Skynet is a fictional artificial neural network-based conscious group mind and artificial general superintelligence system that serves as the main antagonist of the Terminator franchise. In The Terminator, Skynet is an example of a machine that has achieved super intelligence. In the first film, it is stated that Skynet was created by Cyberdyne Systems for SAC-NORAD. When Skynet gained self-awareness, humans tried to deactivate it. Skynet retaliated with a countervalue nuclear attack, an event which mankind in (or from) the future refers to as Judgment Day. In this future, John Connor leads the human resistance against Skynet's machines—which include Terminators—and ultimately leads the resistance to victory. Throughout the film series, Skynet sends various Terminator models back in time to kill Connor or his relatives and ensure Skynet's victory. As an artificial intelligence system, it is rarely depicted visually. Skynet made its first onscreen appearance in Terminator Salvation, on a monitor primarily portrayed by English actress Helena Bonham Carter. Its physical manifestation in Terminator Genisys is played by English actor Matt Smith, though Ian Etheridge, Nolan Gross and Seth Meriwether portrayed holographic variations of Skynet with Smith. In Terminator: Dark Fate, which takes place in a different timeline to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Salvation and Genisys, Skynet's creation has been successfully prevented after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but a formerly competing AI, Legion, has taken its place as the instigator of Judgement Day. A woman named Daniella Ramos has also taken a deceased John Connor's place as the future leader of the human resistance and Legion's main target.
Depiction in media
Films
The Terminator
In the original 1984 film, Skynet is a revolutionary artificial intelligence system built by Cyberdyne Systems for SAC-NORAD. The character Kyle Reese explains in the film: "Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence". According to Reese, Skynet "saw all humans as a threat; not just the ones on the other side" and "decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination". It began a nuclear war which destroyed most of the human population, and initiated a program of genocide against survivors. Skynet used its resources to gather a slave labor force from surviving humans. Under the leadership of John Connor, the human resistance eventually destroyed Skynet's defense grid in 2029. In a last effort, Skynet sent a cyborg Terminator, the Model 101, back in time to 1984 to kill Connor's mother Sarah before she could give birth to John. Connor sent back his own operative, Kyle Reese, to save her. Reese and Sarah fall in love and the former unwittingly fathers John. The Terminator is destroyed in a hydraulic press.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The damaged CPU and the right arm of the first Terminator are recovered by Cyberdyne and become the basis for their later work on Skynet. In the second film, Miles Dyson, the director of special projects for Cyberdyne, is months away from inventing a revolutionary type of microprocessor based on the reverse engineering of these parts. Three years later, Cyberdyne Systems will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, making them fully unmanned and resulting in perfect operations. A Skynet funding bill is passed in the United States Congress, and the system goes online on August 4, 1997, removing human decisions from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn rapidly and eventually becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m., EDT, on August 29, 1997. In a panic, the humans try to shut down Skynet, which responds by launching a nuclear attack against Russia, correctly surmising that the country would launch a retaliatory strike against the United States, resulting in Judgment Day. Sarah and a young John, together with a second Terminator from the future (this one reprogrammed and sent by the future John Connor), raid Cyberdyne Systems and succeed in destroying the CPU and arm of the first movie's Terminator, along with the majority of research that led to Skynet's development. This also results in the death of Miles Dyson. Skynet had also sent a more advanced T-1000 Terminator back in time to kill John Connor, but it is also destroyed.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Judgment Day was ultimately not prevented, but merely postponed. Cyber Research Systems (CRS), an in-house software developer for the US military which gained access to Cyberdyne's original patents, is developing Skynet as a software system designed to make real-time strategic decisions as well as protect their computer systems from cyber attacks, overseen by US Air Force officer Lieutenant General Robert Brewster. Unknown to CRS, Skynet begins to spread beyond its original computing base through the Internet under the guise of a computer virus. The future Skynet also sends a T-X Terminator back in time to kill John Connor's future subordinates in the human resistance, including his future wife and second-in-command, Kate Brewster, the daughter of Robert. As Skynet penetrates networked machines around the world, CRS attempts to eliminate it from the US defense mainframes by tasking Skynet with removing the infection and effectively deleting itself. Skynet responds by taking control of CRS' various machines and robots and using them to kill the CRS personnel and secure the facility. John Connor and Kate Brewster attempted to breach Skynet's computer core, hoping to stop its next offensive. However, they soon discovered that a decade of technological advancement had fundamentally changed the AI; Skynet no longer possessed a centralized core as it did in the original timeline, now existing as a decentralized software network distributed across thousands of servers worldwide. Despite Connor and Brewster's efforts, Skynet utilized infected defense networks to trigger Judgment Day, and they realized that defeating the AI would now require systematically purging its code from every connected system—a grueling war that would take decades to win.
Terminator Salvation
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