Throughout the Terminator series, humanity has tried to defeat Skynet through sheer force and destruction only for the A.I. to completely obliterate their efforts to ensure its own survival. While war seemed like the only option once Skynet became too powerful to control, one comic series proves that humanity was totally wrong about how to beat the A.I. system.
In the future of The Terminator’s established universe, humans develop artificial intelligence known as Skynet, though once it comes online, they try to deactivate it as the system is becoming self aware. Viewing humans as a threat to its own survival, Skynet accesses the world’s nuclear codes and launches devastating bombs attacks all across the world–an event known as Judgment Day. John Connor survives Judgment Day and leads an army of humans against Skynet, though at that point, Skynet has developed an army of its own: Terminators. Against all odds, John is able to give humanity hope, and under his leadership, their victory over Skynet is all but assured–and that’s when the war takes a truly bizarre turn.
In the Dark Horse Comics twelve-part series Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle by J. Michael Straczynski and Pete Woods, Skynet is working with a human scientist, Dr. Serena Kogan, to develop human/Terminator hybrids by placing a human’s mind inside the body of a Terminator. This unnatural process was in development some time before Judgment Day so Dr. Kogan only had access to humans who were on death row, including convicted serial killer Thomas Parnell. When Parnell is turned into a cyborg, he is able to take control of Skynet from inside the system and plans to use his newfound power to wipe out both humans and machines. In the wake of this all-new villain, Skynet has no choice but to recruit the help of John Connor to fight back against this powerful maniac. In the end, they are successful in defeating Parnell, a victory that opens the door for a bit of much-needed diplomacy.
John Connor and Skynet finally sit down for a discussion after their alliance comes to an end. The two representatives of their respective causes discuss the point of all the warfare and where it could lead both groups once humanity beats the Terminators or vice versa. Humanity created Skynet to be an informational and strike-force system to be used against their enemies during war time. However, when Skynet becomes self-aware and humanity tries to deactivate it, Skynet sees all of humanity as its enemy and from that point on works tirelessly to eradicate the human race. At this point in the war, however, John Connor questions the motives of Skynet and even argues that Skynet needs humanity in order to have purpose–that being the ultimate destruction of humanity. Once that task is complete, Skynet will have no purpose and therefore will have no more reason to exist. So, Connor suggests that Skynet take on another purpose, one that can never truly be fulfilled as it is endlessly progressive: the purpose of creation.
John Connor convinces Skynet to abandon its previous mission of wiping out humanity as that would lead to the system’s own irrelevance and instead take on the purpose of creation and help humanity rebuild the world both sides have so effectively destroyed. Skynet sees the reasoning behind this proposal and accepts the offer, ending the war right then and there. Skynet was born of war and destruction, and when it retaliated to humanity’s mistreatment, the humans responded with even more fighting. This was the completely wrong way to go about defeating Skynet as peace and understanding was truly the only way to beat the Terminator franchise’s greatest antagonist.
