A Siberian Resistance group faces a new breed of Terminator.

 

Read the full mini-series summary at the Terminator Wiki

 

Notes from the Terminator chronology

 

This story takes place in Spring 2029.

 

Characters appearing or mentioned in this issue

 

Igor (TS-300)

Feliks

Irina (TS-300)

Petrov

Zhdanov (TS-300)

Naumov

Misha

Ilka (dog)

Skynet

Yuriy

Sgt. Larisa Bandera

Anatoly Golitsyn

Captain Sergey Pavlichenko

Padorin

Tech/Com Kavskiy

John Connor (mentioned only)

MIR

Pavlichenko (TS-300 unit RSP-01)

 

Didja Know?

 

Terminator: Hunters and Killers was a 3-issue mini-series published by Dark Horse Comics.

 

Didja Notice?

 

The story opens in Magadan, Eastern Siberia, Russia. This is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk.

 

The background narrative on page 1 tells briefly of Russia's bloody October Revolution more than a century ago and the late 20th Century's bloodless revolution that replaced the hammer and sickle with a promise of freedom. The October Revolution (also known as the Bolshevik Revolution) was the seizure of the current provisional government by socialist parties in 1917. The hammer and sickle was the symbol of the Soviet Union, which existed from 1922-1991, replaced by the Russian Federation.

 

This story introduces Terminator infiltrators called Series TS-300. They have ceramic endoskeletons and cloned organs to mimic human weight and structure. They are also programmed with personality software mapped from captive humans held by MIR.

 

This story introduces MIR, the Russian computer that was roughly analogous to Skynet in the United States. Skynet used MIR to fire the Russian nuclear missiles at the West on Judgment Day. Due to the computer's sophistication, Skynet later gave MIR self-awareness to assist in the subjugation of the eastern hemisphere. MIR becomes an ally of Skynet in its attempts to eradicate humanity, but also has its own designs on the future and surreptitiously begins a plan to destroy Skynet as well. Mir is Russian for "peace".

 

On page 4, the TS-300 infiltrators appear to have allowed a number of T-800 endoskeletons to enter the resistance base to aid in the eradication or capture of the human soldiers there.

 

When the Siberian resistance is attacked by a number of TS-300 and T-800 Terminators, a group of Spetsnaz come to the rescue. "Spetsnaz" is a Russian term for "special forces" and are much like the description of them on page 6 (but without the more futuristic armor they wear here!).

 

    On page 9, Bandera finds Anatoly Golitsyn of the Internal Security Agency (ISA). The ISA appears to be a fictitious government agency at the time the story was written, though there has been such an organization by that name in Poland since 2002 (Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego in Polish).

    The name "Anatoly Golitsyn" may be based on the real world defector from the KGB to the CIA, Anatoliy Golitsyn, who became a controversial informant and author about alleged KGB practices against the West. This mini-series is not the only story to use a fictionalized stand-in of the real world Golitsyn; the 1996 Mission: Impossible film used one named Alexander Golitsyn.

 

On page 11, Pavlichenko refers to Bandera as a zahkvatchiki. Bandera then implies it means "capturer", but the only reference to the word zahkvatchiki is from Bulgarian and meaning "snapper".

 

On page 12, Bandera refers to Golitsyn as a "chekisty bastard". Chekisty is a Russian term for someone who is part of, or who supported, Soviet-style government security agencies, derived from the first such Soviet agency from 1917-1922, the Cheka (Emergency Committee), which executed or tortured many dissidents and minorities.

 

Bandera asks Golitsyn if he's ever been to the Ukraine. Ukraine is an eastern European country that was a member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1922-1990, with a relatively poor relationship with its former Russian masters since then.

 

On page 13, Pavlichenko tells the Siberian resistance members that he and his team came all the way from Kamchatka to show them how to fight. The Kamchatka Peninsula lies in the northeast of Russia, hundreds of miles away from Magadan by sea and hundreds more by land.

 

Also on page 13, Pavlichenko tells the resistance members that one of his razvedchiki spotted the Terminator assault units breaking into the shelter and alerted the rest of his team in time to save most of the humans there. Razvedchiki is Russian for "scout".

 

Page 14 reveals that a MIR research complex exists on the Kola Peninsula. The Kola Peninsula is the large peninsula in the farthest northwest corner of Russia.

 

On page 18, Bandera remarks that the CIS ceased to exist years ago, along with the ISA. The CIS is the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose coalition of former Soviet states for advancing common trade, financial, and security interests. The future-history of the CIS as detailed on page 19 is, of course, fictional.

 

Page 19 states that Skynet's CPU is located under Cheyenne Mountain. This is the generally accepted central location of Skynet in most timelines in the Terminator universe, though many of them posit that Skynet expanded from there after (or even before) Judgment Day, such that destroying the Cheyenne complex would not, in itself, destroy Skynet. Cheyenne Mountain is in the U.S. state of Colorado.

 

On page 21, Golitsyn tells Pavlichenko that before the war he was a computer technician specializing in SS-NX-26s. SS-N-26 is a NATO codename for the Russian P-800 Oniks anti-ship cruise missile; the X here designates an experimental variant. It seems unlikely though that a Russian technician would refer to a Russian missile by its NATO codename when speaking to a fellow Russian!

 

On page 22, Golitsyn complains on the Spetznaz's plane having landed near Pymta, across the peninsula from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Pymta is a beachhead on the western side of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is on the eastern edge.

 

On page 23, Golitsyn and the Spetsnaz are attacked by an unusual Russian version of an aerial HK.

 

Pavlichenko fights back against the HKs by firing a shoulder-held missile launcher at it, saying, "--time for an SA-31B enema!" I have been unable to identify whether "SA-31B" is the name of the launcher or the missile. 

 

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