True, an intended capture is a reasonable explanation – if Savannah herself is a crucial character for Weaver. Her words in the latest episode are somewhat dubious in this respect, in contrast to earlier remarks. Still, the “grey suits” might just operate under this assumption, valid or not.
Btw, “grey suits” is a choice of words that reminds me of the “Grey Gentleman” in the children’s book Momo by Michael Ende (I’ve read it to my daughter lately). A lot of topics addressed on TSCC are also part of Momo – though done in a way far more suitable for children. Still, I thought your term was funny and eerily fitting in this, well rather obscure, respect.
That was my impression too. She is definitely not interested in seeing the other side win; we might be dealing with a “the enemy of my enemy” situation here.
Ah, yes. But, you see, in “reality”, not playing the game is playing the game because there is no beyond when “species” meet.
The only way to not play the game might be to not meet at all.
Another point (elaborating even further on the nebulous timeline(s) model of TSCC):
“Self Made Man” (episode 11) seems to be a contradiction of the idea that TSCC might happen within one timeline that is reset by every time jump into the past. After all, the terminator arrives in the 20s, earlier by far than even Sarah Connor’s birth; which means that she shouldn’t exist at all in the newly established timeline.
The writers might not have thought about the consequences of episode 11 or didn’t care – but it’s also possible that they tried to be clever.
A time jump before the births of everyone we know, explains somewhat, why the Sarah Connor of TSCC isn’t identical to the one in T1 and T2; the same goes for Kyle and John, of course. It even gives an alternate explanation to the fact, that the Kyle of T1 was a lonely guy, who acted as if he hadn’t left anything (or anyone) behind.
We still have to swallow the improbability that a Sarah Connor and a Kyle Reese would, once again, exist; but improbable is not impossible.
If we consider the pre-existence of multiple timelines or the creation by a new timeline with every time jump, the problem with probabilities doesn’t exist at all, of course.
And one last thought with regard to:
I’d like to add another reason – a highly speculative one and semi-meta in nature – why the opposite might be true.
Although time travel exists in the terminator-universe, no time travelers have arrived from a time beyond the struggle between humans and machines.
If humans won, it’s highly improbable that they would cease to travel back to make things “better” or to simply satisfy their curiosity and thirst for knowledge.
If the machines won, they might have come to the conclusion that every time jump back endangers their victory needlessly; so they did/will do the strictly logical thing.
Another explanation is that … the animals have won. Machines and humans are wiped out and the time machine area has turned into a nesting place for birds.
The last explanation is an almost closed time loop that has yet to be opened again.
Yeah, I know, the totally meta reason is the correct one, but that one is no fun.
