There is one huge unanswered question in Terminator Salvation: why does SkyNet want to kill Kyle Reese?
We think there is an obvious answer. Kyle Reese is John Conner's father. SkyNet failed to kill John's mother, and failed to kill John as a boy, and failed to kill John and Kate on Judgment Day, and it is quite reasonable that he would attempt to kill John's father. As John says, "Kill Kyle Reese. Reset the future. No John Conner." That, though, brings up two other questions: how does Skynet know that Kyle Reese is John's father, and why doesn't it just kill him as soon as he has been captured?
It certainly is not common knowledge that Reese is Conner's father. Resistance command does not know it. It is not sufficient that Kyle Reese is John Conner's father; for SkyNet to act on that information, it must know this. It does not appear that anyone knows but for John himself and his wife, Kate. It is not something SkyNet might have overheard.
Already we can do partial matches of genetic profiles, and thus identify two people as blood relatives. We can recognize a relationship as close as parent/child or full sibling; however, we are not yet able to distinguish who is who in these relationships. Were we to test these two men, our logical conclusion would be that Kyle, the younger, was the son of John, the elder, or possibly his younger brother. We could not distinguish father from son.
Perhaps technology will advance sufficiently that it becomes possible to identify which is the "source" sample and which the "derivative". This, however, begs the question. How would SkyNet have acquired DNA samples of both John Conner and Kyle Reese, known their identities, and not already have killed either of them?
A similar question could be raised concerning the facial recognition software by which SkyNet identifies Kyle Reese. Although it probably has trillions of images from surveillance cameras, how does it know that this image is that of Kyle Reese, and of the correct Kyle Reese? The page How Many of Me says that there are sixty-seven people in the United States named Kyle Reese, one thousand one hundred seventy named John Conner, and one hundred eighty-one named Sarah Conner.
If we assume that following the destruction of any of its machines SkyNet downloads all audio files and video images and does a forensic sweep of the area, it would gradually build identity files on resistance fighters opposing it successfully. It might use this data to identify the genetic connection between the young Kyle Reese and the older John Conner. Not being inherently constrained by the perception that Kyle is the younger, it might consider the possibility that Kyle somehow became John's father, and that he must have done so by traveling to the past from some time yet in the future. Kyle then becomes a viable target.
Why, though, does it not merely kill Kyle Reese at its first opportunity? Certainly for the bait to work Conner must believe that Kyle is still alive; but that does not mean Kyle must be alive, only that his death is not known. Kyle could be killed as soon as he is hidden and Conner is on the premises.
Perhaps the simpler answer is that SkyNet is not attempting to kill John Conner's father. It determined only that the Conners were searching for Kyle Reese, and without knowing his significance it decided to find him first and use him as bait. Kyle becomes, to SkyNet, the inexplicably useful bait in the trap. Killing him would be incidental; keeping him alive long enough to attract John is important.
This construction is useful, because if SkyNet is not attempting to kill John Conner's father but attempting to kill John Conner by using something John wants as bait, it does not need to know that Kyle is John's father. Thus we can accept that it does not know what it has until it gets that information by interfacing with Marcus Wright, and so it does not take action when it can.
Why is Kyle's name at the top of the assassination list? As with all the other data the resistance captured on that raid, it was planted to trap Conner and destroy the resistance. Skynet already knew the Conners were trying to find this person, and while it seeks him it puts out the notion that it already has him.
There is another plausible explanation, though, which will our subject next time.
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