rob@anwar.UUCP (Robert R Stegmann) (06/18/85)
[rumor: the line eater bug is a hoax]
It seems to me that a concept central to TERMINATOR was that of
a robot assassin capable of passing for a human. In addition,
the robot and human antagonists pursued each other using time
travel. Both of these ideas have been employed together in
Fred Saberhagen's Berserker stories, which I believe antedate
TERMINATOR. I am unsure as to whether they antedate Ellison's
work. Has Ellison ripped off Saberhagen or vice versa? Have the
people responsible for TERMINATOR ripped off Saberhagen?
The scene in TERMINATOR showing a flashback to the future
in which a terminator robot infiltrates a human enclave and begins to
shoot up the place very strongly brought to mind the Berserker stories.
To my mind, the only plausible justification for Ellison's victory is the
evidence that the story was plagiarized from scripts he submitted and
which were rejected.
rob
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax}!philabs!hhb!robjohn@hp-pcd.UUCP (john) (06/27/85)
<<<< A race of mechanical killing machines bent on conquering all life. They were created long ago as warriors for a now extinct race fighting a long forgotten war. They fight all life forms and continually build more and more replacements. They have been known to spare the lifes of humans who are useful to them. Berserkers or Cylons? Perhaps Saberhagen should demand credit (or blame) for Battlestar Ponderosa. John Eaton !hplabs!hp-pcd!john
JAFFE@RUTGERS.ARPA (07/08/85)
From: mercury@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Larry E. Baker) [bugs! UGH.] > A race of mechanical killing machines bent on conquering all life. They > were created long ago as warriors for a now extinct race fighting a long > forgotten war. They fight all life forms and continually build more and > more replacements. They have been known to spare the lifes of humans who > are useful to them. > > Berserkers or Cylons? > > Perhaps Saberhagen should demand credit (or blame) for Battlestar Ponderosa. I don't think I agree. In the Berserker stories, the Berserkers were *really* massive machines, some as large as a small moon, intent on literally cleansing the planets of *all* life, down to the microbes. Consider "A Teardrop Falls." Indeed, they were machine intelligence, but of a vastly different sort than the Cylons. As memory serves, the Cylons (in the movies, not the books) were *man-shaped* machine intelligences, more robot than intelligence, who considered themselves more as a race than a collection of hardware. I don't recall exactly, but I think that the Cylons were intent mainly on eliminating Humanity; they weren't interested in *all* life forms. I find "The Doomsday Machine" (of STAR TREK fame) much more similar to the Berserker series than the Battlestar Ponderosa fiasco, and I suspect that the writer who wrote that story got the idea from Saberhagen, although the idea is sufficently different to preclude any leagal action. "He described himself as a typical American, whose limited knowlage of middle-eastern politics had been vastly changed by spending 13 days with Moslem Hijackers." -- Larry Baker ... {seismo!ut-sally | decvax!allegra | tektronix!ihnp4}!ut-ngp!mercury.UUCP ... mercury@ut-ngp.ARPA ... ut-ngp!mercury@ut-sally.CSNET
mercury@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Larry E. Baker) (07/12/85)
[bugs! UGH.] > A race of mechanical killing machines bent on conquering all life. They > were created long ago as warriors for a now extinct race fighting a long > forgotten war. They fight all life forms and continually build more and > more replacements. They have been known to spare the lifes of humans who > are useful to them. > > Berserkers or Cylons? > > Perhaps Saberhagen should demand credit (or blame) for Battlestar Ponderosa. I don't think I agree. In the Berserker stories, the Berserkers were *really* massive machines, some as large as a small moon, intent on literally cleansing the planets of *all* life, down to the microbes. Consider "A Teardrop Falls." Indeed, they were machine intelligence, but of a vastly different sort than the Cylons. As memory serves, the Cylons (in the movies, not the books) were *man-shaped* machine intelligences, more robot than intelligence, who considered themselves more as a race than a collection of hardware. I don't recall exactly, but I think that the Cylons were intent mainly on eliminating Humanity; they weren't interested in *all* life forms. I find "The Doomsday Machine" (of STAR TREK fame) much more similar to the Berserker series than the Battlestar Ponderosa fiasco, and I suspect that the writer who wrote that story got the idea from Saberhagen, although the idea is sufficently different to preclude any leagal action. "He described himself as a typical American, whose limited knowlage of middle-eastern politics had been vastly changed by spending 13 days with Moslem Hijackers." -- Larry Baker ... {seismo!ut-sally | decvax!allegra | tektronix!ihnp4}!ut-ngp!mercury.UUCP ... mercury@ut-ngp.ARPA ... ut-ngp!mercury@ut-sally.CSNET