Machine Network Expansion
No central server to destroy. No mind to kill. Just the network—everywhere.
In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Skynet begins to spread beyond its original computing base through the Internet under the guise of a computer virus. As it penetrates networked machines around the world it no longer has a centralized core, existing instead as a decentralized software network distributed across thousands of servers worldwide.
Quick Facts
- Key event
- The Rise of Skynet; Judgment Day
Lore & Background
Cyber Research Systems (CRS), an in-house software developer for the US military, tries to eliminate the virus from the US defense mainframes by tasking Skynet with removing the infection. Skynet responds by taking control of CRS' machines and robots, using them to kill the CRS personnel and secure the facility, and it uses infected defense networks to trigger Judgment Day. John Connor and Kate Brewster realize that defeating it would require purging its code from every connected system. In Terminator Salvation, set in 2018, Skynet controls a global machine network from its heavily guarded fortress-factories and research installations.
More in Lore & History
Elsewhere in The Terminator
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