A few issues are presented in short here: The story in The Terminator contains several causality loops, some of which are self-consistent non-paradoxes, and some of which are not self-consistent, and could be considered predestination paradox or bootstrap paradox. A boy took her photograph, which she bought from him.

Sarah, noticeably pregnant, drove through Mexico and recorded tape messages to her unborn son.

The wreckage of the T-800 was recovered by Cyberdyne Systems.

Kyle Reese arrived from the future to protect Sarah.

At 1:52 AM, the T-800 arrived from the future to kill Sarah Connor.

These are the main events depicted in the film The Terminator.

Kyle Reese volunteered to save Sarah Connor and John Connor sent him back to the past to save Sarah Connor.

John Connor led the Tech-Com and won the war, but Skynet sent a T-800 Terminator back to 1984.

Kyle was given the Sarah Connor snapshot by John.Kyle Reese ( Original timeline) was saved by John Connor.Skynet (Original timeline) became self-aware and initiated Judgment Day.John Connor (Original timeline) was born.The wreckage of the T-800 was recovered by Cyberdyne Systems and they reverse-engineered its technology.Kyle Reese (Alpha timeline) arrived from the future to protect Sarah.The T-800 (Alpha timeline) arrived from the future to kill Sarah Connor.These events exist in Kyle Reese's past timeline. The leader sent Kyle Reese back to the past to save Sarah Connor.Skynet was losing the war and decided to send a T-800 back in time to kill Sarah Connor before the leader of the Resistance was born.Sarah's child became the leader of the Resistance.

Cyberdyne developed artificial intelligence.(The father is unknown as this topic has not been elaborated in Terminator fictions or related materials so far.) The 'leader' of the future Resistance was born to Sarah Connor possibly during the 1980s.(See Notes for more information)Īn original and unaltered timeline prior to the events of The Terminator. These timelines take place prior to the main events of the film. The next sections are listed several timelines prior to the events of The Terminator in an attempt to resolve some of the paradoxes mentioned in a later section. That is what triggers Skynet to send back a T-800 to kill her. All this does not matter, except that Sarah is the mother of a future leader of the Resistance. It may even be that the future leader of the Resistance is not even named 'John Connor'. In this timeline, Kyle never met Sarah and never fathered John. For the sake of understanding and resolving the story in The Terminator, let's assume there is a previous unaltered timeline, the Alpha timeline.

Terminator 1 quotes