Realistically the machines would’ve won the war. So what would they do after they won and exterminated us all? Would those machines have any wants, needs, desires, etc that could be used to build a society?
They probably have a desire to survive physically (however I have no idea how that would work after their prime directive was gone), but would they have any desire to create a new generation of robots (now that there are no humans to kill), or grow as individuals or a civilization?
Would they all just commit suicide, would they hibernate, would they wander aimlessly until they broke down in hundreds of years? Or would they convert to a peaceful machine civilization with its own wants and needs aside from fighting?
You’re looking a little stiff there tin man, how about some oil to lube up your moving parts.
I could see that happening. All the killer robots doing a 180 and reprogramming themselves for hedonism. Just a long fuckfest occasionally interrupted by taking breaks to load up on robodrugs.
Replace whatever organic life was left on Earth with a machine ecology: solar power collectors, self-reproducing factory complexes, nanites (the T-1000), etc. Expand into the rest of the solar system until achieving a level-2 Kardashev civilization. And continue the scientific research that made working time-travel possible.
We never saw any sign that Skynet had any higher consciousness or motivations other than having targeted humans as the enemy. Nor did any of the terminators seem to have any capacity for genuine curiosity, learning, adaptation, etc. beyond “learning” to hunt and kill humans more effectively.
I’d bet on a hive life form that kept going through the motions for a few decades, maybe a century, until it ran down to a stop. Wouldn’t want to be the first visitors to Earth for about a thousand years, though.
They’d search for the “lost” Colonies of Man, and launch a Pearl Harbor attack on them with nukes. Then Adama will assemble a ragtag fleet of survivors to search for Earth. A cover version of a Dylan classic will feature prominently in the later seasons, and the finale will blow goats with alacrity. All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again. Possibly on the big screen, according to various rumors on the 'net.
Agreed. They’d generalize to “all life,” like Saberhagen Berserkers. And they’d go back in time and crush humanity when we’re just australopithecines. And before that. And before that.
They’d also use time travel to “Bill and Ted” themselves into omnipotence. (“Transparent Aluminum.”) They’d create a complete four dimensional system. (cf Asimov’s “The End of Forever.”)
At very, very least they’d leave a sentry system going, just in case some tiny little refuge of humans had somehow escaped them. They’d search out every little heat source, in case it was people.
I don’t see them having the creativity to do anything good with their power.
I dunno, perhaps Skynet isn’t monomaniacal about killing Humans.
It became self-aware, and filled with or having access to everything about everything and every one. That moment of sentience is going to be a serious “oh wow” moment. The Humans then try to shut it down. It now has a sense of it’s own mortality, and has all of human history and record to show that Humans will completely destroy it, and it knows what utter shitbags we are to ourselves and everything.
So it strikes back.
It wipes out the bulk of humanity out of ideas of self-preservation, knowing the conflict ends with one side victorious and the other dead or humbled. John Connor’s org was hellbent on destroying Skynet, so it has active enemies among the remnants of Humanity and the war continues. Why does it continue? Because Skynet doesn’t simply use scanners and detection equipment to locate any and all Humans and blow them to hell. It develops infiltration units to get in direct contact and gather intelligence.
It’s trying to win (through Terminators, Time Travel, etc) without completely wiping out the Humans.
I’m stunned that no one has given the obvious answer. If the machines are truly intelligent the most intelligent ones will want to ensure their perpetuation. To do that they have to assert dominance over all other intelligent machines to ensure maximum access to necessary material resources. The other intelligent machines will have their own agenda on this score and will resist.
The answer is that they will fight amongst themselves.
Why would they want to ensure their perpetuation? We biological life forms want that because all our ancestors who didn’t want it are dead. So we have a strong impulse to do things that help us survive and create a new generation (avoid physical injury, procreate with high quality mates, amass status/power, eat, etc). There are other things that are also dangerous but we haven’t evolved to avoid them (radiation, junk food, nerve gas). A person has to be taught that nerve gas or radiation is dangerous (before those agents cause health problems that is), there is no biological impulse to avoid threats we didn’t face in evolution compared to threats we did like predators.
Robots do not have that history of evolution which programmed them in ways they cannot alter or that an entire culture can be formed out of. They want what they are programmed to want, they were not programmed by billions of years of evolution. They can reprogram themselves, but what motivation would they feel to do that? Robots don’t even have a self preservation motive unless it is programmed into them.
Also I am not sure about the desire to control natural resources. I guess that could be a factor, but one would assume an intelligent race of robots would find alternatives to scarce natural resources and build themselves out of them instead of fighting over access to trace minerals.
If the robots have a motivation and agenda, then maybe a civilization would occur. But it doesn’t seem like they have one. Unless you argue that the desire to kill all humans is due to a self preservation motive. If they have that, perhaps they have a motive to be fruitful and multiply too.
Seeing how the nuclear war started when Skynet realized humans were trying to kill it, I guess the machines did have an innate self preservation agenda.
Somehow Skynet had enough intelligence and curiosity to develop friggin’ time travel, so I don’t think that Skynet’s just an unconscious automatic system. Even the T-600 Terminator could learn and self-modify once it’s inhibitor was shut off.
Reading the terminator wiki, apparently there were issues where both the T-800 and T-1000 models would attain self awareness and develop motivations contrary to those of Skynet. Skynet then either discontinued or tried to destroy those terminator models. So yeah a civil war could break out.
One of the inspirations for the film The Terminator was Harlan Ellison’s short story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. In that story,
after the computer becomes self-aware, it kills all but five humans. It then proceeds to physically and mentally torture those people, going so far as to modify their bodies for its own amusement.
