Concurrently with S.M. Stirling’s adult “T2” trilogy came Russell Blackford’s young-adult “T2” trilogy, starting with “Terminator 2: The New John Connor Chronicles Book One: Dark Futures”(2002). Despite having “T2” in the title, Blackford’s books don’t have any connection to Stirling’s books or the Malibu comics, and they even contradict the “T2” novelization in some instances.
Blackford noticeably writes in the young-adult style, with broad characterizations, simple motivations and sometimes bland dialog. However, he has big ideas about the nature of timelines that make “Dark Futures” entertaining for a die-hard fan. Blackford writes about “John’s Future” (spanning from the events of “T2”), as indicated by serif font, and “Skynet’s Future” (spanning from Sarah opting to NOT attack Miles Dyson and Cyberdyne), as indicated by sans serif font.
And I have to admire Blackford’s audacity with time travel. There are a ton of time travelers and alternate timelines in this book – and it seems that this is only the beginning. He writes about these concepts clearly enough that it’s not any more head-spinning that it needs to be.
CHARACTERS
John Connor: He was born in Mexico (p. 61). In Dark Horse’s “End Game,” Skynet has information that John would be born in Odessa, Texas. (That ended up being Jane Connor.) In the “John’s World” timeline the Specialists come back from, John dies in 2007. In “Skynet’s World,” John gets his scars in 2012 in Argentina in the same battle where Sarah and the T-800 are killed.
Sarah Connor: She is killed in 2007 in the “John’s World” the Specialists come back from, and in 2012 in Argentina in “Skynet’s World.”
Kyle Reese: John meets Kyle for the first time in 2029 in “Skynet’s World” (p. 287). In most other stories, the characters meet at least a few years before this. Kyle was born after J-Day (as in most incarnations), and he “spent time in the extermination camps.” This calls to mind the Stirling novels where Kyle is imprisoned in a Skynet compound along with his mom.
Specialists: These five characters are humans from the future in “John’s World” who have been enhanced with extra strength and healing ability. Jade in particular is like a good version of Serena from the Stirling books. She has accelerated growth followed by decelerated aging.
Daniel Dyson: In “John’s World,” the son of Miles becomes a Specialist, along with Jade and three others. He dies in the book’s final battle. In “Skynet’s World” in 2029, Danny is likewise on John’s team (p. 289). Danny and John are also friends and allies in the Malibu Comics timeline.
Enrique Salceda: He’s alive and well here, and he even fights by John’s side in the resistance at age 80-something in 2029. He is killed by the T-1000 in the Malibu comics.
Juanita Salceda: She’s John’s girlfriend and Enrique’s daughter. John knows Juanita from a young age (she is briefly in “T2”), and she’s fighting at his side in war-torn 2029. John has different girlfriends in the Stirling saga, the movie saga starting with “T3,” and “The Sarah Connor Chronicles.”
Oscar Cruz: He’s the Cyberdyne president. In the novelizations, Greg and Jack are the Cyberdyne bigwigs, and in the Stirling trilogy, Paul and Roger are the heads of Cyberdyne.
Rosanna Monk: Miles Dyson’s protégé at Cyberdyne, she continues his work after he’s killed in “T2,” despite the destruction of the chip and most of his notes.
TERMINATORS
T-XA: This is the next step up from a T-1000. It can split into multiple entities formed from liquid metal – for example, a man, a woman and a dog – and each of those entities can fight. Then it can recombine into one entity. Even more impressively, it can stick a metal spoke into someone’s brain and read their mind, even after they are dead. In the “T3” timeline, the next iteration after the T-1000 is similarly called a T-X.
Eve: She’s a T-799, which is exactly the same as a T-800, but Skynet gives her this special designation since she’s the first off the assembly line in 2026. In a second pass through the timeline of “Skynet’s World,” Eve – having time-traveled — actually greets “herself” as she is being born. In “John’s World,” Eve appears in 2001, having been sent back from 2029 by John (p. 330). Presumably, this Eve will be a good guy; we’ll find out in the next book.
T-1000: The character portrayed by Robert Patrick finally finds John in 2003 in Argentina in “Skynet’s World.” The good guys defeat it. Then in the future of that timeline, T-1000 prototypes are tested in the battlefields of Europe. This is different from “T2,” where the T-1000 was a one-of-a-kind prototype that Skynet sent back through time out of desperation.
T-800: In “Skynet’s World,” the Uncle Bob Terminator continues to fight by John’s side until being destroyed in a 2012 battle in Argentina. In the future of “Skynet’s World,” the first T-800 comes off the assembly line in 2026. This is similar to Stirling’s books, where T-800s are considered to be fairly new in 2029. But in other timelines, T-800s come about much earlier; for example, they appear in 2009 in the Dark Horse 1984 saga.
T-600s: These are endoskeletons “covered with molded rubber” that can’t fool humans at close range (p. 282). This is consistent with previous incarnations.
CONTINUITY AND CONTRADICTIONS
Blackford says the events of “T2” happened in 1994, with John being 9 years old. Most sources place the film’s events in 1995, with John being 10.
John and Sarah’s escape from L.A. differs from the chronicle in the Malibu comics and the Stirling trilogy, although it’s the same general principle: Head south and regroup.
Unlike in the “T2” novelization, the T-800’s arm that gets torn off in “T2” is not destroyed. In the Malibu comics, the arm ends up in the hands of Network Developments (which continues Cyberdyne’s work), and here it ends up in the hands of Cyberdyne (p. 131).
Between “T1” and “T2,” “John had grown up in Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Argentina” (p. 18) as he and Sarah lived off the grid. Both Connors speak excellent Spanish. In the “T2” novel, John similarly says “We spent a lot of time in Nicaragua, places like that” (p. 109). Interestingly, the Connors’ time in Central and South America between films hasn’t been chronicled up to this point, but their post-“T2” stories regularly venture south of the U.S. Later in this book, John and Sarah are in Argentina in “Skynet’s World” and Mexico City in “John’s World.” The Dark Horse 1984 saga finds Sarah hiding in Mexico and giving birth to (surprisingly) Jane Connor in Odessa, Texas. Stirling’s trilogy places the Connors in Paraguay. In the Now comics, Future John has his headquarters in Mexico.
Sarah “tried to blow up an AI lab in San Diego” (p. 89) a year before (p. 25) the events of “T2.” This event, which lands Sarah at the Pescadero nuthouse, had been mentioned in previous works, but not with this much detail. The event has never been chronicled.
The Dysons’ daughter, Blythe, doesn’t exist on this timeline. She exists in the Malibu comics and Stirling’s novels. Blackford’s oversight might be because Blythe is not seen in the theatrical cut of “T2,” although she is mentioned. She is only seen in the Special Edition.
The saga has always strongly implied that Cyberdyne will eventually link up with the government to create Skynet. Stirling’s trilogy goes into detail about how that connection comes about. Blackford makes it simpler: After the Cyberdyne building is destroyed in “T2,” the government moves Cyberdyne into its NORAD facility in Colorado. That facility will eventually be Skynet headquarters; this is consistent with most chronicles.
In the “John’s World” timeline that the T-XA and Specialists come back from, Skynet is implemented in 2007 and Judgment Day occurs in 2021 (p. 104). This is the latest J-Day has occurred on any timeline up to this point. In “Skynet’s World,” J-Day does not occur on the exact date in 1997 that John and Sarah had predicted (and as Miles fears, having read about Sarah’s warnings). However, Eve launches the J-Day missiles not long after that.
Skynet is given a human face on a computer screen so Eve can communicate with it (p. 113). The Now comics also give Skynet human form, in a 3D projection, and Dark Horse’s “Superman versus The Terminator” features Sky-1, a robot embodiment of Skynet. In most stories, Skynet is a faceless computer program.
Instead of fighting machines right away after J-Day, John and Sarah spend a lot of time fighting warlords at their base in Argentina (p. 200). The resistance also deals with renegade humans (the Luddites) in Stirling’s trilogy, and to a lesser extent in other sagas.
TIME TRAVEL AND TIMELINES
In all previous works up to this point, new timelines are launched by the appearance of a time traveler. “Dark Futures” is the first story to explicitly indicate that a character’s decision can lead to a new branch of time. In this case, Sarah chooses to NOT attack Miles Dyson and Cyberdyne. As such, we follow two timelines in “Dark Futures”: “John’s World,” which continues from the events of “T2,” and “Skynet’s World,” which continues from Sarah’s new decision, which appropriately is made after she carves “NO FATE” into the picnic table in “T2.”
In Blackford’s saga, both “new branches” and “closed loops” of time are possible (p. 197). This is consistent with most previous portrayals, although Blackford states it more clearly and explicitly. Characters, particularly the time travelers, speak confidently that there are an infinite number of timelines. Basically, our heroes work to make their timeline (and any that might spring from it through their actions) a good place for humanity, while the villains attempt to do the same thing for Skynet. Refreshingly, Blackford does not seem interested in the now-cliched story of closing the loop from 2029 to 1984, as “Dark Futures” ends with a twist of John sending Eve back in time rather than Kyle and the T-800 (although he probably sends them back, too, off-page).
The T-XA travels from the future to 2001 Mexico City in “John’s World.” Soon after, five resistance Specialists (three men and two women) pop up on its trail, having come from 2036 (p. 180). This is the first example of a TDE being based in Mexico City. (Although, strictly speaking, we don’t know how TDEs – called “the space-time displacement field apparatus” or “the time vault” here – work in the “New John Connor Chronicles” saga. Usually, TDEs are based in a fixed position is space, but Stirling’s books contradict this. So do some of the comics, although in the comics the new physical locations usually come from glitches in the equipment.)
Eve time-travels from 2026 to 1997 in “Skynet’s World” for the usual mission to oversee and guarantee the creation of Skynet. Then when the time-traveling Eve catches back up with the year 2026, she sees herself being born (p. 285). As such, there are now two Eves on this timeline. This is the first instance of a character meeting herself/himself/itself.
In “Skynet’s World” Skynet and Eve plan to build a TDE and send back a T-800 to 1984 and a T-1000 to 1994 (p. 298). Somewhat oddly, they speak about it as if it’s a new plan, rather than a desire to close a time loop. If indeed Skynet is unaware that it (or that timeline’s version of itself) had already performed such an action on a previous timeline, then this is an example of a fated event, the tendency of some things to happen in similar fashion on every timeline.
The TDE makes its earliest appearance on a timeline so far in 2001 in “John’s World” (p. 322), having been created by Rosanna Monk, based on knowledge given to her by the T-XA. “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” would later feature a time-travel device in the 1990s.
The T-XA and Danny’s body are sent through the 2001 Skynet time vault, but we don’t know the destination (p. 324).
In “John’s World,” (a presumably reprogrammed) Eve appears in 2001, having been sent back by John (p. 330). This sets up the next book, “An Evil Hour.”