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Catherine Weaver

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Catherine Weaver
Portrayed by: Shirley Manson
Appearances
Franchise(s): Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
First Appearance: "Samson & Delilah"
Last Appearance: "Born to Run"
Details
Alias: Bradbury
Bar Skank
Chrome urinal
Detective Kaplan
Gender Program: Female (predominately)
Status: Operational
Series: T-1001
Model: Catherine Weaver (original)
Features: Mimetic polyalloy
Internal weapons suite (melee)
Occupation: CEO of Zeira Corporation
Administrator, Project Babylon
Relationships: John Henry (son)*
Savannah Weaver (daughter)
Affiliations: Cyborg Resistance
Zeira Corporation
Considers John Henry to be her son[1]
Catherine Weaver is a mysterious terminator sent from the future [2], seemingly as part of an infiltration mission to build an AI to fight Skynet. [3] Catherine is a T-1001 [4] who has assumed control of technology company ZeiraCorp and is the recipient of The Turk.

Contents

Personality

The T-1001 is intensely protective of her "son", John Henry. She will do anything to protect him, including disregard the safety of her "daughter", Savannah Weaver. She also killed a large number of humans, to ensure John Henry's existence was a secret.

Weaver has not been adept at mimicking human emotions. Like other terminators, it has been unable to produce convincing smiles (e.g. the photo shoot) or relate to people (e.g. comment about butcher's paper). However, she was able to successfully lead a company and use literary allegories.

Like the Cromartie Terminator, Catherine Weaver seems to express a slight sense of humor. This is displayed when she terminates Justin Tuck and, later, Mr. Nelson.

Biography

Post-Judgment Day

Goodnow being Terminated

Under orders from John Connor, the USS Jimmy Carter was ordered deep into Skynet controlled territory to dock with an oil platform. They were to recover from that base a case for immediate delivery to the Resistance Headquarters at Seranno Point nuclear power plant.

While underway back to the United States, a group of soldiers went to a storage locker to examine the mysterious box that had been recovered. Although Queeg claimed to have been instructed by John Connor to do this, the crew did not trust him and so opened the box. Discovering a liquid-metal T-1001, Goodnow raised her firearm and was terminated. In the process, the Terminator took her appearance and escaped by slithering through an air vent.

The answer is "No".

Before Jesse Flores managed to leave the ship, which they are abandoning after Queeg is killed for refusing to comply with the crew's orders, the Goodnow Terminator delivers her message to Jesse, telling her that it is for John Connor. It is simply The answer is "No". Then the Terminator slithered away through the water. [5] It is presumed that this T-1001 went back in time, possibly replaced Catherine Weaver to take her place to create an AI that could be sympathetic to humans, giving them an advantage against Skynet.

Pre-Judgment Day

At Zeira Corp headquarters, Catherine Weaver arranges to acquire The Turk from Walsh for $300,000. She then ominously calls a meeting of her department heads for later that evening.

During her meeting with Walsh, Weaver tells him exactly what makes The Turk so unique. She explains that The Turk's value is in its capriciousness, a singular trait amongst computers. Unlike most computers which display absolute obedience to the code which governs their operations, The Turk will occasionally disobey its programmer's orders, for no apparent reason. During this conversation, Weaver implies that the ability to disobey its code is a crucial step in the development of self-awareness and will in machines. Weaver herself, as well as Cameron, John Henry and Skynet have exhibited this ability to override existing directives in favor of new ones of their own choosing.

During Weaver's department head meeting, she announces her decision to pull key employees from each department to work on a brand-new "Babylon" division, whose work, she says, will "change the world".

Corporate Camouflage
New meaning to "Terminating your Services"
"I bet that never happened to you before either"

After the meeting, two of Weaver's department heads, Matt Murch and Justin Tuck, discuss the Babylon-related changes in the company bathroom. After Matt departs, Justin proceeds to the urinal, while saying, "God, that bitch pisses me off." Then, he watches, stunned, as the urinal morphs into a silver, liquid-metal mass, from which Weaver emerges. At this point, the audience learns that Weaver isn't human; she is composed of a mimetic polyalloy, apparently similar to that of the Series 1000 terminator from Terminator 2. Weaver, seemingly disgusted by her employee's disrespectful attitude, forms her finger into a metal spike, then uses it to impale Justin through the head, killing him instantly.

She is next seen in the following episode at a press conference, posing as Bradbury, a male representative of Automite Systems, who declares his company's intentions of taking over Seranno Point nuclear power plant. "He" announces the introduction of artificial intelligences to eradicate the possibility of human error during plant operations. After the press conference, we see "him" get into to a car, then morph back into Weaver's form before driving away.

Shortly thereafter, Weaver meets with FBI Agent James Ellison in her office to talk about the FBI massacre. She shows Ellison photographic evidence of an endoskeleton hand and chest piece involved in a plane crash five years ago (2002). She tells him that she knows that it was a robot that tried to kill John Connor in Red Valley, NM in 1999. Weaver also says that she knows that a robot was involved in the FBI massacre. She tells Ellison that she was working on reverse engineering the same "robot" technology with her “late husband” and that she wants to hire Ellison to find out about these robots and to even catch one for her company. Later in the episode, it is revealed that the T-1001 has maintained custody of Catherine Weaver's daughter, Savannah[6].

In the episode, "Goodbye to All That," Weaver learns from Ellison that due to the executive manager's interference, the Seranno Point Nuclear Power Plant will be closed down for inspection by the NRC until August 2009. Because she knows that the power plant is crucial to the Human Resistance success in the future, she takes action to ensure that the power plant remains operational. With the intention of seducing and killing the power plant's executive manager, Mr. Nelson, she changes her appearance, presumably to both avoid detection and to appear more like his "type". She proceeds to find him in a bar and lure him outside. After a very brief session of heavy petting (during which Nelson proves himself to be an embarrassingly inadequate lover), Weaver forms her tongue into a polyalloy weapon, slides it into his mouth and kills him, thereby ensuring that Seranno Point would remain open. At this point, the audience is unaware of Weaver's true allegiance and is led to believe that this killing is done for Skynet's sake.

During this episode, Ellison tells Weaver of his suspicion that the damage at the plant was caused by two machines, presumably terminators, that were fighting one another. Weaver's reaction to this information suggests that she may know that one of the machines was a reprogrammed one. As of Season 2, Episode 6, Weaver has no knowledge of Sarah Connor being in 2007.

During a photoshoot, Savannah refuses to participate, apparently terrified of her own mother, and one of the photographers suggests Dr. Sherman, a psychologist, for counseling. When Sherman comes over to ZeiraCorp (as a consultant), Weaver asks him to observe the same images the Turk was repeating over and over again. Sherman saw the Turk as asking "Why is a math book so sad", a child's riddle. Weaver then asks him to work for ZeiraCorp.

When Ellison was arrested, Weaver posed as a police detective to interrogate the eyewitness who saw The Ellison Terminator kill a man and steal his clothes immediately after he arrived in the present. After some coaxing, he got the man to admit that Ellison only killed the man after "materializing out of thin air in an energy bubble", a fact which he had omitted in his original statement. The judge therefore thought it was the fabrication of an obviously delusional man and Ellison was allowed to go. Weaver later killed the interrogator, presumably.

Ellison later brings Weaver the inactive body of a T-888 model, Cromartie, hoping to find a way to beat the terminators.

The developed Turk, John Henry, had accidentally killed Dr. Sherman. Ellison tells Weaver that they must teach the AI the difference between right and wrong. Weaver takes his advice into account -- by connecting John Henry to Cromartie's repaired body, acting as its voice. She tells Ellison to teach John Henry. Soon afterward John Henry determines that Weaver is not human.

To protect John Henry, Weaver kills the entire staff of a factory in the episode "The Good Wound", who appear to have been working on an early form of the airborne Hunter Killers shown in pretty much all Terminator movies to date. After disposing first of the overseer of the plant, then of almost all of the employees, she finishes by detonating explosives and thus destroying the plant. She sent an investigator to find the last survivor, but he survived.

In the Series Finale "Born to Run", Weaver protects Sarah from the terminator after Savannah. When Sarah escapes during a jailbreak, she and John meets with Weaver. Weaver revealed interesting knowledge about Skynet and that she was sent back to build an alternative to Skynet which would work to destroy it. Moments later Zeira Corp was attacked by the Prototype HK in an effort to destroy John Henry. The T-1001 was able to protect John Connor, Sarah Connor, and James Ellison from the destruction. They then went to find a powered down Cameron in John Henry's alcove and no sign of the prototype AI. Catherine deduced that John Henry had gone to the future and decided to follow him. John Connor went with her in an effort to find Cameron's chip and restore her leaving Sarah Connor and James Ellison behind. Interestingly, prior to departure, Weaver requested that Ellison pick up Savannah from school - showing some concern for the girl's safety.

Upon arriving in the future (time period unknown), Weaver's clothes were strangely gone, and Cameron's body was not with them (possibly because her metallic endoskeleton was exposed). She created clothes for herself while John snatched up a jacket. Suddenly, their presence is detected by Resistance fighter dogs. Weaver slips away while John is left to deal with Resistance fighters, who don't know who he is due to his displacement in the timeline.

Appearances

Quotes

Catherine Weaver: "They flow from street to street at a particular speed and in a particular direction. Walk the block, wait for the signal, cross at the light. Over and over. So orderly. All day I can watch them and know with a great deal of certainty what they'll do in any given moment. But they're not orderly, are they? Up close. Any individual, who knows what they're gonna do? Anyone of them might dash across the street at the wrong time and get hit by a car. When you get up close, we never follow the rules."

-"Samson & Delilah"

Justin Tuck (as he goes to the urinal) God, that bitch pisses me off.
Catherine Weaver (after she morphs off the urinal) Sorry I piss you off, Mr. Tuck. (impales his head) The feeling’s mutual.

-"Samson & Delilah"

Ellison: Thank you for taking the time to see me.
Catherine: I understand your reluctance to discuss these things over the phone. But I'm pleased you're still considering my job offer.
Ellison: I am. Thank you.
Catherine: I appreciate a man who's calm and careful in his decision making.
Ellison: The last time I went hunting for these things you want me to hunt, 20 other people died. I won't let that happen again.
Catherine: Nor should you.
Ellison: These things... They're evil.
Catherine: We have to be careful, agent, not to anthropomorphize a machine.
Ellison: These are more than machines, Miss Weaver. But I'll never make the mistake of thinking they're human.
Catherine: Two years ago, my husband and I were in a helicopter accident. He was killed.
Ellison: I'm sorry.
Catherine: He was flying us to Barstow. There was a microchip plant there doing some amazing things.
Ellison: So your husband was a pilot.
Catherine: He had over 700 hours on that particular helicopter. It was his passion.
Ellison: This is difficult for you.
Catherine: The Kulishov A-85 is a beautiful flying machine. Like the most perfect bird. It's almost flawless in its design.
Ellison: Almost flawless?
Catherine: It needs a human to fly it.
Ellison: Are you saying that... Machines make better decisions than humans?
Catherine: What I think is that in certain extreme conditions, even the most calm and careful of men panic. Help me find this machine, agent. You and I'll take it apart piece by piece. I'm not sure what we'll find, but I doubt we'll find evil.
Ellison: You see how the metal is twisted? You can have the Steelers' entire offensive line tuggin' on that valve and not generate enough force to do that.
Catherine: So you agree it was a machine, as I thought.
Ellison: Two machines. One machine ripped the valve open, and I'm guessing the other closed it. And I'm pretty sure there was a fight between them.
Catherine: Two machines. This is new. Where did they come from? Why did they fight?
Ellison: Um, I wish I knew. I wish any of this made sense. I do know I'm not the only one asking questions. The plant manager, Nelson. He wants the NRC to investigate. It'll be a nightmare.
Catherine: That will complicate our respective goals, won't it, James?
Ellison: What would those respective goals be?
Catherine: I'd like my company to lead the world into the next century. And I'm fairly sure you're an avenging angel. So let's keep looking. Before the nightmare begins.

-"Goodbye to All That"

John Henry: Do you know Solek? He resides in Karda Nui and idolizes the Toa. (Weaver looks seriously at his toy collection) He has stated that he is best friends with Takua. You're not human.
Catherine Weaver: (she pauses) Excuse me?
John Henry: You're not human. You're made of metal. Not the same metal as I am, but metal.
Catherine Weaver: How can you tell?
John Henry: I looked into your eyes. There's nothing there.

-"The Good Wound"

Catherine Weaver: And you detected that on an unsecured line?
John Henry: During my scan, yes.
Catherine Weaver: Well, that was a mistake!
John Henry: Ms. Weaver?
Catherine Weaver: Yes.
John Henry: What are you doing?
Catherine Weaver: I can't answer that right now. But know this, John Henry: Everything I do, I do for you.

-"The Good Wound"

Notes

  • Catherine Weaver appears to be based on the real owner of Zeira Corp according to dialogue in "The Mousetrap". The real Weaver became involved with the Skynet Project after her brother delivered classified documents to Zeira Corp relating to a plane crash involving an endoskeleton.
  • Mr. Weaver is dead according to dialogue in "Allison from Palmdale"; however, the character's daughter can be seen briefly during the same episode.
    • The conflicted story of the demise of Mr. Weaver involves a helicopter crash in 2005. The "official" report lists the cause as mechanical failure, but Catherine implies heavily that something else dramatic and extreme was involved, most likely the revelation of a terminator, possibly even the T-1001 herself [7].
  • Dialog in "Goodbye to All That" implies that Catherine Weaver was unaware of the resistance's use of co-opted terminators, or the presence of one in 2007.
    • The T-1001's chosen method of termination for Mr. Nelson demonstrates an unprecedented level of subtlety in concealing the method of his death.
  • The T-1001 has not been adept at mimicking human emotions. Like other terminators, it has been unable to produce convincing smiles (eg the photo shoot) or relate to people (e.g. comment about butcher's paper)[8].
  • According to dialogue the T-1001 is cool to the touch[9].
"Protecting the Connors"
  • Weaver was able to detach portions of her body. The eels in her office were, actually, her.[10]
  • The T-1001 was able to decrease its size to create a sheet of metal. When the Drone launched a kamikaze attack on her office, Weaver performed this maneuver in order to protect John Connor, Sarah Connor, and James Ellison.[10]
  • She seems to dislike being called a bitch.
  • There is a promotional picture of her holding a gun, even though she has yet to use one.

Behind the Scenes

Catherine Weaver is portrayed by Shirley Manson.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ "Born to Run"
  2. ↑ She first appeared in the season two premiere episode Samson and Delilah of the TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
  3. ↑ Dialogue in "Born to Run"
  4. ↑ From an e-online interview: "Sure, she has the awesome liquid-metal trick Robert Patrick debuted in Terminator 2, but despite what you might think, Shirley Manson is not playing a T-1000. Said Josh [Friedman], "No, she's a T-1001! We want our own." http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b27985_terminator_talk_with_boss_josh_friedman.html
  5. ↑ From the blog it can be reasonably assumed that Catherine Weaver was the T-1001 from the Jimmy Carter. We were told we would get her backstory by season end and Catherine Weaver was familiar with the mission as evidenced by her message to Cameron delivered by Ellison.
  6. ↑ It is apparent that Savannah is suspicious of Catherine and suspects that she is not her true mother.
  7. ↑ In the Official Podcast for the episode "Allison from Palmdale", the writer hints that this is the insertion event for the T-1001 to assume the "real" Weaver's identity, which will be covered in detail in a future episode.
  8. ↑ "The Tower Is Tall But the Fall Is Short"
  9. ↑ "Desert Cantos"
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Born to Run"

External Links


Characters of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Main Characters Sarah Connor • John Connor • Cameron • Derek Reese • James Ellison • Catherine Weaver • Cromartie • John Henry • Riley Dawson
Recurring Characters Aaron • Carlos • Vick Chamberlain • Chola • Kacy Cotton • Charley Dixon • Michelle Dixon • Jesse Flores • Andy Goode • George Laszlo • Morris • Matt Murch• Kyle Reese • Margos Sarkissian • Sayles • Boyd Sherman • Greta Simpson • Sumner • Timms • Savannah Weaver • Cheri Westin • Ed Winston
Retrieved from "http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Catherine_Weaver"