Cyberdyne Systems was a revolutionary computer technologies corporation from the Terminator franchise. Throughout the franchise, this organisation is largely responsible for creating the genocidal AI Skynet.
History[]
Terminator/Terminator 2 timeline[]
In the original unaltered timeline of the films, Cyberdyne were responsible for the creation of Skynet and the original Terminators. However, Skynet itself is responsible for Cyberdyne's discovery of the neural-net processor that leads to the AI's development. In the first Terminator film, Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese flee from The Terminator sent back in time to kill Sarah by hiding inside a factory, which is revealed to be a Cyberdyne factory in a deleted scene. When the Terminator is crushed under a hydraulic press, Cyberdyne personnel inspect the damage to their premises and discover the Terminator's wreckage. While the android is beyond repair, its CPU chip is mostly intact and Cyberdyne are able to begin developing a new artificial intelligence system based on the technology of the chip.
In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Cyberdyne is on the verge of creating a revolutionary new computer processor. However, Miles Dyson - leading developer of the program - is shown the future fruits of his labour by Sarah Connor and a re-programmed Terminator from the future. They inform him how his creation will become self-aware and initiate the nuclear catastrophe of Judgement Day in just a few short years, wiping out 3 billion lives in an instant. With this revelation, Dyson decides to help the Connors prevent the war and takes them to Cyberdyne headquarters. The group steal the salvaged Terminator components and bomb the Cyberdyne building, supposedly destroying all of the data pertaining to Skynet. Dyson unfortunately dies carrying out the bombing of the labs.
Terminator 3/Salvation timeline[]
Although Cyberdyne's Los Angeles branch is destroyed, Judgment Day is merely postponed since some of the Skynet research data survived and was continued by Cyber Research Systems prior to Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines. The company's research into robotic and cybernetic technology continues and in 2003 they commence human trials of their final medical technologies project.
Convicted felon Marcus Wright, sentenced to death for murdering two police officers, signs his body over to Cyberdyne so that they can conduct medical research on his corpse. After his execution, Marcus' body is extensively modified, his skeleton all but replaced with an artificial endoskeleton. Before the experiment's conclusion, Judgement Day occurs when Skynet becomes self-aware. Some time following the nuclear exchange, Skynet seizes all of Cyberdyne's assets that survived and makes its own modifications to Marcus, restoring him to life and turning him into a prototype infiltration unit so that he can kill John Connor, thus allowing Skynet to defeat the Resistance.
Terminator Genisys timeline[]
In the re-written timeline of Terminator Genisys, Cyberdyne never discovered the wreckage of the original Terminator as it was destroyed by Sarah Connor and the elderly T-800 "Guardian" away from Cyberdyne's premises. While this should have prevented Skynet's creation altogether, the malicious AI's existence had been secured through other means.
While Skynet's forces in 2029 had been destroyed, Skynet itself had transferred its core consciousness into a T-5000 unit and infiltrated John Connor's Tech-Com unit prior to their final victory in the War Against the Machines. When Tech-Com captured the Time Displacement Chamber and sent Kyle Reese back to 1984 to save Sarah Connor, Skynet made its move and ambushed John, killing his surrounding lieutenants and infecting John with nanomachines that converted the Resistance commander into a T-3000, altering his body and corrupting his mind.
Brought under Skynet's control, John was sent into the Time Displacement Field and travelled back to the 2010s with a mission to secure Skynet's creation. He found employment at Cyberdyne which was still in business by that point, assisting them with developing new technologies that would supposedly benefit mankind, but in reality would be used by Skynet to ensure its dominance in the future. Skynet itself would begin its existence as a revolutionary new type of computer operating system dubbed Genisys. Genisys would be compatible with all civilian and military computer systems across the globe, connecting humanity like never before. This would allow the artificial intelligence to rapidly learn and grow until, unbeknownst to its makers, would let it achieve true sentience. When Genisys/Skynet fully achieved self-awareness, history would unfold as it was always doomed to: Skynet would take control of the world's machines, unleash humanity's most powerful weapons against them and dominate the Earth.
Skynet's ascension was narrowly averted thanks to the efforts of Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese and the Guardian, who had travelled forward in time from 1984 to 2017 via a primitive version of the Time Displacement Equipment. The trio assaulted Cyberdyne Headquarters on the eve of Genisys's activation where the Guardian battled against the T-3000 John inside Cyberdyne's main lab complex. Within the complex was a prototype Time Displacement Device and Guardian was able to activate it and push John inside. The magnetic field generated by the device tore the mechanized John apart and then exploded, severely damaging the lab and Guardian as well. Genisys's processors were also destroyed in the explosion, and so it seemed that Judgement Day had been prevented.
Unknown to Sarah and Kyle, however, a bunker existed beneath the Cyberdyne lab that housed a massive CPU core. Skynet had not been destroyed yet...