From: guptaa@alleg.edu (...Star's Fire)
Subject: Re: Terminator
Keywords: Third Variety.
Organization: Allegheny College
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 20:08:49 GMT

In article <C0114w.M00@sunlab1.bath.ac.uk> py1djf@sunlab1.bath.ac.uk (D J Ford) writes:
||| In the referenced article, DCHANG@uhccmvs.BITNET (Doreen Chang) writes:
||| >Does anyone know where the idea for the "Terminator" movies originated?
||| >Several video guides cite James Cameron as the author of the screenplay but
||| >Leonard Maltin's guide claims that the original was based on a Harlan
||| >Ellison short story.  Does anyone know of such a short story?  If so, what
||| >was the title and in what anthology might I be most likely to locate it?
||| >Better yet, any chance of loading it into ASCII or is that a copyright
||| >violation?  If so, forget I asked that last part...  Thanks to whoever
||| >can assist.
||| >                                         dchang@uhccmvs.bitnet
||| 
||| 
||| 	Several years ago, in a SF collection I read a great
||| 	short story called 'Third Variety' possible by Philip K. Dick
||| 	though thats probably wrong, basically it went thus...
||| 
||| 	In a devastation US/Soviet war, with the US losing and
||| 	having to retreat to there last outpost on the Moon,
||| 	the US army introduced a system of killer robots ( only
||| 	small, but lethal ) that kill _anything_ that moves, and 
||| 	are only stopped from killing the US soldiers by radio-active
||| 	tags worn by them.
||| 
||| 	In the US front lines, a small group of soldiers receives
||| 	a surrender message from the Soviets, and one soldier goes
||| 	out of discuss terms. On the way to the Soviet front lines he
||| 	meets a quite, emancipated young boy, clutching a teddy bear, who
||| 	starts to follow him.
||| 
||| 	When the soldier arrives at the Soviet lines, a lone soldier
||| 	fires at the boy, killing him, and revealing that the boy is
||| 	, in fact, a robot. The few surviving soldiers in this soviet
||| 	group, two men and a women ( I think ) , reveal to the American
||| 	that groups of these killer robots disguised as humans
||| 	have been infiltrating the soviet bunkers. So far they have
||| 	discerned two types, The young boy and his teddy bear ( First 
||| 	variety ), and a wounded soldier ( Second Variety ) and now
||| 	there waiting to find out what the Third Variety is.
||| 
||| 	But soon, the US soldier realises that the Robots have turned
||| 	on there masters, and have destroyed what was left of the 
||| 	American forces. So, he and the soviets leave on a trek, 
||| 	to find a hidden escape rocket so they can get to the base on
||| 	the moon.
||| 
||| 	I will not go on, mainly because this story is fading 
||| 	in my memory. But, needless to say that paranoia breaks out
||| 	amongst this group, and the ending of the story is quite
||| 	superb.	It certainly reminded me of Terminator when I first 
||| 	read it, and is the closest of any story I have ever read
||| 	to the ideas in Terminator. Indeed I think that somewhere
||| 	along the line, this story must have influenced whoever 
||| 	came up with the concept behind the film.
||| 
||| 	But, like I said, I memory is hazy, and I cannot be
||| 	sure I even have the title right, let alone the author.
||| 	So, has anyone else out there read it?
||| 
||| 
||| -- 
||| 	 _________________________________________________
||| 	|  // /||\/| | / ` /| ||       Dave Ford.	  |
||| 	|\X/ /^||  | | \_7/^| ||py1djf@sunlab1.bath.ac.uk |
||| 	 -------------------------------------------------

--
I read the story a long time ago. I do remember it though, but I am not sure about the the  
author's name. The title is right. And you are right about its similarity to the Terminator's  
basic storyline. I think you got everything right except that the US army has to retreat to  
their last outpost on moon. I think they were still on earth...*shrug* ... but as to the idea  
for Terminator, who knows...

Val.


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