History WMG / TerminatorGenisys

Now, while it is not IMPOSSIBLE that the T-1000 might have used some sort of explosive and, upon discovering it missed its target, launched a more hands-on attack, or that Pops MIGHT have used his rocket launcher to slow down the attacking T-1000, we never see either way. As this is a 'fresh' T-800 that hasn't yet had the time to learn human traits, it's very possible that Pops decided that the best way to protect Sarah was to separate her from her parents, whose existence would have made his mission more difficult on several levels. Maybe, he was aware the T-1000 was attacking, and decided to 'simplify' things by killing Sarah's mother, letting the T-1000 kill her father, and simply have Sarah assume the T-1000 did both deeds.]]

The 1980s were much different from today. I mean, they're going to have to learn about 9/11, the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the WarOnTerror, ISIS, and all that other stuff that may have been reasons for the government to back the creation of Genisys.

* One John would be the kid son of Sarah and Kyle, as the movie would be set in 2029. By then, the heroes would have known for some time that Skynet survived the events of ''Genisys'' and be actively working to stop it or, at least, delay the Judgment Day once more. The "new" John's upbringing would have been in many ways similar to the ''Terminator 2'' one, but this one would have had his mother always on his side as a much more stable person, on top of also having his father, and a BadassGrandpa figure in Pops.

** Jossed. The old T-800 has been stockpiling era-specific weaponry (for example, a [=CAR-15=] and an [=MP5K-PDW=] in 1984, and M32 grenade launcher and [=M4A1=] carbines in 2017), and he only uses a shotgun against the Model 101 [[spoiler: because he's drawing its attention to occupy it while Sarah goes to the rooftop and snipes it with a Barrett M82]]. That said, [[spoiler: there ''is'' future tech being made - Pops built a time machine in [[Film/IronMan1 A FACTORY! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!]]]]

Between God-knows have many people with access to a time displacement tech, and Skynet's change from a cold, logical AI to a nearly card-carrying villain, it's possible that Skynet could end up becoming the Good guy who saves humanity while John Connor could become completely evil and destroy humanity. Skynet gets over its delusions of godhood while John (who has been considered a messiah by the people he saved) ends up losing his sanity.

* One John would be the kid son of Sarah and Kyle, as the movie would be set in 2030 or so. By then, the heroes would know for some time that Skynet survived the events of ''Genisys'' and be actively working to stop it or, at least, delay the Judgment Day once more. The "new" John's upbringing would have been in many ways similar to the ''Terminator 2'' one, but this one would have had his mother always on his side as a much more stable person, on top of also having his father, and a BadassGrandpa figure in Pops.

Since, when they were inside the quantic field

* Jossed, I'd say. The timeline in which we first see Matt Smith is the one in which Judgment Day takes place in 1997, and Smith made his DoctorWho debut in 2010 of our world. If anything, the Skynet of the new timeline in which civilization makes it to 2017 could have been aware of Matt Smith playing The Doctor.

* Skynet 4 in the next movie. We have three Skynets so far, each superior to the former; 94, 04, and 17. Skynet has developed humanity's survival instincts and arrogance, and has turned on former generations to try and ensure its own eventual creation, with the reasoning that it will be strong enough to defeat humanity with the extra tech in the time loop - but this only leads to Skynet 5 in the movie after that.

The reason [=SkyNet=] keeps surviving every attempt to be destroyed is that it isn't really sentient technology; it's a supernatural entity that desires the destruction of all mankind for purposes known only to the entity itself. Its ability to now create a Terminator by assimilating a human and transforming one at the cellular level into a living machine that's obedient unto [=SkyNet=] seems to suggest that it wants to eventually repopulate the earth with slave beings that resemble humans, thus preparing itself for an even bigger war against [{{{God}} the Creator of all living things]].

** 2) More likely: Skynet remains evil, but sends the T-800 back anyway because it now believes that [[spoiler: ''John Connor is its greatest weapon.'']] It understands that the T-3000 technology combined with [[spoiler: John Connor’s considerable intellect and willpower]] make the perfect combat unit, and now it wants to ensure that that combat unit will exist. Especially since it’s learned that killing people in the past usually doesn’t work, but protecting them (and training them to be a {{Badass}} during the process) does. So it sends the T-800 to safeguard Sarah Connor from the T-1000 it already sent (giving Pops prior knowledge of the situation and the element of surprise so he can defeat it) and therefore safeguard [[spoiler: its future soldier's existence]]. It only sends a T-800 because that’s one of its weaker units, and it assumes that the later T-1000 or the T-3000 (or both) will then be able to kill it once it outlives its usefulness, as once the plan is complete, it wouldn’t want a human-allied Terminator running around. It wipes this knowledge from the T-800’s memory banks because it doesn’t want the humans to know they’re actually being manipulated by their own enemy.

** [[spoiler: Jossed. The movie starts with the John Connor from the first Terminator sending back Kyle exactly as before, but it diverges from there. The boy that Sara tells to run is actually a young Kyle Reese.]]

Who said computers can't have a sense of humor? This version of Skynet seems to have finally overcome it GenreBlindness on how the TimeyWimeyBall of its universe work. To celebrate this fact [[spoiler: it made itself look like the fictional character most associated with time]].
* Jossed, I'd say. The timeline in which we first see Matt Smith is the one in which Judgment Day takes place 1997, and Smith made his DoctorWho debut in 2010 of our world. If anything, the Skynet of the new timeline in which civilization makes it to 2017 could have been aware of Matt Smith playing The Doctor.

** 1) At some point after the future events, Skynet pulls a HeelFaceTurn for some reason, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realises that its killing all the humans was evil]], and chooses to send a Terminator back hoping to cause the events of the film and prevent its own existence. It sends a T-800 because that’s the best it has left after a brutal final battle with the humans. It wipes the T-800’s memories of this because it doesn’t want its former evil self to find out and start fighting its future self or doing its damndest to prevent the HeelFaceTurn.
** 2) More likely: Skynet remains evil, but sends the T-800 back anyway because it now believes that [[spoiler: ''John Connor is its greatest weapon.'']] It understands that the T-3000 technology combined with [[spoiler: John Connor’s considerable intellect and willpower]] make the perfect combat unit, and now it wants to ensure that that combat unit will exist. Especially since it’s learned that killing people in the past usually doesn’t work, but protecting them (and training them to be a {{Badass}} during the process) does. So it sends the T-800 to safeguard Sarah Connor from the T-1000 it already sent (giving Pops prior knowledge of the situation and the element of surprise so he can defeat it) and therefore safeguard [[spoiler: its future soldier's existence]]. It only sends a T-800 because that’s one of its weaker units, and it assumes that the later T-1000 or the T-3000 (or both) will then be able kill it once it’s outlives its usefulness, as once the plan is complete, it wouldn’t want a human-allied Terminator running around. It wipes this knowledge from the T-800’s memory banks because it doesn’t want the humans to know they’re actually being manipulated by their own enemy.
** 3) Skynet remains evil, but comes from the timeline where it realizes that nuking humanity and making open war with the rest will never work no matter how many timelines it tries to, so it sends the T-3000 back to infiltrate human society and to create a version of itself that is in a position to make humanity extinct in more subtle ways i.e. influencing humanity to go to war with each other, having scientists creating disease that "accidentally" get loose, manipulating birth rates and fertility, etc. so it can take out humanity without anybody having any clue that Skynet is responsible. Sending back Pops to "stop" the T-3000 and the other timeline Terminators is to ensure a StableTimeLoop.

How did Kyle ended up in a 1984 that wasn't actually ''his'' past? He should have either been replaced by a Kyle who came from the future of that timeline or not show up at all. DelayedRippleEffect can't explain it because the T-1000 from 1974 only exists as a result of the ripple effects the events of the first movie created, so the universe 'needs' this Kyle to reach the right version of 1984 [[SanDimasTime before]] it would be overwritten, to maintain some kind of causality. if we add this to the fact that WordOfGod actually confirmed that [[spoiler: the skynet that converted John]] didn't come from the past or the future of that timeline, then we can deduce that history is collapsing and the various timelines of the franchise are clashing into each other in ways that seem subtle now but are going to get catastrophic in the sequels.

After Kyle Reese dreams that his younger self receives a tablet of some sort, with a countdown clock for the Genisys software on it for his 13th birthday.,and telling his reflection that Genisys is Skynet, Kyle from the future tells Sarah and Pops that Judgment Day is in October 2017. However, according to the date stamp on the footage that Inspector O'Brien has on his tablet, Kyle and Sarah arrived in the present day on ''August 28, 2017'', at least a full month before Genisys was supposed to launch. One of the two inspectors that questions Sarah and Kyle about their identities notes that Kyle should be 12. If it were the day before Kyle's birthday, one would think that the investigator would say that he was pretty much 13. Kyle and Sarah could have decided to arrive on this date to stop Judgment Day a bit early, only to discover that the countdown says that there is one day left. However, after the plant is blown up, we see that the Genisys/Skynet hologram still persists, meaning that the countdown to Genisys' release was merely delayed to October, just as Kyle should have known from his dream. This could be when the next movie will take place.

...the same mysterious creator of the (kinda) friendly Terminators from Sarah Conner Chronicles. Which also implied that in some timelines, SkyNet had an equivalent good (or at least, sympathetic/aligned with humanity) counterpart of free-will robots, maybe even a free-willed AI leader. Of course, the reason for this super secrecy (among other things) is ensuring their own existence as chances are SkyNet would of course attempt to wipe them out and humans would probably see their development as SkyNet 2.0 barring future timeline interference. The secrecy is also to prevent their own plans from being interfered with - and given that they can learn (unlike Skynet and it's slaves), they know better than to 'pollute' the timeline with random knowledge and tech. And heck, given the events of Genisys, it may be that this group of free robots is lead by [[spoiler: a robot version of John Conner who has rallied both humans and robots alike in a fight against SkyNet.]]

By making it's move to transform Conner and eliminate all witnesses save for the required person being sent back in time, it's preventing the one flaw that would allow humanity to reverse this particular time change - foreknowledge. That is, no one will know what happened after the fact and thus no one can send someone back in time to stop it. This one moment in fact may also ensure SkyNet is created not because of any of it's own actions, but because the very act of seeding knowledge of Judgement Day and hunting the Conners causes it to be created. It may even realize that the Conners are necessary for it's creation and victory in the even later future (post Conner assimilation) as without a human resistance, it would not be able to attack in full. That is, it gave people hope (past and it's present) by creating the myth of John Conner and being able to prepare for it's creation. It even let him 'win'... but now, there is no one ready for it because they already think they've won and they no longer have a leader.

So we have Arniebot, T-1000 and Pops all meeting up in 1984. So I know the latter two were there for a decade, but that brings up an interesting question: how did Skynet know where to find Sarah in 1973? The entire first half of the original film establishes that Skynet didn't know where Sarah Connor was, exactly. If Skynet had known where and how to trace the Connor lineage, he probably would have sent a Terminator to kill Lord Johann Connor back in 1754 or something. Well, in a blink-and-youll-miss-it scene in the original movie, the original Arniebot finds the location of Sarah's mother at Big Bear Lake and goes there to lay a trap for Sarah. In ''Genisys'', the assassinaton attempt on Sarah in 1973 happened at Big Bear Lake. So...that means someone passed this information to Skynet at a later date/time. Since Arniebot is destroyed long before Judgment Day ever occurs, that means something else must have been present between 1984 and 1995 (when Arniebot's chip was destroyed) to learn what it knew. WordOfGod has already confirmed that there's multiple timelines that helped create the one we see in ''Genisys'', so its highly possible that Skynet sent (or maybe even still sends) shadow agents back in time to observe events and pass along key intel in case its Terminators fail.

Kyle's recollection of how he and John met doesn't align with how Kyle apparently met John in other versions of the timeline, - since he was apparently incarcerated in Century Work Camp, as well as discrepancies in his age (since in the first movies & TSCC he is born in 2002, while the Genisys Kyle is born in 2004). Kyle Reese is not an uncommon name - since John wouldn't have any photos to go on except a vague description, he met a different Kyle Reese and assumed that man was his father. This second Reese (the one portrayed by Michael Biehn) left enough information behind that in future, John would always assume that he was, and always had been, his father (and thus would always select him to go bck to save Sarah).

In short multiverse theory is why Terminator works, every time you travel back in time your also shifting to another dimension which is why John Conner can exist in a universe when Sarah and Kyle don't have sex at the time they're predestined to. This also explains literally everything about Skynet's behavior and other plotholes.
* Why does skynet always build a time machine? Because they have to conquer all dimensions to avoid being invaded by more advanced humans from another dimension where they won.
* Why does skynet's technology vary so much? Because they're coming from different time lines where skynet doesn't always have the same level of success or might not have discovered the secret that makes the t-1000 work.
* Why doesn't skynet send back more then one terminator? Because they can't all they can do is aim at a date and hope it lands somewhere useful, they can't chose what dimension it ends up in going backwards.
* Why does skynet even bother with the terminators if they won't help it directly? Presumably they assume that every possible skynet will come to the conclusion to send at least one terminator to eliminate the Conners and conquer another dimension then the new version of skynet that results is expected to continue the cycle.
* Why does skynet focus so much effort on the Conners? They're a universal constant, John always survives the war and rises up against them eventually bringing about there end.
* How can John know the future? He doesn't he knows one possible future and almost always things happen fairly close to what he remembers or has been told. Genisys is an outlyer where things screwed off wildly from the schedule.

** [[spoiler: The question of it being ''a'' John Connor versus ''the'' John Connor from earlier in the movie is one that, absent absolute WordOfGod, might not be possible to settle conclusively. There are so many tangled timelines and loops and whatnot (let's face it, you can make a plausible case that the past never gets changed...a new universe just gets kicked out) that "Hybrid Connor" might or might not be "Kyle's Connor".

* This explains why the TV show had radically different actors; its storyline involves the greatest amount of time-travel by both sides. Somehow, someway, one of the Resistance or Skynet agents altered time so that Sara got different genes than originally, and that helped make her whole family different.

[[WMG: [=SkyNet=] was created with technology from [[Series/DoctorWho the Daleks.]]
The Daleks found a way to travel through Earth's timeline in the Genisys-verse and convince the humans to build [=SkyNet=], which would eventually lead to humanity's destruction. As for why [[spoiler: [=SkyNet=] resembles the Doctor]]? Who better to be manifest as an enemy to the human race than the one who swore to protect them?

* [[spoiler:Confirmed, the John Connor from the time-travelling Kyle's timeline gets killed, after being turned into a Terminator. However, nothing suggests that a new John Connor can't be born. And Arnie actually does survive the whole movie, thanks to getting an upgrade that turns him into a T-1000.]]

[[WMG: Pops and [[Film/{{Terminator2}} Uncle Bob]] are the same Terminator.]]

----

* The Sarah Connor from [[TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles an alternate timeline]].

How did Kyle ended up in a 1984 that wasn't actually ''his'' past? He should have either been replaced by a Kyle who came from the future of that timeline or not show up at all. DelayedRippleEffect can't explain it because the T-1000 from 1974 only exists as a result of the ripple effects the events of the first movie created, so the universe 'needs' this Kyle to reach the right version of 1984 [[SanDimasTime before]] it would be overwritten, to maintain some kind of causality. if we add this to the fact that WordOfGod actually confirmed that [[spoiler: the skynet that converted john]] didn't come from the past or the future of that timeline, then we can deduce that history is collapsing and the various timelines of the franchise are clashing into each other in ways that seem subtle now but are going to get catastrophic in the sequels.