Question: I've always wondered this even as a kid. I never read any of the novels associated with the movies so it might have been addressed there. If a computer system became self aware and a computer system is what launched all the nukes, then what created the first Terminator? I get how they're all made on an assembly line but someone or something had to make the machines and equipment that makes the Terminators.
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Chosen answer: Skynet being an artificial intelligence, it could take control of existing machines to repurpose them. It doesn't become self aware until 1997, by which point robotic technology would be much more advanced than in 1984 (and it had already been somewhat self-reliant before that point, so presumably a degree of military fabrication was already set up to be controlled automatically). With its vastly accelerated rate of development and intelligence, it could use existing factories to create basic machines, use those to retool and create more complicated machines, etc. From what Kyle says the ultra-realistic Terminator model we see here is a relatively new development (he comes from 2029) so Skynet has had about 30 years to set up a series of self-improving machines and its own murderous infrastructure.
Jon Sandys ★