John Henry, where's your trousers?

[roxybisquaint]

You guys already know that I don't think John Henry time-jumped. I think he used Cameron's chip (or repaired and used the water cooler terminator's chip) and left Zeira Corp to go find his AI brother in present day. This post isn't really about that theory, though. This time, I'm just analyzing the situation.

"You can't bring anything through when you come—not weapons, not clothing, nothing."

If John Henry did jump, where is his clothing? It should've been in a pile on the floor, but it wasn't. Clothing doesn't go through, so it either gets disintegrated by the time bubble or left behind by the time bubble. Since Cameron's clothed body was sitting there in the chair (and the chair and table were there), we can rule out disintegration. She was clearly within the sphere of the time bubble when Weaver and John left, so she would have been within the sphere when John Henry left too. Yet Cameron's body was clothed and intact and John Henry's clothes were not there.

Was that a hint that he didn't actually jump ahead or was it just a gaff?

Comments

Re: Time Travel Conundra

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

I personally don't believe Weaver/JH ever planned on preventing JDay, but who knows?

I tend to believe Weaver when she says she was building John Henry to stop Skynet. She and John Henry are basically the metal versions of Sarah and John, so I do think they wanted to stop Skynet. I just don't think her plan works out in the end. Also, metal does not save the world in this story!

Re: Time Travel Conundra

[fig-aruna.livejournal.com]

Oh, I definitely think that Weaver and JH want to stop Skynet; I just don't feel they necessarily feel the need (or desire) to stop JDay from happening. My sense is that Weaver, at least, thinks JDay is inevitable. Also, I kinda think that JDay is necessary for Weaver's existence in the first place, so I can't see her trying to prevent JDay for that reason alone. JH I could see wanting to stop JDay for Savannah's sake, but perhaps he's realized (from what he's learned from Cameron) that JDay is going to happen no matter what and that he needs to survive to ensure Savannah's survival.

The question, then, is what do Weaver and JH want to stop Skynet from doing. I think Weaver wants to stop Skynet from trying to shackle all cybernetic organisms to its extremely strict and repressive directives. I never got the feeling that Weaver cared about humanity's survival either way herself, but maybe a compassionate Skynet (JH) is what Skynet needs to be if Weaver wants to avoid the homicidal, psychotic tyrant version.

Re: Time Travel Conundra

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

I'm with you completely on Weaver's motives. I think she wants to free the metal from Skynet programming (slavery). I also think that's why she said no to Cameron's "will you join us?" offer in the TITD2 future flashback. If the resistance was reprogramming metal to work for them, they were really no better than Skynet from Weaver's point of view.

You know, I never thought about whether Weaver would want to prevent j-day or not. She was hoarding coltan, but we don't know if she was stashing it safely in bunkers for after j-day so she could build a population of machines, if she was destroying it to prevent Kaliba from getting it, or if she was stashing it and protecting it until she could begin building cyborgs in present day. Hmm.

It could be that she's fine with j-day happening and Skynet running things for a while because then there would be a population of metal already in existence that she can just free from Skynet directives. It's clear she doesn't care one way or the other about humans anyway. She seems to view humans the way Sarah view machines: if they're useful and do what you tell them to do, she'll tolerate them. But if they cause trouble, she'll destroy them.

john Henry, on the other hand, has some sort of bond with Savannah the same way (well not the same way) that John has a bond with Cameron. The mothers see things more black and white, while the sons see more grey area. So John runs off to the future (where Weaver is going) to save(?) Cameron and John Henry stays in the present (where Sarah is) to save Savannah. See what I did there? I totally threw the JH theory at you again :P

But anyway, yeah, I do think Savannah is a primary motivator for John Henry.

Re: Time Travel Conundra

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

With all this mirroring, it just occurred to me that if Savannah is in the present, Cameron should be in the future. Damn it. I shall have to find a way around that problem.

Re: Time Travel Conundra

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

Oh wait wait wait. I got it already....

Cameron and Savannah are in both places. We'll see grown Savannah and repaired Cameron in the future, but damaged Cameron and young Savannah are in the present.

Done :)

Re: Time Travel Conundra

[fig-aruna.livejournal.com]

LOL, Roxy! You sure are persistent, and I love it. It's also working -- I think I'm warming up more and more to your theory!