as soon as it came up because it directly invokes the grandfather paradox on itself, which is to say that by destroying humanity in the distant past it invalidates the criteria required for it to exist in the first place (Skynet was created by humans in the late 20th century). The issue of paradox still remains with retroactively killing its foe, but in sending an assassin after a singular target at a point which only preceded its creation by years (a decade or two tops), the risk of collateral damage affecting itself is minimized. A truly brilliant AI, however, wouldn't do even that. What it would do is send a message back detailing a crucial juncture for the resistance (time, place, people, etc) so that its past self would be forewarned and could destroy the resistance at that juncture, after which it would send back that same message so that its present was assured. It's neat, tidy, and only reliant on events that are a part of its own recognized past. Voila.

 

[cathou]

the biggest plot hole in terminator, is that the time machine is suppose to be the ultimate weapon. there's suppose to be only one, and it require a lot of energy to use it, but yet, they used it a dozen time of so.

by the way, in genesys the judgement day is not averted, since after the credit, we see the core of skynet still intact and functionnal

 

[TranshumanistG]

I'm disappointed to see no mention of Sarah Connor Chronicles.

 

[Zontar]

by the way, in genesys the judgement day is not averted, since after the credit, we see the core of skynet still intact and functionnal

Yeah, heard about the end credit scene after I posted the thing, but how many people stuck around for that? This isn't a comic book movie, no one should have thought that was a good idea.

I'm disappointed to see no mention of Sarah Connor Chronicles.

As I mentioned in the OP, I ignored it because it makes things even worst then they where before in terms of the timeline. Besides, the movie series pretends it doesn't exist at all.

 

[mad825]

Let's suppose all the evil Terminators (something like 2 T-800's and 2 T-1000's?) were instead sent to a single point way back into the past, say during the Ice Age. There was a time when humans weren't doing so well, when we were reduced to a single extended group of fewer than 10,000 individuals. Four Terminators could easily dispatch 10,000 cavemen. Beyond lava or a *really* high fall, there's nothing in the world of that time that could possibly deter them. Spears and rocks already don't hurt them; working in pairs would effectively immunize them from any nets, deadfalls, or what have you that the cavemen could come up with. So what if they're naked? They don't feel cold. They can make spears, and anyway they don't exactly need weapons to kill people. They never eat, sleep, age, or tire, so they could chase humans 24/7 until their power cells wear out in 120 years. Even if the Terminators didn't get every last human, they'd decimate the population to well below the minimum required for survival. There. See? Bad guys win. I thought of that in one second. Would a brilliant AI really neglect this option?

Of course totally forgetting that the Humans made Skynet and without Humans, Skynet would also cease to exist. Removing Conner from the picture meant that Skynet would be created and the resistance could be crushed. The time machine was one last attempt and desperate act from Skynet before being obliterated.

This was explain in the very first film.

And before you say anything else, Skynet knew nothing about the history of humanity prior nuking every local library and phonebook.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Yes. In fact, a brilliant AI would dismiss the idea as soon as it came up because it directly invokes the grandfather paradox on itself, which is to say that by destroying humanity in the distant past it invalidates the criteria required for it to exist in the first place (Skynet was created by humans in the late 20th century). The issue of paradox still remains with retroactively killing its foe, but in sending an assassin after a singular target at a point which only preceded its creation by years (a decade or two tops), the risk of collateral damage affecting itself is minimized. A truly brilliant AI, however, wouldn't do even that. What it would do is send a message back detailing a crucial juncture for the resistance (time, place, people, etc) so that its past self would be forewarned and could destroy the resistance at that juncture, after which it would send back that same message so that its present was assured. It's neat, tidy, and only reliant on events that are a part of its own recognized past. Voila.

I think the bigger issue for Skynet is that the resistance didn't have any records of where/when it first began so it had to do guesswork as the infrastructure of humanity was shattered on Judgment Day. It only knew a few details and what it could probably pull out of humans it captured and probably tortured for information. I imagine the resistance was more like a terrorist cell network with compartmentalized information, no computers or at least using analog equipment so Skynet couldn't wire in or take it over. So with a patchwork of information and a lot of guesswork, plus the records of John Connor and Sarah Connor that existed up until Judgment day, Skynet had insufficient information to go on.
As far as I'm aware, Skynet sending the Terminators was a last ditch effort as Connor and the resistance was on the verge of destroying Skynet. The humans basically won in the future but Skynet threw a T-800 back in time before it was defeated which starts the whole shebang.
Its actually a paradox because Skynet is basically responsible for its own creation as the T-800's microchip saved from the factory is what ends up being the basis for creating Skynet.
Skynet exists because of a causality loop and Judgment Day is impossible to prevent, only delayed... Crazy shit.

 

[Hoplon]

Of course totally forgetting that the Humans made Skynet and without Humans, Skynet would also cease to exist. Removing Conner from the picture meant that Skynet would be created and the resistance could be crushed. The time machine was one last attempt and desperate act from Skynet before being obliterated.

This was explain in the very first film.

And before you say anything else, Skynet knew nothing about the history of humanity prior nuking every local library and phonebook.

it's the fatal flaw with all "sent from the future to prevent this thing happening" if you prevent the thing from happening how does the future know to sent some one back to prevent it?

the answer is usually if you send some one back they create a new branch of superspace. leaving the original time line intact. think it's labelled causality.

 

[mad825]

Its actually a paradox because Skynet is basically responsible for its own creation as the T-800's microchip saved from the factory is what ends up being the basis for creating Skynet.
Skynet exists because of a causality loop and Judgment Day is impossible to prevent, only delayed... Crazy shit.

Debatable

The true origins of Skynet isn't really discussed as Reese said "no-one knew how it started" but the reality is that the events of T1 would've speeded-up the research or slowed it down.

it's the fatal flaw with all "sent from the future to prevent this thing happening" if you prevent the thing from happening how does the future know to sent some one back to prevent it?

the answer is usually if you send some one back they create a new branch of superspace. leaving the original time line intact. think it's labelled causality.

I'm confused, what exactly are you on about?

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Its actually a paradox because Skynet is basically responsible for its own creation as the T-800's microchip saved from the factory is what ends up being the basis for creating Skynet.
Skynet exists because of a causality loop and Judgment Day is impossible to prevent, only delayed... Crazy shit.

Debatable

The true origins of Skynet isn't really discussed as Reese said "no-one knew how it started" but the reality is that the events of T1 would've speeded-up the research or slowed it down.

I believe there was a deleted scene that showed Cyberdine workers (the company that owned the factory where the T-800 was crushed) finding the remains of the Terminator, which basically would have explained the missing info of "how it started". I'm sticking with the causality loop, that it had to happen. The thing is with time travel and such, you end up with the chicken/egg debate, and the loop alone is enough to drive someone mad trying to discern which came first, Cyberdine making Skynet or Skynet in the future causing its own creation. Causality loop explanation exists to keep heads from exploding... LOL.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Honestly I thought the whole time travel thing in the first film was that fixed theroy (it suppose to happened) since I remember the part with Kyle retelling the message from John to Sarah and he mention that he thanks her for all the training she taught him. Since she was kinda portray as a weakling (it been ages since I last watched it) I would find it strange that she would train him military/ survival skills if it weren't for the destiny stuff.

That why I accept for all the stuff that happened in the second film (since it was destin for them to lose during the fist time travel assassinationm nothing changes so they did it again regardless of the outcome) to be acceptable.

Yeah the third film I pretty much hated it (it should had stayed as two films only) given to how much of a paradox it is compared to the first two film.

As for Genisys (haven't seen Salvation), given to how much paradox it had produce, I prtty much just accept it all since at this point, it is pointless trying to find an explaination to all the alter timeline (like how can a T-1000 send back to killed Kyle and Judgement Day was delay til 2017). I can assume the root of the paradox was sending the T-100 0 to killed Sarah as a child especially when it was made clear that they didn't want us to know who send the reprogrammed T-100.

 

[Asita]

Its actually a paradox because Skynet is basically responsible for its own creation as the T-800's microchip saved from the factory is what ends up being the basis for creating Skynet.
Skynet exists because of a causality loop and Judgment Day is impossible to prevent, only delayed... Crazy shit.

It's better than that, actually. Skynet's attempt to - to borrow a phrase from the film - 'retroactively abort' John Connor is in fact responsible for Connor's existence. Had Skynet not sent a Terminator back to kill Sarah, the resistance wouldn't have sent Kyle back, and he and Sarah would never have conceived John. Furthermore, the events of Terminator are what turned Sarah from a mild-mannered waitress into the ruthless survivalist we see in Terminator 2 (and described by Kyle in the first movie) who taught John the skills that would later allow him to lead the rebellion to victory over Skynet. The first movie was a very tightly woven time loop wherein Skynet was ultimately the architect of its own destruction.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Its actually a paradox because Skynet is basically responsible for its own creation as the T-800's microchip saved from the factory is what ends up being the basis for creating Skynet.
Skynet exists because of a causality loop and Judgment Day is impossible to prevent, only delayed... Crazy shit.

It's better than that, actually. Skynet's attempt to - to borrow a phrase from the film - 'retroactively abort' John Connor is in fact responsible for Connor's existence. Had Skynet not sent a Terminator back to kill Sarah, the resistance wouldn't have sent Kyle back, and he and Sarah would never have conceived John. Furthermore, the events of Terminator are what turned Sarah from a mild-mannered waitress into the ruthless survivalist we see in Terminator 2 (and described by Kyle in the first movie) who taught John the skills that would later allow him to lead the rebellion to victory over Skynet. The first movie was a very tightly woven time loop wherein Skynet was ultimately the architect of its own destruction.

I meant to put that in, but apathy got the best of me. Causality loops are so awesome. I'm a little pissed at McG for really fucking up Salvation. It had so much promise, especially the ability to explore the relationship between Connor and Reese, with Connor not being able to tell Reese about the whole "you're my father" thing. Wasted both Christian Bale (he may be an ass but he's a great actor IMO) and Anton Yelchin (a fine up and coming actor) on a poorly directed flop... So much potential there.

 

[cathou]

Yeah, heard about the end credit scene after I posted the thing, but how many people stuck around for that? This isn't a comic book movie, no one should have thought that was a good idea.

it was half way into credit. but luckily internet told us to stay or not :

http://aftercredits.com/

by the way, in Genesys, can we assume that T2 never occur since the T-1000 was sent in the 70's instead or was it a second one ?

 

[Zontar]

by the way, in Genesys, can we assume that T2 never occur since the T-1000 was sent in the 70's instead or was it a second one ?

Probably not since there's no John or Sarah Connor for the T1000 to kill, though in either event does it really matter at this point with how messed up the timeline is?

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I don't think I'm qualified for this discussion, my education didn't prepare me for timeline science.

Spoiler: I'll just leave this to the experts

 

[Darks63]

by the way, in Genesys, can we assume that T2 never occur since the T-1000 was sent in the 70's instead or was it a second one ?

Probably not since there's no John or Sarah Connor for the T1000 to kill, though in either event does it really matter at this point with how messed up the timeline is?

Or to further confuse things the next film will take place during the T2 movie.