This article is about The Future War depicted in scenes in the Original timeline, for other uses, go to The War Against the Machines
The War Against The Machines is the future war that takes place after Judgment Day in 1997 in the Original timeline. It involved the human Resistance led by John Connor against the machines made by Skynet. It is sometimes referred to as the War of The Machines, The Future War, or simply The War.
The War[]
Judgment Day occurred on August 29, 1997. Humans had entrusted an artificial intelligence, Skynet, to run the defense network. Skynet was given access to all of humanity's knowledge, and began to learn at an exponential rate. It became self-aware at 2:14 am and determined all humans as a threat to its existence after the human operators panicked and attempted to shut it down. Skynet launched nuclear missiles at Russia, inciting a counterattack against America. The resulting nuclear war saw three billion human lives end.
The survivors later had to face the war against the machines. Many of the survivors were rounded up in camps for orderly disposal. Some of them were kept alive and used in Skynet Work Camps as slaves of Skynet, where they were branded with barcodes. John Connor eventually led the Resistance to rise up and fight the machines of Skynet.
A HK-Tank patrolling the Los Angeles area.
To remain safe from Skynet’s onslaught, the remaining human population were forced underground away from the machines, living in squalor and poverty. Non-Humanoid Hunter Killers roamed the land by day, therefore the resistance fought by night. They also dealt with the Series 600 Terminators built as early infiltrators with rubber skin, but the Resistance could spot them easily. In 2026, the Series 800 was created, which had real human flesh and were nearly undetectable as infiltrators, to replace the Series 600. The T-800 could easily pass the security of a Resistance base and attack from inside. The Resistance began using dogs at base entrances, as their keen sense of smell could detect the new terminators.
In 2029, time travel was developed, shortly after the Resistance's major victory over Skynet, in which they smashed its defense grid. However, Skynet was able to launch various time traveling missions, sending Terminators into the past in an effort to alter the course of events to Skynet's advantage. The Resistance, upon discovering this, in turn used captured Time Displacement Equipment to send Kyle Reese and a reprogrammed Terminator of their own to counteract Skynet's agents in the past. As John Connor and his mother survived every attempt by Skynet to terminate them in the past, it can be assumed that humanity prevailed.
Time Traveling Missions[]
Skynet[]
- 2029 - A T-800, Model 101 was sent to 1984 to terminate Sarah Connor, John's mother, before he was born.
- 2029 - A T-1000 was sent to 1995 to terminate John Connor at age 10.
- 2029- A T-850 was sent to 2028 to terminate Resistance soldier Private Jacob Rivers. (Resistance timeline)
Resistance[]
- 2029 - John Connor sent back Kyle Reese to protect Sarah Connor, his mother, in 1984 against the T-800 sent by Skynet to that time.
- 2029 - John sent a reprogrammed T-800 to 1995 to protect his 10 year old self from the T-1000 sent by Skynet.
- 2029 - John sent Resistance soldier Sergeant Jacob Rivers to 2028 to protect his younger self and intercept the T-850. (Resistance timeline)
Behind the Scenes[]
The original script for Terminator 2 included a much longer version of the opening Future War scene, which was eventually cut from the final draft for time and pacing, not to mention the much larger budget that would have been required. Instead of Sarah, it featured older John Connor from 2029 giving a voiceover describing the background of the war. It would have also included extensive scenes showing all of Skynet's army of HKs and Terminators shutting down the instant it was destroyed, as well as scenes of the Resistance entering Skynet's Time Displacement Facility, and John sending Kyle Reese back in time, before then selecting a de-activated Terminator to reprogram and send back as well.
One worldbuilding point stated in Cameron's original draft script is that very few human survived in the Northern Hemisphere after Judgment Day, because the major powers engaged in the nuclear exchange were concentrated there (the United States and Russia). Thus the Northern Hemisphere was hardest hit by the direct nuclear strikes, as well as the ensuing wind-blown fallout, starvation from nuclear winter, societal collapse, etc. John Connor remarks that he was in Argentina on Judgment Day, noting it was a good place to be given that essentially everyone "north of the Equator" died. The script goes on to describe that Connor's guerrilla army is made up mostly of troops from South America, Africa, and Australia. Accordingly, the script describes background radio chatter amid Resistance units as a mix of Spanish, Swahili, and Australian-accented English.[1] These ideas can be seen in the novelization of Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Appearances[]
- The Terminator
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day
- The Terminator: 2029 (A variation of the Original Timeline)
- The Terminator: Dawn of Fate (Set in 2027; A variation of the Original Timeline)
- Terminator: Resistance (A variation of the Original Timeline)
- Terminator Genisys (A variation of the Original Timeline)