Terminator Alternative: What if Kyle Reese Survived?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

First of all, sorry if this is a repeat, but I don't remember this ever being a thread, so here we go...

Utsanomiko finally bought The Terminator Special Edition DVD on Tuesday, and near the end I had a bit of a thought:

"What if the final fight turned out differently and Kyle Reese survived?"

I mean, asuming that he could avoid being tracked down and recaptured by the police (or maybe not, it's your call), how much of an impact would he have on the events following T1 and preceeding and taking place during T2 (and perhaps even preceeding and during T3)?

[Embracer Of Darkness]

He'd probably meet his child self in the future and teach himself to make bombs.

S. Connor: "You must've had a fun childhood." T1.

[NecronLord]

I can't see that his survival is really possible.

[Robert Treder]

On a largely unrelated note, what if John Connor and Claire Danes do the nasty, and their kid is Kyle Reese? Wouldn't that be creepy? John Connor would be his own grandfather.

[Embracer Of Darkness]

On a largely unrelated note, what if John Connor and Claire Danes do the nasty, and their kid is Kyle Reese? Wouldn't that be creepy? John Connor would be his own grandfather.

Then how the heck could his surname be Reese?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Hmm, it'd be interesting, but I doubt the timeline would allow it, it has a habit of changing back to it's original form.

This always raises the question of what if the original Ah-nuld succeeded or the T-1000 for that matter,

[Stormbringer]

Hmm, it'd be interesting, but I doubt the timeline would allow it, it has a habit of changing back to it's original form.

This always raises the question of what if the original Ah-nuld succeeded or the T-1000 for that matter,

Most likely one of John's subordinate generals would have started the fight for survival. Or Sarah would have some how had another kid or something. Remember, even in T3's future war where things are much different Skynet's losing and Connor's kids are carrying the fight.

[zombie84]

interesting bit of related trivia: The dropped alternate ending to T2 ("future coda" as it is known) that featured an old sarah sitting in a park in 2029, where the machines did not take over and john is now a senator, was originally going ot have a moment where she sees Reese in the park, non-militant and happy, having grown up in a whole different world, to whom she can say nothing. They look at each other, and something registers as if she is someone that he met a long long time ago but just cant quite remember, and he ignores her and goes back to whatever it is he was doing. I always thought that would have been a nice bittersweet touch to the ending; would have made it a tad less happy and more in fitting with the rest of the film (and it would have raised shitloads of other time-paradox questions).

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

I just bought the T1 Special Edition!

Anyways, where did he survive? If he managed to blow off the T-800's head with a pipe bomb during the car chase, the results would be a lot different then if he didn't get killed blowing it in half. Presumably he'd be able to recover the remains of the Terminator and prove his story

[Shroom Man 777]

I just bought the T1 Special Edition!

Anyways, where did he survive? If he managed to blow off the T-800's head with a pipe bomb during the car chase, the results would be a lot different then if he didn't get killed blowing it in half. Presumably he'd be able to recover the remains of the Terminator and prove his story

But Cyberdyne (or some other big company or the military even) covers it up and Reese and Sarah are sent to a mental ward.....

[Adrian Tullberg]

Lessee ...

... Reese survives ...

... he and Sarah both take on blowing up Cyberdyne (if I recall correctly, an aborted attempt on her part led to her imprisonment in the asylum) and succeed in eliminating Skynet from the timestream ...

[Sothis]

Reese survives: like GTA said, he could collect the bits of the T-800, and prove his story. After that, I have no idea, though if he and Sarah got any inkling that the military or a company was building Skynet, they'd go after it.

T-800 succeeds: well, here is where things get confusing. Skynet only formed because of the recovered chip from the T-800. If it kills Sarah, it doesn't get crushed, the chip isn't recovered, thus no one develops Skynet. Ironic perhaps, that by killing Sarah, Skynet kills itself.

T-1000 succeeds: By this stage the research and development by Cyberdyne means Skynet is well on it's way, and unless Sarah and the T-800 take action minus John to destroy Cyberdyne, the Future War could well pan out differently.

[Tsyroc]

T-800 succeeds: well, here is where things get confusing. Skynet only formed because of the recovered chip from the T-800. If it kills Sarah, it doesn't get crushed, the chip isn't recovered, thus no one develops Skynet. Ironic perhaps, that by killing Sarah, Skynet kills itself.

What if the T-800 got ahold of Sarah's throat just as she pushes the button on the press? She dies of a crushed windpipe and the T-800 is still mashed.

Obviously some things will change since it will be fairly clear that the mashed robot looking thing killed her but it's still possible that a version of Skynet could be developed. I don't think it's a done deal since it seems likely that who recovers the chip may change.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Reese survives: like GTA said, he could collect the bits of the T-800, and prove his story. After that, I have no idea, though if he and Sarah got any inkling that the military or a company was building Skynet, they'd go after it.

My name it GAT, not Grand Theft Auto!

[Sothis]

Reese survives: like GTA said, he could collect the bits of the T-800, and prove his story. After that, I have no idea, though if he and Sarah got any inkling that the military or a company was building Skynet, they'd go after it.

My name it GAT, not Grand Theft Auto!

Ooops!

Errrr, so anyway, Grand Thrawn Admiral's stuff seems fine...

[zombie84]

Its like what is said in T3--the future IS set, and it cannot be changed.

Thats one of the things that i didnt like about the first two films--there is a running theme that the future is not set and that it is possible to change it. This of course is impossible, and the films themselves contradict their own major theme by showing how any attempt to change the future is useless; in trying to alter events, the characters unknowingly create the very future they are trying to eliminate. I love that irony, and i wish that Cameron was wise enough to acknowledge this instead of pumping out cheap, false-optimism quotes about "no fate but what we make". Thats one of the things i love about T3 so much--it finally addresses that the future cannot be changed. They are not here to change the future--they are here to create it. Its like what John says at the end of T3 when he finally realizes this: "we werent meant to prevent Judgement Day. We were meant to survive it".

There was no other possible course of action than what occured in the films. The events had to happen, because there was no other way.

T-800 succeeds: Sarah doesnt kill the t-800 and Cyberdyne doesnt recover the mangled CPU, thus Skynet and the machines do not get created. Therefore, because the T-800 existed in the first place, it had to get crushed and Cyberdyne recover the CPU; there was no other course of action because the events had already happened over 30 years before the T-800 was even manufactured. Therefore, it was necessary for the t-800 to be sent back to kill sarah, not to change the future, but to merely fullfill its destiny, to create its present.

The same thing applies to Reese. Just as the t-800 creates the machines future, Reese creates the humans future. Ironic that John Conner was created because of the machines. In their attempt to change the tide they thought they could eliminate John before he is born by sending a t-800 back through time; however the only reason John exists is because they tried to stop his birth. If they hadnt sent back the t-800, there would be no reason to send back Reese, and therefore John wouldnt have existed. Therefore events had to happen just as they did. The future is set because Reese and the t-800 already exist, and therefore it cannot be altered.

Its unusual that the machines would make such an obvious mistake in logic. The fact that they already exist proves that the t-800 failed. The past cannot be changed because it was already written; the t-800 arrived fourty years ealier, Reese impregnated sarah fourty years ealier and the CPU was discovered by Cyberdyne fourty years ealier. The machines had to send back the t-800 (thus necessitating Reese as well) because the events had already happened.

[Mark S]

Well put Zombie BUT if the T-800 succeded to kill Sarah, its mission would have been complete and it possibly would have become inert, allowing Cyberdyne to discover it and begin the Skynet timeline without John Conner. But than, it might just have been another Sarah Conner that was the mother of the future at that point? Wouldn't that have been something? You go through two movies thinking everything is fine only to find out that it was a different John Conner that leads humanity and his mother Sarah had an unlisted phone number.

[Sothis]

There's the thought that in T2 the Conners and the T-800 always destroy Cyberdyne, but Skynet still forms anyway. After all, if Skynet really was stopped when Cyberdyne was destroyed, there's no Skynet to send back a T-800 to 1984. So by destroying Cyberdyne, there's no Reese to go back, father John Conner, so he won't exist either.

That means that within the Terminator universe, the crushing of the T-800 in T1, Reese fathering John, and the destruction of Cyberdyne in T2 were all destined to happen, as was Judgement Day.

[Adrian Tullberg]

My theory is that once John Connor was conceived, the temporal loop became an absolute.

For once John was created, his father had to be sent back otherwise a paradox would emerge.

On a side note, I had an idea where Skynet becomes aware of this temporal loop, and in the middle of the war against humanity, lets a time-travel facility become available to the resistance, while leaking news of the Terminators.

In the original reality, the humans could only time travel once they won the war. Now if Skynet allowed them to time travel to a limited extent before the war came to a definite conclusion, then the ultimate victory becomes undetermined.

Skynet gets another chance to win ...

[Mark S]

Well put Zombie BUT if the T-800 succeded to kill Sarah, its mission would have been complete and it possibly would have become inert, allowing Cyberdyne to discover it and begin the Skynet timeline without John Conner. But than, it might just have been another Sarah Conner that was the mother of the future at that point? Wouldn't that have been something? You go through two movies thinking everything is fine only to find out that it was a different John Conner that leads humanity and his mother Sarah had an unlisted phone number.

But than, Reese knew what Sarah looked like from the picture so the last bit couldn't be true.

[Shroom Man 777]

A question:

If Skynet's creation was averted, wouldn't Kyle Reese be not sent into the past since Skynet and the war never came to be, hence John Conner would never be. Hence JC and Skynet would never exist, they'd get erased.

But hmmm....

Maybe these changes would be too drastic, seeing as they are in the 'past' hence the changes in the future could happen. Hence Skynet had to exist so Reese can go back and Skynet can make itself via the crushed T-800.

But some future stuff gets altered, like how Skynet ends up as a program instead of a microchip, hence also changing the future. Hence Skynet was able to survive even when its defense grid was smashed, maybe it launched a counter attack, reclaiming the wrecked up TD devide, maybe making a new one, and pushing the resistence back somehow, hence the war reached the year 2032.

[Ghost Rider]

The Problem with T3 is that the novel introduced a whole spiel of things that don't mesh(Connor being 13 amongst them...and that if we take at face value alone catapults it into the Alternate universe)

In T1(described in the T2 novel) Skynet lost...the Resistance captured that facility and found a Time-Displacement device. Skynet before being shut down used it to send two Terminators(thus if Reese survived it gave the implication that it wouldn't have matter because he and Sarah would've had to face the T-1000)

So the Resistence sent two people at two distinct point At Sarah and at John when he was 10.

T3 novelization introduces that the Time Displacement was created BEFORE Skynet. So that there are two devices. One under John's command, the other under Skynet.

[zombie84]

I dont think you can use events in T3 in conjunction with events in T2; the filmmakers messed around with the timeline so much that the only possible explaination is the "multiple timeline" theory, which i find rediculous.

But anyway...

From the machines and the Resistance's point of view, the past is unchangable because the present already exists. Imagine the resistance capturing the time displacement machine--John sends back Reese and then the T-800. Is he changing the past? No, he is simply fulfilling it. He knows when he sends Reese that Reese will fall in love with his mother, conceive him and then Sarah will destroy the terminator; he knows that the t-800 will protect him and help him destroy Cyberdyne before destroying itself and the t-1000. If he knows these events already happened, then they are impossible to change. The only thing to do is to fulfill the past, not change it.
Conversly, if the t-800 arrives in 1984 to terminate sarah, but John exist in the year 2029, then it obviously was doomed from the start. And if the t-800 arrives in 1994 (to protect John) and the bunch of them attempt to destroy Cyberdyne, the fact that the t-800 already exists proves that their efforts are useless.

The future cannot be changed, it can only be created. The t-800 tries to change the past--this is impossible, because the events already happened. Instead, it can only create its future by fulfilling the events--that the CPU is discovered and that Reese concieves John. there is only one possible course of action for time to take, in effect because it has already happened. Everyone of course has no idea of the consequences of their actions--every attempt to change history only creates it, with every event falling perfectly in line with the way it was written.
The humans should consider themselves lucky--the Resistance beats Skynet no matter what; they face Judgement Day, get hunted down by the machines, but ultimately they are the victors, and there is nothing at all that the machines can do about. Skynet's the one who gets really screwed because it loses in the long run and theres nothing it can do to stop it.

T3 effectively ruins all continuity though, to such a degree that the film can only be regarded as some kind of spin-off, an "alternate universe" kind of "what-if" film.

[Montcalm]

I dont think you can use events in T3 in conjunction with events in T2; the filmmakers messed around with the timeline so much that the only possible explaination is the "multiple timeline" theory, which i find rediculous.

If the multiple timeline worked in BTTF,then it may work in Terminator.

[Shroom Man 777]

I see. But what about no fate but what we make?

And what if John Conner didn't send Reese to the past? What would happen?