Aahana Swrup
Netflix’s anime ‘Terminator Zero’ revolves around Malcolm Lee, a scientist in Japan whose work with his AI, Kokoro, changes humanity’s fate for better or for worse. In fact, his work is so influential that it brings two time-travelers—one cyborg and one human—to the past to prevent Kokoro’s inception. Malcolm cursed with a prophetic vision of the future, knows that another AI, Skynet, is bound to take over humanity through nuclear warfare. Therefore, the Terminator cyborg has jumped back in time to neutralize Malcolm’s threat over his species’ future.
On the other hand, human resistance survivor Eiko follows the bot to save Malcolm long enough to end Skynet, but not so long that Kokoro becomes humanity’s next jailer. Naturally, the same sends Malcolm and his three kids into the jaws of danger. As the show progresses with a jumble of time travelers at its narrative center, the usually linear nature of time snaps, splintering into different timelines. With flashbacks—that are simultaneously flashes into the future—tangling into the plot, fans might be looking for a much-needed simplification! SPOILERS AHEAD!
Time Travel and Alternate Timelines in Terminator Zero
Before delving into the various timelines that the characters create throughout ‘Terminator Zero’ by traveling through time, it’s crucial to understand the nature of time travel within this universe. Fortunately, Eiko’s mentor, known only as the Prophet, lays down the law when it comes to time travel early in the story. In this universe, jumping back in time doesn’t allow individuals to change their own future. Instead, it creates a new path for the past to diverge, starting a parallel but alternate timeline.
Essentially, if time—untouched and allowed to flow as it is—forms a linear path, then traveling through time bends its flow into a zig-zag. As such, a time traveler can never change their own present timeline. The moment they leave their present to travel back into the past, they create a new reality, leaving the previous future to its predicament. Therefore, the true motive of any time traveler—the one they can achieve in any case—is creating a new and better reality than the one they leave behind. However, given the frequency with which characters utilize an escape into the past, several timelines are created and left behind.
2025-2045: Malcolm Lee’s Origin Story
Unsurprisingly, Malcolm Lee’s original timeline is the reality that jumpstarts the events of ‘Terminator Zero’ in many ways. Malcolm is born in the year 2025, when humans and robots have been waging war against one another for decades. The robots, under Skynet AI’s global rule, have been crushing human resistance groups left and right to the point where kids as young as five years old are being trained as soldiers to fight for their species. Malcolm is one such kid who has been learning the art of war from his mother, Eiko—or at least her future version.
Malcolm and the other kids are taught the intricacies of robotic engineering as an aggressive tactic to take down Terminator bots. However, unlike his peers, Malcolm takes up a particular interest in the same, even outside of simply wishing their adversary’s defeat. In fact, he becomes so fascinated with robots that he starts imagining ways in which the creation of a better AI could potentially help humans rather than harm them. Expectedly, his unorthodox thinking invites ridicule and ostracization from his community. Nonetheless, Malcolm refuses to give up on his ideas as he becomes an adult.
Therefore, Malcolm begins creating an AI with the intention of allowing it to create its own identity rather than forcing one upon it. Thus, Misaki comes into being. Through the years, he keeps working with Misaki, expanding the AI’s understanding of the world and humanity. Yet, soon enough, trouble knocks on their door as the resistance learns about Malcolm’s experiment. As a result, they attempt to dismantle his work, compelling him to kill his former comrades to save Misaki.
In the end, Malcolm and Misaki conclude that the future is beyond saving and that the only way they can bring real change is by traveling back to the past and creating a new reality. For the same reason, he chooses the year 1987—a decade before Skynet brings Judgement Day upon humanity. Thus, they abandoned Malcolm’s 2040s timeline in favor of writing a new history where they might create an AI that would defeat Skynet.
2022: Humanity and Robots are Stuck in a Perpetual War
Even though Malcolm is a crucial piece of the puzzle in the show, two other characters and their mission end up overtaking him as the central focus within the narrative. These characters—a Terminator bot and a human survivor, Eiko—find their start in the year 2022. The year 2022 is a distant future for the franchise rather than the contemporary reality as it copes with the aftermath of Skynet’s 1997 attack. It’s essential to remember that the Eiko from this timeline isn’t Malcolm Lee’s mother—or at least she isn’t yet. This Eiko is still relatively young and hasn’t given birth to any child yet.
As such, when Eiko embarks on a deadly mission to steal Skynet’s data and learns that the AI is sending a Terminator after Malcolm Lee in 1997, she has no idea that he is related to her in any way. This timeline is an indirect result of Malcolm’s jump into the past. In fact, this timeline houses Kenta, Malcolm’s son, who grew up in the 1990s and into the 2020s. The grown-up version of Kenta has brokered an alliance, likely a tentative one, between the Skynet and humanity. Therefore, he’s actually the person involved in assigning the Terminator its mission to stop Kokoro.
Consequently, once Eiko and her resistance group learn about the same, they end up making plans to send their own agent to create a beneficial future for humanity. Even though the Terminator shows up at their base and attempts to prevent Eiko from successfully time traveling, it only manages to massacre the rest of the survivors. Thus, Eiko travels back into the past—the year 1997—and the Terminator follows shortly after. Ultimately, the 2022 timeline is abandoned with Eiko’s comrades and her close friend, Annie, perishing to ensure her own safe travel.
1987-1997: A Race to Prevent Judgement Day
The 1997 timeline is the final reality, where all four central time-traveling characters’ present collide. Malcolm and Misaki are the first ones to arrive. They have given themselves a headstart of an entire decade to change the future they have escaped from. During this time, the duo decided that the best way to prevent Skynet’s upcoming Judgement Day on August 29, 1997, was to create a better AI that would not turn against humanity and instead prevent the former’s nuclear attack.
For the same reason, Malcolm joins Cortex Industries to have access to the right technology to bring his vision to fruition. As a side effect of the same, he also ends up modernizing Japan drastically to the point where 1NN0 bots can be found for robotic assistance around every corner. Eventually, Malcolm unexpectedly falls in love and starts his own family. Still, he remains steadfast in his mission even after he loses his wife in a tragic bus accident.
In a few years, Malcolm successfully creates the seed that can grow into his ultimate AI. However, in order to improve upon his previous design, he requires Misaki’s CPU to install within the new program. As such, Misaki ends up losing her memories and assumes the role of a Nanny, who believes she’s a human. As Malcolm tirelessly works in his lab to perfect the new AI, who names herself Kokoro, Misaki stays at home taking care of his kids, Reika, Hiro, and Kenta. This is the same Kenta who will grow up to negotiate a deal between Skynet and humanity.
Therefore, the Terminator and Eiko arrive in this timeline after they leave 2022 behind. Both have the shared goal of stopping Kokoro to different ends. While the Terminator wants to kill Malcolm and his AI unless he can incorporate it into Skynet, Eiko plans on letting Malcolm launch Kokoro so that she can stop Skynet’s attack as long as he deactivates her shortly afterward. Almost the entire rest of the show unfolds within this timeline.
As Eiko, Misaki, Kokoro, and the Lee kids remain in this reality, it becomes the main timeline that would shape the rest of the rest of the story. Currently, the two major paradoxes that exist within this timeline are Eiko and Kenta. Both have learned about their roles in alternate futures—as Malcolm’s mother and Skynet’s emissary, respectively. Nevertheless, the choices they have made so far have significantly derailed them from such futures.
Read More: Terminator Zero Ending Explained: Does Kokoro Get Shut Down?
