The T-800 (or T-850 as it was known in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) is a highly advanced and - by modern standards - nigh-unstoppable killing machine created by the rogue military AI, Skynet. They are prominent threats in the Terminator franchise, designed specifically for the purpose of human extermination.
History[]
In the post-apocalyptic future of the Terminator movies, the supercomputer known as Skynet has deemed all humans as a threat to its existence. Initiating a campaign of genocide against humanity, Skynet designed and built a vast number of war machines to achieve its goal. Chief among these machines are the Terminators- humanoid constructs designed to infiltrate human resistance bases and kill all humans within.
In the early years of the war, Skynet went through a period of trial and error with its infiltration methods, until it came up with the designs for a cybernetic infiltrator that was capable of passing as a human being. This led to the creation of the T-800 - a cybernetic organism that could mimic human behaviour and display human qualities such as breathing, sweating and bleeding. These would allow the Terminators to better fool the humans into allowing them access to their facilities, and once inside, the infiltrators would proceed to kill all humans in sight.
Over time, the Resistance would learn how to better detect T-800s attempting to infiltrate them. However, these Terminators are a force to be reckoned with, possessing superior strength and capable of learning new tactics and new methods of killing. As well as being lethal assassins and saboteurs, the T-800 series is a common sight on the open battlefield, serving as the primary foot soldiers in Skynet's army.
Design[]
The T-800 is humanoid in shape, as is required for human infiltration. It appears as a mechanical skeleton, with its hydraulics and servos all visible to the naked eye. Red optics glow within the skull's eye sockets, giving it a truly nightmarish appearance and thus aiding its mission of human termination with psychological warfare as well as combat.
- CPU - The T-800's CPU is a neural-net processor, which means it is capable of learning on its own. However, Skynet sets the CPUs to read-only when T-800s are sent on solo infiltration missions or time-travel missions. This is done to reduce the risk of a unit going rogue.
- Armour - The T-800's chassis is made of a high-density titanium steel alloy. Its reinforced structure is easily capable of withstanding conventional firearms, making it difficult to destroy. Only heavy impacts, explosives or energy weapons will suffice to stop a T-800.
- Sensors - The T-800 uses radio receptors and infra-red optics to hunt down its targets.
- Infiltration - T-800s assigned to infiltrate human compounds are disguised as humans by being inserted into bio-synthetic molds housed in Skynet's factories. Using replicated tissues extracted from human prisoners, an organic covering is grown over the T-800's endoskeleton. This disguise allows the Terminator to blend in almost perfectly with humans; it even grows hair, sweats and bleeds if injured. The organic covering even ages over time. The T-800's vocal processor allows it to mimic people's voices so it can trick targets into coming out of hiding. Although its infiltration systems are impressive, the T-800 is not perfect. Because of the bulk of the endoskeletons, they can only be disguised as tall, muscular humans. Also, the Resistance uses dogs which can smell disguised Terminators. The T-800's organic sheath is necessary when travelling through Skynet's time displacement chamber, since the displacement field can only accept a living organism and no dead matter can go.
- Weapons - Being modelled on humans, T-800s can use any weapon that humans are capable of wielding. Because of their tremendous strength, they can also wield a number of heavy weapons such as miniguns. In the field, T-800s are usually armed with the standard Skynet issue M-25 phased plasma rifle. When T-800s are sent on time-travel missions, they must acquire whatever weapons are available in the period they are sent to.
- Power Source - T-800's are powered by two hydrogen fuel cells, which allows them to function for well over a century. Because hydrogen fuel is so volatile, the power cells become unstable if ruptured and will explode with the force of a small nuclear weapon.