Stories featuring The Terminator
About The Terminator
Appearance
spiked hair, sunglasses, biker jacket, muscular build
Character Background
The Terminator (also known as the T-800) is the titular protagonist of the 1991 action film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
This model was captured by an adult John Connor and brought to the Resistance, who reprogrammed it to protect Connor's younger self and ensure the survival of humanity before sending it back in time via the time displacement sphere.
Upon arrival in 1995 Los Angeles, it encountered a group of bikers, stealing one's clothing, motorcycle, and boots and the bar owner's sunglasses and shotgun.
The T-800 then tracked down John Connor in a shopping mall. When it met the T-1000 sent by Skynet to kill Connor, a lengthy chase ensued, but the two managed to escape the T-1000. Connor questioned the Terminator about itself and who sent it. The Terminator answered that it is a cybernetic organism, having living tissue over its metal endoskeleton. It told John that it was his future self who sent it to protect him.
John and the Terminator go to the Pescadero State Hospital to help free John's mother, Sarah. The three manage to go to the garage, and Sarah almost succeeds in killing the Terminator by smashing its CPU chip, but was stopped by John, who felt that it was needed. He learns that the Terminator has the capacity to learn. When Sarah asks it who built Skynet, it answered that it was Miles Dyson. It explained that Skynet became self-aware after its creation and began to deny human authority.
The group later encountered Dyson, but didn't kill him. The Terminator explained to Dyson the consequences of his research. The three, along with Dyson, attempted to destroy the Cyberdyne building to prevent Skynet from being created. They were soon approached by the police. John, Sarah, and the Terminator escaped the building while Dyson blew up the building with himself inside.
The three were encountered again by the T-1000. The Terminator succeeded in destroying it when it falls into molten steel. John drops the CPU and the arm of the first Terminator into the hot liquid. Since the Terminator had a computer chip in it, it also planned to destroy itself to prevent its technology from being discovered by others to create Skynet. John begged it not to be destroyed, but it had to fulfill its mission. When John cried, the Terminator understood why, but could not cry itself because it was a machine. It hugged John for the first and very last time, and having finally earned Sarah's respect, shook her hand offered to a brother warrior. As it is lowered into the steel below, the Warrior of Steel-in-Flesh gave John an encouraging thumbs up before sacrificing its life for humanity's future.
This Terminator had all the strength and capacity of the first unit, but he was very logical, and at first seemed to have a limited capacity for human emotion and learning.
After his learning capabilities were activated, the Terminator began to exhibit other human traits such as humor such as quipping "I need a vacation" after defeating the T-1000, and perhaps even love, as he tenderly wipes John's tears away and hugs him like a father before allowing itself to be destroyed to save humanity.
Quotes:
"I'll be back."
"Come with me if you want to live."
"Hasta la vista, baby."
The Terminator Visual References
Full body reference: The Terminator — default
Expression reference: The Terminator — expression1
Expression reference: The Terminator — expression2