Advent calendar: December 7

Terminator S.C.C. - The Sarah Connor Chronicles and how Skynet came into the world

The Terminator was one of the most successful movies of 1984. It was written and directed by James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger played the evil guy, a ferocious cyborg killer. The film was a commercial success and had a lasting cultural influence. In 2008 the Library of Congress decided to include it into the American National Film Registry, judging it to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Four sequels followed, the last one in 2015, Terminator Genisys, again with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In 2008 the Fox Broadcasting Company decided to use the popularity of the Terminator movies and decided to produce the series "Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles" that is based on the first two Terminator movies.

In the movies intelligent machines seized the power on earth after an atomic catastrophe. The machines try to exterminate the last remaining human beings. But there is resistance and to break this resistance the robots go back into the past. They send perfect robots, the terminators, back in time to kill John Connor, head of the resistance movement, or his mother Sarah. But the humans also sent robots back into the past to protect Sarah and John.

In the series the humans also try to prevent the machines from coming to power by stopping the development of Skynet, the network of intelligent machines that later seize power. The female terminator Cameron who comes back from the future supports John's and Sarah's fight against the machines.

In the third episode of the series Sarah visits Andy Goode, who earns his living by selling mobile phones. But Goode is also interested in chess programming and developed a platform for Artificial Intelligence which he dubbed "the Turk" - a reverence to the Turk, the first chess automaton. Later Goode's Turk turns into "Skynet". In a conversation with Sarah Goode reveals that he is a great fan of the chess engine Fritz and explains the significance of the match between Deep Fritz and Vladimir Kramnik.






Andy Goode's "Turk"



A skeptical Sarah Connor

Now we know: the victory of Deep Fritz in the match against Kramnik in Bonn inspired Goode to develop a chess program which later turned into Skynet. Who would have thought that chess is so dangerous?

Goode explains a new version of the Turk to Sarah

A journey through time

Ten years ago Deep Fritz won his match against World Champion Vladimir Kramnik in Bonn.

Deep Fritz, whose moves are made by Matthias Feist, plays against Vladimir Kramnik

Press conference

And here's the appropriate ChessBase door:

Links: Terminator Wiki...