'Star Trek' = Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

[TrekGuide.com]

I actually thought that TSCC was created as a vehicle to (retroactively) make T3 possible in the first place?

No. TSCC, as has been already stated, completely ignores T3. The majority of the events of T3 take place in 2004, while, in TSCC, we have Judgment Day being pushed back to 2011 after the events of T2, and the majority of the events of the series taking place in the present day (2007 as of the start of the series).

No, no, no, you are both wrong. "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" is a SEQUEL to T3.

Here's the chronology: In T1, John Connor had sent his father back to 1984 to meet his mother, thus causing his own birth. And the Terminator went back in time, leaving parts behind that Dyson would find, thus causing his own creation. So that is two predestination paradoxes.

In T2, more time traveling cyborgs come back in time, because the predestination paradox created in the first movie caused absolutely nothing to change. So this time, instead of fulfilling their own destiny, the characters actively work to change their future. The Terminator knows that in his future, Skynet was created by Dyson and Cyberdyne, so they destroy Dyson's lab, and all remaining Terminator parts.

Sarah Connor would later die of cancer.

In T3, the U.S. Air Force is working on its own version of Skynet, independent of the events of T2, which allows more Terminators from the future to come back to 2004, help John Connor meet Kate Brewster again, and the TX uses the Air Force computers to help create Skynet, so like T1, T3 is its own predestination paradox.

After the events of T3 and the nuclear war, Connor becomes the resistance leader he is destined to be in all timelines, and sends Reese back to 1984, the T-800 back to 1997, and the famale Terminator "Cameron" back to 1999, where she meets teen-age John Connor at the beginning of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles." John Connor is then killed by a T-800, and Kate Brewster reprograms that T-800 and sends it back to 2004, where it helps John Connor and Kate Brewster survive Judgment Day.

But meanwhile in 1999, the female Terminator "Cameron," who was sent back by John Connor in the T3 timeline before he was killed, assembles parts for a time machine, also sent back by Connor over many decades, and uses the time machine to transport John and Sarah Connor into the year 2007.

By doing so, she creates a new timeline where John and Sarah Connor are eight years younger than they would have been, and Sarah Connor lives past the date when she originally died of cancer, as mentioned in the series. It is from this new timeline that John Connor continues to live, and will one day send Derek Reese back in time to 2007, where he will meet John and Sarah Connor and "Cameron."

As they continue to meet new Terminators who keep coming back in time to change the past, they also continue to change the future that Reese and "Cameron" remember (they remember each other, even though Reese and "Cameron" cannot be from the same future, since "Cameron" created a different future from her own by traveling back and then forward in time with the Connors).

Derek Reese meets his former girlfriend, Jesse, who is from yet another future and came back after Derek because she thinks "Cameron" is a bad influence on John Connor. Jesse and Derek remember different events from the future, but they rember each other, so their futures must have been similar, and they also remember "Cameron," who is from yet another future.

So basically, every time anyone travels back from the future, it is a slightly different future, where the time traveler remembers slightly different events than the previous time traveler.

"Cameron" comes from the T3 future, where she remembers Sarah Connor dying of cancer. Derek Reese comes from the alternate future resulting from "Cameron" taking the Connors into the year 2007. And Jesse comes from yet another future resulting from the changes Derek Reese has made since arriving in 2007.

Within the logic of the "Terminator" series, "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" is a sequel to T3, since the initial time travelers in the first episode came back from the future of that movie.

I have no idea what the plot of T4 will be, but if Kate Brewster is a character and John Connor is still alive, then it must be a PREQUEL to T3, before John died and Kate sent the T-800 back to 2004.

Therefore, the logical story order of the "Terminator" series would be T1, T2, T4, T3, then TSCC, because the time travelers in each one remember the events from the previous one.

 

[The Borg Queen]

Terminator 3 would have happened just like in the movies if Cromartie hadn't gone back in time, and Cameron hadn't gone after him, thus creating the events at the start of The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Skynet inadvertently changed it's own future history by sending Cromartie back for another go at terminating John Connor before Judgement Day, and probably led to a "present" future where the T-X model was never developed by Skynet.

It's all wibbly-wobbly.

 

[Augustus]

^^ wow that was one of the most confusing things ever, but is that just your idea? or are the producers working under the assumption that every time you travel back, a slightly different time line is created?

 

[captcalhoun]

that's his idea and it's wrong. in T3, Sarah had died in 1997 from leukeimia. TSCC begins in September 1999, 'after' her death in 1997.

also, TS takes place in 2018 ten years after J-Day.

J-Day happened in 2004 in T3.

also, the USAF version of Skynet was under development after the destruction of Cyberdyne in T2. the TX didn't create Skynet, she merely aided Skynet in launching J-Day by activating the T-1s

 

[TrekGuide.com]

^^ wow that was one of the most confusing things ever, but is that just your idea? or are the producers working under the assumption that every time you travel back, a slightly different time line is created?

No, I'm not making that up; that was an actual conversation between Derek Reese and his girlfriend Jesse in a recent episode -- They both remembered each other from the future, but they both remembered slightly different events, so Reese concluded that he was making changes in the past, and the future Jesse came back from was a slightly different future than the one he came back from.

That is different from the predestination paradoxes depicted in T1 and T3.

that's his idea and it's wrong. in T3, Sarah had died in 1997 from leukeimia. TSCC begins in September 1999, 'after' her death in 1997.

Well, like T1, T3 makes logical sense on its own, as its future is created by a predestination paradox carried out by cyborgs from that same future.

(I'll have to watch T3 again -- I don't remember what specific dates were mentioned.)

I was always under the impression that T2 took place in 1994, when John Connor was 10 (I'm not sure where I heard that), and I think T3 said Sarah Connor had cancer for three years after those events before she died.

But then, in "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," I think it is operating on the assumption that T2 took place in 1997, when John Connor was 13, then John and Sarah Connor meet "Cameron" two years later in 1999. (So if she had cancer for three years, she would have known about it BEFORE T2.)

Since the series is about the characters going into the future, I have no idea why they would change the established dates between the movies and the TV series.

also, TS takes place in 2018 ten years after J-Day.

J-Day happened in 2004 in T3.

also, the USAF version of Skynet was under development after the destruction of Cyberdyne in T2. the TX didn't create Skynet, she merely aided Skynet in launching J-Day by activating the T-1s

Well, maybe in the original T3/T4 timeline, Skynet didn't launch the war until 2008, but when the T-X came back in time in 2004, she changed history and immediately started the war.

That's why I was thinking T4 might be a prequel to T3, because in T4 the T-X and T-800 had not yet gone back in time and changed events that brought the earlier Judgment Day. Obviously, everything in T3 happened after the T-800 had killed John Connor and was sent back by his wife, so if Connor is still alive in T4, obviously it is a prequel to events shown in T3.

 

[captcalhoun]

but we never saw events in 2032 in T3! all we saw were some glimpses of the machines in an unspecified time frame and one of John standing on some wrecked metal with a bunch of cheering troops which again was in an unspecified, albeit late, time-frame.

T3 takes place entirely in 2004. TS takes place in 2018.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

but we never saw events in 2032 in T3! all we saw were some glimpses of the machines in an unspecified time frame and one of John standing on some wrecked metal with a bunch of cheering troops which again was in an unspecified, albeit late, time-frame.

Actually I think those were dreams John was having.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

I just watched T3 again, and they never mentioned a date in the entire movie --just that Judgment Day takes place "today" at 6:18 p.m.

They also mentioned that Cyberdyne was destroyed 10 years ago, but didn't mention a date for that event. If we assume that the original "Terminator" took place in 1984, then John Connor would have been born nine months later, and T2 would take place around 10 to 13 years after his birth (1994-1998).

Then, according to T3, Sarah would later get cancer and die three years after that.

So T3 would have taken place 10 years after T2, around 2004 to 2008.

Sarah Connor's coffin in T3 has the date 1997 on it, but since it was stated that she was cremated, and she used the coffin solely to store weapons, then maybe she bought the coffin herself, and just had that day's date put on it (since it would raise too many questions to buy a headstone with a future date on it). So Sarah Connor could have put that coffin there in 1997, BEFORE the events in T2. It doesn't mean that she died in 1997.

In "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" it mentioned she died of cancer some time after 1999, which really doesn't conflict with anything stated in T3.

 

[captcalhoun]

if you freeze-frame the scene when the T-850 checks the time on the watch and resets his internal clock after his arrival, you can see it says 24 July 2004

 

[DigificWriter]

TrekGuide, Cameron unequivocally tells Sarah the year that she would have died in the TSCC timeline: 2005. I don't know why you're so determined to ignore the stated fact that T3 and TSCC take place on different timelines. Getting back to the topic at hand, though, I think that, if the producers of the new Trek movie use TSCC as an example, they can create a viable and contained timeline that doesn't disrupt the 'prime' timeline, yet continues alongside it, as was stated by Robert Orci.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

TrekGuide, Cameron unequivocally tells Sarah the year that she would have died in the TSCC timeline: 2005. I don't know why you're so determined to ignore the stated fact that T3 and TSCC take place on different timelines.

As other TSCC episodes have shown, Terminators have been coming back in time for decades, since the 1920s at least, which Cameron found in old newspaper reports at the library.

Therefore, like T1 and T3, "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" itself is its own self-perpetuating causality paradox (Cameron and Cromartie came back to 1999 in a timeline where the Terminator from the 1920s had already sealed itself inside a wall for 70 years), and its only connection to the other Terminator movies is that all of them involve a character named John Connor who is the son of a time traveler.

T2 stated that the events in T1 happened BECAUSE of the events in T1, so in T2 they attempted (and apparently succeeded in) undoing those events (i.e., Cyberdyne creating Skynet and the Terminators, and Judgment Day happening in 1997).

T3 creates an entirely new and independent predestination paradox, where two Terminators come back to what will be Judgment Day, and by doing so, CAUSE Judgment Day to happen on that same day. (So the date of that movie doesn't matter; the causality loop could have started in 2004 or 2008 or 1998 or 1988 or 2058 -- whatever day the Terminators came back to would become Judgment Day.)

In the logic of T3, the T-101 (Schwarzenegger) Terminator must have come from the alternate future caused by the actions of the T-X, since he already knew (from his own past) that it was Judgment Day, while the T-X was just going down her assassination checklist and was not aware that she would cause Judgment Day later that same day. In fact, by killing younger versions of her enemies, the T-X was actually CHANGING the timeline she came from (like in T2), but the T-101 was actually CREATING the same events he remembered by going back and protecting John Connor (like Kyle Reese in T1). So in T3 we saw an alternate timeline turned into a predestination paradox.

So maybe T4 will again create a whole new story involving Terminators, the son of a time traveler, and further time travel, but will have nothing to do with events in any of the previous films. (Terminator movies are like Dracula or Frankenstein movies: They all use the same characters with the same back stories and the same premise, but each new film just re-tells the story without continuity to the previous movie. In other words, you could watch three Dracula movies or three Terminator movies in any order, and they each would make sense on their own because the plots are self-contained.)

Perhaps TSCC started in the timeline of the original T1 and T2, and the Terminators sent back in T2 and T3 were from alternate timelines, or none of the movies or TV series have depicted the original timeline (i.e., the first timeline that was not changed by time travel).

Even if we knew what year each of the Terminators came back from (e.g., Cameron came from 2027, the T-1000 came from 2029, the T-X came from 2032, and Kyle Reese came from 2027, or whatever), we still wouldn't know in what logical order the movies take place, since we don't know which Terminator came back from the "first" timeline, regardless of what year it was.

Getting back to the topic at hand, though, I think that, if the producers of the new Trek movie use TSCC as an example, they can create a viable and contained timeline that doesn't disrupt the 'prime' timeline, yet continues alongside it, as was stated by Robert Orci.

I think "Star Trek XI" will just be the latest of dozens of changes to the "Trek" timeline. Each time travel episode of "Star Trek" is written by a different writer, with his own beliefs of what the "prime" timeline is, and his own beliefs of what a "timeline" is, and his own belief of what "time travel" is, so Roberto Orci is just the latest writer in the series to make up his own, internally consistent time paradox, using the same characters from previous episodes in the series -- exactly what the writers of each new "Terminator" movie do.

In fact, the idea of a timeline is just a series of events in a chronology (Kirk is born, Picard is born, Tasha Yar is born, Tasha Yar dies, Kirk dies, Picard dies, etc.), but the very last event in any "prime" timeline would be "And then time travel was invented. The end." After you first introduce time travel, the "prime" timeline ceases to exist, and everything you see after that is an alternate timeline.

You can't say one alternate timeline is "more prime" than another. All you can say at any given time is what timeline was created last (until the next one is created). If "Star Trek XI" creates a new timeline, then that will be the new "prime" timeline, since it was the timeline created last. Until the next one. But all of the previous "prime" timelines also existed, as long as someone remembers them (or has them recorded in DVD box sets).

 

[AlanC9]

A small correction, TrekGuide

I have no idea what the plot of T4 will be, but if Kate Brewster is a character and John Connor is still alive, then it must be a PREQUEL to T3, before John died and Kate sent the T-800 back to 2004.

This might still be the TSCC timeline. Kate Brewster presumably still exists in that line. She isn't critical anymore, of course, but she could still show up. Hell, maybe someone will try to set John up with her again if the Jesse ploy fails.

What were their relative ages in T3?

 

[captcalhoun]

same age, because they were in class together prior to T2, according to Kate.