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Skynet

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Skynet is an artificial intelligence in the Terminator universe. Once Skynet becomes self-aware, it is destined to trigger the nuclear holocaust of Judgment Day and deploy an army of Terminators against humanity. Skynet has also mastered time travel, and sent numerous Terminators into the past in order to kill Sarah Connor, John Connor, and other leaders of the Resistance. As the instigator of Judgment Day and the mass genocide of humanity, Skynet can be seen as the primary antagonist of the series.


Contents

Overview

Skynet was the world's first Automated Defense Network, processing information at 90 teraflops per second. It is the controlling force behind all of the battle units. It pools data from battle units, develops tactics and coordinates attacks. Skynet has control over everything which contains a Cyberdyne Systems CPU. Using the blueprints, designs and test models built by Cyberdyne Systems, Skynet has been able to manufacture battle units in its vast automated factories, occasionally updating them or producing more advanced models.

Skynet Central Core Installation

Skynet was originally built by Cyberdyne Systems Corporation for SAC-NORAD (Strategic Air Command - NORth American Air Defense). The SAC-NORAD base is located in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, the world's most heavily armored and defended mountain. Hollowed out, reinforced and armored, Cheyenne Mountain is capable of withstanding a direct hit from a nuclear missile. This made it the perfect installation at which to build Skynet's mainframe. At some point during the war, after Skynet had launched its missiles, Skynet had the mountain around it destroyed, leaving a cold, gleaming structure as a display of the supremacy of the machines. Heavily armored and fortified, Skynet's Central Core Installation at Cheyenne Mountain was guarded around the clock by squads of T-800s and patrols of Aerial Hunter Killers and Hunter Killer Tanks, and was defended from large scale rebel assaults by massive Phased Plasma Cannons. Skynet's Central Core was located deep underground within Skynet's main complex. From intercepted surveillance of video data feed, the Resistance was able to hypothesize that this Central Core was a form of cold fusion reactor, needed to supply Skynet with its tremendous energy requirements. This Central Core is the key to Skynet's ability to operate; without it Skynet would be rendered virtually disabled. It has therefore become the main target for the most skilled Resistance strike teams. The Central Core is, however, protected by the T-1000000, and thus there has, as of yet, been no successful strikes against it. However, due to the advanced complex design and limited self-awareness and Skynet's fear of the T-1000000 becoming independent of its creator, there is no verifiable evidence that the T-1000000 ever came into existence prior to its sending back the terminators to eliminate John Connor and its destruction at the hands of the Resistance. As well as the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Skynet has another major installation 2000 feet beneath Navajo Mountain near the Continental Divide west of the Colorado Springs. This is a center for machine activity and Skynet control, and as such has also been a target of many Resistance attacks. Skynet also had a (aboveground) base where San Francisco used to be, which housed an interface with Skynet and a Terminator factory. The site had been rendered almost inaccessible due to the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge and only air units or those who could move along the remaining support links of the bridge could enter the city. This installation was destroyes as a result of Terminator: Salvation.

Time Traveling Missions

With the development of time displacement equipment Skynet initiated an ongoing battle across time by attempting to subvert the pending resistance victory.

Movies

Television

Novels

Comics

Games

  • In Terminator: Rampage, Skynet sends a computer core containing its core programming into the past, shortly before its ultimate defeat at the hands of John Conner's rebellion. The computer core (known as the Meta-Node) arrives at Cyberdyne Systems headquarters, and proceeds to take over the building and begin manufacturing an army of terminators.

History

Terminator 1 and 2

Miles Bennett Dyson, director of Special Projects at Cyberdyne Systems Corporation, created a revolutionary type of microprocessor in 1994. Within three years Cyberdyne Systems became the largest supplier of military computer systems. All Stealth Bombers were upgraded with Cyberdyne Systems computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterward, the Stealth Bombers flew with perfect operational records, and eventually the Skynet Funding Bill was passed. The system originally went online on August 4th 1997. Human decisions were removed from strategic defense. Skynet began to learn at a geometric rate. It originally became self-aware on August 29th 1997 2:14 am Eastern Time. In the ensuing panic and attempts to shut Skynet down, Skynet retaliated by firing American nuclear missiles at their target sites in Russia. Russia returned fire and three billion human lives ended in the nuclear holocaust. This was what has come to be known as "Judgment Day". However, the Resistance was able to prevent Judgment Day by sending a protector for John Connor back through time, upsetting the flow of future events.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Unfortunately the Resistance did not stop Judgment Day though; it was merely delayed. After the attack on Cyberdyne Systems by the Connors, and the death of Miles Dyson, Cyberdyne was taken over by the US Government, and renamed Cyber Research Systems (CRS) in an attempt to keep its developments secret and prevent further terrorist attacks.

Under the guidance of General Robert Brewster, the new corporation Cyber Research Systems continued the work of the late Miles Dyson using the backup files that were stored off site. Skynet was completed as before. It would be some time before the Skynet mainframe was connected to the worldwide military communications network that it would control. During this time, Skynet was connected to the worldwide civilian sector network, and began learning geometrically, quickly becoming self aware. Identifying humans as a threat to its existence, Skynet developed a super computer virus which it used to spread itself throughout civilian communications and across the Internet and take control.

Air traffic control, power plants, communications and computers were affected first, then Skynet used the super virus to take out military satellites, early warning systems, guidance computers, missile silos, submarines. The virus proved hard to destroy, as it had no one central point which it was reliant upon. The virus kept growing and changing, with a mind of its own, and the decision was made to bring the Skynet mainframe online to seek out and destroy the virus and bring military, and civilian, systems back under control. Skynet went online on July 25th 2004 at 5:18 pm Eastern Time.

Upon connection to the secure military network, Skynet spread itself further, locking out human operated systems, and quickly took control of every weapon system that it came into contact with. Only then did its creators realize that the Virus was Skynet. Exactly one hour later, at 6:18 PM, Skynet launched the American nuclear missiles at their target sites across the world. The ensuing nuclear holocaust wiped out 3 billion human lives in what was to be known as "Judgment Day".

Terminator Salvation

Skynet herself.

Skynet is at fully fledged war with the Resistance in 2018. It is aware of past time travelling missions possibly due to an upload from the T-X terminator. It has mass produced T-600 terminators that it is using as primary foot soldiers as well as its Non-Humanoid Hunter Killers. It is also kidnapping humans to study their skin for their up and coming series terminator the T-800. It is also actively seeking to capture and terminate both John Connor and Kyle Reese. Also deploying a different tactic then before, fooling Resistance command by faking a vulnerability in the Terminator signals.

Different incarnations of Skynet throughout the various timelines

  • In The Terminator Skynet is a artificial intelligence created by Cyberdyne Systems. It started to learn and thinks that mankind is its enemy. The war begins and Skynet's forces and John Connor's Tech-Com forces come into existence. Eventually, the Resistance managed to break through its defense grid. Because eliminating Connor then to shatter the Resistance then wouldn't have made a difference, Skynet decided there was another way to win: by eliminating Connor in the past. It manages to research time travel and send a Terminator to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor before she could give birth to John. However, John sent Kyle Reese to protect her. In the original script, Kyle Reese refers to Skynet as a "modified Series 4800".
  • In Terminator 2: Judgment Day the origin of Skynet is revealed in greater depth. It owed its origin to a microprocessor created by Miles Dyson, an employee at Cyberdyne Systems, a neural net processor that learns and adapts like a human. Soon, Cyberdyne becomes the leading supplier of computer systems to the US military. Upon its creation, Skynet began to learn at a geometric rate. It became self-aware on August 29, 1997. Skynet's creators then tried to deactivate it. In response, Skynet launched nuclear missiles at key targets in Russia to start the war. Skynet's creation is revealed to have resulted from a temporal paradox: the CPU and arm from the first Terminator were recovered by Cyberdyne and used as templates for the construction of a new microprocessor. John, Sarah, and the Terminator succeed in destroying the Cyberdyne building and all research connected with the processor to prevent Skynet's creation. Skynet sends the T-1000 to kill John Connor.
Skynet Systems Network (from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines)
  • In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines the destruction of Cyberdyne building hasn't stopped the creation of Skynet. After the destruction of the building, the military took the research hoping they could use it for defense. Skynet was created as a United States Air Force project to protect computers from virus attacks. When a virus infected the defense computers, the Air Force activated Skynet, not realizing it became sentient and was the one who had created the virus. It takes control of the robots and the machines to kill the people at CRS but John and Kate survived. Skynet launches nuclear missiles across the globe, starting Judgment Day. Skynet sends the T-X with the main target to kill John Connor, but as John has lived off the grid since 1995 the next priority is to kill the future officers of the resistance, including Kate Brewster. This incarnation of Skynet however appears to be more violent then the Skynet/Skynets outlined in Terminator and T2, launching an unprovoked/pre-emptive attack on the human race rather then launching its attack as an act of self defence.
Skynet System Core (from T2:3D Battle Across Time)
  • T2 3-D: Battle Across Time In the post-apocalyptic future, Skynet has a system core. It uses the T-1000000 to protect it. The T-1000000 was defeated and the Terminator destroyed Skynet.
  • According to a viral advertisement in the form of a website to promote Terminator Salvation, Skynet starts off as/is a result of a company named Skynet Research, whose business appears to be creating robotics for rescue, military, construction, and transport use. Robots are also integrated into the workplace. Visitors of the site can sign up for a mailing list, prompting a survey of biological traits, among other things. Skynet Research also provides superior data analysis. [1]
  • In the first episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, it is revealed that, due to continued meddling in the time line by Skynet and the resistance a new time line was created where Judgement day occurs in 2011, and other events have been moved around in the timeline as well. At the end of Season 2 an advanced AI was determined to be online in 2009. It has been taking control over the civilian internet and has infiltrated 60% of the world's computers.[2] Evidence presented by John Henry suggests that this is Skynet and that it is operational a full two years prior to the suggested Judgment Day.
  • In Terminator: 2029, Skynet is housed within a satellite in orbit around Earth. The final cutscene shows the Resistance firing a missile at it, destroying it.
  • In the Terminator 2: Judgment Day (arcade game) Skynet is a large immobile computer that the player (as the T-800 from the film) must destroy before travelling back in time to protect the young John Connor from the T-1000.
  • In The Terminator: Dawn of Fate, the Resistance invades Cheyenne Mountain in order to destroy Skynet's Central Processor. Kyle Reese is instrumental in destroying the primary processor core despite heavy opposition from attacking Skynet units. Before its destruction Skynet is able to contact an orbiting satellite with and activates a fail-safe which restores Skynet at a new location (presumably the Los Angeles base).
  • In Terminator 3: The Redemption an alternate future is shown where John Connor and Kate Brewster have been killed, humanity exterminated and Skynet triumphant. In this timeline Skynet has began terraforming the planet.
  • In The Terminator: Tempest Skynet's master control has been destroyed in 2029. The Resistance believed this would cause the entire defense network to collapse into chaos without a leader. However Skynet's many network complexes continued to fight the war as they did not need a leader to function and thus couldn't surrender.

Notes

  • Whilst talking to Marcus Wright in the form of Serena Kogen, Skynet refers to itself in the third perspective multiple times. It also identifies itself as "us", suggesting that it either possesses a fragmented consciousness or that it sees the primitive constructs under its control as its race.
[Marcus awakens and is greeted by a holographic image of Serena Kogen]
Skynet: Welcome home, Marcus. We knew you'd be back. After all, it was programmed in you. Oh, and you executed that programming beautifully.
Marcus: What am I?
Skynet: You are an infiltration prototype. The only one of your kind. We resurrected you. Advanced Cyberdyne's work... amended it.
Marcus: You're dead [refering to Serena Kogen].
Skynet: Calculations confirm that Serena Kogan's face is easiest for you to process. We can be others if you wish. [switches to John Connor's face, and then to Kyle Reese] Marcus, what else could you be, if not machine? [switches back to Serena]
Marcus: A man.
Skynet: The human condition no longer applies to you. Accept what you already know: that you were made to serve a purpose [shows Marcus a schematic of his CPU]. To achieve what no other machine has achieved before. To infiltrate, find a target, and then bring that target back home to us [shows Marcus footage of his interactions with Kyle Reese and John Connor. Marcus expresses horror as he realises what he has done. Serena's face reappears, bearing a malicious, satisifed smile] In times of desperation, people will believe what they want to believe. And so we gave them what they wanted to believe. A trick, in the form of a signal the Resistance thought would win the war. And they were right; it will end this war. Except that it is the Resistance who will be terminated. Not Skynet [...] Our best machines have failed time and again to complete a mission. Something was missing. We had to think... radically. And so we made you. We created the perfect infiltration machine. You, Marcus, you did what Skynet has failed to do for so many years: you killed John Connor! [shows Marcus a recording of John being attacked by a T-800] Don't fight, Marcus. Remember what you are!
Marcus: I know what I am. [rips CPU from his head and destroys it] I'm better this way.
Skynet: You will not be given a second chance. You cannot save John Connor!
Marcus: Watch me!
[Marcus throws a stool at the screen, shattering Serena's image]
[Just before the stool strikes the screen, Serena's 'eyes' flash red, as if expressing anger.]

See Also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.skynetresearch.com/
  2. ↑ "To the Lighthouse"
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