Having watched Terminator: Salvation the other day and witness Skynet once again fail to kill John Connor, I came up with a list of 10 handy tips for our future robot overlords to help them enslave humanity.

(Spoiler warning. Look away if you haven’t seen the movie.)

1. Call for backup. Yes, you are big robots, and you are very strong, but if you have John Connor, say, in your GIANT KILLER ROBOT FACTORY, why not send more than one robot after him? This is not a judgement about the killing skills of any single robot, it’s just practical.
2. Stay away from open protocols like USB. When John Connor can hack your robot motorcycles with what looks like a futuristic T-Mobile Sidekick, you may want to rethink your hardware interfaces.
3. Make your robot motorcycles less comfortable for humans to ride. Maybe try replacing the handlebars and seats with, I don’t know, BURNING HOT METAL SPIKES.
4. Invest in firewalls. I know that McAfee probably doesn’t exist in 2018, but you’re a super smart computer network; I think you can figure it out. Again, if John Connor just needs to attach a couple alligator clips to some wires and text you “OVERRIDE” to get into your buildings, maybe it’s time to rethink.
5. Program your killer robots to investigate suspicious-looking open doors with wires coming out of them. This one is pretty self-explanatory and related to #4.
6. Define user permissions in your computer network. Yeah, so Marcus is a super-cool advanced prototype, but was it really necessary to give him the ability to turn off your main gun turrets…WITH HIS MIND??
7. Listen to the radio. John Connor makes a broadcast every night on a signal that is apparently strong enough to hear worldwide, and able to be picked up on what appears to be a crystal radio. In this broadcast, he basically details all the plans of the resistance. Like, all of them. Just give it a whirl.
8. If you see Kyle Reese or John Connor, kill them immediately. Like, right then and there. No waiting to upload data to Skynet or BS like that. Even if you’re essentially a flying metal frisbee, just CRASH INTO HIM! You’ll probably do some damage.
9. Make more of those huge building-sized robots. They’re basically awesome and seem pretty indestructible. Just stomp around and see what happens.
10. (Most important) Squish our heads. I’ll admit it: if I could, I’d probably throw people through walls, too. It seems really fun. But if you’re looking to kill someone with efficiency, remember that you’re a REALLY STRONG KILLER ROBOT and that our skulls, while relatively hard, can pretty easily be squished. One strong clap should do it.