Terminator played a major influence on Ecco the Dolphin's story much like a lot of other things. What ties these two stories together is the complex paradox involved.

In the movie the Terminator, a super computer designed for global defense turns against human kind by detonating nuclear bombs throughout the globe. A band of resistance fight off terminators whose mission is to eliminate all human survivors.

A man named John Connor leads the resistance to victory. In a last ditch effort to counter the victory the super computer (SkyNet) sends a terminator back in time to kill John Connor's mother Sarah Connor.

To counter SkyNet's plans, John sends Kyle Reese back to intercept the terminator and protect Sarah, his mother. When Kyle arrives in the past he ends up falling in love with Sarah, impregnating her with John. When John sent Kyle originally he had knowledge he was sending back the man who would eventually become his father.

This creates a chicken and the egg loop, making people ask what came first the chicken or the egg? If John doesn't send Kyle back he can never be born and the terminator will end up killing Sarah.

In Ecco the Dolphin, Ecco is responsible for luring his land dwelling ancestors back to the sea. The Asterite knew he had to send Ecco into the past because Dolphin kind could not exist without Ecco's intervention and he needed him to retrieve the missing globe.

Ecco's responsibility for the existence of his own kind created a paradox, but is it a paradox he's really responsible for? If the Atlanteans never created the time machine, Ecco would of never traveled back in time, Dolphins could not exist and the Asterite would of never had it's globe stolen.

In a previous article I wrote Ecco 2's Secret Password and Ecco 3 Thoeries, I mentioned that Ecco's rules on time travel work in two ways. The past cannot be altered because it follows the immutable theory while the future can be altered because it follows the alternate worlds theory.

When Vortex from the Dark Future arrived they were an anomaly, meaning the world they come from was optional to the time line. Same goes for when Ecco first arrived and stole the pre-historic Asterite's globe. Dolphin kind could easily be wiped out right after Ecco stole the Asterite's globe and this would have no effect on the Asterite's world, but if the Asterite went back to alter anything, it would have to follow the immutable theory.

A problem with my original theory was Ecco destroying the time machine would not violate any rules like I had originally thought. If he destroyed the time machine it would not alter the past because he is doing it in the present. The Dark Future branched off the moment the Queen was defeated, so keeping the time machine around just to preserve Ecco's encounter with the future Vortex Drones wouldn't make alot of sense. How long would the time machine have to exist before it was destroyed? Far until the natural future's timeline corresponded with the dark future's making it a good time to destroy the time machine - that does not make alot of sense!