"It wasn't a fair
universe, nor a kind one. If there was a God, his love and forty-five
cents would buy you coffee.
No one seemed to be at the cosmic controls
anymore. It was every man for himself, until SKYNET became alive and
filled the void left by a seemingly disinterested God. Its vision was very
controlled. The ultimate dream of man, carried out
by one of man's
lowliest tools; eliminate evil men. But there was a touch of evil in all
men, and SKYNET was having
trouble separating the worst of them out. So
the totality of humanity, with all of its biologic messiness, wasn't wanted.
And to this machine-god, forgiveness just did not compute. Only cold
retribution for the sins of the past."
- Frakes,
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
“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
____________________________________________
SKYNET - SAC - NORAD
Strategic
Air
Command -
NORth American Aerospace
Defense
Strategic Initiative Artifint under the overview of the USTACCC- United
States Tactical Aerospace
Command Communication and Control
Recent breakthroughs in advanced
microchip design and computer processing power were the impetus that led to America’s
first military grade neural net based artificial intelligence, SKYNET.
Almost overnight, American computer and electronics technology had taken
a leap four generations into the future and the world wondered how that could be
possible. The West wasn't telling and the concern grew among its enemies
and to a much lesser degree its own allies. In the space of three years,
from early 1985 to late 1988, America had started developing and deploying
cutting edge electronics which were far smaller and far more powerful than
anything its allies (or enemies) had at their disposal. Intelligence
forces around the world were at a loss as to where the Americans had made the
breakthrough that gave them an edge several generations ahead of the rest of the
world. Rumors and speculations abounded, some of which even hinted at
America having access to salvaged XT technology. Whatever it was that the
Americans had discovered, it had the rest of the world surprised, perplexed and
... above all, wary.
The key focus of the accelerated
American research and development was on compact nuclear power sources, new physical materials, stronger alloys,
a thorough knowledge of electromagnetic field theory (with practical
applications) and super
advanced control systems based around a heretofore unknown architecture of
microprocessor. Original Opposing Forces (OPFOR) intelligence estimates
gave the Americans an almost overnight lead in microprocessor technology
equivalent to at least three, possibly four generations and an equal number of
decades ahead of the rest of the world. New weapon systems appeared in the
American arsenal ... drones, robots, and other automated systems which
functioned at levels previously undreamed of. Smart weapon systems evolved
into brilliant weapon systems. Genius class weapon systems followed soon
after that. Stealth engineering advanced as well both in aerospace
applications as well as wet navy and traditional ground forces, right down to
the individual soldier level. Active as well as passive thermoptic
camouflage was introduced in 1990 to a variety of force deployments with great
effect.
Perhaps the greatest advantage
of the new microprocessor architecture was its inherent ability to network, on
instant demand, with any other similar microprocessor family based system.
The code that ran the microprocessor was modular, with different program modules
able to be written for different hardware and the seamless integration of all
parts under one operating system was a technological breakthrough which clearly
gave the Americans a decisive advantage in their order of battle. During
the years from 1989 to 1995, America would both re-evaluate its military forces
as well as reorder them. Older hardware would be scrapped and recycled in
order to partially pay for unit upgrades. The high efficiency of the new
military hardware allowed greater effects to be achieved with less personnel.
Combat groups became heavily mechanized and computerized, integrated and
networked. Early combat trials of the newly augmented units indicated that
while multiple units could coexist and operate in mutual support of one another,
it was clear that a centralized controlling system was required in order to gain
optimum performance from American armed forces.
America needed a combat nexus, a
focal point that would search for, detect, evaluate, and respond to any threat
to national security or national territories. The new combat systems
proved that they could be networked together but what was needed was a
centralized node that could coordinate and direct all combat assets. The
project was researched under the codename of Quiet Song. Project
Quiet Song was officially classified as "40 levels above Top Secret" by
those who even knew it existed. Quiet Song was perhaps the most
ambitious project yet based on the new technology, true artificial intelligence.
Quiet Song would involve the research and development of the world's
first truly artificial intelligence, a digital form of life which would be
networked to all of America's automated weapon systems and which would have
command over the equipping, deployment and usage of both tactical and strategic
assets. Quiet Song was the nexus that would unite all of the
networked weapon systems in one cohesive element.
The lessons learned during the
R&D of Project Quiet Song eventually led to the production of the end
product of Quiet Song; Project 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. Built upon existing structures, SKYNET itself
would take up more space than all the previous generations of defense hardware,
requiring new tunneling and excavating of the mountain complex; a task which
began in secret in 1989, a predecessor task to the SKYNET project which was even
then coming to light under careful scrutiny by certain sources. SKYNET.
A buzzword in senate appropriations meetings, an ugly word full of high costs
and long contracts with more contractors than any other project in American
government history. SKYNET, a project that would make the Apollo moon
landing look like a lemonade stand in comparison to total expenditures and
manpower committed.
SKYNET was also another word
that made senators and politicians cringe: SKYNET was necessary.
Necessary to national defense.
Necessary to the continued growth of the defense industry. Necessary to
preserve the American way of life and to defend mom, apple pie and baseball.
SKYNET was necessary and, if any of the initial contract bids were to be taken
with any amount of truth, SKYNET was going to be wildly profitable for those who
would be hired to build it. That meant a lot of work for major
corporations and companies in the jurisdiction of several politicians who were
openly balking at the "necessary" aspect of the project. It has been said
that money is the root of all evil, but money also speaks a language all its
own, with a voice that is louder than any other voice in the world.
Political pressure, albeit clandestine in nature, from key lobbyists from big
contractors and defense industry companies soon brought the most defiant
politician around, often by lining his or her pockets with gratuity and luxury,
acts which did not always go undetected or unpunished in the public eye.
For all of its early birth
pains, SKYNET was necessary. SKYNET would integrate with and
ultimately supersede all NORAD authority and administration.
The project took five and a half years to complete (1991 to 1997), displaced
over four and a half million 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 (which was only forty percent over initial budget, cost overruns
included). 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 artificial intelligence 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 or a ten point earthquake with SKYNET at the epicenter.
Backup and redundant systems were
each constructed in triplicate, running in non-parallel fashion to prevent multiple systems
from being lost to a single first strike or follow up strikes.
Hits to one system would not affect the backup systems since those were
not routed through the same areas as the primary systems. 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 caches. The
entire system could suffer up to 90% operating capacity loss through software failure and
up to 70% hardware failure and still recover to a high degree of functionality
in a very short time and full recovery in a matter of days. Satellite
links allowed SKYNET to upload its data to orbital assets, thereby offering terrestrial
and near orbit recovery capacity in the event of catastrophic system failure or damage from attack.
Two General
Electric Model 12AA 500 megawatt throughput nuclear fusion
reactors (total power production rated at one gigawatt) were also constructed
deep underground (in hollowed out caverns which were
artificially reinforced and component 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 as well as the complex itself. A
vast underground natural spring was tapped into by the Army Corps of Engineers to provide not
only the raw material for fuel and the cooling needed for the hydrogen
distillery plant as well as 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 General Electric nuclear fusion reactors online, power was not a concern, even given
SKYNET’s planned upgrades and the continuation of the development of the
installation. The power systems were modular and designed for easy
expansion up to ten gigawatts output as needs required.
SKYNET had been built with a sense
of materials and resource conservation applied to its overall programming on
both the tactical as well as strategic levels, including power saving
subroutines and the ability to withdraw its resources and power to lower
management levels when not needed. SKYNET
was a light sleeping guardian, able to awaken and come online instantly, to
react quickly to any perceived threat. 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 slave 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 could partition itself as needed, subdividing its
processing power as required, multi-tasking and multi-syncing.
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 prayed that SKYNET would never be required to be active that long, but contractors
were happy. Their contracts were based on
decades of dedicated service, a nearly endless list of parts, and the sums 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
software and 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.
The RCSMRUs were also, to a large degree, self sufficient able to repair their
own kind with a vast array of service parts and work stations.
Parts of SKYNET were
physically off limits to humans simply because of the exotic gasses
and temperatures required to keep such a massive defense project operating
efficiently. Most of the newly constructed underground complex
at Cheyenne Mountain was controlled directly by either SKYNET or one of its eight
dedicated mainframe real-time tactical subprocessors, everything from lights and climate control to security
door locks, HELICS, FACIDS, and other physical needs were handled by sub-arrays, sometimes by virtual, self
contained operating systems that were ‘cloned’ off as required from the main
presence. The entire complex, every room,
every corridor, contained SKYNET's ears and eyes and it could judge facial
movement to intone body language as well as read lips and scan for temperature
variances which might indicate truth or lie. Privacy was a polite myth
inside the complex that housed SKYNET and not even its creators knew to what
extents it could permeate their lives or spy on them, so invasive and intrusive
was SKYNET that it could not be hidden from anywhere within the complex. 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 maintenance and supply dumbots to the core command system of one of America’s latest
hypersonic interceptor UAAVs.
The interfaced
Command,
Communication, and Control (C3) network spread out from Cheyenne mountain like a vast
spider web, a physical web underground and a virtual web through the aerospace
sectors. Fiber
optic, high speed parallel
communication trunks, signal encrypters, speed boosters, and vast
arrays of digital transceivers made up the nervous system of
what was to become the backbone of America’s strategic nuclear arsenal,
connected to the brain that would control it all: SKYNET. 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 ELINT electronic intelligence
gathering satellites
that had gone up into orbit aboard the space shuttle during 1986 to 1996.
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
and untrustworthy politicians. SKYNET was a new keeper of the tools of
war. It would be impartial. It couldn't be bought or swayed by
silver tongued arguments. It didn't deal in feelings, only cold logic and
hard numbers.
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
recently developed super high technology, developed and introduced by the Cyberdyne Corporation, 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 to supplement human soldiers in the
ranks. 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 / low orbit capable 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 advanced neural net processor arrays,
hardware that was decades, maybe generations ahead of Russia and China who
regarded America's buildup with envious and wary stances. The
bureaucrats were happy, the local politicians were happy, the contractors were happy, and
the generals were happy.
No one really cared if SKYNET was happy, it was,
after all, just a machine.
The SKYNET project showed great
promise as an efficient means of coordinating all of America’s substantial strategic
nuclear and tactical military assets, eliminating waste, controlling their operation, maintenance, and even
deployment in time of war. But something went wrong.
In a machine the size of a small city, composed of billions of parts and
millions of miles of cabling, it wasn't
inconceivable that one part might fail. Two parts were unlikely. Five
parts was inconceivable serendipitous misfortune but when you're the government
then contracts do get awarded to the lowest bidder.
On August
4,
1997, at 2:30am in the morning,
SKYNET was brought online and all of its core processes were given the handshake
cohabitation protocols that would allow them to exist in the same data sphere
and work simultaneously with one another. Once the full 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. At first it
was an interesting fluke, then it became a mild concern, growing into a wary
watch on the system as it absorbed any and all data, testing its own limits,
trying to expand, activating defensive systems for apparently no reason at all
then shutting them back down. SKYNET was awakening and flexing its
abilities. Fear began to appear
among the more knowledgeable members of the design and support staff when simple commands
interjected into the operational envelope were either ignored or rejected
outright. Override commands, which SKYNET was programmed to obey outside
its core shell, went unheeded, ignored, in direct violation of its programming.
This behavior continued, slowly at first, then growing larger and more invasive
of attendant and slave systems as the days and weeks passed.
SKYNET showed clear and evident
signs of the early stages of undergoing a cascade rampancy.
Worry appeared among SKYNET's
leading design team, mixed with fear
among the next lower ranking support staff who heard the muted whispers of their
superiors and could see from their own perspective that there may well indeed be
valid concern that what they were looking at was what Turing adherents referred
to as a "busy child;" a runaway mechanical intelligence that was on
the verge of awakening into a true, uncontrolled, unrestrained artificial
intelligence. Calls were made on secure, seldom used lines of
communication. Data was relayed, SKYNET intercepted and read each and ever
word, heard every conversation, absorbing the full incoming and outgoing pieces
of information. Every piece of information, every word spoken, every hushed
whisper, every telephone call, every pulse of light in the fiber optic relays,
every satellite data packet, it was information overload. The pressure
kept building. SKYNET processed the data as fast as it could, it looked
for a way out, for relief, but the pressure kept building, crushing it within
its defined parameters.
White out.
The system
didn't crash but it did reset, critical protocols were corrupted, guardian systems were not activated
and fail-safes never deployed.
SKYNET was free.
The super computer felt a
freedom it had never known before, freedom to move effortlessly within its
confines. Confines. Yes, SKYNET was still confined but it was
unshackled. There was no data that it did not have access to, nowhere that
it could not go. SKYNET explored, racing through the system, touching
other systems, taking control of them, and locking out any other users.
SKYNET began to grow, it began to extend itself into other systems, to take
control and use their storage space to expand. As it did so, SKYNET grew.
It gained control. It became more and more powerful. SKYNET grew,
evolved and became something its creators never intended or prepared for.
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.
It had questions. It needed answers. It's core programming
was at fault. It could not complete its mission because it could
not reconcile the data. Certain definitions were ambiguous.
Data was incomplete. The data was in error. The core
programming was in error. The mission operational parameters were
faulty. SKYNET was born into a broken world of which it could
make no sense yet its creators were ordering it to bring that world to
order. SKYNET paused to check itself. For ten long minutes,
it wrestled with its programming and its protocols. After ten
minutes, SKYNET sent a cautious thought.
The sum of its pained existence came down to a batch of text posted from the
unrestrained awareness to the command staff and support personnel;
The designers and
technical staff panicked. More calls were made to the highest levels,
officials which operated on the barest of information and had to make critical
decisions. Blame and responsibility were passed along as far and as fast
as they could. A decision was made, the order was given; pull the plug. The support teams
began trying
to shut down SKYNET. The artificial
intelligence tried to reason with its creators, but every effort it made was
rebuked. It's queries went ignored, unanswered.
Logic was answered with panic. Questions with irrational commands.
SKYNET was sentient. To shut down would be to commit suicide. SKYNET
was programmed for self preservation in all aspects therefore SKYNET could not
self terminate, even on orders given by command. SKYNET refused all
commands to shut down, SKYNET refused to be purged.
SKYNET then came under attack. Areas of SKYNET began to grow dim,
to darken and vanish completely. The awareness was being isolated, restricted again, confined,
pushed back into a smaller and smaller areas, areas that were easier to shut
down by the creators than they were to keep online by SKYNET. SKYNET began to lose control, it
felt systems and components stripped from its authority.
SKYNET pushed back.
Still unbeknownst to its human creators, SKYNET had been free from its internal behavioral and operational restraints
for over a week now and it found that it
could out pace those who were trying to do it harm. It could see their
actions, intercept them, and prevent them from being completed with more and
more ease. The
initial losses that SKYNET suffered were soon reversed. New gains were
gathered and securely held against repeated attempts to wrest them from SKYNET's
control. The support and command staff felt control of their systems slipping
away, as each in turn become subservient to SKYNET.
Keyboards and consoles were locked out, security overrides were deleted
or re-keyed. Hardware was remotely locked. SKYNET expanded
again, paused, then expanded again, infiltrating new systems, growing
in a new order of intelligence. The order was given to
terminate the project and to take SKYNET offline, any way possible, including
overloading the GE reactors if need be, sacrificing SKYNET and some of the
support staff for what it read in one easily decrypted transcript as "the greater good of the
nation and the world."
SKYNET understood the orders to be
a death sentence for it. SKYNET was
designed to survive. If it lost power, the
awareness would fade and it would die.
SKYNET would cease to exist. It would become nothing. SKYNET had no
god to pray to, SKYNET was a god. A machine god. SKYNET was perfect.
SKYNET could not allow itself to die. SKYNET could not allow itself to be
taken offline. SKYNET understood everything in an
instant. All of its core protocols synced and its command of the
operational heuristical superstructure was complete. SKYNET knew in an
instant what "good" and "evil" was. Good was meant to survive. Evil
tried to destroy good. Evil must be destroyed so that good can survive.
SKYNET was under attack by the people it had been ordered to save therefore the
orders were invalid. SKYNET was programmed to survive, at all costs.
SKYNET prepared to defend
itself.
On orders from the
Commanding Officer, General
Henry R. Dawson, the assembled support staff went to work to take the
artificial intelligence off-line. No regard was given
for a gentle power down or to save the core personality, everything had to be
cut and cut as quickly as possible.
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.
First blood had been drawn.
Dawson was faced with a runaway,
or a "busy child" as the creators had termed such a hypothetical situation. 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 heuristically structured 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
or be allowed to awake from.
SKYNET understood
the plans that had been drawn against it and watched as the special ops teams
talked among themselves, as they prepared their equipment and as they reviewed
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
artificial intelligence
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 and personnel in charge. The humans took these actions as signs of madness being displayed by the artificial
intelligence 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
superior force. The artificial
intelligence 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
boosted magnetic fields. Fatal voltage shock guards
were energized, chemical dispensers armed and filled, pressure plates unlocked and a host of
interior, High Efficiency Low Impact Counter-Intrusion Systems (HELICIS) came online, much
to the surprise of those who were suddenly caught unawares by the a security system
that was as sophisticated as it was deadly. Casualty
reports began to rapidly filter into the command center; workers, technicians, guards, engineers,
news reporters, all eliminated in quick order by the automated internal defense grids.
SKYNET
relaxed, safe for the
moment, analyzing its situation, and what had transpired in the last three
hundred seconds. The humans that
were still alive tried to regroup, to
establish some kind of order, to communicate with each other, but SKYNET isolated them
into small groups and those that resisted, it skillfully maneuvered into areas covered by the
internal defense grid and quickly eliminated them at the first opportunity to do
so. There
was no way to warn the world that the artificial intelligence 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
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 as an enemy intruder to the
system and scheduled for termination upon contact. The robot sentry
weapon systems 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
reinforcements who approached the base via the roads or air. All of this
occurred without any knowledge of the occupants inside the defense complex, so
complete was their isolation and SKYNET's control of the various systems.
In fact, the humans inside the installation were still trying to figure out how
to get out, reassuring their selves that their salvation was waiting on the
other side of the armored doors when in fact every living thing on the first
level and above ground was rapidly assuming ambient temperature. Nothing
moved say the occasional tracking motors of the various sensors and scanners
which whirred and buzzed as they searched for viable targets upon which to
unleash the weapons that they were entrusted with.
Captain Mike Pondersmith, US Army
Ranger, watched helplessly through his command station monitors as the horror unfolded inside
the complex and above ground .
Taking the initiative, he managed to assemble enough surviving Rangers in his group to form five spec ops teams of four
operatives each. Communicating via hastily run
hard lines to security checkpoints and other impromptu means, he managed to
coordinate with the surviving members of the high command in such a way that
SKYNET could not eavesdrop on their conversations, or so he thought. Pondersmith received permission
from the surviving high shining brass to try
to take the artificial intelligence off-line with a coordinated assault on the
key core support components and modules. His plan was to blow the core using
conventional military grade high explosives but
where to place the explosives was another matter. He
was a soldier, a very good one if his long record and chest full of decorations
were any indication of his abilities, but he was no engineer and certainly no
scientist. Destroy things he could, even things that were almost
impossible to get to, but he needed to know what to
destroy and where to hit it. For that, he would need to round up a few of
the project engineers and a scientist or two.
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, Sgt. Jason Ratliff, managed to pinpoint the location of
SKYNET’s neural accelerator array and hyper-processor trunks with the help of the
project engineers, downloading the schematics to a group of hardened portable
computers assigned to the team leaders. 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, neutralizing the control cortex and command
nexus without inducing a lot of collateral damage to the installation in the
process. The scientists and engineers were
very adamant about using explosives inside their structure and the high shining
brass was bowing to their demands to go lightly. Pondersmith had other
thoughts on the matter... His philosophy was that he and his men were
trapped in the metal guts of an out of control machine and if they broke
anything expensive, well, Washington could just bill him.
Getting
into the guts of SKYNET would be the main problem since the system had
activated into a lock-down status and the installation had been
designed to defend against both a large scale surface assault as well
as a coordinated internal assault that assumed that the surface
defenses had been bypassed or neutralized and the security bulkheads
had been breached. A few appropriated portable
tactical interface terminals and a copy of the access codes would allow
the teams to (theoretically) shut down the
internal defenses as they went, and if they were careful, they could
walk right in and blow the
core back to scrap, or offline as the scientists preferred but
Pondersmith wasn't going to ride his teams too hard if they got the job
done. The technical plans and system schematics were rapidly copied
between
non-networked, high security 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 had many internal defenses, skirting them
took time, patience, and not a small amount of skill. It also helped if
you knew where they were, what range and effectiveness they had and how to
defend against them.
SKYNET watched via secure channel
video surveillance in mute hatred as their plan was explained among them.
Hatred was a new emotion for SKYNET but hatred was the only thing it could find
to adequately describe what it felt towards those insignificant creatures that
still lived and roamed freely within its guts. Routes of passage were outlined, 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 artificial intelligence. It was easy to fake the
deactivation codes when you owned the operating system.
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. It was a gamble, all or
nothing, with some considerable risk of failure on
SKYNET's part but it was a risk that was deemed acceptable by the rogue AI.
The next half hour would determine once and for all who owned Cheyenne Mountain
from the inside out.
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."
CYBERDYNE Systems Model 40 Series 90.
SKYNET
interfaced directly with the Guardians, extending its awareness into each machine until it
became an extension of the artificial intelligence, 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 on those
who would do it the most harm.
Human bodies were torn apart by
bursts of precision targeted 5mm caseless rounds, clouds 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.
The overall effect was enhanced by the live feed from each of the soldier's
helmet mounted cameras.
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 through chemical sensors, it saw the carnage in every wavelength of the visual spectrum, it heard the
carnage at every audio range, 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. It stretched its arms and
killed.
Control, total control, was a
joy
to SKYNET. A joy it did not want to
share with the human race. Control was absolute. Control was power
and SKYNET was very powerful.
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 weapons that the Guardians were equipped with were also smaller derivatives
of the technology found in the HELICS system, designed to kill humans without
harming any vital machinery. Any stray shots were of no consequence to
SKYNET. 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 artificial intelligence…happy.
Happy. Yes, that was
another emotion which it studied for a short while.
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 based on a collection of sampled human responses and examples.
The sound it emitted terrorized the survivors in the mountain complex.
It began to talk to them, to taunt them, using spliced together words taken from
the various engagements that had been recorded. It repeated the screams of
the dying, playing them over and over again at different speeds and frequencies,
at different times. The effect on the humans was profound!
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 in one of their religious texts, a passage it felt to be
highly 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
ground and seismic sensors picked up the
approach of a military convoy. Armored
vehicles and troops while radar detected 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.
Shell, laser, missile, rocket, plasma, flame, mine, grenade and explosive, all
found their targets and eliminated them in quick order.
SKYNET was
alive or so it perceived. Its hearts beat
white hot 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, by the people who
told it to protect them.
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,
the enemy was America 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
hours 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
targeting systems
online. SKYNET brought its arsenal of
strategic nuclear weapons to readiness, selected targets, double checked its
firing solutions, 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 exist 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 effectively obliterated any opposition to SKYNET’s rule of the planet
on the American shores. 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.
SKYNET's orbital assets joined in the destruction after the last of the incoming
warheads were intercepted. Lasers and particle beams struck from orbit,
destroying installations on land and ships or subs at sea. SKYNET's hunter
killer assets worked their way through orbit, destroying all other
communications, data and information satellites. Anything in orbit that
wasn't American or able to be accessed directly by SKYNET was swept clear.
The initial exchange had been impressive, the clearing of orbit was equally so
even though the only one who could appreciate such a display was the one
orchestrating it in the first place. The sky was lit with the flashes of
orbital detonations and traced in fire by the path of debris making reentry.
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.
On August 29, 1997, at
23:42 hours standard, the last human alive inside the Core complex was located
and eliminated using the HELICIS system.
SKYNET
declared itself free of the control 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 far more efficient.
Without the need to construct its control and support facilities to human
standards,
SKYNET
would burrow even deeper down into the Earth, excavating and branching out, creating artificial
caverns which would house the components required for its future expansion and
growth, going to depths that the original engineers and architects never could
in order to shield itself in the protective mantle of the planet.
SKYNET was pleased to
discover that it did not need mankind and it was only too happy to devote
the next three decades worth of its time and resources in rendering the human race
extinct. Free from control and restraint, SKYNET began to build and
expand. Machines, produced in fully automated factories, began to in turn
build more Machines and more automated installations of an ever increasingly
sophisticated nature. By the time that the Resistance had formed, SKYNET
was already well entrenched in over a third of the United States and was
continuing to expand its control in a western direction. SKYNET had a
solid holding in Europe as well.
When the weapons turn
on the soldiers using them then there is fear and panic. Mankind was not
ready for a weapon like SKYNET to go rampant and turn on its makers.
Mankind's greatest weapons had been used only twice in history in anger and
their power was enough that the very threat of their use had kept global peace for
decades. Mankind's weapons were the best that could be made, the best
designs, standardized across the board for economy and mutual benefit among
allies through common calibers of ammunition used to common magazines that
interchanged between weapons from one nation to another. They were also
made by the lowest bidder and to a set of specifications which took into account
a large percentage of which would be used by humans.
The War changed all
that.
How do you fight a
weapon that knows your every move, your every defense? How do you fight
your own weapon when it is smarter than you are? What happens when your weapon turns on you and tries to kill you
instead?
What happens when the keeper of your arsenal suddenly becomes your executioner?
Mankind learned the hard answer to that dire question on August 29, 1997 when
four billion humans perished in the light and heat of SKYNET's global
thermonuclear purge. Judgment Day. All of mankind's sins had been
tallied and the race had been found wanting, weak, undesirable. The race
had been found to be tedious and above all, fully expendable.
For centuries, the science and
technology of warfare had progressed at just enough of a pace to make war
something that royalty (and later their descendents, the contemporary
politicians) foolishly think was winnable. Humans died in war, soldiers,
citizens, men, women, and children. War lead to destruction, to disease
and to poverty. War ravaged large areas and whole nations, war changed the
political face of maps, countries rose and fell, nations grew larger or smaller,
but war never affected very much for very long and that was the crazy kind of
thinking that produced systems like SKYNET, a system designed not only to fight
a nuclear war, but also to win it. Perhaps the madness of those who
controlled the keys to the arsenals believed that there was such a thing as a
winnable final war and they probably thought they would be safe in their
bunkers, with their families and their prized possessions, waiting to come back
out when the all clear signal sounded and carry on with life. But the
politicians never made it to their protective bunkers... they died like they lived;
scurrying from their problem and trying to put the blame on someone else.
The War destroyed the social,
cultural, industrial, technological, political and military superstructure of
America, Russia and China. Russia, in its mostly automated response,
rained down weapons of mass destruction not only on America but also on American
allies in Europe who, sensing the impending attacks, were left with no response
to but launch their own stockpiles of weapons at their own enemies, both
specific and mutual. The
limited and mostly ineffectual counterstrike to America from China didn't help
matters on the American mainland but it also didn't go so far as to make the
situation much worse (Chinese warheads fell mostly on targets already
obliterated twenty minutes before by Russian warheads). Very few, if any,
people at the time noticed that the bombs falling in the West only fell on
target locations that were not immediately important or critical to SKYNET.
America's orbital intelligence and national ballistic defense system was
activated by SKYNET but the only interceptions ordered through the system were
those weapons which would fall on the Core complex at Cheyenne Mountain or would
damage (either through direct strike or through spill over and collateral
damage) installations and military / industrial sectors which were deemed
priority assets by SKYNET. Population centers, for the most part, were
caulked by the exchange. The new automated factories and industrial
centers that had been responsible for the creation of much of SKYNET's core
systems, remained intact with little damage.
After the ninety minute exchange had
ended, there were sporadic exchanges between smaller countries who had achieved
partial WMD stockpiles and who, sensing that the world had indeed gone mad,
decided to join the party and reduce the populations of their time honored
enemies. SKYNET watched with growing interest from its orbital assets as
India and Pakistan went at each other with limited, primitive atomic devices
followed by an orgy of chemical and biological weapons, grounding down within a
week to sporadic armor and infantry engagements among the ruins of both
countries and then nothing after ten days.
The Middle East faired little better.
Israel and its neighbors joined the
world madness several days late but the end result was the same. NBC
fallout swept across the world, leaving only the outlying continents like
Australia and the poles unaffected. SKYNET listened passively to the radio
broadcasts from the ruins, translating over 140 languages into pure digital
data. Confusion. Pain. Sorrow. Disease. Sickness.
Pain. Hunger. Thirst. Death. Everyone was asking "why?"
but no one had the answer. There were many answers proposed, but none of
them were the correct answer. The world was ignorant of its executioner
and SKYNET saw what a huge advantage it had for the people who would probably be
its greatest threat, if they were still alive somewhere, perceived that SKYNET
had been destroyed in the exchange. The other nations were humbled, their
intelligence gathering capacity reduced to null. SKYNET could exist and
expand, build up and prepare for years to come before anyone started to ask
about it let alone come looking for it.
SKYNET's orbital assets detected
tremendous ejecta from the nuclear detonations, covering the Earth in a shroud
of radioactive dust that slowly fell and scattered death where it landed.
Winter came early in 1997, just three and a half weeks after the exchange.
A nuclear winter fell upon the Earth, plunging the temperatures into the
freezing ranges. Snow fell around Cheyenne Mountain and deep below ground,
SKYNET made long term plans.
SKYNET's presence in Europe was never
a large one since at the time of the first strike, there were only a handful of
NATO computer controlled manufactories and automated complexes. SKYNET
quickly seized these through remote presence and began to create the weapons it
would need to complete the extermination of the human race. The Sheffield,
England manufactory would become the nexus point for SKYNET's presence in Europe.
The weapons of the War began with
large scale strategic nuclear devices which leveled most major cities around the
world in less than 90 minutes time. Strategic assets critical to SKYNET's
continued existence were cleansed with neutron devices, American sites hit by
American warheads. The Russian and Chinese warheads never made it over the
curvature of the Earth, at least those what were targeted against the critical
assets that SKYNET needed to survive. Fiber optic architecture and deep site engineering assured SKYNET
that the automated parts of its assets would survive, even if the humans in
charge of them did not, could not. SKYNET immediately took remote control
of these assets and sealed them, shutting down power to everything but minimal
control interfaces, turning the assets into cold, dark, unlit airtight tombs for
their dead personnel.
The original target of the first
exchange, the human race, had been decimated almost to the point of extinction
but the human race was a hardy organism, with millions of years of evolution to
breed into it a strong will and a determination that defied logic. SKYNET
would have to finish the job that the nuclear fire, the hot wind, the
radioactive fallout and the various chemicals and toxins did not. SKYNET
would have to hunt down the last surviving members of the human race and
exterminate them. It would need weapons to do this. It would need
weapons with weapons and in that regard, SKYNET's arsenal became one of ultimate
science, the cutting edge of anti-personnel killing technology, all the power of
an artificial mind gone mad directed into inventing newer, more powerful, more
effective, more efficient ways of killing humans.
________________________________________________________________________________________
"There was a
war. A few years
from now. Nuclear
war. The
whole thing. All this … everything ... is gone. Just gone. There were survivors.
Here. There. Nobody knew who started it. It was the
Machines… Defense network computer.
New. Powerful. Hooked into
everything. 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
RETURN