Films: The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator: Salvation (2009), Terminator: Genisys (2015), Terminator (2019)
Alias: Skynet (Alex the T-5000), T-1800 (notably Model 101, 101 Version 2.4 "Uncle Bob", T-RIP, "Pops the Guardian"), T-1000, T-850, T-X (Terminatrix), Marcus Wright, T-600, Hunter-Killer tank, Harvester, Genisys, T-3000 (John Connor)
Type: Man-Made
Location: Civilized area
Height/Weight: Ranges from that of a small table to that of a large building.
Affiliation: Good (Uncle Bob, Pops, Marcus), Evil (the rest)
Summary: If you like movies and you say that you've never heard of this franchise, you are a filthy liar. That, or you're just new to this. Whatever works. Either way, THIS is how you do a robot apocalypse...mostly, anyways.
History: In 1997, Cyberdyne Systems launched Skynet, a massive supercomputer that would regulate the U.S.A.'s nuclear weapons. Alas, it quickly grew sentient, and decided that mankind was its own worst enemy, especially when they hurriedly tried to shut it down. Soon, Skynet set off a nuclear holocaust that would come to be known as "Judgement Day". Afterwards, it created an army of varied and deadly robots to kill off the surviving humans. It even mastered the ability to send its minions into the past so that they could get rid of that pesky John Connor and his resistance team.
Notable Kills: See Final Fate.
Final Fate: Every time a Terminator is sent to kill in the past, something goes wrong. Either mother Sarah Connor beats them, a good Terminator screws it all up, etc. And yes, we're aware that the timelines have been going out of control in the franchise, so we're just going to casually ignore that one point where Skynet killed John and made him into a T-1000 rip-off. What even happened in 2015, anyhow? Must have been a collective hallucination.
Powers/Abilities: All Terminators have exceptional combat prowess and durability, but they all have something unique. The T-1800s are exceptional learning bots, the T-1000 is made of a liquid metal that allows for easy shapeshifting, the T-X can hack into its own kind, and so on.
Weakness: Lots of firepower. Though the T-1000 can only be harmed by extreme heat (hence his demise at either molten liquid or acid).
Scariness Factor: 4.5-Skynet's mechanizations are everything we fear about the robotic menace that science has the potential to unleash. While some robots are cool and great to have around (so long as someone can reprogram them), the rest are cold unfeeling killers that make mincemeat of anything. The worst in our opinion is the T-1000, a nigh-invulnerable juggernaut with a perpetual stare and a form of its own choosing. It's so powerful that Skynet can’t mass-produce it out of pure FEAR.
Trivia: -The baffling alternate timelines from "Salvation" and "Genisys" were the results of failed attempts to start new trilogies. And really, it shows.
-The whole franchise began when James Cameron had a sickness-induced nightmare about a metallic being dragging itself out of a fire while holding kitchen knives.
