It's certainly making me think. But I'm actually having a harder time with forward time travel than time travel into the past!
I felt I'd better post this acknowledgment right now because my response could take me days and meanwhile you may see me posting in other threads during my breaks
I was only asking whadaya think about a more advanced TDE in Timeline #2 being able to explain the T-1000 making the trip without needing something like a skin cocoon to make it work. If we actually get into the logistics of future time travel, there's a high probability of pissing off jye even more (unless he's already given up on this thread).
They never address time travel to the future in either movie, but I just like the hypothetical implications of it. Imagine a decade after the human resistance having won the war and starting a new free society, a bunch of terminators just start popping up out of nowhere.
Ah, well then that certainly works for me and I want this whole 3 timeline theory brought to James Cameron's attention so he can get on with the business of endorsing and canonizing it. Nothing that supports the movies so thoroughly should remain as mere fanfic theory.
Here's another potential way that the 3-timeline explanation does a better job (IMO) of answering a "plot hole" from T2. We learn from Reese that "You go naked. Something about the field generated by a living organism. Nothing dead will go."
And that's true... for *his* version of Skynet's TDE. But Skynet in our Timeline #2 develops differently by being more advanced. So when it sends the T-1000, that liquid metal body wouldn't need a "skin cocoon" (or any other weird explanation). Maybe Timeline #2 Skynet develops TDE that can actually transport metal (or at least liquid metal) through time.
As for why the T-1000 arrives without clothes or weapons, I prefer to handwave that away by saying that the T-1000 came straight off the assembly line and sent in a rushed manner. It's not like Skynet was manufacturing human clothing at their underground facility where the TDE was. And the T-1000 wouldn't need a weapon anyway. Besides, clothes and weapons from the future would stick out like a sore thumb. It'd be better to just "morph" to blend into how people in 1995 are dressed.
Time Travel clearly changes between T1 and T2 with the way the time travelers arrive.
In T1, they emerge out of thin air.
In T2, a bubble orb forms around them, melting anything in it?s path.
In the original T1 script, Kyle Reese wasn?t sent alone, another soldier was sent with him. When Reese and that soldier arrives, the other soldier ends up getting fused to the alley wall and fire escape and dies, causing Reese to go on the mission alone. That could *easily* be timeline #1.
Future timelines, Skynet would remedy this problem by having the more sophisticated orb type TDE we see in T2.
Excellent! Actual onscreen visual support for different TDE, aligning with multiple timelines. Can't beat that; and I don't care that it's unintentional. Thank you for pointing this out.
In the original T1 script, Kyle Reese wasn?t sent alone, another soldier was sent with him. When Reese and that soldier arrives, the other soldier ends up getting fused to the alley wall and fire escape and dies, causing Reese to go on the mission alone.
It would suck to be the C.S.I. crew who get called in on that one. "Uh, we got some dead guy hanging dong and partially fused into a wall that's been there for years. Prints don't match anyone on record."
When Dr. Silberman asks Kyle why Skynet would use such an elaborate scheme, Kyle responds with this: "It had no choice. Their defense grid was smashed. We'd won. Taking out Connor then would make no difference. Skynet had to wipe out his entire existence!"
I think Skynet would've invented time travel to go into the future, rather than into the past. Going into the past doesn't benefit Skynet in any way, but going into the future would assist them tremendously.
Well...it did benefit Skynet to go into the past - albeit seemingly by accident - when the T-800's remains were recovered and became instrumental in the faster development of Skynet in Timeline 2. And since this was able to happen unintentionally Skynet could surely also take deliberate action. As you indicated in another post it would have to be careful how it went about it.
But I can see how going into the future would have been of greater interest to Skynet and thus would be the likely intention for the TDE. The plot to go into the past can be understood as a last minute change of plan. Skynet could see that the Resistance was beating the odds and ultimate defeat was imminent. It needed an answer to this immediate problem - John Connor had to be erased.
By sending a terminator unit into the future, Skynet could get instantaneous new knowledge. Why instantaneous? Because the TDE would exist in the same exact location in the future.
True, assuming it hadn't been destroyed in the meantime - and also assuming you can choose the location your time traveller will appear in. Kyle Reese and the T-800 show up in different locations from eachother and so do the T-1000 and Uncle Bob and none necessarily appear in the location the TDE will be at in the future. Having said that it does make more sense that when you time travel you only move through time and not also space. Thus, yes, I'm sure Skynet could merely transport a unit from the TDE pad in its own time to the same TDE pad in the future.
As to how the time travellers in the movies end up in all those separate locations, I dunno. Some sort of technological maguffinery must allow it.
So, a terminator can arrive in the future, download (or otherwise take note of) new tech and info, then use the TDE there to return back to its original time and feed the new data into Skynet (which wouldn't care about the return trip creating a branched timeline).
This method would allow Skynet to develop by leaps and bounds rather than by incremental steps. And going to the future would not create a branched timeline. The future in one timeline is always "re-writable" to those who have not experienced it yet.
OK, so someone could go into the future, stay there permanently and it would not create paradoxes there or in their former present. As far as the timeline is concerned the time traveller essentially just disappeared from the earlier point in time and reappeared later. Both the disappearance and the reappearance will merely register as things that happen in the normal forward trajectory of the timeline, they do not alter or delete anything else that otherwise was 'supposed to' happen.
The return trip is what I could do with clarity on.
From the POV of the present the future has not been written yet. But if a Terminator time travels into the future...The timeline, what, instantly becomes written from the time the Terminator originated from up until the very latest point it occupies in the future? And soooo...when it makes the return trip the timeline immediately registers 'change' because it had previously been written without that Terminator in it. Now that he's back in it the timeline can't play out as it did before.....and this is what necessitates a parallel timeline branch?
I'm confused by a number of things now though.
1) If Skynet still exists in the future, it will know to expect a visitor from the past because it was the very same Skynet that sent that Terminator in the first place, right? It had to wait through the normal passage of time to receive that Terminator, feed it the new discoveries and advancements it had made and then send it back to the past.
2) But if it sends the Terminator back in time no further than, say, the point that it originally left that would mean the new branch timeline was exactly the same as the original timeline prior to the returning Terminator - meaning this version of Skynet has also just sent its own Terminator into the future prior to taking delivery of a Terminator that was actually from the original timeline - the same Terminator and yet also not the same. What becomes of that other Terminator?
Which future is he going into, the original way it played out or the way it will newly play out in this new branch? And when he is sent back in time what 'present' would he return to? Does he create a second alternate timeline branch when he returns? Couldn't this theoretically go on in unlimited fashion resulting in countless alternate timelines or have I got something very wrong?
but Skynet would not have tested their TDE by going into the past. Skynet would be sophisticated enough to understand branched timeline principles, and would also have no way of knowing whether or not the ferret (or anyone) arrived safely in the past. But in the future, the same TDE equipment could be used to come back and provide instant (or "quasi-instant") confirmation that it works.
Well I think they would test time travel to the future such that would not require a return trip. Send a Terminator from the TDE pad to the same TDE pad 2 minutes into the future - the Terminator disappears and reappears 2 minutes later from their POV - but the Terminator's internal chronometer would register that it was instantaneous. Doc performs this test with the Delorean and Einstein in BTTF.
But its when we get into the return trip that my head gets screwy and although you had a whole other post after the one I'm responding to I'll leave it there because I probably need to settle this major point of confusion before anything else.
Then again, in the hypothetical scenario we're talking about why would some Skynet from even further in the future need to wait for an old Terminator to reach it from the past when it already has the ability to send a current model Terminator (or whatever) back to its earlier self in the past anyway. We're fixated on time travel into the past going as far back as it does in the movies but what if Skynet merely started time travelling into the more recent past in which Skynet already exists so as to feed itself information and advancements. Heck, why can't it offer strategic intelligence to its earlier self about where John Connor will be on X date so he can be ambushed? Surely there would have been a certain point in time when the war would have been recoverable for Skynet if only this one thing had gone the machine's way. Now that's something to be levelled at the existing movies themselves as much as any hypothetical we're talking about. Was it really necessary to go all the way back to 1984?
Well, the movies are what they are and we like them like that so I don't think I even want agreement on that being a valid point.
I would think that TDE could only be good for a couple of uses. Think of all that energy it takes to send someone back in time, can’t be more than a couple of times, especially when Skynet’s defense grid is smashed.
My thinking is, in it’s defeat, it’s analytical brain comes up with one option, eliminate John Connor. Maybe it had plans for other uses, but at that point in time once it learns the individual that’s kicking it’s ass on the battlefield, all of it’s remaining resources go into taking Connor out. That’s why it sends back it’s latest killing machine in each timeline as a one shot.
I would think that TDE could only be good for a couple of uses. Think of all that energy it takes to send someone back in time, can’t be more than a couple of times, especially when Skynet’s defense grid is smashed.
My thinking is, in it’s defeat, it’s analytical brain comes up with one option, eliminate John Connor. Maybe it had plans for other uses, but at that point in time once it learns the individual that’s kicking it’s ass on the battlefield, all of it’s remaining resources go into taking Connor out. That’s why it sends back it’s latest killing machine in each timeline as a one shot.
Yeah it may be best to make a supposition like this. If the TDE can be used without constraints it raises so many questions, so many 'what ifs' and 'why didn't they do X instead of Y'.
True, assuming it hadn't been destroyed in the meantime - and also assuming you can choose the location your time traveller will appear in. Kyle Reese and the T-800 show up in different locations from eachother and so do the T-1000 and Uncle Bob and none necessarily appear in the location the TDE will be at in the future. Having said that it does make more sense that when you time travel you only move through time and not also space. Thus, yes, I'm sure Skynet could merely transport a unit from the TDE pad in its own time to the same TDE pad in the future.
The rules established in these movies say that the TDE can send travelers to a specific geographic location (at least in terms of a limited general radius). Similarly, they wouldn't need to arrive in the exact same spot where the TDE is in the future. As long as they can get there on foot (or auto, or whatever) and use it to go back, that's all that matters.
OK, so someone could go into the future, stay there permanently and it would not create paradoxes there or in their former present. As far as the timeline is concerned the time traveller essentially just disappeared from the earlier point in time and reappeared later. Both the disappearance and the reappearance will merely register as things that happen in the normal forward trajectory of the timeline, they do not alter or delete anything else that otherwise was 'supposed to' happen.
The return trip is what I could do with clarity on.
From the POV of the present the future has not been written yet. But if a Terminator time travels into the future...The timeline, what, instantly becomes written from the time the Terminator originated from up until the very latest point it occupies in the future? And soooo...when it makes the return trip the timeline immediately registers 'change' because it had previously been written without that Terminator in it. Now that he's back in it the timeline can't play out as it did before.....and this is what necessitates a parallel timeline branch?
It's not that the timeline instantly becomes written; events proceed at a normal pace *without* that version of the terminator in it. When our hypothetical terminator arrives in the future of its original timeline, everything that happened in the interim played out in normal time for everyone else while it would go by in a flash for the terminator. And every single thing that happens during that time becomes an unchangeable part of that timeline's past.
The rest is so hard to explain. But I think I can do it better if I personalize it. You'll have to let me know if the following makes enough sense and does the trick.
First off, there's no such thing as "changing your past." If you go back in time, and every event is playing out as you originally remember it, that's not what's actually happening. This is because you didn't exist in the original history that you remember, so you're already in an alternate version of your original past. In a case where you *did* remember your older self co-existing in your younger past, then you'd merely be going back in time to fulfill a causal loop.
If you jump forward in time, you won't have any memories of the period you skipped. So, in your timeline that you're locked into, you essentially *did not exist* during that period. Some version of you may have, but only some branched version of you. The same is true of our hypothetical terminator. It would have no "memories" of the interim that was skipped in the jump to the future. Any version of itself existing in that interim is now only existing there from having returned back in time and created a branched timeline.
I'm hoping this theoretical explanation is clear enough, but if you would prefer a more detailed explanation about the "science" of this, just let me know. I'd be glad to get into it, and I'd just use spoiler tags to avoid pissing people off for having to scroll through more walls of text.
1) If Skynet still exists in the future, it will know to expect a visitor from the past because it was the very same Skynet that sent that Terminator in the first place, right? It had to wait through the normal passage of time to receive that Terminator, feed it the new discoveries and advancements it had made and then send it back to the past.
Correct. Of course, we know from the movies that Skynet presumably gets destroyed in both Timelines #1 and #2. And in #3, Skynet doesn't seem to have a chance to ever gain any autonomy in the first place. But for the purposes of a hypothetical that drifts from movie scenarios, you are correctly assessing things, imo.
2) But if it sends the Terminator back in time no further than, say, the point that it originally left that would mean the new branch timeline was exactly the same as the original timeline prior to the returning Terminator - meaning this version of Skynet has also just sent its own Terminator into the future prior to taking delivery of a Terminator that was actually from the original timeline - the same Terminator and yet also not the same. What becomes of that other Terminator?
Which future is he going into, the original way it played out or the way it will newly play out in this new branch? And when he is sent back in time what 'present' would he return to? Does he create a second alternate timeline branch when he returns? Couldn't this theoretically go on in unlimited fashion resulting in countless alternate timelines or have I got something very wrong?
As long as we're still dealing with a hypothetical that falls within the parameters of a reality with alternate timelines, the simple answer is that every terminator that arrives from the future is arriving in a branched timeline. It's no different than how the T-800, Reese, T-1000, and Uncle Bob scenarios play out. If time passed while the traveler would've failed to exist (or interact with anything, more accurately) during that time, then this traveler would only be able to experience a different version of that time.
Again, if you visit yourself in the past, there had to exist a timeline when you didn't. Otherwise, you'd never have memories of the time period in question where you weren't visited by a future you. That'd be a closed loop. That's fate. That's not the "no fate" structure of Terminator that we (presumably) see evidence of by virtue of the T2 ending.
Well I think they would test time travel to the future such that would not require a return trip. Send a Terminator from the TDE pad to the same TDE pad 2 minutes into the future - the Terminator disappears and reappears 2 minutes later from their POV - but the Terminator's internal chronometer would register that it was instantaneous. Doc performs this test with the Delorean and Einstein in BTTF.
[EDIT] I went on a general BTTF tangent below without even addressing the Einstein scene itself. Yes a-dev, the Delorean arriving with Einstein a minute after it left is indeed a simpler way to prove that the time travel equipment actually works (at least in a forward direction). I think you're right that Skynet would've done something similar to do a simpler test first. Now on to the tangent.
BTTF is wrong. You don't go back to the past and get to "re-enter" the same timeline unless it's a closed loop. Since the rest of my answer here is about BTTF, and not Terminator, I'll use spoiler tags.
Remember when Marty arrives back in 1985 at the end? He sees himself leave and head to 1955, and he sees Doc get shot (but not die). Well, the Marty who left would've been the Marty from the 1985 where his parents aren't losers. That Marty had a new truck. That Marty would likely be wearing different clothes because his family was wealthier. That Marty wouldn't have needed to get to the mall on a skateboard and take it with him to 1955.
More importantly, that Marty would go back to 1955 with different memories. When he tells 1955 Doc about the "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance," he will tell him about how George punched out Biff. Marty would have to try to arrange *that* scenario in 1955 this time. He would've told Doc Brown a different story. He might not have even had the clock tower flyer.
It's all wrong. The logic of that kind of "changing the past" of your own timeline doesn't work. It's either causal closed loop, or it's branched-off alternate timelines by traveling back in time.
Yeah, Marty’s family is “better”, but he ****ing killed his original father, mother, sister and brother. There was something endearing about them in the original 1985. Like if that were me and I found out my family’s personality changed that dramatically, I’d probably have a psychotic episode. Those aren’t your original parents and siblings. Those memories you have with them, good or bad, didn’t even happen or were different.
Yeah, Marty’s family is “better”, but he ****ing killed his original father, mother, sister and brother. There was something endearing about them in the original 1985. Like if that were me and I found out my family’s personality changed that dramatically, I’d probably have a psychotic episode. Those aren’t your original parents and siblings. Those memories you have with them, good or bad, didn’t even happen or were different.
It's not that the timeline instantly becomes written; events proceed at a normal pace *without* that version of the terminator in it. When our hypothetical terminator arrives in the future of its original timeline, everything that happened in the interim played out in normal time for everyone else while it would go by in a flash for the terminator. And every single thing that happens during that time becomes an unchangeable part of that timeline's past.
If you jump forward in time, you won't have any memories of the period you skipped. So, in your timeline that you're locked into, you essentially *did not exist* during that period.
The rest is so hard to explain. But I think I can do it better if I personalize it. You'll have to let me know if the following makes enough sense and does the trick.
First off, there's no such thing as "changing your past." If you go back in time, and every event is playing out as you originally remember it, that's not what's actually happening. This is because you didn't exist in the original history that you remember, so you're already in an alternate version of your original past. In a case where you *did* remember your older self co-existing in your younger past, then you'd merely be going back in time to fulfill a causal loop.
Some version of you may have, but only some branched version of you. The same is true of our hypothetical terminator. It would have no "memories" of the interim that was skipped in the jump to the future. Any version of itself existing in that interim is now only existing there from having returned back in time and created a branched timeline.
I was initially confused by what you're saying in these parts - I even had appropriate youtube reaction clips lined up but I think I've come around to an understanding after I've been mulling over this response the past couple of days.
Again, if you visit yourself in the past, there had to exist a timeline when you didn't. Otherwise, you'd never have memories of the time period in question where you weren't visited by a future you. That'd be a closed loop. That's fate. That's not the "no fate" structure of Terminator that we (presumably) see evidence of by virtue of the T2 ending.
[EDIT] I went on a general BTTF tangent below without even addressing the Einstein scene itself. Yes a-dev, the Delorean arriving with Einstein a minute after it left is indeed a simpler way to prove that the time travel equipment actually works (at least in a forward direction). I think you're right that Skynet would've done something similar to do a simpler test first.
BTTF is wrong. You don't go back to the past and get to "re-enter" the same timeline unless it's a closed loop. Since the rest of my answer here is about BTTF, and not Terminator, I'll use spoiler tags.
Remember when Marty arrives back in 1985 at the end? He sees himself leave and head to 1955, and he sees Doc get shot (but not die). Well, the Marty who left would've been the Marty from the 1985 where his parents aren't losers. That Marty had a new truck. That Marty would likely be wearing different clothes because his family was wealthier. That Marty wouldn't have needed to get to the mall on a skateboard and take it with him to 1955.
More importantly, that Marty would go back to 1955 with different memories. When he tells 1955 Doc about the "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance," he will tell him about how George punched out Biff. Marty would have to try to arrange *that* scenario in 1955 this time. He would've told Doc Brown a different story. He might not have even had the clock tower flyer.
It's all wrong. The logic of that kind of "changing the past" of your own timeline doesn't work. It's either causal closed loop, or it's branched-off alternate timelines by traveling back in time.
OK so this is you fixing how BTTF would play out according to our branched timeline rules. This had me stumped for days but I think I've got it. Marty is inadvertently sent back to 1955 and accidentally disrupts the original manner in which his parents got together. The new manner in which they do, as arranged in the movie would remain the way they got together in this branched timeline going forward so when this same Marty goes 'back' to the future - he'll actually be moving forward within this same timeline and not returning to his timeline of origin. Within the new timeline branch he'll skip the years between 1955 and 1985 - a version of him will have been born in the meantime that will not live the same life that our Marty did. Therefore that is the Marty that our Marty would witness going back in time near the end of the film (creating another branched timeline of his own) - assuming so much else played out as similarly as the original timeline such that this would even take place again - and that's a big assumption because technically there's a high likelihood neither the Marty from this timeline nor his siblings would even exist as they do or necessarily be born exactly when they originally were. With the changed circumstances in 1955, odds are, different sperm would meet different eggs creating entirely different people. And heck, if the new Marty didn't go back in time there would now permanently be 2 Marty's in this timeline. Jeez, what would 'our' Marty even do in that scenario?....would George and Lorraine take him in? Would they just pretend to other people they had had identical twins all along? Would our Marty be forced to admit that he had been the person they knew as 'Calvin Klein'? Interesting stuff. And grim implications for Marty's original timeline. Not only will his family's circumstances remain completely unchanged but now they'd have to deal with Marty having simply disappeared, never to return
but as a matter of interest lets continue to entertain it and see if I've got this right......
In a hypothetical timeline A Skynet sends its most top of the line Terminator - let's just say it's a T-800 - 30 years into the future to collect information, new discoveries and advancements. It does so knowing that it will not get the benefit of this mission's ultimate objective in this timeline and will simply have to proceed on its own natural course through time. Further to sending the T-800 into the future, this Skynet will have the role of being the very same Skynet who must take delivery of this old Terminator and send it back in time after giving it what it came for.
First question - does Skynet send the T-800 back to a point in time after - possibly immediately after - it sent the T-800 to the future in the first place? Alternatively does Skynet send it back to a point before it originally dispatched the Terminator into the future? I feel like the latter scenario makes things easier to process and here's why -
the T-800 arriving back in the past immediately creates the branched timeline B. As this timeline was the same as timeline A up until this branching point it means Skynet was planning to imminently undertake this mission of sending a Terminator into the future but now it doesn't need to because - here he is, he arrived before they even got around to sending him in the first place. Skynet will understand that an alternate version of itself must have done the honours. It can now reap the rewards.
However, in a scenario where the timeline branching occurs only after Skynet sends the Terminator into the future does this not open the possibility of numerous - possibly even endless - alternate timelines? Because despite that a Terminator has arrived bearing gifts from the future to Skynet in timeline B, don't you still have to account for the T-800 that was just sent per the part of the timeline that is in common with timeline A? So, when that T-800 makes the return journey, you end up with repeating scenarios where A feeds into B, B will feed into a C, C into D, D into E and on and on and on. Now maybe that's fine, maybe Skynet would anticipate and not have any problem with that. It just messes with my head, it's not as neat and tied off as I would like. On the other hand if, for some reason, we don't have to account for this Terminator* - or if I'm wrong about what future he will be travelling to - then everything I'm about to go into is moot and/or incorrect.
*It would surely also mean we don't have to account for the other Marty going back in time at the end of BTTF (while 'our' Marty arrived before other Marty goes back to the past he doesn't stop him from doing so and as such that Marty is ''in play'' like the timeline A T-800 I'm talking about above)
So..when the Terminator arrives from the future of Timeline A to create Timeline B Skynet from that point in the 'past' can now benefit from the knowledge and advancements of Timeline A's future Skynet. It however had still sent a Terminator into the future just prior to the arrival of the other one from Timeline A, so that future-destined Terminator is still in play. Because travel into the future does not cross timelines or create a new branch he will go into the future of timeline B in which Skynet - as planned - will have now gained from the experience and knowledge of Skynet A and presumably become much more advanced. So now that heavily outdated T-800 will be collecting data from an even more advanced Skynet which will then return it to the point in time after it originally sent that Terminator.
Here's the thing - when that Terminator goes back to the past it will now create timeline C. Again, assuming it is returned to a point after it was originally sent then per the commonality with timeline A, a Terminator still gets sent to the future...but there will potentially be an additional commonality now with timeline B - this Terminator bringing the intel from the future of timeline B now joins the prior time travelling Terminator, the one who previously carried the intel from Timeline A's future into timeline B. That T-800 arriving from timeline A into timeline B had become part of that timeline - his arrival had become 'a thing that happens' in the very recent past when another Terminator now enters to commence the new branch Timeline C. As a result, we now have a C timeline which has 2 Terminators from 2 other futures occupying it (the future of A and the future of B) - this is assuming they didn't appear on the TDE pad at literally the exact same time and catastrophically phase into eachother or something (perhaps a reason Skynet would know to time the arrivals gradually later and later so as to avoid this clash). You see why I wanted to avoid all this? Jesus H Christ
This timeline (C) now proceeds with the combined awareness of and the knowledge gleaned from the 2 prior timelines....I guess. Its advancements are theoretically massive. Aaaaaannnd there was still a time travelling Terminator in play that this Skynet had sent off just before it won the 2 jackpots in one day. He's going to arrive in the future to find a ridiculously advanced Skynet that will be like ''LOL, a T-800! Remember those''. Aaaaannnd Skynet will send him back to maybe a few minutes after the others had arrived to be on the safe side. Timeline D will have taken delivery of not one, not two but three T-800s and will make wild advancements off the back of future Skynets from timelines A, B and C. My brain is a bit frazzled by all this - I'm unclear if the information from the first two T-800s will even be necessary, could be that it's all gathered in entirety in the most recently arrived T-800 making the first two kind of moot.
Anyway, this could go on and on but I guess it doesn't necessarily have to - I'm certainly not going to - what I mean is it doesn't have to follow that future Skynet will keep sending the T-800 back to the past after receiving it. It might decide to break the chain. Or circumstances could play out such that the chain is otherwise broken.
Excellent! Actual onscreen visual support for different TDE, aligning with multiple timelines. Can't beat that; and I don't care that it's unintentional. Thank you for pointing this out.
The other big onscreen visual support of different TDE was the fact that the T-1000 seemingly appeared without being "surrounded by living tissue." I know that there are years old theories about how he could have done so off-screen but I think everyone would agree that the initial impression everyone always gets when watching T2 (at least for the first time) is that he arrived as naked as he appeared. So that "upgrade" in the technology would be a pretty significant distinction.
Then we can just assume that Uncle Bob didn't arrive naked because he was required to do so, but rather due to the fact that the Resistance reprogrammed him right off the assembly line and simply lacked the opportunity to clothe and equip him before sending him through.
Remember when Marty arrives back in 1985 at the end? He sees himself leave and head to 1955, and he sees Doc get shot (but not die). Well, the Marty who left would've been the Marty from the 1985 where his parents aren't losers. That Marty had a new truck. That Marty would likely be wearing different clothes because his family was wealthier. That Marty wouldn't have needed to get to the mall on a skateboard and take it with him to 1955.
More importantly, that Marty would go back to 1955 with different memories. When he tells 1955 Doc about the "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance," he will tell him about how George punched out Biff. Marty would have to try to arrange *that* scenario in 1955 this time. He would've told Doc Brown a different story. He might not have even had the clock tower flyer.
It's all wrong. The logic of that kind of "changing the past" of your own timeline doesn't work. It's either causal closed loop, or it's branched-off alternate timelines by traveling back in time.
I like the idea that the "flow" of time is so powerful that you can really only make minor changes in the grand scheme of things, and that the changes that can be made are mostly cosmetic or quite isolated overall. Which is why there wasn't this massive butterfly effect caused by George punching out Biff where they go off and marry different people, live in different cities and who knows what as a result of the change. Rather everyone basically stayed in their identical places with regard to relationships with one another and where they lived but with George and Biffs just having different careers.
Maybe in the original 1985 George's book even existed but was just written by a different well known author. Think of it a bit like Last Action Hero where the movie Earth is basically our same Earth but with Stallone filling in all of Arnold's movie roles (T2 -woohoo, back on topic) and so forth.
So in that case "new" 1985 Marty would have had the pickup truck but still skated around for the fun of it instead of necessity, liked the same clothes, and all that. Yeah it's silly to try and make any sense at all of the logic in a film like BTTF where people slowly fade from existence one body part at a time (in photos no less, lol) but there you go. And yes I do realize that BTTF II completely ignored my "you can't change *that* much" theory but the logic in that film was an irreconcilable mess so I'm not gonna worry about it, lol.
OK so this is you fixing how BTTF would play out according to our branched timeline rules. This had me stumped for days but I think I've got it. Marty is inadvertently sent back to 1955 and accidentally disrupts the original manner in which his parents got together. The new manner in which they do, as arranged in the movie would remain the way they got together in this branched timeline going forward so when this same Marty goes 'back' to the future - he'll actually be moving forward within this same timeline and not returning to his timeline of origin. Within the new timeline branch he'll skip the years between 1955 and 1985 - a version of him will have been born in the meantime that will not live the same life that our Marty did. Therefore that is the Marty that our Marty would witness going back in time near the end of the film (creating another branched timeline of his own) - assuming so much else played out as similarly as the original timeline such that this would even take place again - and that's a big assumption because technically there's a high likelihood neither the Marty from this timeline nor his siblings would even exist as they do or necessarily be born exactly when they originally were. With the changed circumstances in 1955, odds are, different sperm would meet different eggs creating entirely different people. And heck, if the new Marty didn't go back in time there would now permanently be 2 Marty's in this timeline. Jeez, what would 'our' Marty even do in that scenario?....would George and Lorraine take him in? Would they just pretend to other people they had had identical twins all along? Would our Marty be forced to admit that he had been the person they knew as 'Calvin Klein'? Interesting stuff. And grim implications for Marty's original timeline. Not only will his family's circumstances remain completely unchanged but now they'd have to deal with Marty having simply disappeared, never to return
I'm separating this section of your post because I don't think we're on the same page here. I want to get this cleared up before I go into the Terminator stuff that you brought up (which has me very intrigued). But it'll take me a while to construct my reply to those aspects of your post. You got me thinking about stuff I never imagined.
What I described about Marty is not what *would* happen in the first BTTF movie. It's not my attempt to fix it at all. I'm describing what *does* happen in the movie. It's just that what is happening on screen (if you actually think about it) is not what the filmmakers were intending because the entire scenario creates a massive plot hole. It's entirely forgivable and fine because BTTF is supposed to be silly. But logically speaking, they screwed up.
I'll explain (or try to, at least )...
At the end of the movie, Marty is watching himself leave the mall parking lot in the DeLorean. The time machine takes that Marty to 1955. As the audience, we're supposed to assume and believe that this Marty is the one going back to have the same 1955 experience that we saw earlier in the movie. But it *can't* be.
That Marty's 1985 Doc had taped up Marty's letter from 1955. This means that the timeline they're in (while in that mall parking lot at the end of the movie) is one where George punched Biff in 1955, became an author, raised successful kids, and bought Marty a new truck.
Soooo... Marty in the DeLorean at the end of the movie and going to 1955 would be a Marty who has grown up with the story of George punching Biff. His 1955 experience will be totally different. Marty will likely encounter himself in 1955.
I'm not saying that this would happen in any kind of hypothetical. I'm saying it *has* to happen because Doc Brown being alive necessitates it. Our original Marty ends up replacing the Marty who leaves. If you think about it, the movie gets its own plot totally wrong at the end. And it does so because they're trying to use time travel to the past and keep everything in one single timeline. It doesn't work.
I can't fix BTTF with alternate timeline theory because the plot of that movie toward the end goes too far down an errored path. With Terminator, however, the plot played out in a way that *does* allow multiple timelines to "fix" and make sense of everything (except the Sarah photo).
I haven't been keeping up with any of this so if I call out anything that you've already hashed out many times over just ignore me, lol.
The other big onscreen visual support of different TDE was the fact that the T-1000 seemingly appeared without being "surrounded by living tissue." I know that there are years old theories about how he could have done so off-screen but I think everyone would agree that the initial impression everyone always gets when watching T2 (at least for the first time) is that he arrived as naked as he appeared. So that "upgrade" in the technology would be a pretty significant distinction.
Yep, we briefly covered this. No need now for a "skin cocoon," or any other alternative explanation, for how the T-1000 can be sent via the TDE. Alternate timelines solves the issue.
Then we can just assume that Uncle Bob didn't arrive naked because he was required to do so, but rather due to the fact that the Resistance reprogrammed him right off the assembly line and simply lacked the opportunity to clothe and equip him before sending him through.
I like the idea that the "flow" of time is so powerful that you can really only make minor changes in the grand scheme of things, and that the changes that can be made are mostly cosmetic or quite isolated overall. Which is why there wasn't this massive butterfly effect caused by George punching out Biff where they go off and marry different people, live in different cities and who knows what as a result of the change. Rather everyone basically stayed in their identical places with regard to relationships with one another and where they lived but with George and Biffs just having different careers.
Maybe in the original 1985 George's book even existed but was just written by a different well known author. Think of it a bit like Last Action Hero where the movie Earth is basically our same Earth but with Stallone filling in all of Arnold's movie roles (T2 -woohoo, back on topic) and so forth.
So in that case "new" 1985 Marty would have had the pickup truck but still skated around for the fun of it instead of necessity, liked the same clothes, and all that. Yeah it's silly to try and make any sense at all of the logic in a film like BTTF where people slowly fade from existence one body part at a time (in photos no less, lol) but there you go. And yes I do realize that BTTF II completely ignored my "you can't change *that* much" theory but the logic in that film was an irreconcilable mess so I'm not gonna worry about it, lol.
The BTTF time travel scenarios have their pluses and minuses, especially if you want to think about larger theoretical existential implications about the nature of time and how we function with it. But as far as onscreen logic goes? It's a mess. Super fun and entertaining! But a mess.
In the post that I believe you're referencing here, you posed the question of why Skynet would bother waiting for a return trip from the distant future, rather than go back into the recent past to identify and target the guy who is breaching their defense grid in 2029. If that's the one, then I'll point out again that sending terminators to the future would provide a multitude of potential benefits. Skynet would need to weigh those benefits against the tactic that you propose. So let me focus first on why Skynet might've chosen 1984 rather than, say, 2028 or early 2029.
I assume that we can stipulate that we're dealing with a Skynet that is hypothetically sophisticated enough to understand the logistics of when time travel would be creating alternate branched timelines, and when it wouldn't. That sets up some necessary context for the rest of the logic.
If Skynet sends a terminator to some place on the battlefield from a few months earlier, what it'll actually be doing is sending that unit to create a new branched timeline. And there, for it to effectively create some sort of ambush of John, you'd have to consider the likelihood that he wouldn't be able to counter a single terminator's ambush. Infiltrator units are designed for ambushing anyway, and John would always have to be on his toes as a result. So, how precisely would Skynet be able to place their terminator relative to John? The geographic precision is something we don't know, and that's one key factor that would change the calculus.
Then, even if it worked, there wouldn't necessarily be a guarantee that John's resistance hadn't been given an attack plan where the next in line of command would be prepared to follow through on it. It's perhaps an unlikely possibility, but maybe not unlikely enough for Skynet to waste the effort. Whereas, the 1984 date would not only eliminate John from even existing, but might very well prevent the human resistance from ever organizing a united front in the first place. The first film makes John a uniquely important character in that sense.
I'm obviously biased here because I prefer to construct scenarios where the actual movie Skynet made the correct strategic moves by using 1984 (and 1995 in the second timeline). In that sense, sending more than one traveler to the past (even to different times) presents all sorts of potential complications. It'd be better, therefore, to execute *one* trip to the past (prior to 2029, that is) rather than coordinate some sort of multi-level ambush. Is a single-terminator ambush on the battlefield of 2028 or 2029 better than the ambush in 1984? The movie suggests not, so I try to make sense of that. Hopefully I have (at least a little).
But, as to why travelling to the future would make for a good simultaneous option, there's the benefit of faster technological advancement by taking Skynet development from the future of one timeline and bringing it to the past of another. As for the logistics of it, I still need to give consideration to some of the other questions you asked and points you raised.
To be continued (unless you have no interest; in which case, tell me to stop)...
But, as to why travelling to the future would make for a good simultaneous option, there's the benefit of faster technological advancement by taking Skynet development from the future of one timeline and bringing it to the past of another. As for the logistics of it, I still need to give consideration to some of the other questions you asked and points you raised.
I actually hadn't even been thinking of Skynet running both past and future strategies simultaneously, I was thinking more that they do one instead of the other. But if they did both - wow.
According to the rules we've talked about
- any form of time travel into the past creates an alternate timeline branch due to the universe/reality's innate intolerance for paradoxes
- a single alternate timeline sprung from one 'original' timeline is sufficient to avoid these
- thus if multiple Terminators or humans (or anything really) are sent to the past they will all arrive in this single alternate timeline
- the point at which it deviates/starts to differ from the original timeline, we're calling the branching point
- when the branching point occurs depends on the earliest scheduled time traveller arrival sent from the original timeline
- the sequence in which time travellers are sent from the original timeline doesn't change the above
- time travel into the future does not create an alternate timeline because it would not result in paradoxes
- however to then return that time traveller back into the past would and so necessitates an alternate timeline
Here's my point - if we're talking about a scenario where Skynet is using both time travel into the past and into the future (with the intention of then returning to the 'present') - then according to the rules above the alternate timeline resulting from each would be one and the same.
Skynet cannot know or confirm what changes it has caused in the past of the alternate timeline. Its best laid plans can (and in the movies do) go awry for all it knows. This means it will have no idea what its time traveller returning from the future (of its own knowable timeline) would be returning to in the alternate, unknowable timeline whose branching point was created potentially much further back, say 1984 as in the original film.
So this complicates the idea of Skynet using a dual strategy. Unless I've got something wrong (I always feel I have to add that caveat with this topic)
And yes I do realize that BTTF II completely ignored my "you can't change *that* much" theory but the logic in that film was an irreconcilable mess so I'm not gonna worry about it, lol.
