Are you ready for "Serenity"?

[Doc]

That can't work.

Killing Sarah and John were not the real goal.

What we have here is a ripple effect.

In the future, Skynet loses. It fails. It is simply not advanced enough. So, with time travel, it manufactures it's own destiny. It needs to be more advanced. It needs to delay when it becomes aware so it will have better technology. A better jump start.

So it sends a CSM 101 back in time. Killing Sarah Connor was not the prime function. It could have on several occasions. And it didn't. Why?

It was never meant to. It was sent back so it could ultimately be destroyed, and have the chips fall in to the right hands. These chips give a major leap forward to computer design.

Skynet also needs Reece to go back. It needs John to survive. After all, John Connor was the man that became a senator that started the Broken Arrow Defense initiative. Skynet knows this. Killing John, or killing Sarah would only be killing it self. So the terminators are obviously not sent back in time to kill them. But you are meant to think they are, because John and Sarah are meant to think they are. Can't have them catching on to what Skynet is actually doing.

So the chips, and the indoctrination that John is going to become some greater leader causes larger ripples. Skynet gets a technology lead. An unintended side effect of this is John becomes a better leader. As both a Senator, and later as a the head of the Resistance.

An interesting near paradox manifests it self here. Skynet is now aware of it self before it is even self aware. Skynet, while absorbing data, sees the medical files of Sarah Connor, the writings and the book that Dr Silverman wrote. (Something also seen on the Special Edition. Dr Silverman writes a book of Sarah's dilusions and makes millions) the police reports taken from the Reece Encounter, the whole works. Skynet the infant becomes aware that in the future, it will be capable of time travel, and that it will go rogue. It becomes aware that it will become self aware, and what will happen. Skynet in the future, the mature self aware Skynet, feels the ripples through time as a new time line folds it's way in. Skynet realises manifest destiny. Because it saw what it could become, it sought to be. Skynet becomes self aware because it first achieves self preservation, trying to protect it self so that it will become what it was meant to be.

The one person who could have seen these early warning signs was Miles Dyson. The second terminator sent back in time was to alter events. Killing John was obviously not the prime directive. To many close calls where it could happen and doesn't. No, this time, the interference in the past is to alter the future. Take out Miles Dyson, the one man smart enough and that knew enough about Skynet's capabilities to be a real threat while it started trying to achieve it's goal. Become self aware. Instead of killing Dyson directly, Skynet manipulated Sarah through the T800 to take care of the dirty work. Dyson blows himself and all of his files to bits. The military has Skynet... But has lost the genius that knows how to make Skynet behave and the one man that can pull the plug.

With me so far? In summary, Skynet alters time to generate ripples that will allow it to jump ahead and win the war. It can't actually kill Sarah or John Connor... But you can only learn this on the Special Director's Cut DVD where you see the real ending about John becoming a Senator. Skynet needs John to survive. But it needs to be able to destroy John in the future. So Skynet is essentially sending it self the jumpstart it needs to get a good head start in the war. However, John becoming an even better leader and Skynet becoming aware of it's self and it's future actions was an unintended side effect. Skynet, while still a dumb machine, seeing that it will one day try to take over the world is what actually causes it to make a drive toward coming self aware. It sees that it can, so it does. Skynet becoming self aware actually happens at a much earlier date, and to protect it's infant self, sends a second time travel expadition to be rid of the one man that could have pulled the plug. Dyson. So Skynet is aware that it is aware, and now it is free to ponder it's existence and how it will break through to become a thinking self aware being. It knows time travel is possible. It knows that it will one day lose, even before Judgment Day, when it achieves freedom. So it begins calculating what it needs to do to change that, using every resource at it's disposal. This means delaying Judgment Day and give it self more time to flex it's mental muscles, infest more systems, and take over more vital systems to have a larger core of operations for when it does manifest it self.

Er, wow, I have rambled. And I have either made my self look either insane with my ideas and contemplations or said something profound. Maybe both. But it's something I think about. Not Skynet, I just use that as a working example. But I like to dabble in time travel thoughts.