Sarah Connor expressing her anger toward Carl by shooting him in the chest three times.
The trust issue between humans and Terminators, especially human distrust towards an Infiltrator, has been a common plot device in various Terminator fictions.
Since humans are being hunted down by Skynet force in the post-Judgment Day during the Future War or targeted by an Infiltrator sent from future, they tend become frightened, hostile, suspicious, even aggressive, toward any reprogrammed or "human-friendly" Terminator.
Notable examples[]
- In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, after the T-800 Terminator's CPU was removed for being switched from read-only to read-write, Sarah Connor attempted to destroy it with a hammer, as she did not trust the Terminator since she was targeted by another one back in 1984.
- In the video game Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, after the T-850 was reprogrammed, Kate Connor asked what was its mission, the Infiltrator replied it was to terminate John Connor then turned its head right to a Resistance soldier, who immediately opened fire, possibly because he thought the reprogramming failed and the machine was going to harm him. In fact, the T-850 was about to warn them that a team of T-900 Terminators were approaching.
- In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the issue has been shown between different characters, such as Derek Reese, Jesse Flores, or Sarah Connor toward Cameron and other reprogrammed Terminators in the future. Sarah also expressed being upset toward Catherine Weaver after finding out she was a Terminator and using the Turk to build an Artificial intelligence (John Henry) as she did not know Weaver was building a machine to fight Skynet. Additionally, Cameron told John Connor not to trust her after she suffered a glitch due to a car bomb as seen in "What He Beheld" and "Samson & Delilah".
- In Terminator Salvation, believing Hybrid Human Marcus Wright is a Terminator sent to kill him, John Connor had Marcus tied up and interrogated. After Marcus escaped with help from Blair Williams, John had his men out to hunt down Marcus, while Barnes even considering killing Blair along with Marcus since he saw Blair as a Collaborator.
- In Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle, as it faced the crisis of being wiped out by Thomas Parnell, Skynet reached John Connor for help. John Connor was suspicious toward Skynet until the Resistance found out there was a human who was controlling the Terminators massacring humans gruesomely. After Parnell was killed, John reasoned with Skynet for a truce. However, as John was holding a [delete] button toward Skynet, it was Skynet that became suspicious toward John until the two finally had a truce to end the War.
- In Terminator Genisys, upon seeing Pops, a reprogrammed T-800, Kyle Reese tried to kill him as Kyle had no knowledge that a Terminator could be reprogrammed, but Kyle was stopped by both Sarah Connor and Pops. Later, Kyle expressed that he did not trust Pops for several times until they were rescued by Pops from the T-3000 John Connor.
- In Terminator: Dark Fate, Dani Ramos and Grace Harper decided to seek help from Carl and he agreed to help. However, Sarah Connor was extremely upset and opposed the idea, as Carl was the T-800 who killed John Connor. Sarah eventually agreed after Dani had a talk with her.
- In Terminator Zero, Eiko doesn't trust Misaki especially after discovering that the latter's a machine. However as they're on the same side against the Terminator, she has no choice but to past the Terminatrix a MP5.
Note[]
- Though not an example like above section, in The Terminator: Enemy of my Enemy, the former CIA operative Farrow Greene made an agreement with the T-800 to worked together to get their mutual target: Dr. Elise Fong. Greene broke the deal by taking Fong away and the T-800 expressed "annoyed" toward Greene.