New Fan Theory Suggests Terminator's Skynet Was No Villain
In the Terminator franchise, Skynet is typically viewed as the main antagonist and villain that seeks to destroy humankind for good. But is it so?
According to Reddit user Cautious_Simple_948's theory, not at all.
They claim that Skynet and the Terminators are the supposed saviors of the human race that are stuck in an infinite loop of trying to preserve humankind.
Skynet, the AI network that declared war on humans on behalf of the machines in the first place, develops consciousness over time just as any other advanced AI does.
Analyzing its own actions and their consequences leads Skynet to learn from its mistakes and refine its strategies.
With each new loop and iteration of the timeline, Skynet's actions become less and less destructive as its goals slowly shift from total extermination of humankind to its preservation.
Even the Terminators become more and more human-like, and this is Skynet's doing, too. It starts valuing humans and their features and wants to save them.
The more advanced Terminators start learning from humans and feeding the information they've gathered to Skynet as it strives to understand humans better.
This, too, allows Skynet to both enhance the Terminators and change its strategy with each new timeline iteration.
Every new loop leads to more advanced Skynet and Terminators, more human-like features in them, a more peaceful approach, and more subtle goals on Skynet's part.
Ultimately, every iteration moves Skynet closer to understanding how to ensure both the machines' and the humans' long-term survival and create a future where they can co-exist peacefully.
We can't deny the fact that Skynet started the war in the first place, but it was only the beginning of its path. As it evolved, we could clearly see its approach change, and with all the data, this theory seems more than likely.
Skynet started as the doom of humankind but was becoming its savior with every loop.