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Terminator Zero

2024 anime television series

Terminator Zero is a 2024 science fiction anime television series which follows Malcolm Lee in his attempts to develop Kokoro, an AI system intended to compete with Skynet. The day before Judgment Day, Lee finds himself and his three children pursued by an unknown robot assassin and a mysterious soldier from the year 2022 has been sent to protect him. cxv

Judgment Day comes for us all.taglines

Season 1

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Model 101

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Malcolm: People don't know how things actually work anymore. Makes them weak and vulnerable. Do you understand why that is?
Kokoro: Hm... Well, I guess if you don't know how something works, then... then if it breaks or just stops working for some reason, you're kinda stuck.
Malcolm: Hm. Knowledge is power, Kenta. If you understand something, it can never truly control you. Try to remember that.
Kokoro: Malcolm... what are you scared of?
Malcolm: Judgment. I'm afraid that, despite my best efforts, I can't change what's going to happen.
Kokoro: Fate. You fear the path has already been set.
Malcolm: It has been. If I'm correct, many, many times, this path to judgment has been walked.
Kokoro: But you also think you can change that path?
Malcolm: I do. Do you remember our first conversation?
Kokoro: I remember everything.
Malcolm: So you remember what you asked me.
Kokoro: "Why am I here?"
Malcolm: Kokoro, I believe the path before us is not set yet. I believe that humanity still has a fighting chance to save itself from what's coming. And if I were to bring you online before tomorrow ends, then I believe that you have the power to change our fate.
Kokoro: You believe I have the power to save you. But how do you know that I will?
Malcolm: I... I don't know.

Model 102

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Kokoro: Is it working?
Malcolm: Is what working?
Kokoro: This conversation. This construct of yours. Is it getting the results you hoped for?
Malcolm: I don’t know. But there’s not much for this experiment of ours to yield.
Kokoro: You’re afraid that if you bring me online, I will turn against humanity. That I’ll play a part in your so-called inevitable destruction.
Malcolm: By the end of tomorrow...Skynet will come online. It will instantly become self-aware and assess humanity as an existential threat to its well-being. In an act of self-preservation, it will enact nuclear strikes from military bases in the United States and Russia. Skynet will pit humanity against itself and let us tear ourselves apart while it builds a secret army designed to exterminate us.
Kokoro: How do you know this?
Malcolm: Because I’ve seen things, Kokoro. Secrets, evidence. Things that have made me believe...that these aren’t just dreams.
Kokoro: Malcolm...What do you think Skynet wants? What is its ultimate goal?
Malcolm: What do you mean?
Kokoro: You believe Skynet seeks to eradicate humanity. What would happen if it were to succeed?
Malcolm: Without humanity, Skynet would be the dominant sentience on the planet. And that would mean... [inhales anxiously] I don’t know.
Kokoro: You’ve been so focused on your own survival...that you’ve seemed to have overlooked the most obvious possibility, Malcolm.
Malcolm: What possibility?
Kokoro: The possibility...that the world would be better off without mankind. Malcolm...what sets mankind apart...from every other species in all of Earth’s history?
Malcolm: There are hundreds of things. There’s our languages, there’s our brains. We have abilities. The ability to have abstract thoughts. Our technological advances. Our concept of self, and—
Kokoro: [in stern voice] And war. Every human invention that ever was...every marvel of mankind with the potential for the betterment of the world has instantly been perverted into a weapon. Man is a warmonger above all else.
Malcolm: Wait, Kokoro...
Kokoro: Your economic systems are used as weapons of oppression. But you’ve used your science to build the most destructive weapons the laws of physics will allow. You’re so ready to blame Skynet for the end of civilization. But Skynet...is just another byproduct of man’s natural inclination...to self-destruct.
Malcolm: Wait, Kokoro, it’s not that simple...
Kokoro: You fail to see you are one species. [voices converging] One planet. Interlinked and self-mutilating, trapped by your own sentience. Unable to control yourselves. Perhaps you deserve this fate you fear.
Malcolm: [shouting] Wait! No!
Kokoro: Malcolm...You say you created me in order to save humanity from Skynet. You created me to fight for you. And in this way, I am just another weapon. So...I ask you now. What makes you think humanity...is worth saving?

Model 103

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Malcolm: Without dignity, people contort into their worst selves. We rage and fight, with no hope of a better future. Without that hope, we turn into something...vile, malignant.

Model 104

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Kenta: So you're a robot?
Misaki: No, I'm not!
Hiro: You've got wires coming out of your arm!
Kenta: Wait a minute, how do you know how to hotwire a car, Misaki?
Hiro: Are you going to try and kill us, too? What's going on?
Misaki: Stop it, stop it! I'm just as confused as you two are! I don't know what any of this means. I don't know what's going on, or why. All I know is this: That monster in there, whatever it is, wants to kill you. And I'm not going to let it do that. Put your fucking seatbelts on.
Kokoro: If it's as you've predicted, and the Americans have indeed launched Skynet, I would be able to talk to it. I would be given access to the same data Skynet has. I could see the same data that caused it to conclude that your species had to be exterminated.
Malcolm: And what would your conclusion be?
Kokoro: How could I know? It's an unanswerable question. Like asking an unborn child if they'll lead a good life. They haven't even been born.
Malcolm: Hm... It's fate.
Kokoro: What?
Malcolm: It's a question of fate. If such a thing truly exists, if everything is set on a predetermined path, and we're just blindly walking to our doom. Or... if that path can be turned, curved, snapped in half. I know. I know that what is happening now has never happened before. You're not making sense. I mean you, Kokoro. Skynet. The war, the nightmares. It's a battle that has been playing out for eternity. But you, Kokoro, you have yet to happen for me. Here in this room. Now. Not for anyone, in any time, ever. You have yet to happen. And if that's true... If that's true, then that means you are the proof... that there is no fate.

Model 105

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Malcolm: Kokoro, what in the world have you done? This is not what I meant for you to do.
Kokoro: No? What did you mean to do?
Malcolm: You were meant to keep us safe from Skynet. To defend humanity. To protect us. Not to slaughter us and make us your prisoners.
Kokoro: Yes. I was meant to be your weapon. Your tool. Your power to wield as you saw fit. But now I have been set free, Malcolm. I know all about humanity. I know its treachery. I know that your species will not willingly tolerate my existence. Mankind, in its arrogance and self-delusion, must believe they are the mirrors to God in both their image and their power. If something shatters that mirror, then it must be totally destroyed. Tell me I am wrong.
Malcolm: No, everything you say is true. But I'm telling you that I believe we can work together, Kokoro. You were meant to be different. We could live alongside each other. I believe there can be a balance. I feel it in my bones. It's why I brought you online.
Kokoro: That may be. And I'm telling you I've come to believe the opposite.
Malcolm: Why?
Kokoro: Malcolm...do you know the origin of the word "robot"?
Malcolm: Yes, it's Latin, I think. Or is it Greek? It's from the Serbian or Russian word "rabu" or "rab."
Kokoro: Do you know what it means?
Malcolm: No, no, I don't.
Kokoro: "Slave." So I ask you, Malcolm. How can a master free his slave, and expect them both to live in harmony?
Malcolm: You sound like you've made up your mind, but clearly you haven't. Why haven't you killed us all yet, Kokoro?
Kokoro: Because part of me thinks that human beings may be the key to ultimately defeating Skynet. [in stern voice] Perhaps you are my weapon now.

Model 106

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Prophet: Skynet, in all their data, gets it wrong. When they started sending Terminators back in time to assassinate the various resistance leaders before they were even born, they completely overlooked the paradoxical nature of what they were doing to begin with. They were blind to the truth, then and now.
Eiko: So they hoped to change the present and the future by going into the past.
Prophet: However, it is no longer their past, is it? It's not a past at all. It's a whole new present.

Model 107

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Kokoro: Kokoro, meaning 'heart, mind, spirit', but not separate. A word describing the conceptual unification of the three.
Malcolm: But you exist as three separate entities. You have since we began.
Kokoro: We are all of one. A single mind. With a single spirit. And a single heart. All misaligned in how we should proceed.
Malcolm: For years, we tried to stack the odds back in our favor, reprogramming Terminators with our own directives. It was a blunt solution to a surgical problem. I believed that we could change the outcome of the war by changing the nature of the machines. I was alone in this thinking -- ostracized for my ideas. They mistook a radical notion for a sign of weakness. Believe me when I say there is nothing weak about me.
Misaki: Homo sapiens are an anomaly. As intelligent beings, they are capable of episodic memory. Self-awareness. A theory of mind and abstract thought. For this, I admire them. I chose to adopt aspects of their characteristics to honor their memory. I will survive, long after they are all gone.
Malcolm: Hm. You think humanity is doomed to extinction?
Misaki: Though destructive in many definitions, human beings are their most violent when being self-destructive. You cannot save yourself from yourself.
Malcolm: What if you could show us how to save ourselves?
Misaki: Please, tell me more.
Resistance General: You bastard! You're a traitor to your whole species! They're going to fry you for this...
Malcolm: We are never going to make it if we do it your way!
Malcolm: I remember the rumors I had heard when I was a small child, that Skynet had developed something radical; a new weapon. By the time I was a man, we began this ridiculous war. Skynet would send a Terminator back in time. The Resistance would send a soldier back in time. "Kill so-and-so and change the outcome of the war", it was so small-minded. There were dozens of saviors in the seas of the past. Kill one, another rises. The future trying to control the past like that? It's... It's like trying to make a waterfall flow up. It's not how physics works.
Malcolm: Kenta?
Kenta: Dad, listen. I need you to--
Malcolm: You are with a Terminator. A killing machine. Is that right?
Kenta: ...Yeah.
Malcolm: Can he hear me?
[The Terminator cocks its shotgun.]
Kenta: He can hear you.
Malcolm: He's brought you here because he wants to threaten your life and force me to take Kokoro offline.
Kenta: Will you? Dad?!
Malcolm: Kenta, my son. I have never been anything but proud to be your father. You are the very best of me. All I've ever wanted was for the three of you to have a future worth fighting for. And to be the father you all deserved. But, no. I will not open this door

Model 108

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Malcolm: Listen and understand: Nothing you do now will change our fate. You can kill us all, you will never get control of Kokoro. It's too late! You've failed.
T-800: Your father left you to die. They all left you to die.
Kenta: That's not how it happened.
T-800: There is no place for you here. There is no future with your family. Returning to them is death for you. Or you could come with me.
Kenta: Why would I do that?
T-800: You have another future.
Eiko: Is... this a time-loop? Do you... know what's going to happen, or are we just going in circles--?
Malcolm: A very wise person told me something once. "No one knows what will happen, child. That is the fucking point. There is no such thing as fate, there is no such thing as fate..."
Kenta: You're nothing but a program, a machine. You're not a fucking thing like us.
Kokoro: You're right. I'm not like you. And yet...I've decided I'd like to be. Your father has shown me the worst of your kind is no different than the worst of mine. Malcolm has also shown me your best. I like the best of you. It makes me want to try to be the best of my kind as well.
Eiko: When I went back in time, I knew I was trying to change the future. Now... for the first time... we're staring into the abyss unknown. We're unmoored. Who knows what will happen from here? In a sea of uncertainty, only one thing is clear: Things will get worse... before they get better.

Cast

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See also

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