A: The creepy basement from D&D

[roxybisquaint]

Q: What do Weaver, Derek & Andy Goode have in common?

"Sleep is the perfect cover. Your mind's still active but you don't remember a thing."

Before actually seeing Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep, I was sure the whole sleep clinic thing was going to be a Skynet research facility messing with people's brains during sleep and it would eventually lead to whatever happened to Derek in the creepy basement. Obviously the episode didn't turn out that way and the sleep clinic itself was just a dream. But that line Sarah says when she's freaking out in that room in the basement of the sleep clinic is, I think, still a hint at what happened to Derek.



When Derek was taken down to the creepy basement in the flashbacks in Dungeons & Dragons, I think he was drugged into a sleep state and the liquid metal (Weaver) extracted information from him and implanted information in him.

About a year ago, I came up with a theory that Wisher had been brainwashed into believing he invented Skynet and was also implanted with the urge to confess it to Derek. It's a long and convoluted theory, but I'm still holding onto bits and pieces of it because I'm sure I've got some things right. The basic idea behind part of the theory is that Andy wasn't the creator of Skynet, but a hindrance to it (Andy wanted to understand his AI, not just rush the advancement of it). So Skynet wanted him removed from the equation to accelerate its development.

The reason my theory was so thin is because it hinged on Andy being brainwashed to confess to Derek and Derek being brainwashed to want to do something about it. But for any of that to work, Skynet would have had to know that Derek would get sent back in time (and how could it know that?).

Now, however, it's looking a little more possible. With what we've seen of 2027, future!John may not even be around (maybe even dead) and Cameron, who John confided in, seems to be running things. That means she may have been the one to send Derek back. We also now know there's liquid metal in 2027 (that I'm quite sure is Weaver) that Cameron has attempted to form an alliance with. Maybe they eventually meet and Weaver learns enough info that she formulates the whole plot for Derek to kill Andy. Maybe Weaver convinces Cameron to send Derek back or maybe Weaver just finds out Cameron is going to send Derek back.

I'm still not quite sure how it all fits together, but I feel certain that what happened to Derek (and Wisher) in the creepy basement involved sleep-induced brainwashing techniques that resulted in Wisher confessing to Derek and Derek going back in time to kill Andy. And I'm thinking Weaver was behind it all. In present time, Weaver seems to be accelerating the development of Skynet and she was able to do that because she acquired Andy's Turk to develop as she saw fit. It's all too much of a coincidence.

Comments

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

If future!John is dead, I'm inclined to think Cameron killed him by accident and going back in time was her way of trying to set things right. I can't go along with the idea of Cameron loving John - certainly not love in the human sense. I think her "love" for John is a devotion to her purpose. Just like Sarah, without John, Cameron has no purpose.

In the future, Cameron's purpose could have been to carry on John's mission — keep the resistance running. But when things started to fall apart, she sent herself back to find John and and change the course of things enough that it'll prevent the future!John death. If I run with the idea that Cameron is the reason he died in the future, then her plan could be to teach him everything about machines now that she taught him later so that she won't be needed later and she can do something to force him to destroy her (which would save his life).

I've been assuming Weaver is a rogue. I think she went back to beat Skynet to the punch by developing the super AI ahead of schedule. She's shaping the future her way, trying to create free-thinking metal rather than programmed metal like Skynet did. I think Weaver was sort of Skynet's own Skynet. The same way man inadvertently brought about its own doom through technological development, Skynet's own technological advancements led to the creation of liquid metal. But it was so advanced that it became free-thinking. And Skynet saw that as a threat to itself, so it boxed up the liquid metal.

But the fact that the box was guarded by reprogrammed machines and John (or maybe Cameron) knew where it was contradicts the idea that Catherine was created by Skynet. So I'm not set on the idea yet. It could be that it was John and/or Cameron's creation, but I haven't worked out anything for that theory yet ;)

[trystanknight.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. I don't know, I think Cameron is more developed (no pun intended ;)) than any other terminator model. I really believed her in that scene, I really believed she thought she loved him. Now whether what she thinks and what is real are the same thing is a whole other story, but I believe that she believes it. I don't think she's responsible for his death, though that would also fracture her, so I could be wrong. I still think she's broken in the future and talking to a John that's not really there, possibly even talking to his corpse.

One thing that's always bothered me about season one - Derek said, over and over and over, that "One of these things is going to kill you one day." He said it with FEELING. He meant it. Maybe I was wrong about John not being dead in Derek's future.

I agree with you that Weaver is rogue. But I don't necessarily think that your idea on that contradicts the show - if Cameron was right and there are multiple factions of Terminators working against SkyNET (Which I SAVOR the delicious irony of that), then the timeline could be simple - She turned rogue, tried to hurt or replace SkyNET, SkyNET said "NO!" and somehow trapped her in the box, then one of the other factions busted in, thinking Weaver was winning, they find her in a box and they tuck and run, blasting their way out.

I do not for a second believe that the terminators in that room with that box were reprogrammed by John Connor. They were either SkyNET or they were a rogue branch of terminators like the ones Cameron described. If John (or Cameron if he's dead) wanted to make peace, he'd want to make peace with the rogue element rebelling against SkyNET, not SkyNET itself.

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

Oh good call on Derek's season 1 line! I'd forgotten about that. I doubt he actually has any knowledge of such a thing, but the show tends to throw us lines like that to plant the seeds of future storylines. I think this might actually lend credibility to my theory that Cameron kills John.

Actually, the line John says to Derek right after: "it won't be this one," plays against my theory. So maybe John just gets killed by another machine that he reprograms that goes bad and Cameron witnesses it.

The terminators guarding the box couldn't have been Skynet programmed or they would've killed the soldier coming to get the box, not helped carry it for him. So either they were part of a rogue faction (though I still think Catherine is the lone rogue) or they were reprogrammed by John.