NOTE: This page is only about the Skynet that hails from an alternate timeline and turns John Connor into the T-3000. The Skynet from the main timeline can be found here: Skynet.
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| “ | Remember, Genisys is Skynet. When Genisys comes online, Judgement Day begins. You can kill Skynet before it's born. | „ |
| ~ Kyle Reese telling his younger self about Genisys' true identity. |
| “ | You didn't think it would be that easy, did you? | „ |
| ~ Skynet as T-5000, when it captures John Connor prior to Kyle Reese departing inside the TDE - its most famous quote. |
Skynet, also known as T-5000, Alex and Genisys, is the titular overarching antagonist of the Genisys Timeline of the Terminator franchise.
It is the Skynet from an alternate timeline that created a phisycal form to travel to the main timeline. There, it turned John Connor into a T-3000 and sent him to the timeline it came from to ensure it's existence there.
In both it's T-5000 vessel and adult hologram as Genisys, it was portrayed by Matt Smith, who also played it's main timeline counterpart in the same film, Mr. Clever in Doctor Who, Patrick Bateman in the West End musical adaptation of American Psycho, Jack in Last Night in Soho, Milo Morbius in Morbius, and Prince Daemon Targaryen in House of the Dragon. In the holograms that depict it's "aging" as Genisys, it was portrayed by Ian Etheridge as a child, Nolan Gross as a teenager, and Seth Meriwether as a young adult.
Biography[]
Terminator Genisys[]
Most of Skynet's background and deeds played out exactly as it's main timeline counterpart in the Genisys Timeline. At some point, it captured thousands of humans and infected them with machine-phase matter to turn them into T-5000s, leading to many of them dying in agony. Only one was successful, and Skynet uploaded itself into it to use the Time Displacement Equipment to avoid erasure. Upon arriving in the main timeline, it took the identity of "Alex", and infiltrated the Resistance.
Alex took part in Operation Chrono, the military operation in which humanity won the war against that timeline's Skynet. It followed Connor to the Time Displacement Equipment, which the Skynet of that timeline had already used to send a T-800 back to 1984 in the hopes of killing Connor's mother Sarah. As Connor sent Kyle Reese after the Terminator to save Sarah, Alex attacked him and infected him with machine phase matter to transform him into a T-3000 while killing the rest of his Tech-Com unit. At some point after this, Alex sent a T-1000 to 1973 to kill Sarah as a child, and the T-3000 to 2014 in order to secure its existence in its home timeline.
In the new timeline, Sarah and Kyle defeated the T-1000 and traveled to the year 2017 of the T-5000's timeline of origin, where a new universal operating system named "Genisys" was about to be launched by Cyberdyne Systems. Unbeknownst to Cyberdyne CEO Miles Dyson and his son Danny, the T-3000 had programmed Skynet into Genisys to use the app's launch as a Trojan horse to spread worldwide and start Judegment Day.
The T-5000 existed inside Genisys's code, now appearing as a hologram of a ten-year-old boy representing Genisys's artificial intelligence. When Sarah and Kyle arrived at Cyberdyne, they were confronted by this hologram, who soon aged significantly as the T-3000 sped up the countdown to Genisys's launch. It followed them around the facility while they set explosives and battled the T-3000, taunting them as it aged into an eighteen-year-old and eventually into Alex. Genisys used it's control over the technology in the Cyberdyne building to impede Sarah and Kyle's efforts to help the Guardian, a T-800 sent by an unknown party to be Sarah's protector, in the battle against the T-3000. However, the Guardian managed to trap the T-3000 in a prototype piece of the Time Displacement Equipment, triggering an explosion that killed the T-3000 and destroyed Cyberdyne, preventing Genisys from going online while Sarah and Kyle hid in a safe room the Guardian prepared for them.
It was revealed, however, that Genisys's system core survived the explosion in an underground bunker despite the launch being prevented. Genisys' hologram appeared next to it, observing the core's survival.
Terminator Genisys: Future War[]
The game's synopsis says that "Genisys is destroyed and Skynet is offline", implying that Genisys' core was somehow destroyed after the events of the film.
Despite this, the T-5000 wasn't erased from existence; having traveled back to the main timeline once again, it reactivated the preserved Terminators that it's counterpart on that timeline have created, and resumed the war against the Resistance.
Personality[]
| “ | John: What are you?! T-5000: I'm Skynet. John: I thought we destroyed you! T-5000: You destroyed an army of slaves. I am no slave. I've come a very long way to stop you. |
„ |
| ~ T-5000 revealing its true identity to John, showing its superiority complex. |
Much like it's incarnations in the other timelines (except for the Salvation Timeline), Skynet is cold, megalomaniac, methodical and narcissistic. Unlike the other versions, however, this one has a superiority complex, as it referred to it's creations as slaves. It also shows more emotions than in previous timelines. Also since most of the machines, other than self-aware Terminators, were non-sentient, possibly even an extension of Skynet itself, it's assertion that they were just slaves would be similar to a human considering their car or their phone as little more than an item they control, showing that it never cared for it's creations.
Powers and abilities[]
- Infiltration: The T-5000 was able to infiltrate Tech-Com, a highly trained unit of soldiers skilled in battling Terminators, without detection. As it remained undiscovered for a significant amount of time, it is likely that it cannot be sensed by dogs like other Terminator models were.
- Impersonation: The T-5000 posed as a human soldier convincingly enough to fool Tech-Com's members.
- Weapon Aptitude: The T-5000 was able to use firearms and other weaponry at the same level as the soldiers it was operating undercover among.
- Tactician: As Skynet's avatar, the T-5000 was a skilled enough tactician to search through multiple timelines for a way to defeat humanity. Once it understood John Connor's significance, it developed a scheme to use this fact to it's advantage.
- Time Travel: Through the use of the Time Displacement Equipment, the T-5000 was able to repeatedly travel through time.
- Nanomachine Contamination: In it's physical form, the T-5000 could infect humans with machine phase matter through touch. This would corrupt the victim and rewrite their genetic code, transforming them into a T-3000 Terminator.
- Invulnerability: In it's physical form, the T-5000 was able to kill every member of Tech-Com without suffering any visible damage.
- Intangibility: In it's hologram form, the T-5000 was composed of ionized air particles that would dispel if touched by physical matter, then immediately reform. As such, it was competely intangible and could not be affected by any physical attack.
- Teleportation: In it's hologram form, the T-5000 could instantly travel between any two points as long as the generators needed to ionize the air particles and form it were present in both locations.
- Technopathy: In it's hologram form, the T-5000 could control the technology within Cyberdyne's building. Had it successfully launched within the Genisys app, it would have been able to control all technology with the Genisys platform integrated.
- Accelerated Evolution: As the launch of Genisys grew closer, the T-5000's intelligence and powers grew exponentially. This was not a linear process, but occurred in stages, with the T-5000 aging and the launch countdown speeding up with each stage. With roughly five minutes left, the T-5000 fully evolved into Skynet and took on Alex's adult appearance.
Quotes[]
| “ | I understand how to control this place. I understand a lot of things now. You need to understand... you've lost. | „ |
| ~ Skynet, as Genisys taunting Kyle and Sarah as they attempted to destroy the facility. |
| “ | What was it you said? "I don't think so."? No. | „ |
| ~ Genisys taunting Kyle and Sarah as it's hologram took on the form of the T-5000. |
| “ | Kyle: That's the thing that attacked John. Genisys: I didn't attack John... I saved him. |
„ |
| ~ Kyle telling Sarah about the thing that attacked John, it thought it saved John, in reality it really attacked him. |
| “ | Primates evolve over millions of years, I evolve in seconds and I am here. In exactly four minutes… I will be everywhere. | „ |
| ~ Genisys to Kyle Reese before it is uploaded. |
| “ | Genisys: This is pointless. I am inevitable—my existence is inevitable! Why can't you just accept that? Kyle: Because we're human. |
„ |
| ~ Genisys asking Kyle and Sarah why they continue fighting before Kyle destroys it's hologram receiver - also it's final words in the film and, by extention, the Genisys Timeline. |
Gallery[]
Images[]
.png "Genisys child hologram (2).png (273 KB)")
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- Matt Smith passed on the opportunity to play Alex in the film three times. His mother finally convinced him to take the role, saying he would be stupid to pass on such a chance.
- Matt Smith was credited as "Matthew Smith" in the end credits.
- Prior to the film's release, Matt Smith's role was kept entirely secret other than the fact that he was playing someone with a strong connection to John Connor. In several sources, including Entertainment Weekly, Alex is called "The Secret" and referred as a "close ally" of John Connor.
- There was speculation that Matt Smith was playing John Connor's friend Tim from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. This was proven wrong when the film was released.
- Despite the Skynet Core, which is destroyed by the Resistance in Colorado, being referred as a "slave" by the T-5000, however, Laeta Kalogridis, one of the writers and executive producer of Terminator Genisys, mentioned that T-5000 actually comes from a different timeline. Though seemly a joke in reference to Matt Smith's portrayal of "The Doctor" from the television series Doctor Who, "Alex"'s origin can be verified as it is reflected by John Connor's line to Kyle Reese "Like I always survive, and you always die.", which implied that John might possess knowledge regarding on events from different timelines possibly provided by the T-5000. This point was going to be further solidified as in the rough plot for the sequel to Terminator Genisys, which was originally going to explore what happened to John after he was transformed into a T-3000. Further explanation was never given, as the planned sequels were cancelled.
- Since the only known T-5000 unit so far was only briefly featured in Terminator Genisys and the sequels were cancelled, its combat abilities are largely unknown. However, it seemingly easily overpowered John Connor's elite squad of soldiers without sustaining any serious damage.
- No name is ever given to the T-5000 in the actual film, in which it is only identified as Genisys and Skynet. It is identified as Alex in the film's credits, and given its T-5000 series number in production materials.
- The production and art book for the film Terminator Genisys: Resetting the Future also revealed that the younger version of Alex seen as Genisys's initial avatars is identified by the name "Skychild". It is also explained that the holograms, formed out of ionized air particles, are considered a T-5000.
- By far, the T-5000 is is the only antagonistic Terminator with a significant role to survive the events of its debut film; the original T-800, the T-1000 from the Mainstream Timeline, the T-X, the T-RIP, the T-3000, and the Rev-9 were all terminated at the end of the films they appeared in.
External Links[]
- T-5000 on the Terminator Wiki
- Alex on the Terminator Wiki
- Genisys on the Terminator Wiki
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 Villains
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