[QUOTE=Ranchoth]
Add to that…technically, Skynet didn’t attack the U.S.: Russia did (after Skynet attacked them). If Skynet is willing to hold off on the wanton human exterminating for awhile, survivors might help it willingly—by convincing them that, as a legitimate government agent (Agency? Program?), it’s only trying to help get things back in order. And it only needs to build labor/kill bots and [del]death[/del] refugee [del]slave labor[/del] reconstruction centers in the interest of public safety, and domestic security.
[/QUOTE]
Well, it ignores the problems of time and resources. Practically speaking, it can’t be done. People were already on the shortwave saying that basically, you need to get out of likely-dangerous areas NOW. Dense urban centers couldn’t be full evacuated, but many suburban and rural areas would be fairly safe and could continue as before. The idea that Skynet could control them is pretty unlikely. And how will it communicate? It just blew up its own communications network, and the vast, vast majority of its brainpower.
But of course, if this were “actual practical land” it couldn’t have happened even granting the killer super-AI. There is no one system which can or could control even a few of the U.S. nuke arsenal. Skynet is an evil sorcerer; the terminators are basically golems.