Branches on the Tree of Time

by Alexander Wales

Kyle Reese has traveled backwards in time, not to save Sarah Connor, but to help her rewrite the faulty utility function of Skynet. Together, it's possible that they might avert Judgment Day and save the world from nuclear Armageddon - and hopefully create a utopia ruled over by an AI god in the process. Diverges wildly from canon.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel, Fan Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Artificial Intelligence

99 pages, ebook

First published September 3, 2013

Reviews

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently watched Terminator Zero, which gave me an appetite for Terminator ratfic. Now, it's easy enough to poke holes in the plans Skynet and the resistance concoct in canon - to come up with more effective ways to use time travel, given the same goals. And Wales does a pretty good job of improving on that: Skynet's apparent stupidity is explained away as a result of Skynet being dumb but very fast (as we are told repeatedly) and also deliberately appearing to be less competent than it really is, and the resistance is just straightforwardly more competent. But my biggest issue with Terminator Zero was, well... this:

Terminator Zero just lampshades the whole morally catastrophic problem of trying to fix a doomed timeline by creating more doomed timelines (a serious problem for the resistance, and at least puzzling when Skynet does it). Wales's solution is to lampshade it even harder. As one of the resistance members says:

It’s odd. We intentionally created a quadrillion timelines where the vast majority of the population died in a full nuclear exchange, and now we’re playing cagey. I know that’s what makes sense, and the theory behind it is sound, but it feels a little wrong.

They intentionally created quadrillions of nuclear/UFAI apocalypses, but not using time travel is what "feels a little wrong". And a little later:

“Skynet dropped those bombs,” said Able gently. “Not us.”

Oh, of course, that makes it so much better.

This is absolutely baffling, and I'm just gonna chalk it up to Branches on the Tree of TIme being a rough, early effort in the career of an excellent author.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

One way time travel could be done realistically. Confusing.

[Anton Hammarstedt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Setting presentation, design and originality (how cool is the setting?): 3
Setting verisimillitude and detail (how much sense does the setting make?): 4
Plot design, presentation and originality (How well-crafted was the plot, in the dramaturgic sense?): 4
Plot and character verisimillitude (How much sense did the plot and motivations make? Did events follow from motivations?): 3
Characterization and character development: 3
Character sympatheticness: 4
Prose: 3
Page turner factor: 4
Mind blown factor: 4

Final (weighted) score: 3.7

[Dimitrios Corvinos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is hands down the best Terminator story ever told. Better than Terminator 1 and 2 put together. All in a well writen, page turning way that doesn't let you put it down from start to finish. Can't recommend it highly enough.

[Sergio · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 estrellas.

Interesante, aunque le faltó profundidad y cierto pulido.
Me hubiera gustado que tuviese más discusiones éticas; en particular parece relevante tener en cuenta alguna métrica para mentes muy similares.

[Dominik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Racionalna fikcija s temom Terminatora. Jako kratko, al jako dobro. Ako možeš putovat kroz vrijeme, zašto ne brute forceat problem i otputovat nazad kvadrilijun puta sve dok ga ne riješiš?

[Yapee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and sweet, this is the kind of time travelling that I love. If you like it, do watch Travelers.