TERMINUS

TERMINUS Productions & Publications; the company set up in 1992 by TYCHO and CATMAN, in order to realize the items on the List by the November 1995 deadline, is itself an item; the last item, on a list, which though self-contained, may also contain projects outside of TYCHO's original vision.
NO FATE; the first of such projects, penciled itself in upon reading the following lines from the Terminator 2/ Judgment Day novelization:

Upthen
Los Angeles, CA
9:01 AM / July 11, 2029

"Today, there were many battles against Skynet's forces all over the world. But the two most important ones were happening in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, where Skynet's mainframe was housed. The other was here, in the Westside, where the real prize was; the site of Skynet's second largest and most guarded underground complexes."

As I write this, I can look up and watch the snow cloud that is slowly drifting over Cheyenne Mountain, and as the Nintendo overheats behind me, I can still feel the excitement that ran through me when I first realized the reality behind those word's.
On the day that the Terminators just... stop moving, it will be our children, perhaps the children playing in this very room, who penetrate and destroy Skynet's mainframe; here in Colorado Springs... over 30 years in the future.

The future WAS NOT set. There was no Fate but WHAT WE MADE for ourselves.

The following is an excerpt from an open letter to the citizens of Colorado Springs, from the Executive Director of the Colorado Springs Center For The Contemporary Arts:

"The future in which human decisions are removed from Strategic Defense, and Skynet; designed to automatically control the United States nuclear strike force, becomes self-aware and immediately launches a first-strike, while riding out the retaliatory firestorm in its hardened, underground complex - deep within Cheyenne Mountain, will be averted by our children. It is our children who already walk the battlefield of the future; a battlefield on which we all, already live.
Mankind is not obsolete. Even in the worst of situations, our individual strengths always overcome our collective weaknesses and the promise of civilization will always triumph over its own mistakes. The war that starts on August 29, 1997 need not happen. It need not happen because an artist has forewarned us. In recognition of the Artist's ability to not only create a nightmare scenario like Tenninator 2 / Judgment Day, but to also risk giving a time and place for its resolution; thus creating a new reality amidst a reality that grows ever more unreal... the Colorado Springs Center For The Contemporary Arts formally accepts the challenge implicit in doing so.

The Center intends to produce a series of 7 summer concerts at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain itself, in celebration of the victory that takes place here, in our own community, on July l1th, 2029. The first series of 6 NO FATE shows, will begin on August 29,1992, with the sixth show taking place on August 29,1997; Judgment Day itself. The seventh and final show will take place on July 11, 1998, in honor of our children who win the war; 31 years from that very date.
We know that Time-Displacement can be a little hard to follow, but bear with us. The NO FATE shows; full of surprises, will be like nothing Colorado Springs has ever seen and you can only benefit from supporting, and then joining us in creating the fate that we will all be making for ourselves."

If James Cameron has been wondering if anybody in Colorado Springs is going to "get it", Colorado Springs owes the Center a debt beyond measure. TERMINUS intends to help the Center in any way we can. In the finest Astra lmage tradition, we have already suggested the obvious: that there be TWO sets of NO FATE shows; a day show in Colorado Springs, and an evening show in Los Angeles with Schwarzenegger, Biehn, Hamilton, Furlong, Patrick, Frakes and Cameron himself, appearing at Cheyenne Mountain in the morning in order to fly back and close the L.A. show that same evening.
Amold has his own jet, doesn't he ?
No Problemo...

The NO FATE shows may be even more daunting than FLYBY, or the other items on the List, but they are no less demanding of our commitment and effort, perhaps even more so. This being the last article or eighth bit of infonnation in this, the first issue of FLYBYTE, we can only hope that James Cameron is smiling as he reads this, our counter-challenge. If he does, perhaps the Center's official NO FATE proposal will meet with the positive response we think it definitely deserves.

Either way, TERMINUS will remain, not just the end result of all that has been accomplished so far, nor the testing ground for ideas yet to come, but the center itself - from which TYCHO and THE GANG continue to put themselves to the fullest possible use, which is, as HAL would put it; "all any conscious entity can ever hope to do."