Sarah Connor

History
You want to know what Sarah Connor's world is like? It's not the same. It's never gonna be the goddamn same. Not since Kyle Reese saved her ass at Technoir and pulled her into his world. And his? His was full of machines called Terminators, machines that came after her. And what was she? She was Sarah Connor, 19, with her head full of college dreams (History maybe!) and a full time job as a waitress to pay for those dreams. She was nothing special, just a girl. Well, that changed when women across Los Angles were being murdered all because they had her name. You want to know what Sarah's world turned into? Hell and heartache. She was hunted by Skynet, saved by Kyle Reese, the warrior who crossed time to save her life...and father her child, John. All she had with the man she loved was one night of love and uncertainty. That's all she got with him, all that she was allowed before he died defending her. Despite his death, she carried his mission with her, keeping him alive in the only way she knew how.

Sarah became the mother of the future. She was, literally, the mother of the Resistance. Losing Kyle was enough to turn her into the woman she became--the warrior, hard edged, with arms of steel, acerbic, tougher than you could ever imagine. Left behind was the girl with college dreams and pretty pink sweaters, left behind was the girl who'd never held a gun. Forged in the heat of battle and the need to see her son survive to be everything that he was meant to be, Sarah left her maternal instincts in limbo and nearly became an Terminator herself to protect her son and save the world. Skynet didn't stop. It never stopped.

Ten years after the events in Terminator, Sarah Connor found herself locked up in a mental institution called Pescadero--with Dr. Silberman as her shrink. The years spent after Kyle's death had hardened her into a fierce warrior (like John says, she slept with any man who could get her the training she wanted be it guns or tactics, weapons, hacking, it didn't fucking matter as long as it got her what she needed, what John needed). She blew the hell out of a computer factory, was caught, and they sent her to Pescadero to a locked ward for the criminally insane. Her life had been semi-criminal before as she ran guns and ammo in South America for awhile and had serious connections as well as caches of weapons there. Sarah learned to play the game, tucked her very violent, very unstable nature away, and tried to get Silberman to let her see John (who'd been placed in a foster home, mind you, it was shitty as hell). That failed and she was denied the visit, whereupon Sarah, in a fit, went on a tirade about Judgment Day and how everyone was already dead. Honestly, there's evidence to support the fact that Sarah was sexually and physically abused at Pescadero.

That? Contributed to her violence and need for revenge and was just one of the reasons she hit that dumb bastard of an orderly, Dougie, (well after he licked her face and probably violated her seven ways to Sunday--wtf, need Patient Advocate, plz) with that broken broomstick.

With the introduction of a new Terminator, one that could become liquid metal (the T-1000), future John Connor sent back another Terminator, one to protect his younger self. Ironically, he chose the model that had murdered his father and nearly murdered Sarah. When she encountered him at Pescadero (after she'd escaped and was headed through the corridors to get the hell out of Dodge--this after threatening to break Silberman's bones and to inject Drano into his system and kill him), she had a moment of panic in which she thought he was going to kill her. It was John who brought her back and John who would bring her back time and again when she went after Miles Bennett Dyson when she found out he was the main person to create Skynet. Sarah Connor had nearly lost her humanity the moment she decided to eliminate Dyson and regained it as she pointed her gun at his head. Pulling the trigger would do nothing but lower herself to Skynet's level and in that moment, she knew it wholly with every fiber in her being. She wasn't a killer. Hell, she was never a killer, not unless there was no way she could avoid it. Sarah Connor was a survivor and the champion of humanity, a role model for her son...never a killer.

In the end, Dyson sacrificed himself after being shot by incoming police.

Sarah and John lived, the Terminator sacrificed itself, and the war went on. John went on, Sarah went on protecting him. In the final moments of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Sarah expresses hope that if a machine could sacrifice itself for the good of humanity maybe all wasn't lost. A year down the road, she still has that hope, and she still has every inch of her hardness. She's determined to stop Skynet, though it keeps trying to fuck her life up. Sarah's off the grid, arms dealing, trading, blowing shit up that has Skynet all over it, protecting her son, doing whatever she can to delay Judgment Day. But she knows. She knows it's coming.

She knows and she'll do everything, anything, to keep her son alive, trained, honed for the role he will eventually face.

Judgment Day could be tomorrow.

Previous Game History
Sarah landed herself on the Barge, a rehabilitation ship in the middle of the multiverse, and among the people she met was Arthas Menethil. Originally, their relationship was built on training -- fencing -- but evolved into a physical relationship during the course over the course of her stay. Sarah's been through a ton of shit from being drained by a vampire, found by Arthas -- whereupon she begged him to 'reset' her since dying a slow death wasn't at all going out her way, being possessed by a crazy Gallifreyan bitch and almost killing herself to avoid killing Arthas when Pandora went to slice his head off, to fighting her way through a shitton of zombies Arthas had raised as the Lich King with broken bones and bites that were infecting her only to have said Lich King murder her. She also told Arthas she loved him and it was a fierce thing -- and it it's not something she'll give up on, either. One day, somewhere, somewhen, they'll both find peace and it's that peace she knows they both really want. Living with Arthas, being with Arthas was like her life. It was a war, a war she was winning and losing all at once, and there were beautiful moments wrapped up in the spaces that weren't death and sorrow. To say their relationship was sunshine and rainbows would be a lie. It was dysfunctional as hell, but for Sarah, the two steps forward, one step back dance they did was something that challenged her. Despite the moments of horrible, there were good goddamn moments, moments where they made what they had work. It was a balancing act, but it worked. Sarah struggles constantly with her own sanity, her own PTSD, and her own demons. Despite everything, Arthas taught her how to fight -- yes, with a sword, but he also taught her that she had it in her - really had it in her - to not give up. Had she not been yanked away from the Barge, she would have made good on that promise because Sarah Connor doesn't love with just a piece of herself. It's all of it, and she doesn't forget.

While she was on the Barge, she met John when he was much older, married, and expecting a child of his own. She also found out that she hadn't lived long enough to see or live past Judgement Day. In some ways, meeting her son, telling him she loved him, knowing that she'd done right by him, was a good damned thing. If it hadn't been for the Barge, she wouldn't have known that she was going to be a grandmother and that whatever she was doing it was right. For Sarah, the Barge gave her hope. She met people from all walks of life, people who'd done crazy, shitty things in their lives, people who got better (and worse...and then better again), people who said they'd never graduate -- and did. And those Inmates who graduated, they were rehabilitated enough that some came back as Wardens, while some of them went back to their own worlds to make them a better place. But most of all, despite the abundance of screwed up shit that went down, there was still hope. Hope that even in the shittiest circumstances there were good fucking things that could happen. Hope that even knowing that she was going to die going back home, her son would do what Kyle Reese needed him to do, and that she wasn't a failure of a mother. In some ways, Sarah was an Inmate even as she was a Warden, helping others who in turn help her face her own future. She wasn't there long enough to graduate an inmate, but she gave what she could to those around her, including her last two inmates. There were some good heart-to-hearts shared between Beatrix Kiddo and Sarah, and more than anything, Sarah hopes that woman gets what she needs out of the Barge.

Post-Barge, Sarah went home to her son, John, but when she got the offer from Eli, she decided to go for it. One day, they'd need an out, and if the multiverse was going to give it to her -- she wanted in. So, Sarah packed her shit.

Personality
Angry, insanely protective, brilliant. Sarah Connor is a maelstrom of violence just barely restrained by her rational mind--and even then she has issues keeping herself together, though she does it damn well when she's out in public (unless you threaten her or her son or those she considers family). She's pissed that Kyle's dead, she's pissed that Skynet keeps coming back, and she is really pissed that there is nothing normal, at all, about her life. Sarah is also inquisitive and voracious when it comes to learning anything she can about weapons, science, technology, and ways to defeat Skynet. She's studied, by herself and with the aid of anyone she can get; science, mechanics, hacking, electronics, history (mostly on weapons, Oppenhiemer, nuclear physics, etc) chemistry, physics--anything she could get her paws on. She learned everything John needed/may need to know, so either she could teach him or they (the men she's used) could. And if she needs to, she'll learn something else, and adapt another way if it means her son will be safe.

This is a woman who is highly adaptable, given that she's been forced to do so by a hostile, genocidal fucktard of an A.I. bent of killing her, her son, and any hope humanity has of survival. When she was nineteen, she watched her lover, Kyle Reese (a man who was sent from the future to keep her alive, a man who she fell for and only had a night with before his death, whose memory keeps her moving when she doesn't think she can move another step), die in front of her, and found the courage to not only survive, but terminate the T-800 Terminator bent on killing her at all costs. In that instant she began to change from the meek Sarah Connor of the first Terminator movie and into the warrior of the second movie. The lengths she would go to in order to secure her son's future are insane and awe-inspiring, just as they are frightening.

Sarah became what she is now, the solider/mother (with the running, the fighting, the attempts to burn down buildings, the training) because she knew that if she didn't take what Kyle told her (that if Skynet killed John, the whole of humanity would fall to the machines) to heart and mind, the future that all mankind faced would be darker than even she could possibly imagine. Sarah was also scared to death that some day John would be alone, without her and vulnerable, dead, naked without her. Her entire existence is centered around John and steeped in the memory of the man who both saved her life and plunged her into a life where stopping for a moment's rest could mean death. Kyle Reese, Skynet, John--this trinity changed her from meek, mousy Sarah Connor (the girl who wore pink and purple and rode a scooter), into a woman who had something and someone to fight for. You can see a little of the fire in the events leading up to the end of the first movie, where she snarls "You're terminated fucker" as the hydraulic press crushes the terminator that caused Kyle death...and nearly her own. The sheer ferocity in her voice lingers well past the scene and is a portent of the transformed Sarah in the second film.

In that moment, with Kyle dead and the machine crushed, she found the courage to begin a new life--one that was harder than anything she could have dreamed. Nineteen year old Sarah Connor found herself pregnant with Kyle's child, thought back on his words "I know he dies before the war--" (referring to John's father) and knew that along with everything else from the machines who would come to those that had come, she needed to do what was right. The right thing was to turn herself into the woman Kyle Reese had talked about with such fire--the strong, capable, and fearless woman--the legend that he had fallen in love with. While still pregnant, she made her first steps toward that legend by learning everything she could from guerrillas in Mexico, sometimes running guns, learning what she could absorb about warfare, tactics, mechanics, demolitions, anything that could prove useful to John's (and her own) survival. And yes, as John grew up, she shacked up with any number of men, giving them herself as payment so they would teach her (and later John) the skills she and John needed to keep themselves alive. She forced herself to become mentally and physically fit in order to prevent her son's demise at the hands of an enemy who could look like a human being, maybe even someone she might trust. Maybe. The first terminator had his own 'blending in' issues--but Skynet could always send back more advanced terminators. Paranoia has become a way of life for Sarah and for good reason, thanks to Skynet.

Her transformation is steeped in blood and heartache, with greatest the pull between being a mother and that of being a soldier. The mother wants to protect her son from all the ills of the world, to make the future war never exist do he will never have to fight it, to kiss him when he bangs his knee, to smile when he brings her starfish when he's five. It's the soldier's sharp instinct that shoves the mother Sarah could be into the dark, letting her loose every once and awhile for tiny tender moments, so small maybe only John notices them anymore. Softness has no place in Sarah's world now. There are no pinks and purples, no cute little scooter, just BDUs, the cold metal of guns, and the driving need to protect her son, (and the world if they all didn't think she was crazy) from a future she constantly dreams about. Sometimes, that means she's a shitty mother, but she's doing the best she can, and loves John (and through John, Kyle) so much it tears her apart. She never forgets his birthday, she bakes him a cake when she can, or little Mexican pastries, or his favorite hot chocolate--little things. She remembers and she tries to be good to him, as good a she can be as a soldier and a mother. But she has to think about it sometimes, which one she is now, what needs to give a little, whenshe's gone too far into the soldier or into the rants she sometimes kicks herself into. John brings her back from the edge of madness more than she'd like to admit. You'd probably be a little unhinged if some metal monster murdered everyone important in your life and were left with a child to raise that had a destiny you had no control over, too.

To be completely honest, so many people she knew and loved, or those she came into contact with, died at the hands of the first terminator; her roommate's boyfriend, her roommate Ginger, her mother, the protection the LAPD might have offered, Kyle Reese, the man sworn to protect her and the child she would one day have, the two Sarah Connors the first terminator killed, John's foster parents, his dog, Max--the list grows as the years pass. She has been psychologically branded by the loss, hardening herself further until she can barely feel anymore. She's driven into her role by a need to survive as much as by the need to protect the one thing Skynet hasn't ripped from her.

Not only did she transform herself dramatically in both physical and mental ways, she embraced the lifestyle as critically necessary for her own survival as well as her son's. It was essentially a conscious choice between two realities. Either she accept that she was the mother of the man who would one day lead Humanity to victory over the machines, or she was simply crazy. With the second option there was the possibility that three billion human beings could be nuked, die from radiation, and the survivors of the nuclear holocaust then be subject to slavery and death. The simplest truth, especially when she found out she was pregnant, was the road she chose. Skynet, Kyle, John--the mission--if she didn't choose to walk that path, she would be forever condemning billions of lives to a fate worse than death. Sarah put aside herself and made the selfless choice for John and for Humanity. With her choice made, she became hard living, tough, obsessively protective, crass, angry at it all, but determined that nothing would get the best of her. She forced herself to become Kyle's legend because the day she found out she was pregnant was the day she knew, really knew, that it was real. Make no mistake, Sarah Connor is pissed off at where she is in her life, at what was done to her. Killing Skynet for the insanity it heaped on her is at the top of her "Shit To Do" list. In the meantime, she'd love to blow some Terminators up to ease that barely controlled anger.

She's retained a white-knuckled grip on her sanity, but just barely. She has moments where she slides back into the mental hospital, Pescadero, where she was molested on so many levels counting becomes irrelevant, and once every year on the 29th of August--no matter where she is--the world around her looks like it's bombed out and in flames. It's not, but to Sarah? To Sarah it's a reminder of what could be, a product of her own mind pushing her onward to keep her son and the rest of Humanity safe.