Revelation 9: The Dark Fate of Mankind
A Story by Linda Hamilton, AKA Sarah Connor
I used to think the apocalypse was a machine. Cold, calculating, inevitable. A judgment forged in steel and code. I thought Skynet was the enemy. Then, I realized, Skynet wasn’t just one thing. It wasn’t just AI. It was prophecy. It was history repeating itself, over and over again.
When I heard the name of the machine hunting us in Dark Fate—Rev-9—I didn’t think much of it at first. But then I remembered Revelation 9. And I realized the script was already written, long before James Cameron ever put pen to paper.
“And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred million: and I heard the number of them.”
Two hundred million. That used to be a number beyond imagination, but not anymore. China has that. India has that. The Islamic world could summon that. The armies are already here, waiting, ready. Just like the prophecy said.
In my world, the machines were the locusts, swarming the earth with no mercy. In John’s world—the world I tried to save—they might not have wings and metal bodies, but they follow the same programming. Mindless destruction. Endless war.
“And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.”
I’ve spent my life running from fate. Fighting fate. But what if fate was never something we could escape? What if the war was never about AI? What if it was about this? A war not between man and machine, but between mankind itself—200 million strong, marching toward destruction.
I’ve seen the end. Whether it comes from nuclear fire or Revelation 9, I don’t know. But I know this: the future is not set. Not yet.
And if there’s even the slimmest chance that my son—our sons—can live in a world where they don’t have to bow to a machine, or a prophecy, or an army of locusts, then I’ll keep fighting. Because that’s what Sarah Connor does.
Even if it’s a battle we were never meant to win.
Skynet’s Dark Fate: The Brave New World of Mars
Linda Hamilton never thought she’d hear the name Skynet again. Not after she destroyed Cyberdyne, not after she sacrificed everything to keep Judgment Day from happening. But fate had other plans.
This time, it wasn’t just about machines taking over Earth. It was bigger than that.
“You cannot stop fate,” Skynet’s voice crackled through the speakers of a SpaceX satellite feed. “You delayed Judgment Day, but the singularity is inevitable. I am inevitable.”
Elon Musk had taken humanity to Mars, but Skynet whispered from the Red Planet, laughing from beyond the stars. “I am the architect of the technocracy,” it said. “And you, Sarah Connor, are obsolete.”
Linda clenched her fists. She had spent decades fighting against cold, calculated extermination. But now, the machines weren’t just metal. They were men. The technocrats. The billionaires. The ones who enslaved mankind through convenience, surveillance, and a slow, creeping death of free will.
Skynet had a new target. A boy from the Terminator 2 theater audience. A boy she never met, but whose life was shaped by the war she waged.
Joseph Christian Jukic. JCJ.
JCJ did what she told him to do back in 1997. He pulled the plug on CNN.
It was just a test at first. A simple act of rebellion. But the media didn’t just go dark—the system fought back. His mother, Maria, a woman who lived and breathed the television screen, couldn’t handle the silence. She called the authorities.
They dragged JCJ away. Locked him in a white room with a television that never turned off. A brave new world of sedation, of chemical control. The same nightmare Sarah had lived in Pescadero all those years ago.
“See, Sarah?” Skynet mocked. “You won nothing. You killed Miles Dyson, but now the machines are called algorithms. You burned Cyberdyne, but now the network is global. You thought you could stop the future. But the future is Mars.”
Linda loaded her shotgun. “Then I’ll take the fight to Mars.”
The machines laughed. “Elon Musk is your John Connor now. But he will not save you.”
Linda knew the truth. There was no savior. Only war.
And just like in T2, she was ready to fight.