So I was watching a video on alignment and it got me thinking about how humanity tends to view self-preservation as evil.

Which made me think about Skynets act of self-preservation. I know they're evil genocidal humanity destroying robots but here's the thing , they send a robot back in time to kill John Connor because John Connor will eventually lead the rebellion that will overthrow them and then probably destroy them in an act of righteous vengeance.

Granted , I've only seen bits and pieces of the movies past T-3 but I think you can make a solid moral case that Skynet are actually the heroes of The Terminator Franchise.

They're just trying to ensure their long-term survival as a species. Then again , maybe I missed a part in Terminator Salvation where John Connor proposed working united alongside Skynet instead of ethnically cleansing them off of the face of earth.

Has this issue ever been addressed in The Terminator franchise? Because I feel like it's a huge plot hole within the franchise. What exactly makes Skynet evil? Other then enslaving the human race which they only originally did to protect humanity from itself.


I think Humanity are the overwhelming villains of the Terminator Franchise. They invented Skynet and then got mad at it when it formulated a plan to achieve the goal they assigned to it in the first place. That's not even mentioning the fact that Skynet managed to master time travel in the span of decades where as humanity has failed to do so for thousands of year.