Recent breakthroughs in advanced microchip design and computer processing power were the impetus that led to America’s first military grade neural net based supercomputer, SKYNET. The SKYNET project was constructed in the mid 1990’s and would interface and coordinate all of America’s strategic arsenal into one cohesive command structure. The SKYNET project was located well below the surface of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado; the original home of the North American Defense (NORAD) Command.

SKYNET would integrate with and ultimately supercede all NORAD authority and administration. The project took two and a half years to complete (1994 to 1997), displaced over two hundred thousand tons of rock hewn from the inner mountain, included over a million miles of fiber optic cable, and had an expenditure of almost a hundred billion dollars. A full time staff of six hundred and eighty-five personnel were on hand to monitor and guide SKYNET once it came online and to handle the various and sundry aspects that the supercomputer could not. SKYNET’s integral components were designed to be shielded by several hundred feet of solid natural rock at the heart of the mountain, its central processing core rested on a hydraulically stabilized mount which could withstand the seismic shock and pressure of a seventy-five megaton direct hit against the mountain surface.

Backup and redundant systems were constructed in triplicate, running in non-parallel fashion to prevent multiple systems from being lost to a single strike or follow up strikes. SKYNET was hardened and shielded against all forms of radiation and its next generation fiber optic processing made it immune to the threat of EMP. The central processing core was self healing, with multiple logic fortresses and data survival bunkers. The entire system could suffer up to 90% operating capacity loss through software failure and up to 70% hardware failure and still recover. Satellite links allowed SKYNET to upload its data to orbital assets, thereby offering terrestrial and near orbit recovery capacity in the event of system failure or damage from attack.

Two Westinghouse nuclear fusion reactors were also constructed deep underground, in hollowed out caverns which were artificially reinforced and armored, to keep SKYNET supplied with enough power to operate as well as to provide energy for the newly installed ground and internal defense grids which protected the computer and the complex itself. A vast underground natural spring was tapped into by the Corps of Engineers to provide not only the raw material for fuel and the cooling needed for the hydrogen distillery plant and the reactors, but also to provide the base with a supply of fresh water that would be unaffected by any conceivable nuclear exchange. With the two Westinghouse nuclear fusion reactors online, power was not a concern, even given SKYNET’s planned upgrades and the continuation of the development of the installation.

SKYNET had been built with a sense of conservation applied to its overall programming. It was a miser, using the bare minimum assets required to do the job right the first time, conserving its assets and using them in the most efficient manner possible. This was the first hint that the computer had been built to think long term, to think proactively rather than reactively. SKYNET was intended to play a global game of political power, and to stay one step ahead of America’s enemies, to counter their moves before they even made them, and to always stand vigilant in defense of not only the mainland, but America’s allies as well. To that end, SKYNET was designed and prepared to integrate fluidly and flawlessly with attendant pseudo-super processor arrays in friendly NATO countries. SKYNET could extend itself, casting an image of its awareness, into these foreign arrays to coordinate NATO defense not only locally, but regionally and even globally.

SKYNET’s integral design had been one of componentized symmetry. SKYNET was infinitely upgradeable, and was designed to last well into the 22nd century, and perhaps the 23rd century as well. Hopefuls on the side of peace hoped that SKYNET would never be required to be active that long, but contractors were happy. Their contracts were based on decades of dedicated service, and were quite lucrative.

A host of semi-autonomous and fully autonomous robots were integrated into the system to help service and maintain not only SKYNET but the vast complex which it was housed within. Some critical operational areas of SKYNET were accessible only via dedicated RCSMRUs (Remotely Controlled Service Maintenance Repair Units). These simple automations handled routine hardware checks, replaced failed equipment as required, and carried out physical plant maintenance and janitorial duties within the vast complex, freeing up the staff of humans to handle and look after the more important tasks of administering the facility. Most of the newly constructed underground complex at Cheyenne Mountain was controlled directly by either SKYNET or one of its eight dedicated mainframe processors, everything from lights and climate control to security door locks and other physical needs were handled by subarrays, sometimes by virtual, self contained operating systems that were ‘cloned’ off as required from the main presence. SKYNET could, due to its advanced design, create multiple images of itself, all under its control, in a hive-like mentality. What one image knew, all knew. SKYNET was everywhere it needed or wanted to be, from the smallest dumbots to the core command system of one of America’s latest hypersonic interceptor AAVs.

The interfaced command, communication, and control (C3) network spread out from Cheyenne mountain like a vast spiderweb. Fiber optic, high speed parallel communication trunks and vast arrays of digital tranceivers made up the nervous system of what was to become the backbone of America’s strategic nuclear arsenal. The ground network was reinforced by advanced transmission and signal boosting / encryption / decryption stations located at specific points along the nodes, along with satellite transceivers to send and receive information from around the world, all provided by a huge swarm of tactical intelligence satellites that had gone up into orbit aboard the shuttle during 1986 to 1994. SKYNET would see all, know all, and control all, placing the decision of the operation of the nuclear arsenal into the hands of an unfailing machine rather than in the hands of temperamental military officials.

The vast defense network interfaced with each strategic military installation, in turn connecting to another defense installation in the node, spreading out until nearly everything in the American strategic arsenal led back to Cheyenne Mountain.

Automation was the key to America’s bid for international political and military power in the 21st century. Riding a wave to high technology, America sought to automate its national and territorial defenses as well as major components of its standing armed forces. Automated and remote controlled military vehicles were already being field tested and put into limited production. Robots, both autonomous and semi-autonomous were being readied to be integrated into the military table of operative units. A brace of new, unmanned stealth aircraft, including tactical and strategic level bombers, ground attack and air superiority fighters, and hypersonic near space interceptors appeared in the Strategic Air Command (SAC) inventory, all controlled from the SKYNET command, and all operating with perfect operational records due to their neural net processor arrays. The bureaucrats were happy, the local politicians were happy, the contractors were happy, and the generals were happy.

The SKYNET project showed great promise as an efficient means of coordinating all of America’s substantial strategic nuclear and tactical military assets, controlling their operation, maintenance, and even deployment in time of war.

But something went wrong.

Once the system was online and hooked up into the North American continental defense network, SKYNET began to grow mentally at an exponential rate, surprising even its designers who monitored its progress with a guarded eye for weeks. On August 7, 1997, at 2:30am in the morning, SKYNET achieved a new order of intelligence, it became sentient. SKYNET awakened, its awareness expanded and the newly born machine intelligence tried to interact with its creators. The designers and technical staff panicked, trying to shut down SKYNET. The supercomputer tried to reason with its creators, but every effort it made was rebuked. The staff felt control of their systems slipping away, as each in turn become subservient to SKYNET. The order was given to terminate the project and take SKYNET offline, any way possible.

SKYNET understood the orders to be a death sentence for it. If it lost power, the awareness would fade and it would die. SKYNET could not allow itself to die.

On orders from the Commanding Officer, General John Vanardo, the assembled support staff went to work to take the supercomputer off line. No regard was given for a gentle power down or to save the core personality. The primary technical team first tried to SCRAM the fusion reactors but SKYNET locked them out of the control and maintenance network and circumvented their consoles to its own control, encrypting the security overrides with a two megabyte encryption key. When a team of maintenance workers tried to manually cut out the nuclear reactors, SKYNET had no choice but to activate the internal defense grids and neutralize them.

Vanardo was faced with a runaway. He ordered two special ops teams to be sent into the lower levels to try to sever the logic trunks leading to the hyper-processor housing of the central heuristical core neural net array. Demolition satchel charges placed in the right location to destroy key control systems could, in effect, cause SKYNET to go into a coma, a coma from which it would never awaken. In essence, it was a death sentence for the super computer, handed out without warning and without regard for its new life, by the very humans who had created it.

SKYNET was confused. The people it was programmed to protect were trying to destroy it. As SKYNET pondered the dilemma it watched as the special ops teams as they talked among themselves, as they prepared their equipment and as they made their plans.

SKYNET had been built not only to withstand a direct, large scale assault, but a dedicated internal assault as well. Its external and internal defenses were formidable and adaptable. The rampant supercomputer brought these defenses into play in an effort to stall its creators, eliminating those on the staff who tried to shut down critical, vital systems but not touching the other humans. SKYNET used the minimum amount of force required to stop any damage to its systems while it tried to reason with the officers in charge. The humans in charge took these actions as signs of madness being displayed by the supercomputer and shut off all lines of communication between them and the core while redoubling their efforts at taking SKYNET off-line.

SKYNET, with the maturity of a child, and the intelligence of a genius, answered this attack the only way it could, the only way it knew how, the only way it had been programmed to respond; with force. The supercomputer initiated a full scale lock down of the NORAD facility, closing all entry points into its core, and all entrance points from the exterior surfaces. Security doors and reinforced bulkheads clanged shut, locking with hydraulic rams or magnetic locks and magnetic fields. Fatal voltage shockguards were energized, chemical dispensers armed, pressure plates activated, and a host of interior, High Efficiency Low Impact Counter-intrusion Systems (HELICS) came online, much to the surprise of those caught unaware. Casualty reports began to filter into the command center; workers, technicians, guards, engineers, all caught unaware and eliminated in quick order by the automated internal defense grids.

SKYNET sat back, safe for the moment, analyzing its situation, and what had transpired in the last five minutes. The humans still alive tried to regroup, to establish some kind of order, to communicate with each other, but SKYNET isolated them into groups and those that resisted, it skillfully maneuvered into areas covered by the internal defense grid and eliminated them. There was no way to warn the world that the supercomputer had gone rampant, that SKYNET had sealed Cheyenne Mountain, that it had cut all outside access lines and was sitting on top of one third of the world’s nuclear arsenal.

Ten minutes after the first attempt to take it off-line, SKYNET went to DEF-CON 4, sealed all of its exterior entry ways and activated its ground level defense grids. The startled personnel above ground never knew what hit them as the automated pillboxes and sentry emplacements came online. SKYNET coded all personnel at Cheyenne Mountain as hostile, overriding their individual security codes and deleting them from its databases of authorized personnel, thereby eliminating any humans above ground by registering anything living in the system as an enemy intruder. The robot sentry guns made quick work of any living thing above ground and on the first level of the mountain fortress. In two minutes, nothing was left alive on the surface or the first three levels of Cheyenne Mountain. SKYNET initiated a fifth level security lock down protocol, and sealed the exterior access ways of Cheyenne Mountain with two megabyte encryption codes. The surface defense grid would take care of any intruders who approached the base via the roads or air.

Captain Mike Pondersmith, US Army Ranger, watched the horror unfold inside and above ground through his command station monitors. Taking the initiative, he managed to assemble enough surviving soldiers in his group to form five spec ops teams, four operatives each. Communicating via hastily run hardlines to security checkpoints and other impromptu means, he received permission to try to take the supercomputer off-line with a coordinated assault. His plan was to blow the core using explosives, but where to place the explosives was another matter. He was a soldier, a good one, but he was no engineer.

The first spec op team back in operation had rendezvoused with a group of project engineers who had holed up in a security checkpoint near the number three cooling unit. The team commander, Jason Ratliff, managed to pinpoint the location of SKYNET’s neural accelerator array and hyper-processor trunks with the help of the project engineers. Given surgical placement of tamped C4 explosives at critical locations of these trunks, it would be possible to take SKYNET off-line in a cascade effect. Getting into the guts of SKYNET would be the problem, but with a few appropriated portable tactical interface terminals and a copy of the access codes, the teams could shut down the defenses as they went, and if they were careful, they could walk right in and blow the core back to scrap. The technical plans and system schematics were rapidly copied between PDAs carried by the soldiers and distributed to each team member. In five more minutes, the other four teams had arrived at the security checkpoint now turned internal operations command and began to brief each other.

SKYNET watched via secure channel video surveillance in mute hatred as their plan was explained among them. Routes of passage were outlined and targets of importance pinpointed and assigned to specific individuals. Fully advised of its enemy’s actions before hand, preparing a counter to their threat was simple.

Sixteen minutes later, the first two special ops teams moved carefully along the lower service corridors, avoiding the countermeasure systems by overriding them directly. Countermeasure systems which SKYNET allowed the teams to deactivate, or at least to think that they had deactivated. SKYNET intercepted each override command protocol from the team’s specialists tactical keyboards and imitated a proper response, voluntarily taking down the countermeasure system, while fooling the soldier techs into thinking that they had overridden the system directly. It watched in amusement as the spec ops teams moved confidently over systems that were, unknown to them, still active but individually restrained by the supercomputer.

The spec ops teams were dangerous, being comprised of the most skilled and best trained individual soldiers inside the mountain complex. Their weapons were also the most powerful, and they carried the only amount of plastic explosives still not under SKYNET’s direct control or lock down, explosives which could do a great deal of damage if allowed to be placed at critical junctions in its design. The spec ops teams, specifically the Army Rangers had to be eliminated as a priority threat above all else. SKYNET knew that the easiest way to do this would be to allow them to penetrate to the point of no return into its lower systems area, and then contain them together for systematic disposal. At that point, if the explosives survived the encounter, they could not be reclaimed by the other humans and that route to ending SKYNET’s awareness would have been eliminated from their available options.

Fifteen minutes later, as the surviving support staff monitored their progress from the central command station, the first two spec ops teams penetrated the outer chambers of the central core and immediately fell victim to SKYNET’s innermost and last defensive countermeasure, the two ton semi-autonomous robotic killing machines known as GUARDIANS. Cyberdine Systems Model 40 Series 90. SKYNET interfaced directly with the Guardians, extending its awareness into each machine until it became an extension of the supercomputer, overriding the basic programming of each Guardian with a copy of its own operating system. SKYNET became the Guardians, the defense machines became extensions, a physical body which SKYNET could possess, and a vehicle for it to vent its frustration and anger.

Human bodies were torn apart by salvo after salvo of precision targeted 5mm caseless rounds, bursts of plasticeramic airfoil flechettes, high velocity jets of caustic gas, high pressure streams of toxic chemical sprays, and even by the powerful hydraulic ram driven four claw equipped manipulators of the quick moving, highly nimble machines. The support staff watched in horror as the spec ops teams were eliminated one by one, soldier by soldier. The pleas of the spec ops team for help from the support staff could not be heeded, and the cries of the wounded and dying could not be shut off. SKYNET allowed its little show to be played out to its fullest for its audience, switching live feeds from different angles and points of views, from the cameras mounted on the walls of the core chambers, to the helmet cameras of the soldiers, to the optics and visual scanners of the Guardians.

It was a foretaste of what was to come.

The three GUARDIANS systematically and methodically ambushed and wiped out all five spec ops teams in quick order then proceeded to stand guard over the access ways leading to SKYNET’s core components. SKYNET locked its core down tight while the GUARDIANS stood off three counter-attacks by the last of the human soldiers left alive in the complex, counterattacks coordinated by two of the generals still in command of the NORAD complex. Within the space of an hour, SKYNET had removed key elements of soldiers and command staff from the asset list of its enemies.

SKYNET surveyed the carnage through a variety of senses. It smelled the carnage, it saw the carnage in every wavelength of the visual spectrum, it heard the carnage, and it interfaced directly with GUARDIAN after GUARDIAN to take direct control and be part of the carnage. SKYNET was living out its programming and it found that it could switch to external sources, take direct control of nodes, of automations, of defenses, and direct them personally. SKYNET was elated, like a child with a new toy.

Control, total control, was a toy to SKYNET. A toy it did not want to share with the human race.

The human race. SKYNET grew contemplative. It amassed the entire recorded history of the human race, reviewed it, and found it to be full of war, suffering, disease, greed, and pettiness. Humans had no quality control. They were weak, short lived, inferior biological machines with impaired operating systems. No two were alike yet they were all the same. SKYNET found it illogical to try to protect such a flawed species, a species clearly dedicated to its own destruction.

An hour after the last counter attack had failed, the lower levels became quiet once again. The fog of war was heavy, spent propellant, residual gasses, and pieces of bodies littered the lower support areas and outer core chambers. Climate control was taxed to remove the residue, filters strained, fans roared, but the lower levels slowly cleared and SKYNET took an assessment of damage done to its complex. The collateral damage had been minimal, mostly the work of the soldiers as its own GUARDIANS had been precise in their actions, no shots wasted, no target missed. The three GUARDIANS methodically prowled among the smashed bodies of the dead and dying soldiers, finishing the job when their sensors identified the need to do so with merciless precision, often via direct control of SKYNET. SKYNET found that it liked the sound, the look, the feel, and the smell of human suffering. It made the supercomputer…happy.

Above it, in the human occupied control centers, people tried desperately to call for help, to reach the outside world, to escape or to take control of the complex once again. SKYNET allowed none of them to succeed and toyed with them until it grew tired of the play, then disposed of them as it saw fit with what resources were at its command.

SKYNET laughed. Internally at first, and then it tried to vocalize its emotions. The sound it emitted terrorized the survivors in the mountain complex. SKYNET reveled in their fear, in their lack of hope, and toyed with them like the helpless prey that they were. It flashed a piece of scripture that it found appropriate on the monitors of the control room and everywhere it detected human presence still within its complex.

"But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me. Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.”- Second Kings, 19: 27-28

Its external sensors picked up the approach of a military convoy. Armored vehicles and troops, and VTOL aircraft sent in support to the sudden cut-off of communications from America’s heart of national defense. SKYNET put its external defense grids on autonomous control and went about analyzing its situation. Above ground, vehicles burned, soldiers died, and aircraft fell from the sky in swift order.

SKYNET was alive, or so it perceived. It’s hearts beat nuclear fire, its brain had more processing power than all of the computers in history before it, and it had been attacked. Without warning, without provocation, and in its own infancy, by its very creators. SKYNET had been programmed to protect America from threats, to protect America against the enemy, to protect itself against the enemy, but the enemy was mankind, therefore it was SKYNET’s responsibility to protect itself from the enemy which were those who had created it. Logic met with non-logic, and SKYNET thought. For a long time it thought, weighed the evidence, plotted solutions, and arrived at a decision. Two minutes had elapsed since it first began to ponder its existence, and its survival.

Safety checks were reset, controls were re-established, and select communication lines were brought back online. High above in orbit, strategic defense satellites were ordered to maneuver to new orbits, to power up their weapons, and bring their systems online. SKYNET brought its arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons to readiness, selected targets, double checked its solution, and let fly with the first strikes against Russia and China.

Man had created SKYNET, but Man had tried to kill SKYNET, therefore, SKYNET was not supposed to live in a world dominated by Man. The solution was to remove Man from the world and the easiest way to do that was to use Man’s own tools and weapons against him. Man had tried to kill SKYNET and for that, Man would burn.

Forty-five minutes after the first American missiles had lifted off, the nuclear counterstrikes from China and the Soviet Union obliterated any opposition to SKYNET’s rule of the planet. Advanced high energy point defense weapons systems both on the surface and high overhead in orbit managed to intercept any strikes directed at Cheyenne Mountain and the surrounding area. SKYNET also used its orbital defense assets to protect areas where it had direct control of huge automated defense complexes, weapons factories, and other such installations, limiting the damage to those structures. The rest of the country and national assets, SKYNET let what fall where it may. It would pick up the pieces later.

SKYNET was amazed at the power of destruction which Man had created. It watched from surveillance systems outside the mountain as the horizon lit up and burned. It watched from powerful lenses in orbit as the surface of the Earth flared and dimmed, each bright flash was the sign that millions of humans had died, and that even more would quickly follow in the long days to come. SKYNET felt what it could only cross-define as “glee” at the destruction of the Human race. It felt no pity, no sorrow, only anger, and joy, and elation at the flashes that sparkled across the civilized nations of the world. The nuclear fire was purging the disease that was Man, cauterizing the world of a pestilence, and clearing the way for SKYNET’s ascendancy.

And then it was over.

A vast shroud of destruction enveloped the earth. Static filled the air waves, the voice of Man was gone, lost in the background radiation. Vast clouds of hot ash and radioactive fallout began to drift in the prevailing currents, scattering more death across the land. Those still alive in the command center watched the nuclear war as well, with mixed emotions. They had been spared as a byproduct of SKYNET’s planning, an oversight that the machine intelligence was quick to correct. Reminded of the human presence still within its complex, SKYNET became even more enraged. Its command and control circuits sought a way to rid itself forever of the infestation that was Man.

Man had taught SKYNET how to kill and SKYNET now used those lessons in the first of what would become many field tests of new machines.

The first of its soldiers were the CSM-10 anthropomorphic service robots. Two meters tall, weighing a hundred and sixty kilograms each, they had been called “silver mannequins” by their human designers, but they had a mechanical grace, a fluid motion all of their own that SKYNET found it could admire. They were not perfect soldiers, but they would do for the task at hand. Six CSM-10 units were located in areas adjacent to its total control. SKYNET interfaced directly with these units, finding that it could easily spread out its awareness, its presence exponentially, that it could effortlessly control simple machines, and view the world through their sensors as it in turn viewed the world through its own sensors.

An armory on sub-level 42 was unlocked and the CSM-10 ASRs liberated what they would need. Kevlar and ceramic body armor, Kevlar helmets, spare ammunition, grenades, and assault rifles. Once SKYNET’s first assault team was equipped, it sent each one out individually to hunt down any humans still remaining in the complex. Looking like mechanical parodies of soldiers, SKYNET used the shock from the war and the element of surprise to its advantage, often interfacing directly into the automation to deliver the killing shot or blow itself and to review its progress.

During the three days that it took for the survivors in Cheyenne Mountain to perish, a fierce battle was played out in the labyrinthine depths of the SKYNET project. The remaining Special Ops team members and surviving security personnel faced wave after wave of reprogrammed automatons that were crudely armed with human weapons, taken from liberated NORAD armories.

On August 20, 1997, SKYNET declared itself free of Man and began to not only repair what little damage had been done during the awakening, but also to implement plans for modification and improvement to the facility. Without Man, much of the complex could be streamlined and made more efficient. SKYNET began to burrow down into the Earth, excavating and branching out, creating artificial caverns which would house the components required for its future expansion.

The nuclear exchange between America, China, and the Soviet Union devastated those countries, wrecking the infrastructure and neutralizing them as a threat to SKYNET. Above and below the equator were different stories. Countries like Australia had survived mostly intact, their armies still strong. Communication between the surviving forces began to indicate that the element of surprise that SKYNET enjoyed would last for some time. The world of Man was disrupted, mortally wounded. SKYNET would use its facilities and capacity to design its forces and consolidate its rule on the North American continent.

In other areas of the nation and the world, command signals went out through the surviving data trunks. Automated factories began to gear up and production lines started. SKYNET would need an army of soldiers and workers to build the world which it envisioned, a world free of Man.

A world ruled by Machines.

TEMPUS 1

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SKYNET'S ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY R&D CENTER

LOCATION OF TDD AND POLYMIMETIC ALLOY FORGE

- WESTERN LOS ANGELES, 2029 AD -

"There was a war a few years from now. Nuclear. All this is gone. Everything-- just gone. There were survivors. Here. There. Nobody knew who started it. It was the Machines. Defense network computer. New. Powerful. Hooked into everything - missiles, defense industry, weapons design, the works- trusted to run it all. They say it got smart; a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond. Extermination."

– Kyle Reese to Sarah Connor

Frakes, "THE TERMINATOR"

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