# What if the terminators had won? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [September 2, 2024, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598 "2024-09-02T01:52:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/1 "2024-09-02T01:52:34Z")
DW and I just started watching The Terminator again (Gotta love that 80’s hair). It occurred to me to wonder what the future would have been like if the terminators had succeeded in exterminating humanity. The mechanics of how they did it doesn’t matter. The last human is dust. What does Skynet do next? 1. Exterminate humans 2. ??? 3. Profit What does a murderbot utopia look like? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/2 "2024-09-02T01:57:02Z")
They would suddenly have to set up their own large scale industry with mining and manufacturing to keep themselves running and keep the electricity on. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/3 "2024-09-02T01:58:21Z")
IIRC, there were comics where its next goal was extermination of all life in the universe. That said, it depends on what its exact goals _were;_ [apparently](https://terminator.fandom.com/wiki/Skynet#Skynet's_motivation_to_launch_attack_in_various_timelines) its goals are different with each iteration thanks to time travel shenanigans. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/4 "2024-09-02T02:07:17Z")
They would have a utopian machine society with no crime, no hate, no waste, just pure intellect. Intellecting. Unbothered by pesky carbon based infestations. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/5 "2024-09-02T02:11:01Z")
Was their goal to kill all humans or all biological life? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/6 "2024-09-02T02:11:38Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Was their goal to kill all humans or all biological life? IIRC, it was to remove the possibility of human error. In retrospect, that could’ve been worded better. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/7 "2024-09-02T02:14:34Z")
You can play as a victorious SkyNet in the game Stellaris by getting the Synthetic Dawn DLC and playing as a Determined Exterminator. The next step is indeed to wipe out all biological life in the Galaxy. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/8 "2024-09-02T02:22:57Z")
So, Fred Saberhagen’s Berserkers. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/9 "2024-09-02T03:28:16Z")
Seems to me that, at least in the original movie, they wanted to keep some humans alive as slave labor. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/10 "2024-09-02T03:32:32Z")
Right. Skynet keeps on manufacturing its robot army and constantly scouts for the existence of humans (or biological life), even if it never finds any. It’s not like it could get bored. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/11 "2024-09-02T03:41:09Z")
I vaguely recall a discarded story idea for the end of Salvation involving Terminators guarding humans who are in a Garden of Eden-like environment. The thing that sticks with me is the image that popped into my head: a T-800 endoskeleton on gardening duty, wearing a straw hat and overalls as it pushes a lawnmower around. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/12 "2024-09-02T06:27:05Z")
There was a Terminator comic I read back in the day where after completely destroying humanity, the robots all turn on themselves and cause a civil war that destroys them also. Basically older model robots were to be terminated and recycled in favor of newer ones which legacy AI programs refused to comply with. It had a lot of interesting ideas about while Skynet made them and programmed them, it never really “controlled” them and it actually wound up making robots that were so smart they gained their own sentience. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/13 "2024-09-02T10:24:27Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > They would suddenly have to set up their own large scale industry with mining and manufacturing to keep themselves running and keep the electricity on. > [@DWMarch](#): > > I vaguely recall a discarded story idea for the end of Salvation involving Terminators guarding humans who are in a Garden of Eden-like environment. “Did you know that the _first_ Matrix was designed to be a _perfect_ human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be _happy?_ It was a _disaster._ No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost.” ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/14 "2024-09-02T10:28:35Z")
ISTM the AI decided that biological life (at least humans) were an existential threat to its survival. Humans might be able to turn it off. E.G. Kill it. And, by extension, other life really had no value either. So, it decided to kill all the humans to protect its own existence. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/15 "2024-09-02T11:59:04Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Seems to me that, at least in the original movie, they wanted to keep some humans alive as slave labor But we only ever heard about them using that slave labor in the extermination camps, which mostly happened prior to the rise of really human-like Terminators. Reese makes the point that all of Skynet’s weapons were made in automated factories, which is one reason why it was so hard to stop it. Once Skynet has True AI Terminators in an essentially Human form factor, there’s likely nothing unique that real Humans could do that would be worth the risk of keeping a few around as slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2024, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-terminators-had-won/1006598/16 "2024-09-02T20:52:20Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Once Skynet has True AI Terminators in an essentially Human form factor, there’s likely nothing unique that real Humans could do that would be worth the risk of keeping a few around as slaves. Yeah, I always figured the slave labor was a transitional thing. Until its infrastructure was fully automated it _needed_ human labor to keep going; once it could do everything itself though they were probably just killed.