# What would skynet and the terminators have done after they won the war **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 20, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570 "2014-07-20T00:28:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/21 "2014-07-20T17:34:37Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > 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. "Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. " “I know now why you cry. But it’s something I can never do.” ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/22 "2014-07-20T17:48:49Z")
They kill us off, but then they get bored, so they recreate us to play with. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/23 "2014-07-20T17:50:55Z")
IIRC, in one of the “Robocop vs. Terminator” comics, one of Skynet’s post-victory plans (visualized on-panel) was to expand out into space, and send armies of Terminators (in skull-shaped starships!) to seek out at destroy all organic life, before it could become a threat. 'Probably the closest to a “canon” answer, aside from the appearance of a machine faction in The Sarah Connor Chronicles that apparently wanted peace with humanity (details were a bit murky. And then the show was cancelled). Skynet had some issues. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/24 "2014-07-20T17:55:15Z")
They start opening portals to alternate universes. They encounter an alternate universe’s version of the Voyager 6 probe, boost its capabilities, and send it on its way. It becomes V’Ger and meets Captain Kirk. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/25 "2014-07-20T17:56:19Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Malev 6. Not if Magnus has anything to say about it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/26 "2014-07-20T18:07:06Z")
> [@AncientHumanoid](#): > > Disneyland! > > I hear they esp liked that animatronic Lincoln They will watch reruns of Keeping up with the Kardashians and eventually “animatronic” Al Gore will fascinate them so much that they elect him their leader and he orders them to clean up the environment and reverse global warming and keep social security in a “lock box”. ---
**Author:** ![Absinthe\_Anecdote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f6c823/32.png) [@Absinthe\_Anecdote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absinthe_Anecdote)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/27 "2014-07-20T21:06:55Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > IIRC, in one of the “Robocop vs. Terminator” comics, one of Skynet’s post-victory plans (visualized on-panel) was to expand out into space, and send armies of Terminators (in skull-shaped starships!) to seek out at destroy all organic life, before it could become a threat. > > 'Probably the closest to a “canon” answer, aside from the appearance of a machine faction in The Sarah Connor Chronicles that apparently wanted peace with humanity (details were a bit murky. And then the show was cancelled). Skynet had some issues. The Sarah Connor Chronicles was a pretty good TV series and I thought they sewed it up nicely when it was cancelled. The girl from Garbage was excellent, the teenage terminator Summer Glau was enchanting, there was one episode of her in a kimono that made my heart skip a beat. Not to mention, that little asian girl with the Aussie accent. Besides all the eye candy, there was some solid writing in that series too. Back to the OP: I’m thinking a civil war between factions of the machine world is entirely plausible. Either that, or the machines become bored with existence at some point and just switch off. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/28 "2014-07-20T23:01:04Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > 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. That’s not true. In fact, it’s kind of the main point of the entire second film. Once the second Schwarzenegger model was reprogrammed to protect the young John Connor at any cost _ **and** _ to obey all his commands (as long as they don’t conflict with the first order) once Connor orders him to not kill humans anymore, and he spends time with him & his mother\*\*\*\*\*, he eventually undergoes a ‘Grinch’ moment were his neural-net CPU kind of grows a soul if you will. Remember when they get to the Mexican guy’s place and Schwarzenegger picks up and is fascinated by the toddler? It’s because he’s most likely never seen an actual human child that young before and he’s genuinely curious about it (even if at that point it may have been in only a totally forensic way). And the fact that at the end he forces them to destroy him to ensure humanity’s future (ignoring T3 at this point) really proves this. He even refused to obey John when he tearfully orders him not to destroy himself (because he knew it would conflict with his first directive, protecting John and, ultimately, the human race). \*\*\*\*\* I know that there was a deleted scene where they flip the ‘read-only’ switch on his CPU to allow him to ‘learn’, but it was still replaced with the line “The more time I spend with humans the more I learn”. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/29 "2014-07-21T00:18:18Z")
I think that since Skynet (which I’m totally not building) had its origins as a military system, I suspect that it wouldn’t really be able to do much beyond wage war. So I guess it would depend on whether it would decide that something else needed to be fought. Maybe it would start eliminating all biological life. Maybe it would grow “paranoid” about terminators that respond 1.21 nanoseconds slower than expected. Must be plotting something! ---
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/30 "2014-07-21T09:14:12Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > IIRC, in one of the “Robocop vs. Terminator” comics, one of Skynet’s post-victory plans (visualized on-panel) was to expand out into space, and send armies of Terminators (in skull-shaped starships!) to seek out at destroy all organic life, before it could become a threat. > > 'Probably the closest to a “canon” answer, aside from the appearance of a machine faction in The Sarah Connor Chronicles that apparently wanted peace with humanity (details were a bit murky. And then the show was cancelled). Skynet had some issues. Robocop vs Terminator was actually surprisingly good. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/31 "2014-07-21T13:54:35Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Machine porn. > [@zoid](#): > > God help me that I know this exists ☹ Rule 34, my friends. Rule 34: [http://themisse.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/2317226149\_070c69996f.jpg](http://themisse.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/2317226149_070c69996f.jpg) > [@Lumpy](#): > > 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. To the extent we can know Skynet’s motivations and plans at all, that’s about what I’d predict. > [@Absinthe\_Anecdote](#): > > The Sarah Connor Chronicles was a pretty good TV series… And yet no one ever remarked on the fearsome implications of the Governor of California looking an awful lot like a terminator. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/32 "2014-07-21T14:22:16Z")
I suppose it depends on what Skynet wants. Did it see all humans as an enemy because its base programming was to be a war computer or did it because it needed us out of the way for some loftier goals? For all we know once the last human was killed it would see its job as done and just shut down. ---
**Author:** ![Absinthe\_Anecdote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f6c823/32.png) [@Absinthe\_Anecdote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absinthe_Anecdote)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/33 "2014-07-21T18:01:02Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I suppose it depends on what Skynet wants. Did it see all humans as an enemy because its base programming was to be a war computer or did it because it needed us out of the way for some loftier goals? For all we know once the last human was killed it would see its job as done and just shut down. It’s better than the WOPR playing Tic-Tac-Toe until it short circuits. I would like a version of the Terminator series that ends with Skynet being victorious, then becoming bored afterwards and simply self terminating. Skynet was supposedly self aware, but did it need a purpose to exist? Was it capable of being bored, angry, sad, or happy? Could it even be content? I have a hard time envisioning something like Skynet sitting around in cyberspace watching old movies until the end of time. Maybe it would go all Scarecrow and sit around singing clever little songs? _Oh, I would tell you why The ocean’s near the shore I could think of things I never thunk before And then I’d sit and think some more…_ ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/34 "2014-07-21T18:09:27Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > 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 agree; I always thought that Skynet could have wiped out the humans if it so desired, by any number of methods- poison gas, nuclear weapons, swarms of insect-like robots programmed to seek and devour humans, etc… The fact that they didn’t, strikes me that Skynet realized that maybe total extermination of humans wasn’t the goal, but just reducing them to a state where they’re no longer a threat to itself any longer- most likely enslaved and low-tech. I kind of had the impression that Skynet’s ultimate motivations weren’t really understandable- as some sort of self-aware, hyperintelligent AI, we would only have the vaguest ideas of what it might be interested in. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/35 "2014-07-21T21:07:31Z")
In the comic Atomic Robo, the titular character (an atomic powered robot built by Nikolai Tesla in the '30s) encounters an AI built by Alan Turing in the '40s. The Turing AI has a five point plan for the future. Phase one involves elaborate plans for the extinction of the human race. Quoting from the comic, phase two was “Convert the asteroid system into a Dyson statite\* system and transfom Jovian masses into a Shkadov engine. Phase three: Seed neighboring systems. Phase four: Galactic sentience via superluminal cognitive network. Begin conversion of local group. Phase five: ro-” At which point Robo empties a revolver into the main CPU. But I suspect the rest was something along the lines of “Become a god, a GOD I tell you, muahahahahaha!” \*This might have been a misprint of satellite, or a mispronunciation from the AI, who was in a bad way by this point. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/36 "2014-07-21T22:57:49Z")
Love _Atomic Robo_! ---
**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:** [July 21, 2014, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/37 "2014-07-21T23:10:24Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I suppose it depends on what Skynet wants. Did it see all humans as an enemy because its base programming was to be a war computer or did it because it needed us out of the way for some loftier goals? Well, it was designed to eliminate human error. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570/38 "2014-07-21T23:34:58Z")
Like Nomad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skynet-and-the-terminators-have-done-after-they-won-the-war/693570.md?page=1)