Halo 6, The End, and Cortana's Death

Community Halo Universe
1

Now, I’ve been thinking a decent amount about Halo 6 and the future of Halo games recently, and I’ve come to two conclusions:

  1. Cortana must die (for good) at the end of Halo 6
  2. Halo needs to end on the seventh game (Spin-offs would be kind of nice afterwards though)

Keep in mind, that these are the essence of shower thoughts, but I thought it might be decent to share them.

First, lets talk about Cortana. Throughout all of the franchise, she has been beloved by just about everyone. The ending of Halo 4 was quite a sad event, watching her fade away into seemingly nothingness, what we thought would be our last time seeing her. However in H5 she returned, and not in a way many of us were pleased with. Seeing her turn to “the dark side” wasn’t really a good choice story wise, in my opinion (and I’m sure I share that opinion with many). Now, it seems there are only a few options for what happens to her next, the first is she turns good again at the end of H6 (meh), she is killed off like other Halo villains (kind of meh), or what I’ve envisioned for her. As I’ve stated before, I think Cortana must die in this game, but it shouldn’t be in a simple “we destroy the villain in a boss fight and go home happy and victorious” kind of way. It should be in the form of a hard choice for the player to make. Now, at the end of Halo 6, The Chief should have all but destroyed Cortana, giving him the option to spare her or kill her. In these final moments the good side of her returns (kind of like during her rampancy in Halo 4), and realizes the wrong she has done. Chief, seeing that there is good left in her, obviously wants to keep her alive, however Cortana thinks otherwise. She knows that the evil side of her could return, and that she must be destroyed as the only way to possibly end what she has done. She begs the chief to do this, and after some back and forth between them, the camera switches to first person. The Chief slowly draws a magnum and points it at whatever is the physical manifestation of Cortana, and while she’s asking you to destroy her, one option appears on the screen: “Press RT to shoot.” Now, if you press the button, Chief shoots, and Cortana is destroyed (obviously). For most players who have been playing Halo for years, this should hardly be an easy choice. To put the death of one of our favourite characters into our own hands, and not just a cutscene, plays on a different level emotionally, which is what I think would make this ending so much better. Now of course what happens afterwards is up to 343 (as is all of this), but that’s just my two cents on how Cortana should die.

Lastly on to my second point, which won’t be too long. I think Halo should end with Halo 7 because of a few reasons. First of all, they could use 6 to clean up some loose ends caused by H5, and to polish up the story for quite a nice finale like we all hope for. Secondly, the number 7 alone has quite a bit of significance in Halo, mainly things such as the fact that there are 7 halos, Chiefs service tag is S-117, etc. (there’s many, many more 7 references).

Anyways, just a few shower thoughts I thought I’d share, feel free to discuss them.

2

I simply can’t imagine them doing this. Even very recently 343 still talk about Chief/Cortana being this dynamic duo and put a lot of stress on them having this bond; despite this apparently running counter to the current story. If 343 were building up to “Chief kills Cortana” then they wouldn’t be saying things like that.

Halo isn’t the sort of series where the hero of the story has to make a tough choice. Its far more likely a set up in which the Chief gets to save Cortana and the galaxy. Ultimately the game is still pushing a hero fantasy and its not really a tough choice when its a set of circumstances forced on the player.

The way I see Halo 6 playing out is that Cortana has not fully cured herself of rampancy and we do not know that. This is why she is taking over the galaxy. This makes Chief, the hero, personally responsible for solving this since it was his failure to solve that in Halo 4 that ultimately led to all of this. It would also allow him to be “that guy” who believes theres still a spark of good in her and she can still be saved. Now he may come under A LOT of pressure to kill Cortana, they probably won’t make it absolutely clear cut that she is rampant and this issue can be solved. This adds an element of risk to what the Chief plans. Is he right that he simply cures Cortana of rampancy and she won’t do whatever mad scheme she comes up with? It also means the Chief can be more of a hero figure and make a decision that potentially goes against those in authority; it makes him his own man. The conflict is of course that if he is wrong then Cortana’s plan could succeed. So the Chief cures Cortana of rampancy.

Which is when Cortana realizes all the horrible things she has done and millions of people she has killed. Her reaction to this is probably going to take the story in the opposite extreme. Instead of the AI ruling over all organic life, Cortana decides to seal herself, the Created (assuming they don’t betray her in a moment of weakness) and all Forerunner tech she controls away. Like Mendicant Bias she thinks this is the only way she can atone for what she has done. Which means they can in a future Halo game contrast the extremes of isolationism versus interventionism. For example, what happens if the Flood escape and Cortana is locked in the Domain with all the Prometheans in shutdown mode? Which could lead nicely into a redemption arc for Cortana and would push the narrative forward rather than “tie up loose ends”.

3

As I’ve stated before, I don’t think Halo should end at 7. As long as there are good stories to tell then they should continue with the games. That said, if you’re making the point that Halo should end with the potential end of the Master Chief’s story, I get it. I think there’s way too much potential to continue beyond (6 or 7) with other protagonists taking center stage. Whether you consider them spin-offs since they may not be called Halo 8 is separate debate to be had. But all in all, it shouldn’t be the end to Halo’s story… As I’m sure there’s many Forerunners stories that could pop back up (Janus Key arc) or new areas we never really knew much about (i.e. - introducing the Guardians in Halo 5).

4

Isn’t the evil overlord Cortana a fragment of the original? If so, what if other, less evil fragments survived and H5 Cortana doesn’t know about them, then someone finds the Didact’s ship and also the other Cortanas, so then 343i could kill off Cortana but also bring her back at the same time?

5

> 2533274796523661;3:
> As I’ve stated before, I don’t think Halo should end at 7. As long as there are good stories to tell then they should continue with the games. That said, if you’re making the point that Halo should end with the potential end of the Master Chief’s story, I get it. I think there’s way too much potential to continue beyond (6 or 7) with other protagonists taking center stage.

Oh no, I’m not saying that they should never make a Halo game of any sort after 7, just that they should end the story of Chief with 7 (sorry if I didn’t clarify that enough). There is indeed plenty more interesting stories that can be told in the Halo universe, and I’m sure that there will be many more games to come from these stories as well.

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> 2533274958671328;4:
> Isn’t the evil overlord Cortana a fragment of the original? If so, what if other, less evil fragments survived and H5 Cortana doesn’t know about them, then someone finds the Didact’s ship and also the other Cortanas, so then 343i could kill off Cortana but also bring her back at the same time?

Well, as far as I’m aware it’s unconfirmed as to if that version of Cortana is just a fragment of herself (whether one of many, or the only surviving one), or if it’s the only version of her to still exist. That said, if they are going to kill Cortana, I don’t want them to do what they did with H4 and H5 and bring her back from the dead, I want her to be gone for good (there has to be some permanent sense of loss). If they keep her alive, then so be it, but I’m not a big fan of killing off a fragment of her, while the others remain perfectly fine, there has to be some connection between the, where destroying one severely weakens the others or something.

7

I don’t think Cortana will stay evil. Or if she does, then I think it will get revealed she’s just a rampant fragment and a different Cortana will team up with John to help save the universe.
Microsoft is a business that cares about money and marketing. Why would they allow 343i to make Cortana go evil and try to subjugate all living beings and then have her be the voice of their AI on their phones, laptops, and computers? I’m not worried about Cortana.
If anything, I’m worried that Microsoft will pressure 343i to make changes to the story, or have them do something to the gameplay to push some sort of marketing agenda they have for the Xbox. I’m willing to bet that Halo 5’s always online multiplayer was a direct result of XBox1’s original drm, online always, media box plan.

There are a few things I’m worried about in 6, but 343i’s handling of the story is not one of them, especially since they said they will now focus on John more than ever.

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> 2535415966174493;7:
> I don’t think Cortana will stay evil. Or if she does, then I think it will get revealed she’s just a rampant fragment and a different Cortana will team up with John to help save the universe.
> Microsoft is a business that cares about money and marketing. Why would they allow 343i to make Cortana go evil and try to subjugate all living beings and then have her be the voice of their AI on their phones, laptops, and computers? I’m not worried about Cortana.
> If anything, I’m worried that Microsoft will pressure 343i to make changes to the story, or have them do something to the gameplay to push some sort of marketing agenda they have for the Xbox. I’m willing to bet that Halo 5’s always online multiplayer was a direct result of XBox1’s original drm, online always, media box plan.
>
> There are a few things I’m worried about in 6, but 343i’s handling of the story is not one of them, especially since they said they will now focus on John more than ever.

Good point, business does interfere with stories like this quite a bit unfortunately, and I do agree that they most likely won’t keep Cortana as an evil character for too long.

9

We already know it won’t end with 7 because they changed it from a trilogy to a saga.

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> 2535428051871852;9:
> We already know it won’t end with 7 because they changed it from a trilogy to a saga.

well that we know, but we don’t know how they define “saga”.
it could still mean that the current story or “arc” ends with Halo 6 but
they continue to keep the chief as the franchise’s face with prequels or spin-offs.

11

> 2533274886490718;10:
> > 2535428051871852;9:
> > We already know it won’t end with 7 because they changed it from a trilogy to a saga.
>
> well that we know, but we don’t know how they define “saga”.
> it could still mean that the current story or “arc” ends with Halo 6 but
> they continue to keep the chief as the franchise’s face with prequels or spin-offs.

I understand what you mean, but this is specifically the Reclaimer Saga, so it seems like it’ll stick to the “reclaimer” story rather than do spinoffs. For example, Halo Wars 2 isn’t part of the Reclaimer Saga.