The Connor Wars Writer’s Room 20 – Half Done

[Spoiler alert – I will talk freely about events that happened in The Connor Wars between episodes 1-11 as well as anything that was in the movie or television series. If you haven’t read/seen everything and you don’t want to be spoiled…well, you’ve been warned.]

It’s hard to believe, but The Connor Wars version of a TSCC season 3 is half done. Eleven episodes posted out of a run of twenty-two.

After the next two episodes (i.e., following episode 13), I’m going to take a couple of extra days off before starting on episode 14. Think of it as my version of the usual holiday hiatus when many series are waiting to hear if they’ll get a back-9 order. I don’t think you’ll mind. Episode 13 promises to be worthy of a mid-season climax episode–at least for some. (Some might want something different…it’s always the way.)

Obviously I’m serious about the project since, as you can see in the photo, I made a hat with the logo. Things are always official when you make the hat. For the first time since I started this project, I fired up the airbrush and did me up a one-off. I’ll admit, it felt good to paint again, even something as simple as this. I’ve been away from the easel for way too long.

So…episode 11. An interesting little filler-in of blanks, wouldn’t you say?

Being Young

Obviously I’ve taken the tack that in “Allison From Palmdale”, Allison wasn’t quite as forthcoming with the unadulterated truth about herself while being interrogated by the enemy after her capture. Shocking, I know. Half-truths. Partial lies. She did her best to “play” Skynet. Rotten bad luck (for her) that she got caught with the bracelet thing.

As it turned out, her father was a designer…just not of buildings. Seems he was the principle developer of the CPU system that powered the first more-or-less autonomous aerial HKs. Add in Kaliba’s contribution of the theater-wide Skynet strategist, and you’re bound to see hi-jinx ensue. Obviously the HKA-1s are derived from the drone being developed at the warehouse and used by Kaliba to crash into Weaver’s office. The CPU, though, that’s Young’s. He made the drone something special. He gave Skynet a tool to use and a reason for the government to continue its love affair with the project.

Being Metal

Now, after all of this time, we find out why Kaliba has been so doggone interested in Savannah: they think that she’s MPA like Weaver and Weaver’s eel (obviously they were observing the office during and after the drone attack and saw the MPA shenanigans). It’s understandable, then, why they would want to get their hands on Savannah. After all, having an MPA terminator on your side could be a useful thing. Just ask John Connor.

Twice this episode, John’s mimetic-polyalloy ally saved his life. Yes, J.T. was about to ambush him, but don’t think that Allison wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, either. She has issues, after all, when it comes to metal.

I debated for a couple of episodes whether or not to reveal Weaver’s terminatoriness to Allison. It’s not really that crucial to the story one way or another. There was a certain appeal to not having Allison know. On the other hand, it was also forcing me to contrive situations so that Allison wouldn’t see Catherine’s true nature. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a big fan of writer’s being clever for clever’s sake. Letting Allison in on the secret opened up a couple of the roadblocks I was going to have to maneuver around. Basically, Weaver was revealed because y’all deserved that bit of storytelling honesty.

Being Mused

In every script, there are sections for which I must credit the Muses more than myself…I’m not that clever. The most notable one this episode was the transition of Savannah feeding the one turtle to John and friends burying the bodies. Sarah’s comment about John trying to help someone in trouble, though it echoes from season 2’s “Complications”, helped add resonance to John’s scene.

Funny thing: in the first writing of the action description, Weaver had formed her arms into two back-hoe scoops to dig the graves. That seemed much too comedic for this scene, so I stopped and thought about how would an MPA-based being dig a hole…or 50+? (I don’t think John and Allison together were able to dig many graves on their own. Most of it was Weaver.) It was one of those having to think outside the conventional box when the players have different rules.

Being Connor

Obviously the result of the graves has been John’s elevation in the eyes of the Tunnel Trolls. Looking at my site logs, I know that F0302 – “Tempest Tossed” is your all’s least favorite episode of the ones I’ve done (though I really liked it). Thing is, it’s among the most important. You’re starting to see why.

This “third season” has been about John Connor becoming “JOHN CONNOR”. In the past, John’s been told that he has many friends (though whether they were human or metal was never clarified), that he spent all of his time with “her” [Cameron], that the people were waiting for him to be “human”, and so forth. This John, our John, obviously doesn’t want to make the same mistakes that previous Johns have–you know, the Johns that lost.

Amazingly, it was Allison and Weaver who recognized this balance.

WEAVER: It’s important that John can depend on his allies.
ALLISON: Do they all have to be metal?
WEAVER: I imagine that you are to ensure that they aren’t.

Weaver’s made a point to Allison before about being family. They seem to be having a bonding moment here. Are they bonding, or do they just happen to share a common goal of wanting to keep John alive? How will it turn out as they spend more time together?

Being Armed

Yay Sarah! Does anyone do weapons cache like Sarah Connor? As John noted in T2: “One thing about my mom–she always plans ahead.” She does, indeed.

I was asked, why does the resistance only go after endos to reprogram? Why don’t they go after the HKs? If we assume that Skynet is based on the Dyson causality loop CPU design, then perhaps the reasons the resistance doesn’t go after the HKs is because: 1) They are much tougher to disable without destroying the CPU; 2) They use a totally different CPU design (i.e., Michael Young’s).

Being in 2012

Events are now coming to a head in the past. The most important aspect of this, at least for the future, is that Skynet is ready to become part of the national defense network once it’s installed in its high-security base.

Sarah is dying. As we’ve already learned, in three months she’ll be dead (as will a whole lot of other people). Her last action-packed mission was the destruction of the Zeira Tower. She’s know that whatever they’ve done is not enough to stop Judgment Day. That’s why she wants Alex to give Savannah some happy memories in the time left. Given their world, how possible that might be is a question, but it’s a nice thought.

Sarah, Alejandra, and Savannah have definitely forged themselves a family. They trust each other with each other’s lives. Will Weaver, in the future, be as successful with the family she’s trying to forge (and in her case…perhaps literally forge)?

One can’t help but wonder about Savannah. How have the events since the death of her real parents affected her? She’s been hunted. She’s killed. She’s been told about a horrific future. She thinks of “metal” as one of her mothers. Soon, the end of the world. That’s got to do something interesting with the girl’s psychology.

Being Webbed

I want to again thank all of you cyborg zombies and cyborg cuties for the comments, emails, links, and your efforts in promoting this project around the web. As I’ve been saying, you are part of this, too. Y’all have affected the story with your passions, and you have brought more readers to share in what you’ve been enjoying.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Someone asked if I thought I was taking away from the Save SCC efforts. I don’t think so. My intent from the beginning was to show people and TPTB the possibilities of continuing this saga. I hope that the Save SCC efforts succeed. I’d love to see the show back on the air. If they want to do a direct-to-DVD movie, I’d love to write it (seriously…I would). If they want to do a theatrical based on my vision, I’d really love to write that, too (I wouldn’t mind the paycheck, either).

In lieu of those possibilities, at least The Connor Wars is here. If the series isn’t officially resurrected, there will be these scripts. I like to think that they are a fair contribution to the legend. Others might disagree, and that’s fair. After all, everybody doesn’t like something. But nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee (sorry…old commercial jingle in my head). Still, these are actually here and not virtual, and that’s saying something at this point. Keep spreading the word for people to come to The Connor Wars https://tib.cjcs.com/tcw

So…I should probably get to writing on episode 12. Until next Writer’s Room, I bid all of my cyborg zombies and cuties a heartfelt see-ya-soon. (Oh yeah, and don’t forget to drop my my Amazon store and order your Season 2 DVDs.)