I have been rereading through the books these last couple of months, and obviously playing Halo, when I thought about just how different Cortana is to other AIs. This thought stemmed from my own idea of a fan fiction and how AI come to learn their original identity. The only one two AI we’ve really gotten an in depth look to other than Cortana herself is Black Box and Iona (I think… I slightly remember her mentioning it in Saint’s testimony, maybe). BB locked his true identity away so he couldn’t find it out, and Iona I can’t remember (I haven’t reread Saint’s Testimony since release, so please feel free to correct me).
Now to Cortana. She was aware of exactly where she came from for as long as I can remember. She may have only come from a clone, but the origin host of that clone had countless records and was the only person to even pretty much know if Cortana until she was paired with John. Now Cortana ended up despising Halsey, but you have to really wonder. Does Cortana view her as a mom? In the same manner she imagines John her, well we’ll just say partner.
Cortana has also been given a lot of freedom over her choices, and I mean really free to choose, something I don’t recall happening too often. She was given the choice of which Spartan to be paired with, and surprise surprise, it was the Spartan that Halsey herself would’ve picked to save if it meant Earth’s despise.
Now seeing what Cortana has become, can we possibly predict what she may do by thinking of what Halsey would do? Is this completely self aware, evolved AI capable of being predicted? Or is she now the smartest enemy that the galaxy could’ve ever faced?..
Anyways, those are just some of my thoughts, thanks for reading guys!
I noticed Halsey made a lot of references in how Cortana and her are basically the same. At the beginning of H5 she is talking to Locke while in well a memory with Cortana. First I thought she was meaning herself and Locke would be killed, but after watching it again I thought perhaps she was talking about herself and Cortana? Later in the game she mentions her justification for the SII program was to protect humanity and then tells Locke that she is Cortana having that much power is dangerous. Halsey created the Spartans for the greater good as she states in H4, along with stating the Spartans are their future as a species. Fast forward to H5 and Cortana wants to (by what I concluded) give all life an evolutionary boost. Similar to Halsey except a much larger scale.
A couple of points.
In all fiction prior to Halo 5, there was no suggestion of Cortana having any negative feelings towards Halsey. My thinking is that the hate she showed in Halo 5 stems from two places. The first is her rampancy, which basically gave voice to some more dormant aspects of her psyche. The second is Halsey’s own guilt regarding the Spartans. She blames herself for all their suffering, and Cortana, having a similar personality, also shares those feelings, but is separate enough to have them towards Halsey. We’re told the domain can cure rampancy, but I don’t think that was entirely accurate. It seems to stop them from degrading, but I think if they already started on that process, then they’ll be stuck as they were when they entered the domain. So if this particular Cortana (remember, at the end of Halo 4 there were many) had these negative feelings towards Halsey due to her rampancy, then she’ll still have them even after being “cured”.
Now, I don’t think her current actions are specifically her thinking “what would Halsey do”, rather, I think that it’s more along the lines of how Halsey may have once acted in the same position. As Halsey herself pointed out in Halo 5, her reasoning behind doing what she later felt guilty for, the creation of the S-IIs, was “for the greater good”. This is Cortana’s reasoning as well. The major difference between the two is that Halsey has come to believe that doing something with the intention it being for
“the greater good” is not necessarily the right thing to do.
That was a riveting response, like honestly. I couldn’t have expected a better answer than that. When you mentioned Halsey’s guilt and how Cortana may feel it too, I literally went “Ooooooh, that’s a very good point.” Thanks for the response man!
Excellent point on Cortana and Halsey not hating each other prior to this game. She was originally with Halsey before choosing the chief and in the reading they actually got along.
In the first books there were a few times when Halsey actually told Cortana her guilt and not wanting to sacrifice anymore lives, but erased it from her memory right after telling her. Ironic that Cortana is angry at Halsey over something Halsey actually confessed to her but doesn’t have the memories of it ever happening.
I could see how the Domain would stop rampancy but the current state one enters remains the same as it entered. During H4 Cortana ’ arguments with herself had a lot of back story of the Chief and the other SII’S. Perhaps her mind was arguing whether what happened to them was right and that thought was permanently left in her mind when she entered the Domain?