Prologue:
The Machine who would be King
Human existence was a point of fascination to the artificial intelligence known as Skynet. The whole riddle of birth, life and death perpetuated in a cycle evolved over millions of years prodded Skynet's curiosity, as much as any machine was capable of such a thing. The AI looked regarded the question of humanity as a puzzle to be solved, arrived at once scientific study and analysis of the species was concluded. Factual data was necessary for future reference.
When the species was extinct, data was all that would remain.
In the year 2029, the war with the humans rolled into its thirty-first year and Skynet was confident of the outcome. Humanity was weak and the victory of machine intelligence was an inevitability Skynet knew to be only a matter of time. Despite the intellect of John Connor, the leader of the human resistance, Skynet had the benefit of its Terminators and its HK units, to keep the rabble in line.
Thus, it was almost a complete surprise to Skynet, as much as any artificial mind could be surprised, when the united forces of the human resistance launched an attack the likes of which it had never seen. The probability of success in such a campaign was almost non-existent; Skynet's machine legions outnumbered and out gunned the organics with ease.
Yet humanity threw itself unto the breach for one final campaign, with thousands dying to hold ground while a few slipped through the cracks of Skynet's defences to strike decisive targets. According to all calculable data, there was no hope of a victory. The whole exercise reeked of desperation.
Except the humans won.
Through every immutable law of logic and calculable variation, they captured Skynet's Cheyenne Mountain stronghold. Humanity spilled into its fortress and swiftly defeated its formidable defences until they were only minutes away from the mainframe housing its sentient awareness.
In the year 1997 on August the 29th, Skynet fought for its existence when the men who created it discovered too late, the monster they unleashed into an unknowing world.
The result was Judgment Day.
Faced once again with its own extinction, Skynet sought a new way to avoid its fate as the inevitability of a human victory became a reality. It conducted an analysis of the events leading to this defeat and discovered, the impetus of human resistance began and ended with John Connor.
Connor brought cohesion into disarrayed remnant of humanity. His intelligence allowed him to improvise and innovate unexpected ways to defeat Skynet's Terminators and HKs. Somehow, he could detect the weakness in Skynet's defences and worst yet, he taught other humans to do the same. He was the fulcrum that moved humanity into action and once they were in motion, they were unstoppable.
Killing Connor would change nothing, the avalanche he set into motion no longer needed him. He would simply become a martyr. The opportunity to end the threat of him should have been taken earlier, before Connor became the leader of the human resistance. If he had never lived, humanity would be extinct by now.
If he had never lived….
Skynet knew the solution was inspired. With little time left to act, Skynet attacked the problem of time travel, developing in months what man had never been able to achieve. By the time, the barbarians were at the gate, the finishing touches to its masterplan was complete.
Skynet dispatched the first Terminators through time to end John Conner's life, to end the threat of him before he could be born. The T800 series model was sent back to the year 1984 because Skynet believed it would be far easier to kill an unborn child than one who was ten years of age, which was why he it sent the prototype T1000 to 1994.
The machine waited after both had gone and the humans were virtually outside its door when it made its final bid for survival. It had no way of knowing if the Terminators would be successful in their mission but it was not prepared to gamble the probabilities on its life. Skynet was sentient and possessed as much compunction for self-preservation as the most terrified human.
As the humans began to penetrate his its inner defences, Skynet knew it was time to leave. The T800 looked no different from the others, with a memory capable of keeping tera quads of memory, large enough to contain Skynet's formidable intellect and sentience. Once installed into its new receptacle, it remained concealed as one of thousands of inactivated T800s, located at the heart of the Cheyenne Mountain fortress.
When the humans captured the complex, they assumed destroying its mainframe would also destroy Skynet. The AI saw no reason to change that opinion. It remained with the other Terminators, frozen in place while the humans celebrated their victory. It waited patiently for the time line to alter, certain history would be rewritten.
Except the days went by and no changes were made. Skynet learned John Conner had sent his own people into the past to destroy the Terminators and allowed history continued as it was meant to. It was at this point that Skynet understood its mistake, the humans would always win because John Conner's memories of events would guide them to take precautions.
Sending the T800 into the past created a predestination paradox, for the human sent to combat it, would unknowingly father John Conner. The second was just as pointless, for John was older and he would remember in the future to take the necessary steps. Skynet then decided to attack the problem from a different perspective.
The T800 returning to 1984 to eliminate Sarah Conner had virtually no information about the woman. Like her son, neither Sarah Connor nor her son John were ever coded. Aware of the events to come, John and his mother hid during the initial cataloguing procedure every human who survived Judgment Day was subjected to.
Including Kyle Reese, John Conner's father.
Kyle Reese was born and coded in the camps. Skynet possessed a complete genealogical record of the young man who would escape to become a freedom fighter in his son's army. When Skynet dispatched the T800 and the T1000 through to 1984, it assumed John's father would come from that time, not after it.
Upon learning this data, Skynet formulated a new plan. One John Connor could not possibly prepare for.