Cameron seeks to embody her very goal: to be cyborg but also human, coexisting in one body. John might be her master, but her goals will continue without him. Cameron sometimes lies to the Connors in order to better protect her preferred future even when it endangers the people she's protecting, but really, the best example of her agency at work is her remorse over killing birds on accident, and her horror at having tried to kill John. She implants a bomb in her skull and gives him the trigger because while she cannot kill herself, she is able to find a workaround so she always has a way to stop herself from going out of control. This willingness to kill herself for a greater good is absolutely not something she was built with; it's a show of how far she has grown all on her own.
And of course, there's the issue of cruelty. Cameron is ruthless, but she is not cruel, and she actively tries not to become cruel--although she needs some guidance in that area. More than once, she convinces someone she will help protect them, only to let them be gunned down as she walks away, and by her definition this is just practical. She wants to learn better, though. She observes Sarah Connor turning over a tortoise that had rolled onto its back in the desert, and muses that some people would have ignored it, or driven over it and crushed it. When asked pointedly if she would have crushed it, she argues that it wasn't a threat. And when that explanation doesn't satisfy her own curiosity, she also explains that she was never built to be cruel. We then see her show that kindness to an FBI agent who had been knocked unconscious on his back.
Early on, she meets a girl at school who is crying in the bathroom. Cameron listens to her, and then tries to offer her a present because she doesn't know how to comfort a person. Later, that same girl commits suicide and Cameron refuses to let John help--as a result, he never again trusts her when he befriends people. It's an issue that she subtly tries to rectify by testing out different methods: either scaring away his friends so he won't be hurt by them, or by trying to befriend them as well. She experiments with 'friendship' on her own as well, but ultimately has to learn that when she screws up (which is very, very often) humans are not forgiving and are slow to read her new, apologetic behaviors. One of the largest examples of this is her librarian buddy who she visits every night, sharing donuts and discussing endless topics with him. Her mistake with him is being too honest: she informs him that he has cancer again, and can't understand why he lashes out at her for it. She never gets the chance to make it up to him, but it makes her more careful with her later interactions. She needs friends for different reasons than humans do, but her needs are every bit as real and intense and they will help her become very involved in the Barge.
She was not programmed with any of this. She is built to learn how to be more human, and that is what will allow her to be a dedicated inmate.
Tying all of that into her path to redemption is fairly straightforward. While Cameron will always have an eye towards getting back home for her primary mission, it has been shown in canon that Terminators are capable of royally screwing up their mission to the point they have to abandon it entirely and build a new one for themselves. Once Cameron realizes there is no bribing or escaping off the ship, she will turn to her other, self-created primary mission: bettering the cyborg race, creating a new era of human development, and helping to ensure that the newest group of cyborgs aren't genocidal monsters unless they have to be. She is willing to work with Weaver to find a way to let cyborgs and humans co-exist in canon, and would be more than willing to learn to adapt the traits of her shipmates for that purpose. Everything she learns from the Barge about self-reliance and conscientiousness and empathy, she can teach to future generations of robots.
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Revisions
Date: 2017-09-14 12:59 am (UTC)And of course, there's the issue of cruelty. Cameron is ruthless, but she is not cruel, and she actively tries not to become cruel--although she needs some guidance in that area. More than once, she convinces someone she will help protect them, only to let them be gunned down as she walks away, and by her definition this is just practical. She wants to learn better, though. She observes Sarah Connor turning over a tortoise that had rolled onto its back in the desert, and muses that some people would have ignored it, or driven over it and crushed it. When asked pointedly if she would have crushed it, she argues that it wasn't a threat. And when that explanation doesn't satisfy her own curiosity, she also explains that she was never built to be cruel. We then see her show that kindness to an FBI agent who had been knocked unconscious on his back.
Early on, she meets a girl at school who is crying in the bathroom. Cameron listens to her, and then tries to offer her a present because she doesn't know how to comfort a person. Later, that same girl commits suicide and Cameron refuses to let John help--as a result, he never again trusts her when he befriends people. It's an issue that she subtly tries to rectify by testing out different methods: either scaring away his friends so he won't be hurt by them, or by trying to befriend them as well. She experiments with 'friendship' on her own as well, but ultimately has to learn that when she screws up (which is very, very often) humans are not forgiving and are slow to read her new, apologetic behaviors. One of the largest examples of this is her librarian buddy who she visits every night, sharing donuts and discussing endless topics with him. Her mistake with him is being too honest: she informs him that he has cancer again, and can't understand why he lashes out at her for it. She never gets the chance to make it up to him, but it makes her more careful with her later interactions. She needs friends for different reasons than humans do, but her needs are every bit as real and intense and they will help her become very involved in the Barge.
She was not programmed with any of this. She is built to learn how to be more human, and that is what will allow her to be a dedicated inmate.
Tying all of that into her path to redemption is fairly straightforward. While Cameron will always have an eye towards getting back home for her primary mission, it has been shown in canon that Terminators are capable of royally screwing up their mission to the point they have to abandon it entirely and build a new one for themselves. Once Cameron realizes there is no bribing or escaping off the ship, she will turn to her other, self-created primary mission: bettering the cyborg race, creating a new era of human development, and helping to ensure that the newest group of cyborgs aren't genocidal monsters unless they have to be. She is willing to work with Weaver to find a way to let cyborgs and humans co-exist in canon, and would be more than willing to learn to adapt the traits of her shipmates for that purpose. Everything she learns from the Barge about self-reliance and conscientiousness and empathy, she can teach to future generations of robots.