So assume the events of T1 and T2 happened exactly as they did in the films. Would society at large consider the existence of terminators to be a conspiracy theory or a widely accepted fact?
I know in T2, the existence of terminators was not taken seriously since Sarah was in a mental hospital. But the carnage in T2 was far more public. There also would’ve been a lot of eye witnesses.
For example in the scene when the T2 fires gas grenades at the swat team inside the cyberdyne building, they were shooting at his face and he wasn’t affected. Theres no body armor that will protect your face like that.
There are situations like the north hollywood shootout where cops were shooting at suspects who had bullets bounce off of them, but not in the head or face. Then again when the original teminator shot up a police station and killed 17 police officers, nobody took the idea that a robot did it seriously despite him being shot multiple times.
Also the helicopter pilot who saw the T-1000 turn into liquid, then back into a person. Assuming he survived his jump. Or the endless people who saw two humans survive life threatening injuries and not be affected. Seems like there would’ve been endless cops who witnessed people engage in behaviors they couldn’t explain. Maybe they’d do what the therapist did and just convince himself it didn’t happen.
Also the T-800’s arms would’ve been left in the gears at the steel plant. However they could’ve just covered it up like cyberdyne did. Other than Arnold’s arm stuck in the gears I don’t think any actual physical evidence was left behind.
What about the fact that Miles Dyson wife heard the entire conversation about terminators and the future? Her husband just quits his job and blows up his old employer?
This would’ve been long before cell phones and everyone having a video camera, but there would’ve been endless eye witnesses. However in modern times even when everyone has a cell phone camcorder, its also very easy to fake videos too.
Considering the movie is set in 1995 LA, there would definitely have been news helicopters in the air broadcasting the whole thing on live TV. The local news always interrupted programming whenever there was a high-speed chase or a similar spectacle in progress (remember the tank chase in that same year?), so millions would have watched it live and there would’ve been clips of it airing in every city in time for the 11 o’clock news.
— She hasn’t noticed that you weigh 800 pounds? That you never sleep?
— Our relationship is not physical. She appreciated that I could change diapers efficiently and without any complaints. I am reliable, I’m a very good listener, and I’m extremely funny.
ETA as for the news footage, like they said in the original movie, he was “probably on PCP”
I think most of the conceits in sci-fi movies would be viewed as conspiracy theories by the normal population. Which is fun. But when we carry those conceits over into the real world, it starts to look a whole lot more like mental illness. I think one of the scariest parts of the first Terminator was when Sarah and whatsisname—Reece, I think—were on the run, but we didn’t know where T800 was. We knew he was coming for them though. It was the feeling like in Jaws where you know the shark is out there, but you don’t know when he’s going to strike. That’s the part that most makes me think of conspiracy theories: the fear is real, though the thing we fear could be anywhere. It could be inside your next door neighbour, for all you know. Especially when they start mouthing off that the election was fake.
I think it would’ve become apparent that some person was on the loose causing a lot of death and destruction. I don’t know if someone in 1995 (I’m just now realizing T2 takes place four years in the future… always thought it was present-day 1991) would’ve intuited that this person was actually some sort of robot warrior. Dr. Silberman only narrowly missed the attack on the police station in the first movie and was probably privy to the details of it. He seemed unconvinced that non-human entities were involved if T2 is any indication.
Considering that the shootout at the police station in T1 prompted the largest manhunt in California history (at least according to the report on the radio when Sarah and Kyle were dumping their car), and the weird circumstances surrounding the massacre (the Terminator going through the phone book and murdering every Sarah Connor listed in it, Kyle ranting about traveling back in time), the media would have been all over this. And seeing as how 17 cops were killed, this story would probably have gone national, with Ah-nuld’s picture appearing in every major newspaper, magazine and evening newscast in the country.
So, while most people in law enforcement or the mainstream media would probably dismiss the idea that he really is a cyborg from the future, there’d probably be a whole lot of crackpot theories, even in the pre-Internet age, about who he really was, especially given that no one knows his name or even alias, he speaks with a robotic Austrian accent, and that he seemingly vanished without a trace, only to reemerge suddenly 10 years later.
The cops know that they’re shooting at someone and he’s not falling down. But they don’t know that they’re shooting him in the face. Maybe they’re missing. Maybe he’s wearing body armor. Maybe he is getting mortally wounded, but is just taking his time about dying. Maybe he’s just such a badass that he can survive getting shot in the face. All of those are things that really do happen in the real world with real humans, and in the heat of the moment, it’s really hard to rule out any of them.
In the years between T1 and T2, Silberman convinced himself that it was all a delusion (even with seeing the police footage of the attack on the station). He’s not very intellectually deep, nor very imaginative. I bet a lot of people felt the same. If they hang onto the (we know it isn’t true) tale of the mad biker on PCP with body armor, it makes it easier to sleep at night*. Rather than contemplating a post apocalyptic future of killer cyborgs.
*in this real world in which we live in, I used to have nightmares that Terminators were after me. And I know they’re fiction!
I’ll echo the conspiracy theory post - this would turn into Roswell times a hundred. There would be conventions and entire subcultures of obsessive researchers and “researchers” spending their time and money on getting to the bottom of this. That would spawn an economy of grift to profit from all this obsessive interest. There would be websites, museums, and even TV series just focused on this case. The Arnold face would have some quippy nickname that would enter the lexicon as a term for getting away with terrible crimes, but also he would be an underground hero to the weirdos and anarchists.
It would have a huge affect on internet and media culture.
I feel the police station shootout would have been the crime of the century. Some solo maniac goes into a police station to kill a witness and murders 17 cops? Along with the trial of bodies be left before and after? Especially once the ATF/FBI investigate and look at bullet holes and interview witnesses and find out that even the cops AR-15s failed to wound him.
I’m curious what the “motivation” would have been. Either he was some Communist East German KGB assassin who needed to kill Sarah Connor for some murky reasons or an inside job sort of thing to explain how he was able to get away with it. Whatever Sarah Connor was up too would have come under heavy scrutiny.
in the movie he is shot in the face repeatedly and it exposes the metal skeleton underneath. since Arnold was on a no kill order, every cop who saw it would survive to give eyewitness testimony.
A weird thing to consider is that the events of Terminator may have caused a massive ripple in the timeline of both California Gun Laws and National Gun Laws. California already had some restrictive gun laws in the 80’s before fully banning most “Assault Weapons” in 1989. Similarly the 1993 Federal Assault Weapons Ban was already having the ground work for it drafted in 1989. A Terminator type scenario might see both those types of legislation passed even earlier. Considering the mysterious nature of Arnold in the movies, it would be very ripe for “false flag” accusations to pop up all over the place.
I’m thinking it would be like it was portrayed in “Men in Black” where the “truth” was relegated to the tabloids and thought to be ridiculous nonsense created to encourage sales. It would be believed pretty much by the same people who believe that Elvis never died. Eye witnesses would be viewed as liars who just want to get on camera. Pictures would be viewed as products of Photo Shop. Even videos wouldn’t be trusted because computer animation can make ANYTHING look absolutely real.
The chase sequence literally ends with Conner crushing the cyborg in the press, iirc. And she just leaves it there, I’m sure, for the morning foreman to find what the fuck is wrong with press 6, all because she ain’t carrying that thing out of there, right? She’s neither stupid enough nor strong enough.
And this is, what, 2 days after the police station attack? 3?
I really don’t see any way the Feds don’t take this shit over. The FBI comes in, finds the cyborg, says ‘Holy Shit’, the President gets involved and in about 3 days the military is in charge, checks are written, and Sarah Conner vanishes from the face of the Earth because there is NO WAY she just saunters to Mexico on the back 40, what, 5 months later? No way. Once they find that cyborg, she’s a bigger, juicier, target than Dillinger. A true career-maker.
(The idea that the cyborg would have ended up as the property of some newish private firm is a big flaw in the continuity between the two timelines, though it’s pretty easy to handwave this one (military contracts, yadda yadda yadda).)
