History Headscratchers / TerminatorGenisys

** [[Film/TheTerminator Because that worked]] [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay so well on the]] [[Film/Terminator3 first three tries]]... Also, Skynet probably preferred not to create a grandfather paradox.

* Come to think of it, Sarah mentions being attacked by molten metal in 1973; presumably the T-1000. Who sent that back? It did a pretty sloppy job, letting a 9 year old girl swim away so a T-800 could just pull her out of the water and walk away?

[[folder:Hybernation]]

** Not a huge social media person, so I have little to say about the first question, but as to the latter... The original Skynet ''was'' a military program, so it's quite possible that Genisys is being sponsored in part by the U.S. government and/or that the Dyson's are selling the program to them. Obviously we would hope that the government would keep nuclear missiles and such cordoned off from the average American citizen, but that doesn't mean that the goverment can't use the same software. And regardless of whether that's happening or not, [[spoiler: John Connor]] has been in the past for ''three years'' prepping for Skynet's birth, would obviously know his way around computers, ''and'' he can shapeshift into anyone he wants. Even if Genisys is not supposed to be hooked up to nuclear missiles, I'm pretty sure that over time, [[spoiler: Mister T-3000]] could get access to nuclear codes, etc. and set that up with minimal difficulty.
** As for why everyone is so ga-ga over Genisys, we can probably chalk that up to an excellent marketing campaign. Presumably Genisys doesn't just integrate your social media accounts, but integrates ''all'' of your digital life with a predictive AI. Imagine driving home from work and having your wife get a text message that you'll be late due to heavy traffic, or you step through the door to a pre-warmed apartment while your favorite song is playing on the radio and a pre-ordered pizza will be arriving in three minutes. It'd be Siri or Corina on steroids, and at the time of the movie RealLife companies are already working on similar projects.

* In 2017, Miles Dyson (the head of a giant corporation) is talking with converted John Connor about the time machine and what an enormous advancement it is, and how they barely understand it. Makes sense. And yet 30 years prior, Sarah and T-800 also build one in a basement how exactly? Even if we assume that the anonymous sender imbued T-800 with all the necessary knowledge (although why would they), where would they get all the necessary resources and how could they build it while being supposedly on the run from T-1000.

** The difference is that Sarah has Pops and Cyberdyne has... John Connor. John admittedly isn't an expert for complicated stuff like time-travel but could probably take a guess or some knowledge before he got sent back, and indeed it looks like they've just scratched the surface of it, getting the magnetic field down only and estimating it to take a few more years. Pops however seems to know what is needed and how to build it. The technology seems to be as feasible as far back to 1984 and a little earlier with the exception of the T-800 CPU chip needed to make it run, but expect a lot of it to be custom made. Can't find a proper piece? Pops'll make it. Not only that but it's a one-way trip, it fries the machine and takes out a majority of the powergrid. Presumably Cyberdyne's version wouldn't do that.\\

** Yeah, and that's a huge problem in itself. What the hell had it been doing for those ten years? How could they have escaped it long enough to amass all the stuff they had? Scrath that, how did they escape from it in the first place? In that flashback, when T-800 is sloooowly walking away with the little Sarah, and T-1000 is... where? Even if T-800 blew him up with his grenade launcher, we know it only takes him a minute or so to get back together.

* In fact where did they get ''all'' the stuff they have? At least in between T1/T2 and T2/T3 Sarah had large periods of uninterrupted peace to prepare, but here they stocked on military grade weapons, tons of acid and abandoned buildings ''while'' contending with T-1000 for 10 years? That stretches credibility a bit, doesn't it?

** But don't you think he would do it anyway, regardless of whatever decision they made? If he's offering them conversion to be some sort of T-3000 family, you'd think that if he cared enough about them and was under immense pressure to stop them from blowing up his prime objective or even just threatened from earlier, he'd do it? The fact that he's offering them instead of doing it by force enforces the idea that he's not able to do it himself, but that doesn't mean it can't be done; remember, he's building Genisys and as a result, another iteration of Alex will show up that can do this. All it'd take is for them to accept and they would be immune from Judgement Day, the war against machines and humans and eventually being converted. No matter how smoothly he tries to make this offer, eventually he realises it's not gonna happen and instead tries killing them. And yeah, he ''is'' most likely killing them if the helicopter scene is anything to go by. Why try to shoot down your loved ones who you wanted to convert with no certainty that they'll survive it? Because there's no other alternative to stopping them from threatening your objective. Ergo, he most likely cannot convert. And in all fairness half of the scenes he shows up in wouldn't make any sense if he could.\\

** The biggest argument for the T-3000 not being able to convert is that he hadn't converted anyone else. Even allowing for how painful the process is made out to be, considering the tradeoff of apparent immortality and invincibility there are likely plenty of people who would happily have lined up around the block to make that trade (especially if you throw in some *ahem* limited disclosure about having your desires ultimately be subservient to Skynet's plans). Of course, if this is the first attempt at Skynet trying to ''voluntarily'' convert humans to its side in some form, this point could be built upon in a sequel (if we ever get one...).

** Offering them conversion at least twice but realising afterwards that they want none of it. Doesn't want to kill them really but once it's clear they're a threat to Genisys he has no choice but to stop them.

** He's not exactly in the right state of mind to be thinking "Oh, of course they won't want to throw away humanity and join me with the machines." And getting them to do it against their will would be to take them by force since he can't convert them himself, to where? Genisys? That'd jeopardise the mission he's meant to be doing since you've got two pissed off humans who want to kill that and a Terminator who's looking for them. You can't exactly hide them somewhere else either unless you're fine not watching them while you build your master AI, risking them escaping or people finding them.
** Uhm, yes, he is. He's a machine. He should be literally incapable of erratic thought. Also it's ''obvious'' they won't agree. Like, no doubt at all. He doesn't give them anything to change their minds. As for the rest... *sigh*. He's the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation! You have not just seriously suggested that containing two people and killing off one ramschackle android (perfectly killable by modern-day weapons even in their prime, as it turns out) can present a whatsoever problem to him (also, please see above for the "Where the hell is all the Cyberdyne's security" item).
** Uhm, no, he isn't. He's human converted to machine. Why do you think he's so special? He's literally the only human converted into a terminator (And Marcus Wright but we won't speak of that), capable of infiltrating human ranks simply ''because'' he was once human. It follows then that he retains some erratic thought as a result, even if subdued at best. And yes, I have suggested that. He can't hide them somewhere inside the complex because of the above reason and also had anyone found them and they told them that their boss had abducted them, they will either most likely throw them out/put them in jail for believing them to stow away or less likely it will put suspicion on John. Either way that is not good and even if they were thrown in jail they should know how to get out. His next best bet is to hide them away somewhere but he can't always be in close proximity of them since he's co-running/heading said multi-billion dollar corporation which houses his current objective. This leaves them to either escaping or Pops finding them and busting them out.

** John's not really your average adult considering he's spent nearly his entire life training and preparing for a ''humanity-threatening war'' with minimal contact or connections to anyone but his close family and a few passing friends. I'm sure that a person like that will have a few loose screws in comparison, even after he's commanding a resistance. Couple that in with the fact that he's been converted to the enemy and he's probably even more unhinged than before, thinking whatever Skynet wants him to think that humanity isn't worth it save his direct family. And what even suggests that John has an army at his disposal? Yes, Cyberdyne is most definitely in contract with the military as a result of their findings but that's all it really is. He isn't telling the military what to do, he's just working with Cyberdyne to get Genisys up and running. At best he's got security guards stationed around the building who're doing their job. Finally (and this is the important one) he's still an infiltration terminator, top of his league in fact; it wouldn't do to get suspicion put on John if a large scene is made from him making oddjob orders to capture this small group of people. Granted he could possibly ask someone under the radar like a kidnapper to do it but I guess he figures it's best to do things himself, and he's not wrong thinking that since he's nigh-indestructable. [[TemptingFate What could possibly go wrong?]]
** "What could possibly go wrong?" - well, let's see. He's alone, he has no means to safely incapacitate John or Sarah, and no weapons to quickly destroy Arnie, and he knows all that. "...he's just working...if a large scene is made from him...". *Sigh* A shape-shifter with decades (or centuries, depending on how far back Skynet can send him, and how long he can function independently) to prepare. I don't know how else I can stress how unlimited his resources should be by all accounts, even if we disregard the back up in form of Skynet that ''rules the world'' in the future and can send any amount of help, resources or equipment back to John. It doesn't matter in the slightest what "John Connor, the consultant to Cyberdyne Industries" can or cannot do, because that's just a face, and he can be literally anyone else he pleases.
** And he's perfectly capable of taking on Arnie if need-be. The only reason he winds up losing is because the Connors got lucky enough with a big magnet that can kill him + a weapon that can restrain him long enough in there to finish the job. He only shows up at 2014 at the earliest so those "preparations" you speak of would be setting up Cyberdyne Industries and making Genisys in the first place. Resources from the future aren't likely to be sent back because A) Skynet's dead and that shuts down a lot of facilities, not to mention there's probably only so much trips the time machine can make before it runs out of power now, and B) because even if Alex could send resources back it'd be a moot point since only living tissue can go back. Remember that everything's borked and that probably means the biolabs as well which will likely lose whatever "living" cultures it has now. At best what he could do is send back some helping hands but like the old saying goes, too many chefs in the kitchen spoil the stew. Really the only good point here is the fact that he can shapeshift. At best I can only imagine he doesn't utilise it because he really has no need to/he's vain like that.

** John's literally wrapped around the T-5000 and by extention Skynet's pinkie finger. If anything John might feel pretty sore about it if the T-5000 instead decides to kill Sarah and Kyle, but John's already passed the threshold at this point; hell, he didn't mind killing them himself if it meant that Genisys would survive so you can already see which is the higher priority here.

* For that matter, if it was that poweful, and it could produce T-3000's, why even (pretend to) lose to humans? Again, what did it have to gain by allowing them to destroy whatever they destroyed to deactivate all the regular Terminators? A ruse? What for? If it could take down a couple dozen elite soldiers without a scratch, then it's pretty much invincible, and it apparently could infiltrate their ranks well enough and long enough that, in the world where human-like robots exist, they still trusted it completely as one of their own. So what was stopping it from just murdering them all at any moment?

* Doesn't the plotline about Skynet sending an agent to consciously create itself negate the entire point of it as a character? Skynet was originally the spawn of humanity, born out of our paranoia and desire for control, and gone out of control because of our paranoia. As ''humanity's'' greatest achievement turned on it, it could be seen our pride and destructive nature made manifest. Thus the story served its purpose as a cautionary tale. Yes, the stable time loop elements were there, but again, it was humans' curiosity that turned those elements into a monster. But now, Skynet's just straight-up built by an evil time-travelling robot with the explicit purpose of destroying humanity, thus exonerating the humanity itself of most of the blame. Yes, humansd would still build the nukes, and it was their/our (over-)reliance on and trust in technology that allowed T-John to slip Skynet in under the guise of Genisys, but it's not nearly the same thing, when active treachery is involved, and it comes dangerously close to putting the blame on technical progress in general, which is just not helpful, in my opinion.

** As I understand, the [[AllThereInTheManual backstory]] has that the plot of the first two movies is that Skynet sent two Terminators back in time at the same time (the T-800 for Sarah, and the T-1000 for John either as a contingency or because it knew that the T-800 was destined to fail), and that the Resistance sent Kyle and the reprogrammed T-800 respectively immediately afterwards. Recall that Kyle stated in the first film that the resistance had smashed Skynet's defense grid and won; Skynet's use of time travel was a final desperation move. How this affects the subsequent timelines is not clear, however.

** Kyle in T1 states that Skynet some of the prisoners are being taken to work and also load dead bodies. The points you have made are also reasons as to why they take prisoners, with experimentation in particular being the reason they know our anatomy and psychology. This troper assumes they also kill off a majority of them, making the possibility of regrouping and being freed less risky. As for why Skynet is doing this, it seems the rewards they reap from it outweigh the risks, those rewards being knowledge to create better killing machines and intel.

** The version of Skynet embodied by Matt Smith is actually a version of Skynet from an AlternateTimeline as per WordOfGod. It is likely that 'his' digital consciousness traveled back with T-3000/John to the 2017 of the new timeline to be reborn as Genisys...and this explains the knowledge of multiple timelines.

** Even setting aside why and how T-1000 let them get away from the boathouse, "without any information" and "with Pops protecting her" are mutually exclusive statements. It knows what T-800 looks like, it proably knows how to identify it among humans, it can shapeshift, and it has 11 years. Why is it still not Chief of Police/FBI, President of the United States, putting a nation-wide search on Arnie? Mind you that neither does "laying low" correlate well with "stoking on military-grade weapons, abandonded but wired-up warehouses, tons of acid and makeshift time-machines".

** But T-1000 was the "original" terminator, sent by the desperate Skynet as a last-ditch effort... right? How could it even know about Kyle's existance or when he was supposed to arrive, if it happened after its departure from the future?

* In fact where did they get ''all'' the stuff they have? At least in between T1/T2 and T2/T3 Sarah had large periods of uniterrupted peace to prepare, but here they stocked on military grade weapons, tons of acid and abandoned buildings ''while'' contending with T-1000 for 10 years? That stretches credibility a bit, doesn't it?

* "You don't even have a body". You know what Skynet ''does'' have? A huge corporation which means tons of security not to mention police that Connor can easilly call. So, where're all of them? Hell, if John Connor's basically [[Film/TheThing1982 The Thing]] now, what's stopping him from converting some more people into T-3000's to help him overpower Arnie?

* How was the evil T-800 able to survive a hit from a 40mm grenade when in the first movie the same Terminator was reduced to a head,torso, and one arm by a homeade pipe bomb stuffed with improvised explosives.

** Why would Arnie and Sarah stockpile obviously ineffective amunition?

** He's desensitised anyway due to the conversion. He's not even sure if he feels pain or the memory of it. Can that really be called a human response anymore?

** Uhm, yes, he is. He's a machine. He should be literally incapable of erratic thought. Also it's ''obvious'' they won't agree. Like, no doubt at all. He doesn't give them anything to change their minds. As for the rest... *sigh*. He's the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation! You have not just seriously suggested that containing two people and killing off one ramschacke android (perfectly killable by modern-day weapons even in their prime, as it turns out) can present a whatsoever problem to him (also, please see above for the "Where the hell is all the Cyberdyne's security" item).
** Uhm, no, he isn't. He's human converted to machine. Why do you think he's so special? He's literally the only human converted into a terminator (And Marcus Wright but we won't speak of that), capable of infiltrating human ranks simply ''because'' he was once human. It follows then that he retains some erratic thought as a result, even if subdued at best. And yes, I have suggested that. He can't hide them somwhere inside the complex because of the above reason and also had anyone found them and they told them that their boss had abducted them, they will either most likely throw them out/put them in jail for believing them to stow away or less likely it will put suspicion on John. Either way that is not good and even if they were thrown in jail they should know how to get out. His next best bet is to hide them away somewhere but he can't always be in close proximity of them since he's co-running/heading said multi-billion dollar corporation which houses his current objective. This leaves them to either escaping or Pops finding them and busting them out.

** "There's no indication that "John Connor" couldn't assimilate them" Then we're back to square one: he could've done it immedately after meeting them in the ward. There was no reason to lead them anywhere. He shouldn't care about offering them anything.

** If John was ''not'' capable of conversion but did want to convert them, then we're back to square 1.b. Ok, I can assume that initially he was planning to lure them to some bunker and just lock them there until T-5000 comes around. Fine. BUT. After his sharade was up, what was the back up plan? Again, I flat out refuse to believe that a rational machine, hell, ''an adult'' could be so flippant as to go: "Whaaaat? You refuse to betray your entire species and side with your enemy just because I asked?! Well, then I guess I have no choice but to kill you!" It makes no sense. He ''didn't'' need to kill them, he hadn't exhausted a fraction of resources he should have had at his disposal. He ''should've'' engaged them with an army armed with tasers or tranquilizers and a strict "Take them alive'' order (and a couple heavily-armed snipers for the big one). It doesn't matter how much direct influence "John" has. It's just a face. He could've assumed any other and he had decades to prepare and amass that army.

** "What could possibly go wrong?" - well, let's see. He's alone, he has no means to safely incapacitate John or Sarah, and no weapons to quickly destroy Arnie, and he knows all that. "...he's just working...if a large scene is made from him...". *Sigh* A shape-shifter with decades (or centuries, depending on how far back Skynet can send him, and how long he can function independantly) to prepare. I don't know how else I can stress how unlimited his resources should be by all accounts, even if we disregard the back up in form of Skynet that ''rules the world'' in the future and can send any amount of help, resources or equipment back to John. It doesn't matter in the slightest what "John Connor, the consultant to Cyberdyne Industries" can or cannot do, becuase that's just a face, and he can be literlly anyone else he pleases.
** And he's perfectly capable of taking on Arnie if need-be. The only reason he winds up losing is because the Connors got lucky enough with a big magnet that can kill him + a weapon that can restrain him long enough in there to finish the job. He only shows up at 2014 at the earliest so those "preperations" you speak of would be setting up Cyberdyne Industries and making Genisys in the first place. Resources from the future aren't likely to be sent back because A) Skynet's dead and that shuts down a lot of facilities, not to mention there's probably only so much trips the time machine can make before it runs out of power now, and B) because even if Alex could send resources back it'd be a moot point since only living tissue can go back. Remember that everything's borked and that probably means the biolabs as well which will likely lose whatever "living" cultures it has now. At best what he could do is send back some helping hands but like the old saying goes, too many chefs in the kitchen spoil the stew. Really the only good point here is the fact that he can shapeshift. At best I can only imagine he doesn't utilise it because he really has no need to/he's vain like that.

** "and stopping it from going back to earlier is..?" How about Daniel Dyson's Genisys Project (yes, it was being worked on before John arrived) not being in development before 2014? It's not like John's built the entire project from scratch; he only provided critical information that would get it finished. "Actually, Skynet (as T-Who) is alive and well" And inhabiting a single body with all proper Skynet equipment either fried or non-functional. It doesn't matter if Alex Skynet is alive in the future, regular Skynet was the one hooked into the now destroyed mainframe. Therefore the above limited resources still stands. "it's Terminators, how the hell can having more of them be a bad thing?" Because a bunch of T-800 that can barely pass as human behaviour-wise if they put some effort into it and probably all look like Arnie[[note]]Yes, I'm aware there are other models[[/note]] posing as security in a single building doesn't look suspicious or eyebrow-raising ''at all''... "'''it''' is a machine." You can keep arguing that till the cows come home, '''it''' was also a human. You know, those fleshy beings that have emotions and are capably of vanity. John even exclaims that it "hurt" when he was shot the first time, so he's bound to have other human qualities despite not being one anymore.

** Not saying that this is the complete reason anyhow, but it's been stated somewhere that the T-5000 or "Alex" has gone through multiple different timelines and calculated when the best moment to strike is. To be fair, he's not nigh-invulnerable as shown in the film. If all they need are magnets/polarity to take him down then it shouldn't be too much trouble for the resistance to scrounge around an old ship graveyard and boobytrap some bases to rip him apart, especially if they were organised enough and knew what was killing their men like say ''during the middle of war-times.'' Here, the resistance's head is effectively inside Skynet's dead headquarters thinking they've won, all eyes on Kyle as he's travelling back in time. Perfect chance as any to sneak up behind John Connor and convert him while taking down everyone else in there. The remaining resistance will be none the wiser for a short while.

* Doesn't the plotline about Skynet sending an agent to consciously create itself negate the entire point of it as a character? Skynet was originally the spawn of humanity, born out of our paranoia and desire for control, and gone out of control because of our paranoia. As ''humanity's'' greatest achievement turned on it, it could be seen our pride and destructive nature made manifest. Thus the story served its purpose as a cautionary tale. Yes, the stable time loop elements were there, but again, it was humans' curiosity that turned those elements into a monster. But now, Skynet's just straight-up built by an evil time-travelling robot with the explicit purpose of destroying humanity, thus exhonerating the humanity itself of most of the blame. Yes, humans'd still built the nukes, and it was their/our (over-)reliance on and trust in technology that allowed T-John to slip Skynet in under the guise of Genisys, but it's not nearly the same thing, when active treachery is involved, and it comes dangerously close to putting the blame on technical progress in general, which is just not helpful, in my opinion.

* After defeating the T-1000 in 1984, Pops insisted to stay and take TheSlowPath due to his right arm's flesh being corroded by the same acid that killed the T-1000. But how does Pops managed to regrow his flesh over the years without the same regeneration capabilities of advanced models? It's not like he can salvage from the T1 T-800 parts since it's already destroyed.

** Original question asker here. Thanks for the answers, but they weren't what I was expecting and I'm not really convinced by the explanations. But I just got a personally satisfying answer that will fit my headcanon. There may be obvious plot holes based on information I forgot about, but still, this works for me. What I think happened is: the battle we saw in the film is ''the most original undisturbed timeline'', before ''anything'' got sent back in time. So no arms or chips from the future to reverse engineer. Thus Skynet got activated eventually, but it's basically version 1.0 that only managed to develop up to T-800s when it was defeated. Then the first time travels and events of ''The Terminator'' happened, and the arm and chip was left behind for reverse engineering by Miles Dyson. Due to this reverse engineering, Skynet's development accelerated, got activated with better technology and wasn't defeated as was shown on screen unlike the previous timeline. Thus, Skynet found a way to develop T-1000s, and the events of ''Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' happened. Skynet may or may have not been defeated in the future of this new timeline but regardless, the events of T2 delayed Skynet's development, eventually got activated with better technology and developed T-Xs for ''Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines''.

** They stockpiled ammunition designed for fighting the T-1000, not the T-800, because they didn't expect the T-800 to get back up. It's pretty clear that the plan they originally had hit a few snags once the T-1000 revived the T-800. The T-1000 is affected much more by large temperature changes and by small caliber bullets on automatic than by powerful single shot rounds like shotguns and Sniper Rifles or explosive weapons, (in fact, using explosive weapons on a T-1000 would probably be a VERY bad idea) while the T-800 can shrug off incendiary rounds and weaker caliber bullets without a problem. In short, Aside from the Sniper Rifle they had with them they didn't have anything that could actually take a T-800 on them at the time.

* If the [[spoiler:T-5000 didn't interfere to mess up everything]]. How and when did the events from Terminator 2 and (canon or not) 3 happen? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but wasn't the plot that after sending Kyle and the Terminator for the first movie, the war still continued for a while until they decided to send more Terminators to the past for the second and third movies? But the future war scene showed that Skynet was defeated and shutdown for good right after the first Terminator was sent to the past.

** [[Film/TheTerminator Because that worked]] [[Film/Terminator2 so well on the]] [[Film/Terminator3 first three tries]]... Also, Skynet probably preferred not to create a grandfather paradox.

** "[W]hat should [Kyle,] Sarah, and Pops try doing in the 1980s to stop it?" How about [[TimeTravelForFunAndProfit using their future knowledge to make a fortune in the present,]] invest in companies developing proto-Skynet technology, then use their influence to make sure the AI doesn't go rogue? Admittedly, it doesn't make for exciting cinema, but it ''is'' a practical plan.