Title: Judgement Calls
Author: Stephensmat
Fandom: Terminator
Rating: T
Category: Adventure/Romance
Chapters: 25
Words: 410,179
Updated: March 17, 2012
Published: January 12, 2008
Status: Complete
Summary: John Connor was aware the War was coming his whole life. Kate Brewster was not. This is their story, and the story of the war to retake the Earth. PostT3. AU From Terminator Salvation.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4006891/1/Judgment-Calls

Judgement Calls is in basic terms the story about the War against the Machines that we always heard about in the first three movies, but never fully saw(although Terminator Salvation did attempt this). But it also tells the story of how John Connor and Katherine Brewster create the Resistance, how John reacts to meeting Kyle Reese(the man who would become his father), and how SkyNet relentlessly tried to snuff out humanity. It's also one of the best wriiten Terminator stories out there.

However you have to take in mind that this story does indeed follow Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which by many fans of the franchise was heavily disliked. Thankfully the story itself has none of the problems the movie had. The story itself goes over a period of twenty years from Judgement Day to the end of the War. Throughout that period we see John Connor rise from a nobody to a legend, becoming the last hope for humanity. I think one of the best things about this story however is the ending and climax. It's indeed a great ending, which I won't spoil, but I suggest reading.

The story is very dark however, and does deal heavily with death and despair. The fic has a few misspellings, but not that many. Other than that I highly recommend this fic, and I personally give it a 5/5.

 

Well, haven't read it before, but will do and EDIT with my impressions. I'm posting just to say two things:

1) Terminator 3 was much better than no. 4.

2) If you want a professional author's take on the time between T2 and JD, read the novels written my S.M Sterling: wiki article

 

I remember reading this and then dropping it near the end.

Much of the fic is alright, but it doesn't try to get the reader emotionally invested in the characters. The longer the fic gets, the less it has to do with John Connor and the more it has to do with their OC kids and other characters I just couldn't care less about.

It feels like the Connor's are divinely ordained as 'the chosen ones' to lead the post-apoc people, which devalues their own struggles.

I read all of the chapters up to 20 years after the apocalypse, becoming increasingly bored, and felt no motivation to read the last three.

3/5. It could have been better. After 400k words, it's a good effort, but it's not worthy of the Library.

tl;dr: It feels like a Spacebattles fic. Lots of attention on worldbuilding minutiae; forgot to tell a good story.

 

I wanted to give my review in an EDIT of my earlier posting, but when I saw that this thread isn't very active, I decided to give it a little bit more well deserved exposure through making a new post.

This was a long and fantastic read. It had enough action, drama, killing machines, treason, romance and global war to be considered epic science fiction. I've been a fan of "Terminator" since I saw the first movie for the first time, and this novel played to all the strenghts of the franchise. It stayed true to canon in innovative ways, build tension through the uncertainty that comes with time travel, answered questions about the canon plot I had pondered about years ago... Great stuff, 5/5

 

I loved this story. I think it started off rather slowly, but built up beautifully. While it's true as mentioned above that it becomes less about John Conner, the overall picture is given very well. As far as I am concerned, this is what happen after T3.

The best part about the story is how it ties up all the loose ends without going crazy. The explanation for the change in the date of Judgement day as given in the movies was elegant in its simplicity.

 

I found the story when I was browsing the almost rec list and to me that's where it belongs it started off alright but it really tailed off in end.
3/5