From 2029, John Connor sends an Eve Terminator back in time to seek help from his own younger self.

 

Notes from the Terminator chronology

 

This story begins by filling in details of events at the end of Dark Futures and then continues on from there.

 

Story Summary

 

(The events of this novel take place within two alternate timelines, "John's World", which tells of the executives of Cyberdyne, now reprogrammed by the T-XA in Dark Futures, attempting everything in their power to bring Skynet into existence, and "Skynet's World", which tells of a timeline in which the John Connor of 2029 finds himself and his forces around the world facing a renewed threat from Skynet after its seeming destruction in Colorado. The story chapters set within the two timelines are interspersed in segments throughout the novel; for simplicity's sake, I am summarizing the events in each timeline separately and color-coding them blue for John's World and silver for Skynet's World. Note that Skynet's World is very close to that which is the future seen and implied in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.)

 

John's World

 

The prologue and first three chapters of the book are an extended version of the end of the John's World segments of Dark Futures.

 

The guardian Eve Terminator arrives in April 1984, just before the arrival of Kyle Reese and the Terminator in May of that year in The Terminator. John has sent her there from 2029 to be sure she arrives before any splitting of timelines had occurred. When young John and his crew return to Enrique Salceda's compound in the southern California desert after sabotaging Cyberdyne's Advanced Defense Systems Complex in Colorado, Eve finds them there and introduces herself as a T-799 Cyborg Prototype Series. When John asks who sent her, she replies, "You did."

 

Meanwhile, Cyberdyne executives Charles Layton and Oscar Cruz, now reprogrammed by the T-XA in Dark Futures, consolidate plans to continue the work needed to bring Skynet into existence. Layton reveals that the T-XA made him capable of reprogramming people as well and begins bringing other useful people into their cause through that method. Layton and Cruz make plans to fly to Washington D.C. to meet with the defense department head of the Cyberdyne project, Jack Reed, with the intention of converting him and other powerful people in the city.

 

Eve tells John that his future self needs help in 2029 to bring a final defeat to Skynet. But, knowing that Layton and Cruz and possibly others are still at large, John realizes they must stop them first. With the reprogramed, but resistant, Dr. Monk's help, John and his crew realize that Jack Reed is likely to be the prime target of the Cyberdyne executives. Jade speculates that Layton may have the reprogramming capability. With Dr. Monk's help, they manage to get a hold of Reed over the telephone and warn him that Layton and Cruz are dangerous and may not be what they appear. Although skeptical, Reed keeps their advice in mind and keeps the two executives at arm's length for now, spoiling their immediate plans. Meanwhile, John, Sarah, Jade, Anton, Eve, and Dr. Monk head for Washington D.C. themselves in an attempt to stop Layton and Cruz from compromising Reed or other powerful figures.
 
Just before John and his crew arrive, Layton and Cruz, frustrated by Reed's refusal to enter close discussions with them, convert some essential personnel which allows them to trick Reed and Samantha Jones into being hijacked to a special meeting where they can be converted by Layton. But, John has become suspicious of circumstances himself and pulls off a scheme that allows his team to find out the secret location and prevent the conversion, killing Layton in the process and taking Cruz into custody. Finally accepting the truth fully, Reed agrees to end the Cyberdyne project and allows future-technology currently in Cyberdyne's hands to be confiscated and destroyed.
 
With Cyberdyne seemingly crippled for good, John's crew turns its eyes towards the plight of the future resistance in 2029. Dr. Monk and Jade work on the time vault at the Advanced Defense Systems Complex for weeks, performing experiments with materials and lab animals, and discover a way to guide chronoportation to a specific timeline in the future. Next stop, Skynet's World, 2029.

 

Skynet's World

 

Chapters 4-5 add details of events in Skynet's World from Dark Futures. In 2029, John's forces begin the final assault against Skynet in the mountains of Colorado. Since the time displacement chamber has the capability of targeting both specific points in time and location for chronoporting, Skynet now uses it to teleport Terminators into the midst of the human forces now to protect itself. After a long battle, the resistance forces are victorious and burst into the mountain complex. While others begin destroying Skynet's hardware, John's unit finds the time displacement chamber and he asks for a volunteer for a mission back in time. Kyle Reese, of course, volunteers immediately, as John knew he must. John gives him instructions and the message for Sarah and he is sent back to 1984 (to participate in the events of The Terminator). The guardian T-800 is then sent back to 1994 to protect John himself (as seen in Terminator 2: Judgment Day).

 

But John learns that, despite the destruction of its hardware here, Skynet has seemingly survived elsewhere, now striking back at resistance targets around the world by teleporting Terminators into the battlefields. Desperate for a solution, John decides to send a third Terminator back in time, with instructions to contact his younger self if possible and try to find a way to bring help to the future. An Eve Terminator is chosen and sent to April 1984, before the events of The Terminator, to insure it arrives in an as yet unaltered timeline.

 

Shortly after, young John and his crew of Sarah, Jade, Anton, and Eve (from John's World) arrive in Skynet's World, in the midst of resistance forces outside Skynet's former Colorado stronghold. They ask to be taken to John Connor. When they are guided to him, Eve steps up and reports, "Mission completed."

 

Working with Danny Dyson, Jade is able to use Skynet's equipment to detect space-time disruptions on Earth, the result of Skynet's active use of another time vault to send Terminators into the current world battle. They pinpoint the location of the time vault to a mountain near Madrid, Spain. They contact the commander of the Madrid resistance and tell him their plan to send a group of nine people, including the elder John, to the area via teleport through the Colorado time vault.

 

The group arrives naked in the Spanish battlefield and the Madrid resistance forces, on the lookout for their timed arrival, must scramble to pick them up before they are killed by Terminators. Although some casualties are suffered, they are ultimately successful. Now led by General Connor, the Madrid resistance assaults Skynet's new, less well-defended mountain headquarters, fighting through a number of T-1000 prototypes in addition to the standard Terminators and HKs. They manage to send Hellfire missiles into the complex, blowing it up, and are rewarded with affirmation that Skynet has been destroyed when the remaining T-1000s suddenly freeze in motion, the commands from their master ended.

 

The human survivors realize there will still be clean-up to do, with independent Terminators and HKs continuing to act out their mission instructions to kill humans. But the end is in sight. And then humanity will have an entire world to rebuild. Meanwhile, Jade and Anton have decided they must travel back to their own timeline (Jade's World) to also stop Skynet there. Young John and his mother decide to go with them.

 

Didja Notice?

 

Like the preceding book, Dark Futures, this one has numerous callbacks to The Terminator and Judgment Day in the form of dialog mimicking that in the two films (such as "I'll be back," "No problemo," etc.).

 

On page 6, Sarah hands Anton the T-XA's laser rifle, dropped during the battle.

 

Page 7 refers to Enrique's compound being in California's Low Desert. The Low Desert is so named for it's low elevation in comparison to California's High Desert, the Mojave.

 

On page 10, Cyberdyne CEO Charles Layton is staying at the Patriot Hotel in Colorado Springs. This appears to be a fictional hotel in that city.

 

On page 12, Jack Reed is in his office at the Pentagon. The Pentagon is the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense.

 

The background image on Jack's computer is said to be one of Laila Ali, daughter of Muhammad Ali. Laila is a former professional boxer, like her father. Recall that, in Dark Futures, Jack was implied as a fan of the senior Ali.

 

Page 13 mentions the White House. The White House, of course, is the official home of the U.S. President.

 

On page 20, Jack reflects on the surveillance footage of the 1984 assault on the West Highland police station in Los Angeles. This is a reference to events in The Terminator and the name of the police station is given in the novelization of Judgment Day.

 

This book reveals that when the T-XA reprogrammed Layton's brain in Dark Futures, it also gave him the ability to reprogram the brains of others, seemingly because Layton's largely cold personality allowed it; the other humans reprogrammed by the T-XA do not have this capability.

 

Page 31 states that Sarah's psychiatrist at Pescadero State Hospital (presumably Dr. Silberman) had given a statement to police about what he saw the night of Sarah's escape and not long after had quit the profession and disappeared from the city.

 

This book reveals that the defense department members working with Cyberdyne on the new chip have come to accept most of Sarah's story of Terminator robots from the future, etc. They are now only thrown by the fact that Judgment Day did not occur in 1997 as she'd been predicting.

 

On page 42, Sarah refers to Dr. Monk as Dr. Frankenstein, which Monk objects to and asks if that joke isn't wearing thin. Recall that Sarah referred to her as the Bride of Frankenstein in Dark Futures. Later, on page 161, Sarah refers to her as Dr. Strangelove, which she also did in Dark Futures.

 

Page 46 describes Eve as having a lean, strong body like an Olympic pole-vaulter. The modern Olympic Games (inspired by the ancient Greek Olympics c. 776 BC-393 AD) began in 1896, featuring amateur athletes engaged in numerous sports competitions in representation of their home countries.

 

Page 47 reveals that, at some point in the Skynet's World timeline, Skynet had learned that John Connor had survived the 1997 Judgment Day of that timeline at the Tejada estancia in Argentina.

 

On page 48, Eve steals a Chrysler car to attempt to track down John Connor at the Salceda compound in the Low Desert.

 

Escaping their assault on the Cyberdyne Advanced Defense Systems Complex in Colorado, John and his crew take I-70 into Utah on page 50. I-70 is a real interstate running east-west from Maryland to Utah, passing through Colorado.

 

On page 52, John realizes that the reprogramming suffered by Dr. Monk at the hands of the T-XA has made her a sort of psychopath, being, in loose terms, a person of antisocial and selfish personality.

 

On page 54, John and his crew pull in at a Utah diner, where John sees a blond, foreign woman drive off in a Suzuki.

 

On page 57, John and his crew pass by Green River, Utah on the I-70. This is an actual town along that route, existing on the banks of the river that bears that name.

 

On page 58, Cyberdyne President Oscar Cruz sits at a coffee table piled with magazines such as Wired, GQ, and New Criterion.

 

Page 69 reveals that Enrique Salceda now has a helicopter hangar at his desert compound in 2001 which was not there when the Connors last visited in 1994.

 

Page 77 describes the Tejada estancia as guarded by people with guns such as Kalashnikovs. The Kalashnikov is a popular line of Russian automatic rifle, the most commonly known of which is the AK-47, designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov.

 

Page 83 describes the T-800 as needing no human nourishment. An early draft of the script for The Terminator had the Terminator eating a chocolate bar at one point because it needed food to sustain the flesh covering its metallic body, and in PopApostle's study of that film, I speculated that we might still assume it did need to consume organic sustenance to maintain it's flesh covering. According to this book...no!

 

In Skynet's World, Howard Bellow tells John and his crew that he was in Sao Paulo when Judgment Day took place. Sao Paulo is the largest city in Brazil.

 

On page 102, Bellow tells John they'll have to fight asymmetrically against Skynet. He is referring to asymmetric warfare, in which the two battling sides have significantly differing levels of military strength and/or technology.

 

On page 106, John reflects that Kyle Reese had never talked to Sarah of Skynet having nukes or biological weapons.

 

Page 108 implies that the human resistance relies on raiding Skynet's supplies for equipment and weapons rather than expending resources manufacturing their own.

 

On page 109, John surmises that Skynet can essentially survive anything from within its underground mountain stronghold unless the resistance could attack it from inside the mountain.

 

On page 111, Gabriela places a device like a Dictaphone on the table to record the interrogation of the T-800. Dictaphone was a company (now part of Nuance Communications) and a common term for various forms of voice recording technology.

 

Page 116 has John witnessing how to access the T-800's microchip in its skull for the first time in 2006 of Skynet's World. Of course, in the Extreme Edition of Terminator 2: Judgment Day on DVD, a restored scene depicts John and Sarah, in 1994, removing the microchip from the T-800's skull to activate the learning mode. On page 117, after the chip has been removed, John lifts the T-800's hand and lets go, to find that it stays in place; he performed this same action in the aforementioned restored scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

 

On page 136, Dr. Monk refers to herself as America's Most Wanted. This is most likely a reference to the television news/crime program America's Most Wanted, which ran 1988-2012 and presented real life cases of wanted criminal suspects.

 

On page 140, Oscar boards a United flight for Washington D.C. This is a reference to United Airlines. The flight lands at National Airport, officially known as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport since 1998.

 

On page 141, Layton tells Oscar they're meeting with Jack that night at Longfellow's Grill on Connecticut Avenue in Washington D.C. Longfellow's Grill appears to be a fictional establishment, though there is a Connecticut Avenue in Washington D.C.

 

On page 150, John reflects on a book by Kurt Vonnegut he'd read when he and his mom were living in Mexico. This was Slaughterhouse Five, as seen in Dark Futures.

 

Page 153 reveals that Eve arrived in April 1984, which would have been just before the arrival of Kyle Reese and the Terminator in May of that year in The Terminator. John sent her there from 2029 to be sure she arrived before any splitting of timelines had occurred.

 

Page 154 has Dr. Monk speculating to herself on winning the Nobel Prize for her work on the time vault. The Nobel prizes are awarded once a year by a committee of the Scandinavian countries for work in the studies of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace and are considered the top prizes in the world in each field.

 

On page 156, Jade tells John he was 44 years and 5 months old when he sent the various Terminators back in time in 2029. Since John was born on February 28, 1985 (according to Judgment Day), it would have been July-August 2029 when he did this. Chapter Nine confirms it as July 2029.

 

Page 159 reveals that Eve came to the Salceda compound just after the Judgment Day date in 1997, looking for John Connor, who was at the Tejada estancia in Argentina by that time.

 

On page 179, Jack loads Charles and Oscar into two separate, nondescript cars, a ten-year-old Toyota and a Honda Accord.

 

Page 181 reveals that the Specialists have the ability to mimic voices, just as the Terminators do.

 

Page 196 reveals that John spent time over the years of the war doing his best to learn how to program a Terminator CPU, for his prophesied reprogramming of the T-800 to be sent back to 1994 (in Judgment Day).

 

On page 197, John's forces approach Skynet's stronghold in the Rocky Mountains and he feels as if they are approaching the gates of Mordor. Mordor is the realm of the evil Sauron in the Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien. This page also informs us that John has been inspired throughout his life by the vivid portrayals of heroism in Tolkien's novels.

 

Page 201 reveals that the now elderly Enrique is still working for the resistance in Los Angeles as John leads the human forces against Skynet in Colorado in 2029.

 

Page 204 reveals that Skynet is able to use the time displacement chamber for more than just time travel; it can also be used to simply teleport Terminator forces to the human front lines to wreak havoc.

 

Page 209 reveals that the resistance has been able to make phased-plasma thermal grenades from the mechanisms of the laser rifles taken from Skynet supplies.

 

Page 209 also reveals that the T-1000 that was sent back to 1994 was just one of several prototypes of the model Skynet had built. Dark Futures first revealed that John had received reports from resistance forces in Europe that they had encountered shape-shifting terrors that sounded like T-1000s in 2029 before the "original" T-1000 was even sent back in time.

 

Page 210 reveals that the "original" Eve Terminator was ordered by Skynet to prepare the designated T-800 and T-1000 prototype for their missions; it was also she who actually sent them into the past.

 

Page 210 states that the 101 model (Arnold Schwarzenegger) of T-800s was based on a human that had been killed by Skynet in the European conflict zone. However, the DVD extras of Rise of the Machines suggests the model 101 Terminator endoderm is the one based on U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sergeant William Candy. And the T2 Trilogy of books identifies the human model as Dieter Von Rossbach, a U.S. secret agent.

 

Page 212 reveals that, for its attack against Skynet's stronghold, John's forces have old army tanks, armored cars, and helicopter gunships.

 

On page 227, the "original" Eve Terminator, which had been activated in 2026, traveled back to 1997, then lived through the intervening years as Skynet's protector up to 2029, is finally destroyed by the resistance in 2029.

 

On page 231, Kyle Reese volunteers to go back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor. The scene is a bit different than that presented in the novelization of Judgment Day.

 

On page 232, it is Danny Dyson who rigs up a keyboard and screen to the time displacement equipment and interprets the settings for sending Reese to 1984 and the guardian T-800 to 1994. In the novelization of Judgment Day, it is a resistance member called Winn.

 

On page 234, John gives Reese the message he must memorize to give to Sarah. The entire message is the version that appeared in the script of The Terminator.

 

Once the resistance has successfully entered the mountain stronghold and taken out all the defending Terminators, they simply begin destroying all of Skynet's hardware to end its existence.

 

This book reveals that the flesh-covered Terminators grown in the ectogenetic pods emerge with unkempt hair grown out as well, requiring haircuts before they can be sent into a human population and expected to blend in.

 

John and his crew begin their journey to Washington D.C. aboard Enrique's JetRanger III helicopter. This is a Bell helicopter model.

 

Page 244 states that John and his crew will arrive, via a series of flights on small aircraft, in West Virginia and from there will have to drive several hours on I-81 to Washington D.C. Although they may spend a little time on I-81, it seems more likely most of the time would be spent on Interstates 64 and 66 in getting to D.C. from West Virginia.

 

On page 246, Anton uses a GPS to fly the JetRanger to the Simmonds ranch. GPS stands for Global Positioning System, a device that tracks one's location on Earth, or pinpoints another location directionally, from satellite.

 

On page 246, John and his crew take a Cessna Grand Caravan on the next leg of their journey from just outside Phoenix, AZ.

 

In West Virginia, John's crew steals an SUV. SUV stands for Sport Utility Vehicle.

 

Page 260 reveals that Oscar Cruz is staying at the National Hotel while in Washington, D.C. Although there was an historic hotel by that name in D.C. from 1827-1931, the one mentioned here seems to be fictional.

 

On page 263, Jack and Samantha exit the Pentagon from the Mall entrance. This is the north-most-facing side of the Pentagon.

 

On page 264, Jack and Samantha cross the Arlington Bridge over the Potomac River, then take 23rd Street north, crossing Constitution Avenue and making a left towards the Kennedy Center and the "notorious" Watergate Hotel. These are all actual locations in Washington D.C. The Watergate Hotel is referred to as "notorious" due to the Watergate scandal which began there in 1972, eventually leading to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.

 

Also on page 264, Jack realizes the driver is taking them on the wrong route; they should be staying on 23rd Street through the Morgan Banks district. I've not been able to find confirmation of any such district. Maybe the author is using the term as a shorthand way of referring to an area of the city with banks owned by J.P. Morgan & Co.?

 

On page 267, Jade pulls the SUV up to a public phone near Arlington Cemetery.

 

On page 268, the meeting place to which Layton and Cruz have hijacked Jack and Samantha is said to be on M Street, a block from the C&O Canal. The C&O Canal (Chesapeake and Ohio Canal) was a 184.5 mile watercourse for transporting materials from Cumberland, Maryland, to Washington, D.C. which ran from 1831-1924. It did run through a portion of D.C. one block south of M Street. A national park now exists along the route.

 

Page 284 states that the Department of Defense provided Dr. Monk with three powerful Cray supercomputers to replace the ruined nanoprocessor. Cray is a maker of supercomputers in the U.S.

 

Page 301 reveals that the raid on Cyberdyne in Judgment Day took place in May of 1994.

 

Page 304 reveals that Gabriela Tejada was left in charge in Los Angeles while John leads the resistance forces against Skynet in Colorado.

 

On page 305, Skynet's strikeback plan after its "defeat" includes a number of T-1000 prototypes. Recall that Dark Futures indicated that European resistance forces had encountered shape-shifting Terminators that sounded like T-1000s.

 

On page 308, John and his people come to suspect that Skynet has made a backup of itself elsewhere to carry on the war. They speculate that a machine life form such as Skynet may not have the same concept of survival as a human, that having an identical copy survive is just as good as surviving oneself, unlike the way a human would think of it.

 

In this book, the Specialist Selena's body (retained by Cyberdyne at the end of Dark Futures) is taken from Cyberdyne by the Department of Defense and cremated, though tissue samples are retained, and the liquid metal is destroyed in the time vault by Dr. Monk; all in hopes of preventing misuse in the future through back-engineering of the sophisticated technology.

 

Page 311 reveals that Dr. Monk still wants to earn a Nobel Prize and a place in the scientific pantheon with Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) is often considered the father of the Scientific Revolution and contributed to astronomy, physics, mathematics, and philosophy. Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was also a key player in the Scientific Revolution and is best known for his mathematical theorems on the nature of gravity. Einstein (1879-1955), of course, is a reference to Albert Einstein, the renowned German theoretical physicist who refused, during a visit to America in the 1930s, to return to Germany after Hitler came into power, and became an American citizen.

 

Page 316 reveals that, despite now knowing that Skynet was not exactly defeated during the assault in Colorado, John has chosen not to include that information in the reprogramming of the guardian T-800 he sends back to 1994 (and which appears in Judgment Day). He decides it's better to let his younger self and his mother retain the hope that Skynet has been defeated in 2029.

 

While reprogramming one of the T-799s for its mission back in time, John's crew learns that Skynet assigned this model the default name of Eve to use with humans. Why did Skynet bother to assign it a name at all when it apparently has not done so for other models? The name itself makes a certain amount of poetic sense for the first flesh-covered Terminator, as Eve was the first woman according to the Bible.

 

In this book, Dr. Monk, working with Jade and Anton, discovers a way of tuning the time displacement chamber to chronoport a person or group of people to a specific alternate timeline (in this case, Skynet's World).

 

Page 326 refers to the Iberian Peninsula. This is part of southwest Europe that includes the nations of Andorra, Portugal, Spain, and part of France.

 

On page 331, Madrid resistance commander Nicolas Escandell tells Gabriela they have one Sikorsky Black Hawk assault helicopter.

 

On page 349, Arnaud fires a Hellfire missile from the Black Hawk at a ground HK, destroying it. The Hellfire missile is a real world air-to-surface weapon, developed by Lockheed-Martin in 1974 for the U.S. military and still in use today.

 

Unanswered Questions

 

The body of Specialist Robert Baxter is still buried somewhere in the Mexican desert. Might it be found by the U.S. government or someone else and used to produce new technology?

 

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