John Connor's existence POLL

In the unfilmed opening scene of T2, we find that the T-800 and the T-1000 were sent back at the same time. Skynet is defeated; and its last ditch effort it sends two Terminators back through time.

 

Exactly. After the Adult John sends his father Reese back, he goes looking for a specific model terminator to send back. The one that he remembered protected him as a child (The Arnold model). I've always believed that everything before Sarah's dream at Salceda's was part of the loop. Meaning that originally Sarah, John and T-800 went south into hiding instead of blowing up Cyberdyne. Dyson builds the chip, JD happens, John grows up to become leader and so forth. But in the movie, the loop is disrupted after Sarah's dream and from that point on the characters begin changing events.

 

The first incarnation of Connor (not necessarily John Connor or Kyle's son) sending Kyle back in time had quickly taught us that events could change... because that moment created the loop. If a loop can be created, events can obviously be altered. If they couldn't be altered, there'd be no way for a loop to be created and time travel itself would be completely and utterly pointless. Which it isn't. Which is why Skynet sent the first Terminator back and why the first not-the-same-John-Connor sent Kyle back.

 

There was no "first" iteration.

 

Don't feel like having that argument for another go around, so we'll just agree to disagree. My theory works with the franchise, whereas your theory only 'mostly' works with just the first movie (some things contradict it), so take that how you will...

The "random shit appears in the past, if you intend to create the cause later on" theory of time travel worked for Bill and Ted, but looks silly elsewhere (and honestly didn't even work there)

 

Yes there was. The paradox required a trigger. They don't just spontaneously spring up out of nowhere.

 

It's the thread that never ends.

The movie is also careful to point out Reese doesn't understand time travel and he's just repeating what he was told.

The lines are really just exposition for the audience to create the illusion of danger and set up the twist ending.

 

and again, the franchise goes on to show that the future CAN be changed, so...

The theory of the complete causality loop, with no ability to change, works great if you only look at most of the first movie, and even then, only if you want to accept it as-is, and without thinking about how that situation could have come about.

From my POV, that's all well and good, but and actually fits with how I see things as well, as long as you accept it's not the first time through this particular loop.

The 1st movie alone can be explained by either theory, give or take, but when the later movies come out, the 'can't change the future' theory has to go out the window, unless you want to start playing the "this and that aren't canon" game? Since you'd have to exclude dialog from the 1st movie itself, seems a poor argument to start from

 

But that's the point of a paradox like this. It *has* no beginning, no end. It is an endless, completely closed loop. That's the whole meaning of the word 'paradox'.

 

it's kinda one of those pointless "brain twisters" though, if there's no logical way to describe it, and no way for the loop to exist. Sure, it's a paradox, but so contrived as to not be worth discussing. You could *in theory* arrive at a circular paradox situation like in the first movie, but there would have to be circumstances which create this paradox/loop, it's not just going to appear and replicate on its own. Even in the classic "grandfather" paradox, you travel through the loop once normally before looping back to create the problem.

And again, the "paradox" only works if you consider JUST the first movie, and even then, you have to ignore central dialong, and the entire point behind the characters' actions to make it fit that theory...

 

I agree. It seems to me that "paradox" is being used in place of "impossible, but don't think about it". It is a clever story mechanism, one I often like, but one that doesn't seem to hold up. Most of the time this is fine. But Terminator asks us to believe that a set of circumstances can be set in motion by someone who doesn't exist because its always been that way. Clever story mechanism maybe. Clearly impossible certainly; "paradox" label slapped on or not.

 

Pretty much. If you play with the terms a bit, you can even ARRIVE at a situation where that whole thing could be self-sustaining (by allowing that this wasn't the first itteration of the causality loop), but they reject that in place of just asserting it's a paradox, but without any way to actually set it up to happen...

 

I have an idea.

The "original" John Connor was the lead computer programmer in a military defense system AI project, Skynet. Specifically, John was responsible for writing the parts of Skynet that were responsible for how it decided on tactics, maneuvers and (because he was the one that programmed it) intimately knew all of Skynet's strengths and weaknesses.

When Skynet launched Judgment Day, John was the best person to lead the "resistance" and fight against Skynet, specifically because he knew how Skynet would think and operate.

That's why Skynet decided he was the most important person to terminate to ensure it's own survival, even if Skynet didn't know why John was the leader of the resistance.

Of course naturally Skynet wouldn't be aware that the lead programmer of it's tactical systems was a programmer nammed John Connor, after all, why would it know? It's not as if it would have a "credits" list in it's AI.

 

Nope. It has a beginning. Someone created time travel technology. Someone used time travel technology to go into the past. The past is altered. Formation of al oop begins, evolving into the one we know after several incarnations of the loop. (ie, Kyle couldn't have been John's father in the first incarnation)

It can also end/be altered if future events decide to interfere with it. As we've seen in the movies and the television series. This particular loop seems to be very resilient, however, and can take a lot of punishment without breaking, but it can be ended in any number of ways. It just happens to be creating countless numbers of alternative futures each and every time the time travel technology is used to go into the past.

It's not a mindbender. I have no idea why people think it, or most time travel stories, are. Time is linear by nature. It takes direct interference through the use of time travel to change that, and that's what happens each and every time a paradox is created. Emphasis on the last word: Created. Which means it had a beginning. Just like this one did.