Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Terminator #6! Many the Terminator franchise is actually the war between humans and machines in the series’ post-apocalyptic future. The movies Terminator: Salvation and Terminator: Genesis did an awesome job capturing that corner of the franchise, as did the flash-forwards/flashbacks (time travel) in both The Terminator and T2: Judgement Day. However, they all missed one crucial aspect to the war against humans and Terminators that the movies never got right: it was never a war at all.

In the war between humans and the Terminators. But, that’s not how this issue would describe that conflict.

According to this Terminator issue, Skynet sees humans as nothing more than vermin that need to be exterminated. That’s it. Humans see their relationship as an epic battle between man and machine that will decide the fate of the entire world. Skynet, however, looks at people the way people would look at a swarm of rats in a restaurant’s kitchen. Sure, those rats are dangerous, and they need to go, but it’s not like humans go to war with rats when they exterminate them - there’s no thought given to the rat at all, except how best to kill them.

The Terminators See Humans as Animals to Be Exterminated & Farmed

Skynet Both Kills Humans & Breeds Them for a Specific Purpose

Looking at the conflict between humans and Terminators in this new light definitely gives me a different perspective on the entire franchise, but I’m also very aware of the fact that this isn’t the full truth, either. Sure, Skynet says that it only sees humans as vermin, but this same Terminator issue also reveals that Skynet does actually have a use for humans beyond simply killing them.

Skynet its at the start of this comic that it only made the Terminators as a means to exterminate the vermin that is humanity. That’s the only reason Skynet bothered to give one of its earlier models, the T-600 Terminator, rubber skin, so that it could better blend in with humans to more effectively kill them. However, when people started noticing the rubber-skinned Terminators, the T-600 slowly started to lose its purpose. Therefore, Skynet had to upgrade its Terminators, and there was only one way to do that: human skin.

The T-800 Terminator is the version of the Terminator that fans are most familiar with, as that’s the version that was portrayed on-screen by Arnold Schwarzenegger. And, that model has human skin, not rubber skin like the T-600. How did the T-800 get human skin? Skin farms. Yep, Skynet had its Terminators abduct humans rather than simply kill them, throw them in pens, force them to breed, and harvest them for their skin.

Skynet found a way to preserve human skin wrapped around its T-800 Terminators, and it needed live humans to do it. Therefore, it’s fair to say that Skynet didn’t just see humans as pests to kill, as it also used them to become even deadlier (albeit to kill other humans more efficiently).

Whether Skynet Will it It or Not, Humans Are Necessary for Terminator Upgrades

Humans are the Reason Terminators Can Travel Through Time

On the surface, it may seem like Skynet only had human skin farms in order to allow its Terminators to better blend in with other humans to more effectively kill them the way the T-600 consistently failed to, which would only further confirm the idea that Skynet only see humans as vermin that needs to be killed. But I’m here to tell you that, whether Skynet its it or not, it needs humans - and it always has.

Not only was Skynet originally created by humans, but humans are solely responsible for every one of Skynet’s upgrades, and they’re also the only thing that actually gives Skynet’s existence purpose. Take the skin farms, for example. Skynet isn’t just harvesting human skin to make better undercover Terminators. It also learned from humans that Terminators need to be wrapped in human skin in order to travel through time. Skynet tried and failed to use the time machine on multiple occasions, but it wasn’t until it watched a human travel through time that it fully understood how it could be done.

This means that, whether Skynet will it it or not, humans are more than mere vermin to Skynet, as they continue to be a source of constant evolution. Their conflict is as significant to the future of Skynet as it is the future of humanity, and humans deserve a little more respect than what Skynet is offering in this comic. However, at the end of the day, Skynet simply doesn’t see humanity as a big enough threat to it that it is actually at war with them. Sure, they serve their purpose, but for the most part, Skynet just sees people as vermin.

Skynet Underestimating Humanity Potentially Leads to a Familiar Sci-Fi Future: Alien

Terminator is Alien’s Past in One Branched Reality

It’s clear that Skynet underestimates humanity in the post-apocalyptic future of the Terminator franchise, and in one branched reality (created by the constant meddling of The Terminator timeline through time travel), that results in the creation of an entirely different Sci-Fi franchise. In the comic Aliens vs Predator vs The Terminator, it’s revealed that the Alien universe takes place in The Terminator universe’s future after humanity eventually defeats Skynet. This is one of the few moments where Terminator fans get a glimpse of a potential future where humanity wins, and it’s one that proves Skynet should have given humans their due respect.

Perhaps if Skynet saw humans as more than just vermin, then maybe it would have succeeded in wiping them out. But, as this Terminator comic confirms, Skynet only saw people as pests that needed to be exterminated, despite the fact that humans actively helped Skynet evolve while giving it purpose. In at least one notable timeline, that hubris was Skynet’s undoing. But, no matter the potential outcome of the war between humans and Terminators, the fact remains that Skynet never even considered it a war in the first place, which is just so messed up.

Terminator #6 by Dynamite Entertainment is available now.