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The first T-800 was trying to annihilate Connor because in the future he was about to destroy Skynet's hard drive.

By T3 though, the producers have a clear idea of what a supercomputer would be like - in cyberspace - intangible.

Why then does it need to annihilate Connor? Especially as Skynet itself was annihilated as a result of time travel in T2? If it was in cyberspace, then Connor could not have been about to destroy it.

Maybe you need to remember that 'history is written by the winner'...
and to realize that we are being told a progressive story, told over the years, as more chapters are fleshed out, by different thinkers, different writers, producers, directors and actors...

At the end of each Terminator movie, we hear a voice from the future, giving us hope for that future, a future when the machines don't dominate and destroy humans... so, at the end of each movie, we know that humans win, because they survive the past to be the voice of the future... but, because of the nature of time-travel and the whole history being written by the winners thing, we also should know at the beginnings of the movies that humans win, or who would be there telling the story from the future??

or, imagine you are watching the story 'as it happens'... only watching as the new wrinkles in the space-time continuum occur, only watching 1 new branch of future history of things to come play itself out.. people would be too confused if there were 'other' T2s or T3s or alternate versions of that history, but those alternate histories are possible, if you believe they are possible... read the fan-fics or novels to see the way things 'could' go... whatever you want to believe, is 'true' since the whole Terminator universe is just a work of fantastic-fiction any way..

also consider, SkyNet doesn't know the T1 Terminator will fail, until 2029, or 2032, or whenever the humans DO finally win (or win again...), so at first, humans win all on their own, led by John Connor the great military leader with 'no past'... which inspires SkyNet to send back a Terminator to kill John... T1 (T-800) fails, so SkyNet sends back T2 (T-1000) to try again at some future date when John is more vulnerable, his mom is gone, John is unprotected... T2 fails, and the humans do win, take over the TDE and send back their forces to help themselves win, by saving John in the past... The machines still fight back, reclaiming or rebuilding the TDE elsewhere, T3 happens, and the Machines rise... before the humans finally figure how to beat the machines completely...
we have yet to see how the humans manage to rise above and finally defeat the ever-present machine/computer presence in the future of things to come... we don't know the final ultimate twist, there's a chapter or 2 left untold at this point...

but, in the end, we do know that the history is written by the winners, so we already know that humans win in the end, when ever the end should come... SkyNet's mission changes in T3 too, from killing John, to killing lieutenants of Johns, to make it that much harder for John to rally the humans to victory... in the original history of things to come, SkyNet came to learn that the Anderson bro and sis, and Jose Barera, and 20 others, including Kate Brewster and her father, were lieutenants, or integral connection to John and the human resistance...

what affect on the future of things to come will TX killing Jose Barera, the Andersons, and General Brewster have?? we won't know, until the real T4 happens... all we do know now is that Judgment Day was inevitable, because if Judgment Day and the war didn't happen, then T1 and T2 couldn't have happened any way... right??

now we just have to wait and see how it all comes together, and what happens after the history of things to come is all played out...

and, as far as John and the resistance destroying whatever central core SkyNet is or will become, we only have the end of T3 left to confuse us, when John thinks its all over, before he knows that the future, and his destiny as that great military leader, are still only on track to be played out... SkyNet only appears to be as a virus, because of the way it infected everything so that it could be activated and released to take over everything... SkyNet probably still has a 'central core' or a few central locations which, once destroyed, will free the machines from the central computer control, and allow humans and machines to once again live together, in peace, rather than to always fight to destroy each other...

we'll have to wait and see... at least until my T5 is finished and posted!

The earlier science fiction stories, INCLUDING the original terminator, spoke of computer fiends with hard drives at a given location. Sending the T-800 was perfectly plausible in the given context of Terminator the original, because according to Reese, Connor was about to destroy Skynet's core, which accounted for its entire vile presence. Therefore it had nothing to lose by trying!

T3 I thought complicated things too much, because to have avoided all annihilation, Skynet had to be intangible, in cyberspace, therefore it seems stupid of the abomination to continue to try to kill the younger Connor, because in the altered timeline, Skynet itself was not in danger of being UTTERLY terminated, but by initiating more time travelling, it could just still be annihilated, we hope...

Simply put:

1) Original timeline - Skynet is doomed if it doesn't annihilate Connor, for without its central core it is finished. Sending T-800 is plausible.

2) Altered timeline - Skynet is no longer dependent on any central core, so why meddle with time even further? It is surely more risk than it is worth! Sending T-X is unnecessary.

Mmmm... interesting.

I think that Skynet, as the timelines were changing, developed a way or the changes made Skynet function without the so called 'central core'.

Rick has a few points about what he said. Maybe Skynet does not have a 'plug', but it does have like primarily 'military bases' all over the world and thus making them sort of parts of it.

An example of this is like if you get your foot amputated (let's hope to God not to happen), you will be weaker but you MIGHT still leave. Now if you get both your arms and legs amputated, then your chances of survival are minimum. Now compare that to Skynet and it works in a similar way. Without bases to build it's Terminator machines, the weaker it gets and the more the chances of humans to overrun the Machines and destroy Skynet completely by taking out those military bases.

Hehehehe wow I just wrote a lot. I ohpe you understand it and I mostly hope that the example I gave you made sense.

See you around!

Shaber, we don't know what all John Connor and other human resistance military leaders told Reese before they sent him back... it's possible they sent Reese back specifically to impregnate Sarah Connor at the no-tell motel, to save her, and to inspire her to raise her son to be the great military leader he is destined to become, in order to give the human resistance an edge, more of an edge than they had in the 'original time-line'...

we don't know when or if the humans really did utterly and totally and completely defeat SKyNEt and the SkyNet controlled machines before they sent Reese back... we don't know that the humans destroyed every shred of every command and control system connecting the brain of SkyNet to the machines... obviously, the humans did not destroy every link, at least not before SkyNet sent back a TX to insure Judgment Day would happen... so, now, we just don't know...

I still prefer to think that things had to play out exactly as they have so far, to inspire John and the human Resistance to play out whatever future acts they play out that inspires them to send back Reese in the first place... still working out the details of exactly why, but mainly it has to do with the 'what if...' factor, of what if Connor doesn't send someone back, doesn't send Reese back to save his mom, changes the history of things to come, knowing that those things might come, or not, any way...
If post T3 John Connor doesn't send Reese back after the first Terminator in 1984, Connor WILL still be born, when Sarah is impregnated by the guy from the phone call, who broke the date with Sarah, she still has a baby boy, who grows up to be a great military leader who DOES choose to send Reese back to save her... because, if that original timeline John Connor doesn't send someone back to stop the original Terminator, then the original Terminator will kill Sarah before she gets pregnant...

unfortunately, we are now stuck watching the history of things to come thru the eyes and lives of Nick Stahl's John Connor, the post-T3 John Connor... but, you see if he chooses not to send Reese back, he will still be born, and things will revert to the original timeline where 'there was no Reese' John will grow up and adopt the mindset that there has to be a Reese sent back to save Sarah, and the loop still continues... or Sarah Connor will be killed, John wont be born, the machines will rule, and T5 will be the story of Jose Barera and the Anderson twins struggling to fight the good fight, without the leadership of John Connor...

and who wants to see a Terminator without ANY of the past character stars the Connors, Reese, the T-800... well, maybe the T-800 would be there, but why would Arnold do that sort of movie?? except once his political career is over, and he is 'struggling' to make ends meet again...

there's good ways and reasons to make it all connect up and make some sort of sense... I'll show ya! you'll see!