Current mood:	intrigued
Current music:	Desi Hits Bollywood Bar Stewards ep. 2

Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles - It's crazy theory time!
So, I've been watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles, and in the background there have been the questions of what is the Terminator working with the Connors really up to and, also, what is Future!John's Grand Plan.

Well, after seeing the most recent episode, I have a theory. A crazy theory, but I like it! Hear me out, it's kind of plotty and awesomely sci fi.



So as of the most recent episode with the flashforward/flashback to Future!John, a debate has been sparked. Aside from Kyle Reese who genuinely considered John a friend, evidence in this ep seems to suggest that his soldiers looked up to him but, to quote the episode, "Connor has no friends". But in the first episode, Cameron, their Terminator ally, very clearly insists that Future!John has *many* friends.

So I rewatched the episode and have a kind of crazy theory. What if the friends Cameron speaks of are the reprogrammed Terminators?

Hear me out, I have some circumstantial evidence.

A) Cameron, the reprogrammed Terminator, is the one who asserts that John has many friends. She also seems to, in her robot way, look up to Future!John, almost worship him, not just robotically obey.

B) Both of the reprogrammed Terminators we have seen, Cameron, and to a lesser degree T2's Arnie, appear to manifest a certain degree of consciousness and free will.

C) Whereas Skynet Terminators appear to be, well, robotic. Almost remote-controlled.

D) In this episode, the reprogrammed Terminators have free run of Future!John's resistance compounds, just like any other soldier, as opposed to being turned off and shoved in a warehouse somewhere until convenient. This despite the fact that sometimes things go terribly terribly wrong and it freaks out his human soldiers.

E) John, to a degree, has bonded with both Cameron and T2's Arnie.

F) Cameron has saved the fallen Terminator's "brain" and some Terminator component parts and has not notified the humans around her of what she is doing or why.

My theory: John isn't just trying to free humanity - he's trying to free the Terminators too, if possible. While a certain level of intelligence and decision making ability is required to carry out their missions, Skynet seems to keep its Terminators on a very short leash (see aforementioned robotic behavior and the infamous power down after completed mission in episode 5). Future!John knows from experience that they're capable of being more than simple killing machines, but that also, nothing can fight a Terminator quite as well as another Terminator. Thus, they're both valuable allies and an AI slave race captive to his enemy.

How better to win the loyalty of your enemy's slaves than to free them and offer them a future? It's a much better claim on them than simply taking over the role of slavemaster yourself and hoping like hell that they never escape or rebel. If he's promising the converted Terminators a chance to free the other Terminators and throw off the yoke of Skynet, if he's a human who treats them like people (of a sort) might that not cause *them* to love him, in their way?

Of course, that's almost certainly not the way he'd sell it to his human soldiers who understandably have Terminator issues.

But if Cameron's reason for taking John's side is freedom for the Terminators, she'd probably want a chance to rescue as many of the Terminators she "kills" as possible, so that one day they may be de-Skynetted too. In fact, given the almost... maternal way she cradled the Coltan and the way she fondled the Terminator brain plug thing, she may be planning on doing it herself and may well see the resultant Terminator as, well, her child. After all, it wouldn't have any memories left. She would be all it knew.

Plus, if you're getting freed Terminators to work with you, you can hardly promise them that their species will be wiped out, can you? The next generation of Terminators (or, perhaps, Not!Terminators, given that there's no Skynet making them terminate) have to come from somewhere.



Thoughts? Am I nuts? Am I reading too much into this? Do you have your own theories?