Terminator
A Terminator is a cyborg assassin from the science fiction franchise of the same name created by James Cameron.
Terminator Universe
In the late 20th to early 21st century, the United States government develops a Command and Control computer system known as Skynet. Skynet is an artificial intelligence that eventually becomes sapient and decides to wipe out humanity. To do this, Skynet starts a nuclear war, resulting in the destruction of civilization. It then deploys an army of robots to mop up the survivors. A resistance movement led by John Connor succeeds in defeating Skynet. In an attempt to prevent its defeat retroactively, Skynet sends various Terminators back through time to assassinate John Connor and his mother Sarah (before his birth), but the resistance also sends various agents to stop them.
Terminator Attributes
A terminator is a robot designed to infiltrate human strongholds by impersonating a human soldier or civilian. Any model of terminator has superhuman strength and durability. They have been seen to smash through safety glass easily or bash through heavy doors with effort. They are highly resistant to small arms fire, although repeated hits from heavy rounds (like point-blank blasts from a shotgun) will briefly incapacitate them. All known models were capable of accurately mimicking any human voice they had heard.
Skynet developed several "series" of terminator:
- T-600 Series: These terminators were steel alloy skeletons covered in a rubber skin to allow them to get close to human targets. The human resistance were able to identify them without much difficulty, resulting in poor field performance.
- T-800 Series: These terminators used cloned human tissue to cover the robotic skeleton with living flesh, resulting in a nearly perfect physical disguise: muscle, blood, skin, hair, bad breath... everything. Consequently, an 800-series terminator is technically a cyborg. Introduced late in the war against humanity, they were highly successful at infiltrating human settlements until people realized that dogs could distinguish them from humans (presumably by smell). The 800 series model 101 is the "Arnold".
- T-1000 Prototype: The T-1000 was a unique prototype composed of a mimetic poly-alloy that the terminator AI could freely reshape to mimic virtually anything of similar size, limited only by the need to physically contact the object it sought to mimic. The T-1000 could also form hard metal blades, spikes, and bludgeons from its mass for use in close combat. Even when severely damaged it could reform itself in a few moments, making it much harder to destroy than earlier models.
- T-X Prototype: A combination of both a solid endo-skeleton and a poly-alloy covering, the T-X combined some of the shape-changing ability of the T-1000 with a solid platform for mounting built-in weaponry. The T-X included a flame thrower and a directed-energy weapon in its arms. It also had special technology for taking control of other machinery, allowing it to remotely operate vehicles and commandeer other robots or computers for its purposes.
Movies
- The Terminator (1984)
- Terminator II: Judgement Day (1991)
- Terminator III: Rise of the Machines (2003)
- Terminator Salvation (2009)
Terminators in Debates
"What would Character X do if hunted by a Terminator?" is a common debate topic.
See Also
- For the Warhammer 40,000 unit of the same name, see Space Marine Terminators.