T-800, CSM-101 (1984)

SPECIALTY – ASSASSINATION
MANUFACTURER - SKYNET

The Terminator, specifically the T-800 Series Model 101 is a cybernetic organism sent back in time from a post-apocalyptic future in an effort to carry out its mission of either protection or assassination. It is living tissue such as skin, hair, eyes, and fingernails growing over a seemingly indestructible metal that acts as a skeleton and CPU. In times of extreme combat the metal skeleton can be seen where patches of skin have been destroyed.

The T-800 has been sent back from a future where machines became artificially intelligent. A program of A.I was developed by Cyberdine systems, and was incorporated into a United States military program known as Skynet. However, Skynet had been gaining more and more control and ultimately had access to every computer on the planet. When the US fully activated Skynet, at that point it had complete control, and acted systematically to eliminate the only threat to it: humans. For protection, it launched nuclear weapons humans had built and killed approximately 3 billion people in the initial attack. The attack started a new war between man and machine and subsequently the T-800 was developed years later. By appearing human it proved advantageous on the battlefield for infiltration and assassination. However the humans had united under a leader John Connor, and proved they were not going to give up at all. The machines in an effort to stop this problem sent back a T-800 back in time to kill John Connor's mother, Sarah. The humans also sent back a soldier to protect Sarah, Kyle Reese. Reese fell in love with Sarah while on his mission, and consequently became John's father. Reese died trying to destroy the T-800 using homemade dynamite however, but Sarah survived the T-800, crushing it using factory equipment.

The Terminator is a formidable robotic assassin and soldier, designed by the military supercomputer Skynet for infiltration and combat duty, towards the ultimate goal of exterminating the human resistance. It can speak naturally, copy the voices of others, read human handwriting, and even genuinely sweat, smell, and bleed. To detect the Terminators, who are otherwise indistinguishable from humans, the human resistance uses dogs to alert humans to their presence. The most notable science fiction characteristics are that of an expert system featuring strong AI functionality combined with machine learning, and the system can interpret arbitrary non-formalized tasks. The other notable science fiction component is that of a power source which can last 120 years.

A Terminator can withstand standard 20th century firearms, crash through walls intact, and survive explosions to some degree. Repeated shotgun blasts have enough force to knock it down and temporarily disable it, while heavy amounts of automatic fire are able to compromise the organic disguise layer. The endoskeleton is actuated by a powerful network of hydraulic servomechanisms, making Terminators superhumanly strong. The Terminator CPU is a room-temperature superconducting artificial neural network with the ability to learn.

The flesh-covering that is used on the majority of Terminator models has similar qualities to real human muscle and skin, as well as the ability to sweat, simulate breathing, and produce realistic body odor. Although Terminator flesh does contain blood, it only displays very minimal bleeding when damaged and has never been shown to experience any kind of profuse bleeding even from massive lacerations, dozens of gunshot wounds, or even complete removal. In the absence of a circulatory system, the flesh uses a system of "nanobots" which maintain the skin. It is unknown what biological processes take place to sustain the flesh covering, since Terminators do not require the consumption of food. Under 2007-era analysis, this blood is shown to be similar to human blood, using a synthetic oxygen carrier rather than human red blood cells, as Terminator endoskeletons contain no bone marrow. Terminator flesh heals by itself, and at a much faster rate than normal human tissue and has never been shown to bruise or discolor from trauma, even after several days. However, a Terminator's flesh covering can die if it sustains adequately massive damage, at which point it takes on a waxy, corpse-like pallor and begins to decompose. Terminators are able to sense damage to their skin, which the Terminator from Terminator 2 interprets as equivalent to a human's sense of pain. However, its actions are not inhibited by this pain like a human would be.
Although clearly not the normal procedure, a bare T-888 endoskeleton is able to grow itself a new flesh covering using 2007 technology (with the assistance of a geneticist and its own knowledge of future formulae) by submerging itself in a blood-like bath. This improvised process results in a deformed covering that has the appearance of a burn victim and lacks its own biological eyes, requiring it to steal some and subsequently undergo cosmetic surgery to produce a more normal appearance. The theft of the eyes suggests that Terminator flesh is capable of accepting some degree of organ grafts from ordinary humans, that it can circumvent transplant rejection, and is capable of sustaining the life of the grafted tissue via its own unknown biological process.

The original Terminator was sent to terminate a single target, Sarah Connor, in 1984, to prevent the birth of her son, John, the future leader of the human resistance. It was crushed in a hydraulic press by Sarah after a lengthy chase. However, its damaged main CPU and right arm were recovered by Cyberdyne. These artifacts were used to dramatically advance the technological level and direction of the research at Cyberdyne, paradoxically leading to the creation of Skynet.

>Go back to T1 Multimedia section
>Go back to All Multimedia
> Arnold Schwarzenegger Fan? Check out our Arnold site at TheArnoldFans.com
>Love Linda Hamilton? visit the best Linda Hamilton Fan Page out there!