The American military had been deep into the long project of producing robotic units capable of hunting and destroying mutant targets for some years. Unfortunately the project took a serious setback when one of its locations was broken into and several vital pieces of information were stolen or corrupted. The military is still not aware that the X-Men were behind it. Faced with leaked information about the project, Eclipse had broken rank and hired a professional thief, then-stranger Gambit, to acquire information from Project Wideawake. When he did so, he brought the project to a screeching halt and inadvertently began his association with the X-Men.

The Project continued rebuilding, redesigning the Sentinels with the suspicion that mutants may have been behind the attack. Production began on the units, and five Sentinel models were completed. However, they were not used until it became clear that Project Olympus was beginning to be a serious disappointment, with its star mutants, Shaitan and Poltergeist, gone awol. While Olympus struggled to bring them back in, the military liaison to the Project reported their failures back, and the decision was made to launch Project Widewake fully. For the target, they chose the base of the Mutant Liberation Front, a loosely organized group that had claimed responsibility for a few small criminal and terrorist actions.

At the time of the attack, Magneto and his new recruit Psylocke had come to the camp, with the express purpose of inviting some of their mutants to join the Brotherhood and to strike up an alliance with the MLF in general. The attack began at night, interrupting Magneto's speech to the gathered MLF members. While some blamed Magneto's presence for the attack, it was clear that the Sentinels were intent on destroy the MLF. Magneto fought against the robots, but he was severely outmatched.

The X-Men were alerted of the attack while the Sentinels were still en route. Their new member, Sage, was able to identify the communications and the X-Men moved to intercept. They arrived as the attack began, and broke into teams to fight the Sentinels. They managed to damage one to the point it would no longer function, but the Sentinels responded, adapting with learning technology. Storm, Garou, and Havok were all seriously injured in the fight, and the X-Men were forced to withdraw, taking as many survivors as they could from the MLF camp.

Magneto and Psylocke escaped as well. The battle has redirected his purpose, and Magneto has every intention of revisiting this attack on the humans responsible.

The government has had a significant success with the Sentinels, and have released footage of the battle. The most shown clip is of Magneto being defeated by the robots. The figures the government released to the media of the casualties was extremely low, and some agencies and activist groups are demanding an investigation. Most of the MLF members who were captured fleeing the camp have been taken to a specially designed prison for holding mutants, but the government has insisted no such place exists and that any mutants captured in the destruction of the terrorist camp were taken into custody by federal agents and processed normally through the legal system.