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In the TV series Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, the human resistance sends a reprogrammed terminator code-named Cameron back in time to protect John Connor.

Was Cameron a cyborg in the strictest sense (robot with living tissue/components), or an android (totally artificial construct in the likeness of a human)?

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The The Sarah Connor Chronicles Bible (at least, if one can believe the reference on the wiki) indicated that Cameron was a T-900 terminator, which is among the models that use living tissue to cover the endoskeleton, so they are as much a cyborg as most of the terminators that we see in the series.

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  • wd u agree that a very simple definition of cyborg is that it is someone who starts completely human and is later augmented and/or has parts replaced? Terminators which have human flesh that may have been grown in a vat seem very different than someone born as a normal human -- Sam Worthington's character is clearly a cyborg -- Cameron is not.
    – releseabe
    Commented Nov 20, 2023 at 0:39
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    @releseabe: I think that there have been so many different definitions for the word cyborg that you can't really call upon a "standard definition".
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Nov 20, 2023 at 3:12
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Cameron is described as a cyborg on the TSCC season 1 DVD case cover.

Can the sweet but deadly cyborg (Summer Glau of Firefly) be trusted?

Image of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" season 1 DVD case cover.

To elaborate, she's a cyborg to the same extent that a T-800 is, i.e. she's a metal endoskeleton surrounded by living tissue. At various points in the show, she sustains cuts and bruises to her face and other parts of her fleshy exterior, and those wounds are shown to gradually heal over time.

In S01E08, John Connor slices and peels back part of her scalp to expose the CPU port in her skull -- much as Sarah Connor did to the reprogrammed T-800 in a deleted scene from Terminator 2: Judgment Day -- and it's very evident that what he's peeling back here is flesh. Blood is also clearly visible on the CPU port.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - S01E08 - "Vick's Chip"

In S02E01, Cameron sustains damage from an explosion, causing part of her metal skull to be exposed through tears in her cheek, so she uses a staple gun to help close the wound.

Image of Cameron's wounded face from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" S02E01.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - S02E01 - "Samson and Delilah"

In the following episode, John mentions that the wounds on her face are healing quickly, and she replies "quicker than yours," implying that her flesh may heal faster than normal human flesh.

JOHN CONNOR: That's healing quickly.

CAMERON: Quicker than yours.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - S02E02 - "Automatic for the People"

By the end of the episode, the wounds on her cheek have fully closed and formed scar tissue.

Image of Cameron's wounded face from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" S02E02.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - S02E02 - "Automatic for the People"

By the episode after that, the scars are no longer visible.


As is the case for T-800s, her fleshy exterior is apparently required in order for her to be successfully transported through time using the Time Displacement Equipment (TDE).

In the pilot episode, she, Sarah and John all time travel from 1999 to 2007, and while all three were clothed beforehand, they all arrive naked, consistent with Kyle Reese's explanation in the original film that nothing dead will go through the TDE, unless it's surrounded by living tissue.

DR. SILBERMAN: Why didn't you bring any weapons? Something more advanced. Don't you have, er, ray guns? Show me a piece of future technology.

KYLE REESE: You go naked. Something about the field generated by a living organism. Nothing dead will go.

DR. SILBERMAN: Why?

KYLE REESE: I didn't build the fucking thing!

DR. SILBERMAN: Okay, okay. But this cyborg, if it's metal...

KYLE REESE: ... surrounded by living tissue!

DR. SILBERMAN: Oh, right.

The Terminator (1984)

In the final episode of season 2, a large portion of Cameron's metal skull is exposed due to damage she'd sustained earlier in the episode, and her body is apparently destroyed during a subsequent time displacement.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - S02E22 - "Born to Run"

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  • "nothing inorganic" -then how do you explain the T-1000? None of it was organic.
    – Nu'Daq
    Commented Nov 20, 2023 at 4:27
  • @Nu'Daq The T-1000 is a later development. Apparently TDE tech evolved as well during that time. Or possibly the time-travel messed enough with the future time-line(s) for an alternative future to come in existence in which this restriction on the TDE wasn't present anymore.
    – Tonny
    Commented Nov 20, 2023 at 9:27
  • @Nu'Daq - Kyle's exact words were that it had something to do with "the field generated by a living organism" and that "nothing dead will go." The novelisation of T2 suggests that the T-1000 was encased in living tissue prior to transport, and then shedded the skin afterwards, but this explanation doesn't work for Catherine Weaver -- a T-1001 -- who clearly wasn't encased in flesh when she was transported to the future in TSCC S02E22. Commented Nov 20, 2023 at 10:10
  • An alternative theory is that T-1001s are capable of mimicking the field generated by a living organism, but that is only a theory. Either way, Weaver is certainly different from Cameron in that respect, since Cameron was right next to her when she was transported, but didn't arrive in the future with her, apparently due to part of her metal skull being exposed at the time. Commented Nov 20, 2023 at 10:11
  • @Tonny - The evidence I highlighted in this answer suggests that the T-1000 was already active by the time that Kyle Reese went through the TDE, and was actually sent through before. him. Kyle apparently didn't know about it because John chose to withhold certain information from him (such as the fact that Kyle was his father). Commented Nov 20, 2023 at 10:13

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