SCC and temporal mechanics

[lizardbeth]

My computer held off dying for longer than I expected, but the day's coming pretty rapidly. Yep. *sigh* It's all but impossible to look at pics -- only pure white screens are even tolerable.

Anyway, last night's Sarah Connor Chronicles made me rather thinky.

Minor spoilers.




First of all: Sarah's voice over says something about how the first test of the atomic bomb was "outside the mountains of Los Alamos." This is bullshit, unless your value for "outside" includes three hundred miles away at Alamagordo, which Sarah would freakin' KNOW. Way to research a basic fact, SHOW! FAIL. Way to irritate a native New Mexican in the first minute of the teaser.

But thumbs up to John behaving more like John of the future, trying to get the info of what kind of AI Andy was building.

Speaking of, I didn't think Sarah would kill Andy, but her solution was clever enough to avert that particular possibility of Andy's chess AI from becoming Skynet. It wasn't, but she wasn't sure, so she had to do something without going overboard. So, yay, Sarah for finding an alternative. And how cute she was (trying to) flirt with him and pump him for information. (though really, the cell phone thing was a bit much -- I had a not-very-small cellphone in the 90's and there were big honkin ones even earlier).

The scientist dude with the Cromarty terminator was even more creeptastic than the Terminator itself. I was kind of rooting for the terminator to kill him, but even not-too-bright robots can figure out the value of a Renfield, I guess.

*shudder*

BUT that was not what I came to post about, not really.

I spent entirely too long last night trying to sleep and tracing out temporal mechanics. This SHOW! *squishes time paradoxes and AU's*

At first I thought it was a bit strange and anticlimactic. I was watching and thinking, "But I know where Skynet is born -- Kate Brewster's dad". But once I pondered it a little more, I don't think that's true. The overall impetus of the franchise, supported by John's mention of the Singularity, is that Skynet/Judgment Day is INEVITABLE. In Sarah and John's Universe it will ALWAYS happen, because John is born from a man from the future. In order for John to exist, Skynet must also exist. Therefore they are trapped in a loop. They can put Judgment Day off, switch Skynet's creators to other people, but it'll still happen.

Unfortunately for John, a Terminator coming back from the future and killing him, isn't part of the same recursive loop. John doesn't have to survive, the same way that Skynet HAS to be created. Skynet can exist without John (or at least so Skynet must assume), but John cannot exist without Skynet.

The interesting corollary to this is that it's possible that if the first Terminator (T1) had not been sent back to kill Sarah or if he had succeeded in his mission (there should be an AU created by the possibility of his success; in fact, without Reese she probably would've been killed), there would be the possibility of a 'verse without Skynet. The curious question is whether killing John after he exists also allows for that possibility to open up again (say, John is killed but Sarah continues on to destroy all attempts at remaking Skynet, can Judgment Day now be prevented?); or if his mere existence locked that end result into this particular timestream.

It's not quite as tight a loop as the Babylon 5 causal loop -- there Sinclair had to go back himself to the past to ensure that events he took part in back then, which created his own existence, would happen. But it's pretty damn tight.

And depressing. Because it means John and Sarah CAN'T win. Not in the present.

Bummer. I hope they don't figure that out, or my view of the time paradoxes is wrong, because that just sucks for them.

Although on second thought, the only reason Skynet sent the Terminator in the first place, was because John managed to defeat Skynet in the future.

So then the question shifts: as much as Skynet will happen for John - is Skynet's defeat ultimately locked as well? Obviously Skynet doesn't think so, it wants the inevitability of its existence without that pesky human ruining things. But perhaps in trying to mess with time in this way, it's also dooming itself to failure.

hm.

But it did make me think of Future!John, having to send back his own father to the past TO DIE. (somebody's written this right? I should go check yuletide) But Present!John has a long way to go before he gets to that.

but he will apparently turn into Christian Bale in the future, so it's not all bad...



eta:
And this is so strange about Heath Ledger. Given his make-up for the Joker and the suddenness of the death, I'm reminded very strongly of the death of Brandon Lee on the Crow (albeit this isn't on set, but I wonder how much ADR and such he was still supposed to do). It's that same sort of HUH? feeling.

And to think just last weekend I was reading a magazine which was talking up the buzz on Dark Knight as well as a retrospective of Lee's death....

Comments

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Excellent, excellent points about hte time loop. I like your thinky thoughts.

[mrsdrjackson.livejournal.com]

Someone else who watches this show and thinks of these things! *glee* Must be the Stargate influence. :P

I think that Sarah's solution was the right one for the moment, but it isn't going to work in the long run. All of his knowledge is still there, in his head. You can't just get rid of the work when the mind behind it still remains.

Because it means John and Sarah CAN'T win. Not in the present.
I think you're def right, and I wonder: Are they meant to win? I think that the struggle to defeat Skynet before it is created is in part what makes John the leader he will one day have to be. You can already see flashes of it, especially in the last episode. (I haven't actually seen the other two mind you.)

YAY for shows that make you thinky! :D

And re:Heath. I was also reminded of Lee's death when reading about Heath's. It leaves a hole in the tiny space left in my heart for Hollywood. Obviously there is something foul in that world to make people do this to themselves (whether accidental or on-purpose, I still blame the lifestyle of the movies) and their families. His poor daughter...

[ellestra.livejournal.com]

You have a very good point – this is very similar to what I thought and how I understand time paradox thing. They are in a time loop. It already happened.

There’s also other thing that makes all this futile. Especially burning Andy’s computer (and house). It’s a matter of available technology. If it is possible to achieve some advancement, make some invention, somebody will do it. It’s like with cloning. If technology is there, somebody will make the invention.
Sarah can’t stop it by random acts of violence. She doesn’t have power nor resources to go after everyone doing AI research. Especially if any geek can built one at home.

And I don’t like the assumption that singularity event has only one outcome.
Singularity isn’t about computers being able to make better versions of themselves. In a way they already do. Singularity is technology so advanced, intelligence so surpassing our own we cannot even imagine what it would think and what it would be able to do. Assuming that it must go for a war with humanity is assuming it must be hostile by the very fact of existing. I’m not saying friendly necessarily but maybe just indifferent - why would it want to waste time bothering about us.
But we discussed that before :)

I also mind the faulty reasoning that all and any AI will become Skynet.
Original Skynet was a military system that gained consciousness and when humans wanted to disconnect it, it retaliated by launching nuclear attack. Not chess playing computer. Who knows maybe it would turn out to be like Joshua (War Games). This is after all based on completely different technology – after all Skynet came from the loop too – he was based on T800 chipset from the future. I’m still waiting for them finding out he is sending terminators to blow themselves up to seed the past with technology.