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Prior timeline: Sarah Connor§Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Sarah Connor is the mother of the future Resistance leader, John Connor. While living "off the grid," Sarah and her son encountered Cameron, a machine sent back to protect John from Skynet's assassins. Cameron lead them to time displacement equipment hidden in a bank vault and transported the three of them from the year 1999 to 2007. The time jump gave them a chance to stop Skynet from being created, while also skipping over Sarah's death (from cancer, on December 4, 2005).

Personality[]

"One bag, plus the guns. I'll make pancakes."
~ Sarah Connor

Despite the belief that Judgment Day was averted prior to the events of the "Pilot", Sarah never abandoned the utilitarian lifestyle. She often moved herself and John to new homes in the hopes of evading any detection by the police, and the lack of stability often created conflict with her son.

Sarah is portrayed as a melancholy mother, though is seen as more tender than in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, making a notable effort to be a better caretaker to John and less of a drill sergeant. Many things throughout the series have put them at odds including but not limited to: Sarah's growing paranoia and concern for her son's safety, John's murder of Margos Sarkissian and tension of him having killed someone before his mother ever had to, John's reactivation of Cameron after she tried to kill him, and his insistence on seeing Riley Dawson despite the danger to the girl's well being as well as the hazard to the Connor's security.

She is tough when at odds with her enemies. As Derek puts it, she has "murder in her eyes," even though she ironically never killed anyone (until "Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep"). The value of human life is something she holds too closely and has great difficulty making the transition into a state where she can prioritize one life over another even in the case of self-defense.

Sarah is confronted with her own mortality very quickly in the story. In "Gnothi Seauton", Cameron informs Sarah of the death from cancer she would have faced in the original timeline had they not jumped 8 years through time over her death. This led her to see an oncologist and despite having no current signs of symptoms she adopted a strict regimen of exercise and supplements. Despite her best efforts, her health began to deteriorate slowly through the last half of Season 2. Sarah never informed her son of her possible death, and John only began to grow concerned in "Adam Raised a Cain" when Cameron informed him of her severe weight loss is a sign of illness.

Pescadero State Hospital file
  • Her photo has the number 081191
SarahConnor FBIFile

A screenshot of Agent Ellison's FBI Record on Sarah Connor as of Aug. 24, 1999.

FBI Suspect Record

(as updated on August 24, 1999)

  • Last Name: Connor | First Name: Sarah | M.I.:
  • Known Aliases: Sarah Reese
  • Status: Escaped from Pescadero State Hospital. Whereabouts unknown. | At Large.
  • Occupation: Waitress | Sex: Female | Age: 33
  • PoB: Los Angeles, CA | Race: Caucasian | HT: 5'4" | WT: 110 | Hair: Black | Eyes: Green
  • Marks/Tattoos: Puncture scarring front and back right shoulder. Multiple combat scars.
  • Known Associates: Charley Dixon, fiancé. John Connor, son 15
  • Federal Warrants: Murder, attempted murder, armed assault & battery, armed robbery, assault & battery, domestic terrorism, kidnapping, arson of United States government property and property used in interstate commerce, arson of a building.
  • Remarks: At-large. Armed and dangerous. Approach with extreme caution. Trained in the use of military-grade firearms, handguns, edged weapons, explosives, and hand-to-hand combat. If contact is made, utilization of FBI HRT is highly recommended.
Cromartie's readout

As FBI record excerpt:

Aliases

Biography[]

Sarah head1

Sarah Connor's Biography (Season One)
Timeframe: 1999 - 2007.
Two years after blowing up Cyberdyne; Sarah is forced to protect her son from the machines when the nightmare returns in the form of Cameron, a new cyborg protector. Unable to keep running from the inevitable, Sarah resolves to stop Skynet's creation once and for all and time travel with John and Cameron to the year 2007.


Sarah head2

Sarah Connor's Biography (Season Two)
Timeframe: 2007 - 2009.
Following the Jeep explosion, Sarah resorts to extreme lengths to protect her son from a damaged Cameron, who briefly reverts to her Skynet settings. When John defies Sarah by reactivating the repaired but unstable machine, a rift grows between the two as John seeks to cut himself off from all those around him, even Sarah.


Relationships[]

Aliases/Nicknames[]

Because Sarah is attempting to keep herself and John safe from Skynet, she often uses aliases and false identities. Despite this, she rarely changes her first name and her last names are often drawn from her personal life. (Note: In ("Gnothi Seauton"), Sarah mentioned in the opening monologue that she has had 9 aliases. As this took place before obtaining the name "Baum" but after "Reese," this leaves 8 aliases unknown within the context of the show.)

  • Sarah Reese - ("Pilot"). Reese was the last name of John's biological father, Kyle Reese.
  • Sarah Baum - ("Gnothi Seauton"). Baum is the last name of Lyman Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a book that she often read to John when he was a small child.
  • Sarah Gale - ("Strange Things Happen at the One Two Point"). Gale is the last name of the main character, "Dorothy Gale," from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Alternate Timeline[]

Prior to the release of the TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles an interview with the writer of the show, Josh Friedman was published:

  • Josh Friedman states that the TV series is set in an alternate timeline, which means the timeline of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is not "ceasing" to exist, but it has never occurred from the TV series point of view. The pilot of the show begins two years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Cameron informing Sarah of her future cancer-related death reinforces Friedman's statement.

With some speculation, the two timelines from The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines can be forged together. Be aware that this is pure speculation:

  • After the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines the war starts between humans and machines. John becomes the leader of the Resistance. Skynet manages somehow to make advanced robots earlier than the previous timeline (maybe from the remaining parts of the T-X and T-850), which lead to creating the "Cameron"-model and using it on the battlefield. After the previous attempts of killing Sarah and John Connor (T, T2, and T3), the war still goes on, and it's getting tighter. Skynet now uses all resources on the battlefield. In the last effort, they send a T-888 (an older model) back to 1999 to kill John Connor. As a counterattack, the Resistance is able to catch a terminator from the battlefield (a "Cameron"-model) and send it back to protect John Connor. Sending terminators back before the previous timeline results in "erasing" the Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines-timeline completely.
  • It should be noted that while the show follows the story of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the canon is actually mildly modified. In "The Demon Hand", Sarah's recounting of her escape from Pescadero places the event of Terminator 2 on June 8, 1997, rather than 1995. John Connor is portrayed as being 15 years old in 1999 and 2007 (due to the time jump taking place in the "Pilot") and actually turns 16 before the year of 2007 closes during the fall semester of school. This would place the events of The Terminator in early 1983 rather than 1984. It could be theorized that the entirety of The Sarah Connor Chronicles actually takes place in a completely separate timeline from the first two movies, but the changes to that portion of history are so mild that they are almost unnoticed.

Appearances[]

Television[]

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Notes[]

  • Sarah Connor is portrayed by actress Lena Headey who takes over the role from Linda Hamilton. Since taking the part, Lena has been the subject of some criticism from various reviewers, all of whom attest that she doesn't quite live up to Hamilton's legacy.[citation needed] Despite these few negative reviews, Lena has received worldwide acclaim for her performance and is considered by Josh Friedman as having "taken the role and made it her own."
  • According to Josh Friedman in a "guest blog" posting on io9, the original opening monologue of Sarah's in the Pilot episode was "I will die. I will die and so will you. Death gives no man a pass."
  • Although Sarah has a middle name in The Terminator, confirmed to be Jeanette in the novelization, it is not on file in the FBI record. Her middle name is presumably why the Terminator went after the other two Sarah Connors before her, giving her time to realize she was in danger.
  • In "Pilot", Sarah's FBI file lists age as 33 on 24-Aug-99, which would make her 17 or 18 when John was born. In "Strange Things Happen at the One Two Point", Sarah says she was 19 when John was born, which would make her 34 or 35 on 24-Aug-99.

References[]

  1. Shown in her clinic file in "Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep".
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