Was Predator a 'Prequel' to Terminator?

Despite the general decline in the quality of their films and several projects that ended up frozen, the universes of Alien and Predator continue to give rise to completely crazy and fascinating hypotheses that, if true, would forever change the way we see and enjoy both franchises. However, an old "easter egg" adds a third element to the equation: the Terminator saga. Imagine this: What if Alan "Dutch" Schaefer, who defeated the Predator in the Central American jungle, was used as a "model" to design the T-800?

Predator turned 33 last month, and it has proven (on multiple occasions) that it can withstand the test of time. With Arnold Schwarzenegger at the helm (definitely "the" man for most action movies in the late '80s), Predator managed to become one of the most popular action-sci-fi projects (beyond the harsh criticism it received at the time) and start a whole new franchise. Its ending is almost legendary: the defeated Predator, its unsettling laughter mimicking Billy, the nuclear detonation, and Dutch rescued... barely alive.

But what happened to him after that? The canon (or at least, what pretends to be canon) is quite confusing at first. The novelization of Predator 2 written by Simon Hawke indicates that Dutch suffered a condition similar to radiation poisoning and was interviewed in the hospital by Peter Keyes (the CIA agent who tried to capture the second Predator, remember him?). However, Dutch escapes and disappears into thin air. The Dark Horse comics introduce us to his older brother John, a detective with the New York Police Department, trying to locate Dutch and following clues around the world as he faces new Predators.

The Alien vs. Predator wiki suggests that Dutch's "activities" hunting Predators continue for almost forty years, and he even undergoes an experimental treatment to fuse his DNA with that of a Predator, keeping the effects of aging at bay... but that's not what brings us here. Actually, we're interested in a small detail published in the Alien vs. Predator arcade game from 1994. There we find a special version of Dutch, transformed into a cyborg to fight aliens. His identification code is CDS-170A3.

"CDS"... Cyberdyne Systems?

Before you throw stones, we have more: The plot of the Alien vs. Predator game is based on the draft of one of the comics that was going to be turned into a movie, but that project didn't materialize until 2004, with a completely different story. Now, the idea of taking a flesh-and-blood soldier and turning him into a kind of "cyborg mold" isn't that crazy.

The Terminator 2 novels indicate that Dieter von Rossbach, a former CIA agent living in Paraguay, was selected by Skynet as a "reference" for the 101 design. In the case of Terminator 3 (novelization, video game, and DVD edition bonus), the soldier in question was William Candy.

But if none of those lines progressed, what do we have left? "Fast forward" until we get to Aliens. Detail: Terminator and Aliens were James Cameron projects. In a passage from Aliens, the character Burke explains to Bishop the "incident" that Ripley suffered with Ash. When Bishop asks about the model, what he receives as an answer is "Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2".

A name that sounds familiar, don't you think? In fact, "Hyperdyne Systems" didn't exist at first. The first draft of Aliens prepared in February 1985 had the phrase "Cyberdyne Systems" as a kind of inside joke, and it was replaced in the final draft seven months later by "Hyperdyne". Perhaps James Cameron made the change to avoid a possible conflict of interest between Fox (Aliens) and Orion Pictures (Terminator), but if we modify Ash's designation very slightly... we get HDS-120A2.

In summary:

1. In 1984, The Terminator hits the big screen, establishing the name "Cyberdyne Systems" as canon for that franchise.
2. Two years later Aliens is released, and there we hear the reference "Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2", identified as "Cyberdyne" in the original draft.
3. In June 1987 comes Predator. Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer not only survives a Predator's hunting season, but also manages to defeat it.
4. Capcom releases Alien vs. Predator in 1994, and brings Dutch back as a cyborg under the code CDS-170A3.

CDS-170A3. HDS-120A2. For many fans of the "Cameronverse", the evolution from Cyberdyne to Hyperdyne is not a joke, but a fact. Is it so crazy to think of a remote and twisted timeline that led Dutch to be "optimized" by Cyberdyne (or its successor) to fight Aliens and Predators in the '90s, and used as the basis for the design of skin 101 and the T-800 in general?

The answer is no, but there's a catch: If Dutch is the template for the T-800, then the future Alien universe cannot exist because Skynet wiped out humans before. Solutions? Split the timeline in two: one with Dutch as the Terminator model and Skynet destroying everything, and the other with Cyberdyne evolving into Hyperdyne and reaching the future of Aliens, UNLESS... the war with Skynet is much shorter than we imagine, as is humanity's recovery time.

An absolute and wonderful madness, I know. But if you think an Alien-Predator-Terminator crossover is ridiculous... you should know it already exists.

Source: Cracked