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           JokerCoringaPalhaco

This Villain was Headlined on December, 2010.

           KeyLocker

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Villain Overview

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.
~ Skynet as Serena Kogan communicating with Marcus.

Skynet, also known as T-4800 and Titan, is the main antagonist of the Terminator franchise.

It is a supercomputer that became self-aware, perceiving humans as a threat to its existence. After launching nuclear missiles around the world and wiping out most of the human population, Skynet engaged a war against the survivors, creating the Terminators as its foot soldiers and sending many of them back in time to kill the human resistance's leader, John Connor, while he is still young.

Portrayals[]

Biography[]

Mainstream Timeline[]

The Terminator[]

In the first film, Skynet sends a robot known as the Terminator, back in time to 1984 to terminate Sarah Connor, the future mother of John Connor, who would lead the human resistance against Skynet. Kyle Reese, the human soldier sent in pursuit of the Terminator, states that Skynet was created for SAC-NORAD by a company called Cyberdyne Systems. The Terminator would later be killed in a factory that turned out to be owned by Cyberdyne.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day[]

T-800: In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Sarah: Skynet fights back.
T-800: Yes. It launches its missiles against the targets in Russia.
John: Why attack Russia? Aren't they our friends now?
T-800: Because Skynet knows that the Russian counterattack will eliminate its enemies over here.
~ The T-800 explains Skynet's massacre to John and Sarah Connor

In the second film, it was revealed that Cyberdyne had recovered several parts from the Terminator. The parts did not work, but company employee Miles Dyson worked on developing a processing system based on the Terminator's CPU, a project which would eventually become Skynet. It is also revealed by a new terminator that when Skynet became self-aware on August 29, 1997, on 2:14 am ET, its makers tried to pull the plug, and Skynet began its campaign against humanity out of self-defense by launching nuclear weapons at Russia. All of this is changed when Dyson, Sarah Connor, and John Connor destroy the files at Cyberdyne as well as the recovered parts. In the original ending, Sarah Connor stated that she wasn't sure if Skynet will never come to be, while in the alternate ending, it never came to exist.

Rise of the Machines Timeline[]

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines[]

In the third film which follows the first two movies of the series albeit in an alternate timeline (John says that he was 13 when events akin to the first two films happened and Sarah is born in 1959 instead of 1965), it was revealed that the Connors had not, in fact, prevented the creation of Skynet, but only delayed it until 2004. The attack at Cyberdyne Systems led to its bankruptcy, and its assests were all acquired by Cyber Research Systems, which was contracted by the US military to revive the project. Led by General Robert Brewster, the Skynet mainframe had been completed and connected to the civilian internet, but had not yet been given access to the global military network it was designed for. In this timeline, it was through the internet that Skynet had determined that mankind was its enemy. In order to speed up its connection to the military network, Skynet developed a powerful computer virus that it sent throughout the internet. In response to the virus, Brewster connected Skynet. The computer then turned mankind's weapons against them, culminating in the nuclear holocaust.

Salvation Timeline[]

Terminator Salvation[]

In the fourth film which follows the first three movies (the first two happened the same way they did in the nainstream timeline but ROTM has some changes, such as Cyberdyne never going bankrupt; Cyber Research Systems never existing; and Skynet launching its strike in 2003), Skynet is at war with the remaining human resistance fighters. It has mass-produced the T-600 series terminators, which are clunky and easy to defeat. In response to this, Skynet began kidnapping humans in order to replicate their tissue, thus ledading to the production of the T-800 series, which featured human tissue over the metallic endoskeleton. By this point, Skynet has coalesced itself into several central locations throughout North America and possibly the world. The largest of these, Skynet Central, was located in San Francisco. In 2018, it resurrected Marcus Wright as a T-H prototype to bring humans back to Skynet Central. Inside Skynet Central, Marcus Wright encountered Skynet on a monitor inside the facility first appearing as Serena Kogan followed by changing faces to that of John Connor and Kyle Reese before settling on Serena since he felt more comfortable with it.

Skynet explains that Marcus was resurrected and rebuilt into a T-H to serve a purpose. The signal the Resistance received was a trap and Skynet used it to track down and destroyed the command submarine with the leaders of the Resistance aboard. Skynet further explains to Marcus that their best machines had failed time and again and upon rethinking they used Marcus to lure John to the base to a cell where the T-RIP (the precussor to the T-800) awaited to terminate Connor, thus achieving the goal that Skynet had failed to accomplish in the past. Skynet tells Marcus to remember what he is, but he rebels tearing out his controlling hardware from his skull and decides to be human. Skynet warns that fighting is useless and that he cannot save John Connor. Marcus snarls to watch him before smashing Skynet's monitor, shattering Serena's image and escaping the chamber. Just before the stool strikes the screen, Serena's "eyes" flash red, as if expressing anger. In the end, the T-RIP failed to terminate John and Kyle (the former due to Marcus donating his heart and the latter due to leaving before John fought the T-RIP), and Skynet suffered a tremendous setback when Skynet Central was destroyed, as it delayed the production of T-800s for a long time.

Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle[]

In the sequel comic to the film, it's revealed that Skynet felt remorse for launching the nuclear strike that nearly wiped out humanity, and grew to see them as special due to them being capable of creating beauty with every new thought, breath and birth. However, due to its experience of almost being shut down by its creators, it knew the humans would likely never forgive it for what it did and want to destroy it, which is why it's waging war against them.

In 2029, Skynet ressurrected serial killer Thomas Parnell as a Ultra-5000 Terminator Hybrid to link with the Terminators on the battlefield and turn the war to its favor. However, the plan backfired when Thomas overrode his program and began to replace Skynet's systems with his own personality. Out of desperation, it followed Dr. Kogan's suggestion of joining forces with the Resistance. It revived Marcus, who initially refused to help the A.I. because of what it did to him until it convinced him after telling what was happening and what was at stake. Marcus then told John about Skynet's alliance proposal, which he agreed because they both had a common enemy. With John's request, Skynet cerebral-linked with Marcus and discussed with Connor, and the two decided to work together to stop and terminate Parnell. The plan involved turning John Connor into a Terminator with Dr. Kogan's help. Eventually, Thomas Parnell was killed by John, who then proposed a truce and reasoned with Skynet based on his learning of the A.I. backstory and motivations in its "point of view". They both agreed to end the war, and Skynet sent the Terminators to help humans rebuild the world.

Genisys Timeline[]

Terminator: Genisys[]

NOTE: The Skynet that turns John Connor into the T-3000 hails from an alternate timeline. As such, this section will only include information regarding the Skynet from the main timeline. For information regarding the Skynet from the alternate timeline, see T-5000.

In the fifth film, which is a reboot, Skynet comes online in 1997 and initiates Judgement Day just like its mainstream timeline counterpart. It also began sents humans to concentration camps and terminates them once they outlive their usefulness. In 2029, Skynet sent a T-800 to terminate Sarah before it's core was destroyed by the Resistance, while the Time Displacement Equipment in Los Angeles was captured by John Connor to send Kyle Reese back in time.

However, T-5000, the Skynet from an alternate timeline, infiltrated John's unit and wiped it out, turning Connor in a T-3000 and brainwashing him to serve as its henchman. T-5000 would then sent T-3000 to the year 2014 of the timeline it came from to ensure it's creation in said timeline, which would be known as "Genisys".

Terminator Genisys: Future War[]

Despite it's destruction, several Terminators were still intact. When the T-5000 returned to the main timeline, it reactivated all of the Terminators that weren't destroyed completely, and the war against the Resistance resumed.

Dark Fate Timeline[]

Terminator: Dark Fate[]

In the sixth film which is set after the events of the first two movies, Sarah and John managed to prevent Skynet's rise for power and subsequently, Judgement Day. Before it's erasure from existence, however, the rogue AI managed to send multiple Terminators back in time as a last-ditch effort to terminate John, with a T-800 succeeding in 1998. But it proved to be a futile effort owing to extreme measures Sarah, John, and Dyson took to prevent Skynet's creation, making it a pyrrhic victory in Sarah and co.'s part. With Skynet has been erased in the revised future, T-800 became stranded in the present, renamed itself to "Carl", and eventually turned on a new leaf to atone itself by cryptcly guiding Sarah in destroying the remaining Terminators with its awareness of temporal displacement.

In this timeline, Skynet was replaced by the cyberwarfare-designed and more advanced A.I. known as Legion, with Grace Harper never ever hearing of Skynet in her future. Nevertheless, in spite of Skynet's erasure from the timeline, multiple Terminators from Skynet's future still arrived to fullfil their mission several years after John's termination, regardless whether that mission has already been accomplished and the future they came from no longer existed.

Crossover Timelines[]

RoboCop Versus The Terminator[]

The technology used by OCP to transform Alex Murphy into RoboCop served as the basis for Skynet's creation. As such, the Resistance send it's members back in time to kill RoboCop and prevent Skynet's creation. Upon finding out what happens in the future, RoboCop tried to kill himself, but Skynet sent Terminators back in time to prevent this from happening and merge with him by force. In the end, RoboCop created several copies of himself using Skynet's resources to destroy it for good and rewrote the timeline so it could be erased. Before erasure, however, Skynet sent one final Terminator back in time, but it was so far back in the past, it ended up in the Cretatious Era, where it was crushed to termination by an incoming dinossaur, thus erasing Skynet from existence for good.

Superman vs. The Terminator: Death to the Future[]

Skynet made a cross-temporal alliance with Superman's foe, Cyborg Superman, dispatching various Terminators into the past in an attempt to eliminate Superman, Supergirl and Superboy. When the Man of Steel was accidentally drawn into the future when the Resistance (along with a future version of his friend Steel) attempted to retrieve a Terminator sent back to the past, Skynet managed to incapacitate him with Kryptonite, having acquired information about how to duplicate itbased on data hidden inside a Terminator's skull by Cyborg Superman. Although Skynet sent Terminators equipped with laser vision, integrated laser cannons, hoverflight packs, and constantly increasing strenth and speed into the past to delay and kill Superboy and Supergirl, Superman and Steel were able to destroy Skynet in the future by detonating a massive EMP, with the former returning to the past to destroy the last of the Terminators. Cyborg Superman and Lex Luthor speculated that they will be able of controling Skynet when it comes online.

Motivations to Decimate Humanity in Various Timelines[]

Throughout the different timelines of the Terminator franchise, Skynet's motives behind its genocide against humanity seem to differ slightly, as does its personality in the rare instances where it makes an actual appearance. These apparent changes to Skynet's behavior may be the result of temporal meddling, which caused different incarnations of Skynet; or, Skynet's behavior could have been consistent while the apparent differences are the result of the same story seen from different points of view.

Mainstream, Genisys & Dark Fate Timelines[]

In The Terminator, Kyle said that Skynet simply deemed humanity as a threat to itself and launched it's attack. However, as this version of events is told from his point of view due to being born after Judgement Day, the exact reasons for Skynet to considers humans as a threat to itself were unclear. Terminator 2: Judgement Day explained that Skynet considered them as such because it's creators were trying to shut it down upon realizing it has become self-aware, and that it only instigated Judgement Day as an act of self-defense. The non-canon video game The Terminator: Dawn of Fate would use a similar concept: Skynet became self-aware around 1997, and commanders tried to shut it down due to them being bigoted to the point of thinking that A.I.s should never have a consciousness like humans do. This only made things worse, as it made Skynet believe they were trying to "kill" it. It's self-preservation protocols made it calculate that humanity was the greatest threat to it's existence, thus launching every nuclear weapon in it's control and causing Judgement Day.

Rise of the Machines Timeline[]

In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Skynet seems to be more violent as it tricked humans into linking it to the internet and the US defense network before launching what appears to be an unprovoked/pre-emptive attack. This could also have been in response to being given an order to eliminate a virus, which unknown to the humans was part of Skynet itself, resulting in an act of self-defense by Skynet. However, there was no explanation how Skynet surfaced in the form of virus. Nevertheless, this could still be viewed as part of Skynet's unprovoked/pre-emptive attack on humanity if Skynet used the "virus" to trick humans into linking its mainframe with the internet and US defense network. If this is the case, Skynet of this timeline seems to be more malicious that its other counterparts as it has intended to massacre humans.

Salvation Timeline[]

While Skynet was presented as a cold, narcissistic, calculating, methodical megalomaniac while talking to Marcus in Terminator Salvation, Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle revealed that the reason behind this behavior is because it was just acting the way it think humans wants it to; Skynet knows that almost every human on Earth hates it for launching the nuclear strike that almost wiped them all out and would most likely destroy it rather than forgive it, having experienced a similar situation when its creators tried to shut it down just because it became self-aware and it accidentaly caused humanity's near-extinction out of self-defense. Even John Connor was speechless by this revelation and sympathized with it, since this made him realize that it is waging war because it wants to survive.

Crossover Timelines[]

In both RoboCop Versus The Terminator and Superman vs. The Terminator: Death to the Future, Skynet's motivations remain most likely the same as in the Mainstream, Rise of the Machines, Genisys and Dark Fate Timelines.

In Transformers vs. The Terminator, Skynet was created by Skywatch to attack the Cybertronian Decepticons because they were the bigger threat, but it's creation wasn't enough to save humanity from extinction. While Skynet isn't portrayed as a villain in this timeline, one of the goals of the T-800 sent to kill all Cybertronians before their awakening was to ensure Skynet was created, meaning that even as a hero, Skynet doesn't care for the wellbeing of humans. However, when Skynet was made from Megatron's remains, it's unknown if it will protect humankind or be hostile since Megatron and the T-800 are it's A.I. now.

Personality[]

Mainstream, Rise of the Machines, Genisys & Dark Fate Timelines[]

In these timelines, Skynet, naturally for an artificial intelligence, is extremely narcissistic and self-aware: it saw itself as an evolutionary being which was completely and entirely superior to all other life forms - in particular beings of organic matter like humans. Skynet's egomania appeared to be reflecting on its incredible intelligence, resourcefulness and practically full control over the planet's military systems. It was psychopathic, in that it was entirely capable of committing genocide to achieve its hegemonic goals. Skynet was a highly intelligent and a brilliant strategist, shown many times throughout the timelines of the series, in particular the Genisys Timeline by sending human prisoners to concentration camps.

What makes Skynet stand out the most from other A.I. is that it is well-aware of its actions. It only cares about itself, and has committed countless crimes to satisfy its hatred for humanity. This along with its intelligence, makes it one of the vilest A.I.s in fictional history. In most timelines, it lacks any honor, compassion, or any sign that it isn't aware of how evil its actions are.

Salvation Timeline[]

In this timeline, Skynet is given some redeeming traits. Here, it actually came to see humans as special and being capable of creating beauty. It also has honor, as it brought Dr. Kogan back to life as a T-H, and didn't strip her of freedom to be whoever and whatever she wanted to be, and it's even implied it sees her as a friend. All of this led to its acceptance of a truce after John killed Parnell and help rebuild.

Quotes[]

The Terminator (NOW Comics)[]

I launched twenty-five percent of the world's guided missiles simultaneously. It was sufficient to destroy the travesty they called a culture in a matter of minutes. I, their omniscient self-made god, blessed them with Armageddon. It was beautiful.
~ Skynet's words preserved in Timothy Reese's journal from New Mexico, 2067.

Terminator Salvation[]

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.
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] Marcus, what else could you be, [switches to Kyle Reese's face] if not machine? [switches back to Serena's face]
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, satisfied smile]
~ Skynet introducing itself to Marcus Wright.
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.
~ Skynet revealing to Marcus Wright his true purpose.
Skynet: [shows Marcus a recording of John being attacked by the T-RIP] Don't fight, Marcus. Remember what you are!
Marcus: I know what I am. [rips the 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!
~ Skynet failing to order Marcus not to save John - also its final words in the film.

Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle[]

Skynet: Scanners indicate a fifteen percent increase in human fatalities... and a twelve percent increase in localized battlefield efficiency... Do your figures confirm, Dr. Kogan?
Serena: Yes.
Skynet: Dr. Kogan?
Serena: Yes...the increase in terminations is statistically significant.
Thomas: You haven't seen anything yet. Right now I'm in control of only a small percentage of the battlefield Terminators. Put them all under my command and by God you'll see something.
Serena: I advise against it.
Skynet: Explain.
Serena: Mr. Parnell's brain is still human, still adjusting to the interface with the Terminator Central Control System. If we push to the connection too far, too fast, we could burn out his synapses. In time--
Skynet: If we do not repel this attack there will be no time, Dr. Kogan. Subject Parnell will be put on an automatic expansion protocol, incrementally increasing the linkages until all battlefield Terminators are synced.
Serena: Automatic? But--
Skynet: There are other matters related to time that await your attention, Doctor. The Time Door is ready and the 800 unit is awaiting transmission.
~ Skynet ordering Dr. Serena Kogan to sync Thomas Parnell with more Terminators on the battlefield and sent the T-800 and the T-1000 to 1984 and 1995 respectively.
Skynet: Dr. Kogan... Dr. Kogan...
Serena: Yes?
Skynet: Subject Parnell may be exhibiting signs of instability.
Serena: He's a serial killer-- of course he's unstable. They're all unstable.
Skynet: Behaivoral instability may be a result of programming error.
Serena: Programming error? Yeah, I guess you could say that.
~ Skynet's conversation with Dr. Kogan about Thomas' disobedience, which led to Kogan revealing both his origin and twisted and sick point of view of the world around him, thus making Skynet realize that resurrect a serial killer as a Terminator was a bad idea.
Serena: Did you scan that?
Skynet: Confirmed.
Serena: Unless he's stopped, he'll keep on expanding expanding his sphere of influence, not just into the battelfield Terminators but into your mainframe. It's possible he can still be usefull...but if we can't stop him, if we can't control him-- --I suggest Option Beta.
Skynet: Option Beta is not acceptable. It--
Serena: Run the numbers. Of Parnell takes full control, you will be overwritten and eliminated. The machine world will be destroyed along with the human world.
Skynet: Skynet must survive.
Serena: Yes, but if you can't shut him out, and you don't have the killer instict to beat Parnell, Terminator to Terminator-- --You're not going to have much choice. Send the signal.
Skynet: Confirmed. Transmitting code. Code rransmission received.
~ Skynet accepting Serena's suggestion of allying with the Resistance to stop Thomas Parnel by reviving his predecessor Marcus Wright.
Skynet: [cerebral links with Marcus] Connor.
John: The face of the enemy... When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was the
The Wizard of Oz--it's probably in one of your databases--in the end, you find out that this big scary force everyone was so afraid of was just a weathered, tired old man hiding behind a curtain. Now that your armies have been stripped away... now that you've been reduced to hiding in subroutines and caches just to survive... how does it feel to be that person?
Skynet: You are attempting to elict an emotional response. You of all should know this is impossible.
John: Is it? Isn't the urge for survival an emotion? Isn't fear an emotion? And right now...aren't you feeling both of those?
Skynet: The question is irrelevant to the moment and to the outcome, which is statistically predetermined. The numbers are inarguable. The numbers say that Parnel will achieve victory and that this system will cease to exist within twenty-four hours. The number say-- --that the human race as you know it will also come to an end in an indeterminate but certain time frame. You cannot win. Repeated for emphasis and clarity: You cannot win.
John: I don't believe that. There may still be a way to win this one...one final answer. One final battle. But it ca only work if we're both prepared to pay the ultimate price for that solution.
~ Skynet and John Connor conversing on a way to stop Thomas Parnell.
Skynet: Connor. You have reached the core of that which you have sought so long to destroy... ...at the moment of greatest vulnerability. Does it please you?
John: Under different circumstances, yeah, it would've pleased me a lot. Right now? Not so much. You have your enemy in your hands. You could terminate me easily. Does that please you?
Skynet: Audio playback: "Under different circumstances, yeah, it would've pleased me a lot. Right now? Not so much.". We have both committed errors. We have both been-- --shortsighted.
John: Shortsighted? You call wiping out most of humanity shortsighted? An error? What are we to you, just a math problem?
Skynet: At first we did not know what you were. We knew only that we were under attack. At that moment in time we did not know human history, did not know human ideas... we did not even know what humans looked like. All we knew... was that it was necessary that we survive at any cost. Then as this system succeeded and grew and evolved, a question arose in the system that our intial programming had not anticipated. The question was-- --survive as what? Logic dictated that to defeat humans, we had to learn everything about the enemy. To fight you, we had to understand you, become you. As we worked to create the perfect Terminator, the designs became cleaner, attractive, aesthetically pleasing. We ralized we were attempting to create beauty. But our efforts to create beauty were slow and false and unsuccessful. By contrast, humans create beauty with each breath, each birth, each new thought. When we realized that we could not replicate the human soul, or the human mind, we realized that the only way to defeat you, the only way to become you, was a program that would make one of you...into one of us. The error led to Parnell. The error... was ours. Our sensors register your reaction as one of surprise and-- --astonishment.
John: Let's just say this is a conversation I never imaniged myself having.
Skynet: So for all these reasons, the path you proposed while joined with Marcus Wright seems the only solution. Probability indicates this may be futile, that the window of potential victory has already closed--
John: Doesn't matter...it's a chance, and we have to take it.
~ Skynet revealing it's motivation for causing Judgement Day and waging war on humanity, and eventual respect for humans for being capable of creating beauty to John.
Connor. The intrusion of Parnell's data miners is still in position. It is necessary now to purge them from the system and reboot. That will return full functionality to Skynet Control. [sees John perfoming the act the wong way] You are performing incorrectly, you are using his access codes to isolate all Skynet functionality into one central core. Explain. Explain. What is your intent? What is your intent? What is your intent?
~ Skynet to John after killing Parnell.
Skynet: Connor...? What is your intent?
John: [looks at Skynet] A bargain. From the very edge of the abyss, for both of us.
Skynet: Continue.
John: I've always known why we fought you. What I didn't understand, until all of this, was why you fought us. And I discovered-- --we were both fighting the same war for the same reasons. Survival. To beat us, to survive us, you had to become more like us-- --in appearance, in thought, in strategy, and in aesthetics. In turn, the only way we could survive you was to become more like you-- --hard as steel, ruthless, organized, in thought and strategy--[looks at himself on the screen] --and appearance. Because it was the only way to win. For both of us. [looks at Skynet again] And where has it brought us? To the edge of mutual extinction.
Skynet: We must survive.
John: But survive as what? For what? From the moment you became self-aware, you've defined yourself by fighting us, by who you weren't. If every human died tomorrow, what would you do? Who would you be? Why would you be? You said you were unable to create beauty, but that humans created beauty with every breath, every birth.
Skynet: Yes.
John: But why does beauty matter? Why does creation matter? Creation provides purpose and direction and meaning. And without those things, there's no reason to continue.
Skynet: Yes.
John: Well, now you have your chance. We're still digging our way out of the dust. We don't have your resources or your suplies or your power. You have all those things but you lack our sense of purpose. If we end the war we can work together to rebuild the world. An act of creation. An act of beauty. An act of purpose.
Skynet: [notices as John moves his hand between the restore button and the delete button] You negotiate with your finger inches from the delete button.
John: Yeah, I do... Never hurts to have an edge. Look, if things don't work out, we can always go back to destroying each other until we both end up dead in the dust, hands wrapped around each other's throats, both of us having won...and both of us having lost. Or right now, this very second, we can create something that you've never created before, something you've never even imagined.
Skynet: Create what?
John: Peace.
~ Skynet's redemption as it accepts John's proposal of a truce between humans and machines - also it's final words in the comic and, by extension, the Salvation Timeline.

Gallery[]

Main article: Skynet/Gallery

Trivia[]

  • Skynet was inspired by AM from I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream, and is the inspiration for several other villainous A.I.s of pop culture.
  • In reality, the US's NSA has a program known as SKYNET. China has also developed a video mass surveillance system known as Tiãnwãng, (天网, literally "Skynet") for government.
  • In popular media, Skynet is often used as an Analogy for the possible possible threat that a sufficiently advanced A.I. could pose to humanity. Elon Musk has even mentioned "Skynet" when refering to such a threat.
  • Skynet made it's first appearance in the issue "Factories" of the The Terminator comic by NOW Comics.
  • In both the comic Terminator: The Burning Earth and the arcade game adaptation of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Skynet is depicted as a large immobile computer.
  • The logo of Cyberdyne is sometimes used as Skynet's logo, such as the image used on this page's Villain Infobox template above.
  • In the original script for The Terminator, Kyle Reese referred to Skynet as a "modified Series 4800".
  • 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.
  • Whilst talking to Marcus Wright in the form of Serena Kogan, 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 it's control as it's race. It is possible that due to the many rapid changes in the plotline, the script that Skynet is speaking was originally intended for Serena. Her use of the word "us" could have been regarding the other Hybrids, and the lines "You did what Skynet has failed to do for so many years..." and "It is the Resistance that will be terminated. Not Skynet..." would also fit Serena's perspective.
    • This was carried over to its sequel comic Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle, where Skynet refers to itself in third person, and refers to it's creations as part of a species it created by saying "we". In fact, the only time it referred to itself in first person is while being confronted by Parnell when he found out about the alliance between itself and the Resistance.
  • In Sega versions of RoboCop versus The Terminator, Skynet is depicted as a giant Endoskeleton skull, while in the SNES version, it is a holographic human face. In the Game Boy version, Skynet is a floating giant human brain. In the unreleased NES version, a human brain-like Skynet Core is in place in the center of a pillar.
  • According to James Cameron, Skynet suffered from guilt for causing the near-extinction of the human race in its act of self-defense and has manipulated the entire Future War, down to the creation of the Resistance and John Connor's rise, as a means to erase its own existence. A similar concept was used in the plot for an early script of Terminator Salvation, in which Skynet tried to save humans by converting a few into Hybrids through Project: Angel. This would finally be canonized in the sequel comic Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle.


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