Just my opinion

Games Halo Infinite
1

This is just my opinion, I don’t mind if everybody else disagrees, but I just want put it out there.

After the trailer/teaser came out, I watched many YouTube videos about the future of the story, especially after watching Halo Canon’s “Halo Infinite - The Armor and the AI” today, I just couldn’t help myself wondering: can people really accept that Cortana turned evil?

I personally still cannot, after all the times from Halo 1-4, all the stuff she and Chief been through and all the emotions, and she turns evil?

After Halo 4 I was actual ok how she sacrificed her self, part of me wanted her to come back, but part of me accepted the ending because it was actually good. We explored who she is, what she really wanted, and she was eventually able to touch John. If that was the end of her, I was ok to have a new AI to replace her, but then comes Halo 5, and Cortana is revived and somehow evil. At this point I am not ok for Chief to team up with another AI to kill her. I was already emotionally damaged after Halo 4’s ending, and if we team up with another AI to kill Cortana in the new game, it’s like stabbing my heart with a thousand blades.

To think about it, 343 could just leave her dead at the end of 4 and that would be fine for me, but reviving her just for us to kill her again, I personally think that’s, well, screwed up. It’s like 343 is telling us “Kill the past…”, I used a line from The Last Jedi, and we all know how that movie turned out (I personally liked the movie, but I also understand why people are angry about it, especially how they treated Luke, and slowly my opinion came in line with them).

With that said, I do think if they can write an amazing story with that plot, I’ll be fine eventually, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.

For me personally, I hope the revived Cortana is not the real Cortana (some how either just a corrupted fragment, or something else managed to stole her data and believed itself to be her, or a twisted copy made by the real bad guy behind the scene, I don’t know, but there are way too many options).

I hope the Chip we put in is the actual Cortana (or fragment or copy that’s not corrupted) or some one has a deep connection with her (I don’t need her to be alive, I just hope she rests in peace).

But in the end I just wanted to say after watching the trailer, it restored much of my love of Halo (Thanks 343!), so even if that’s the plot they are going for, and as long as it’s well executed, I’ll be happy.

2

> 2533275015292603;1:
> This is just my opinion, I don’t mind if everybody else disagrees, but I just want put it out there.
>
> After the trailer/teaser came out, I watched many YouTube videos about the future of the story, especially after watching Halo Canon’s “Halo Infinite - The Armor and the AI” today, I just couldn’t help myself wondering: can people really accept that Cortana turned evil?
>
> I personally still cannot, after all the times from Halo 1-4, all the stuff she and Chief been through and all the emotions, and she turns evil?
>
> After Halo 4 I was actual ok how she sacrificed her self, part of me wanted her to come back, but part of me accepted the ending because it was actually good. We explored who she is, what she really wanted, and she was eventually able to touch John. If that was the end of her, I was ok to have a new AI to replace her, but then comes Halo 5, and Cortana is revived and somehow evil. At this point I am not ok for Chief to team up with another AI to kill her. I was already emotionally damaged after Halo 4’s ending, and if we team up with another AI to kill Cortana in the new game, it’s like stabbing my heart with a thousand blades.
>
> To think about it, 343 could just leave her dead at the end of 4 and that would be fine for me, but reviving her just for us to kill her again, I personally think that’s, well, screwed up. It’s like 343 is telling us “Kill the past…”, I used a line from The Last Jedi, and we all know how that movie turned out (I personally liked the movie, but I also understand why people are angry about it, especially how they treated Luke, and slowly my opinion came in line with them).
>
> With that said, I do think if they can write an amazing story with that plot, I’ll be fine eventually, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.
>
> For me personally, I hope the revived Cortana is not the real Cortana (some how either just a corrupted fragment, or something else managed to stole her data and believed itself to be her, or a twisted copy made by the real bad guy behind the scene, I don’t know, but there are way too many options).
>
> I hope the Chip we put in is the actual Cortana (or fragment or copy that’s not corrupted) or some one has a deep connection with her (I don’t need her to be alive, I just hope she rests in peace).
>
> But in the end I just wanted to say after watching the trailer, it restored much of my love of Halo (Thanks 343!), so even if that’s the plot they are going for, and as long as it’s well executed, I’ll be happy.

It would have done a lot more for chiefs character if they kept her dead after halo 4.Even though this is a fragment,it kind of lessens her sacrifice at the end of halo 4

3

The revived Cortana is the real Cortana. It’d be nice to think otherwise, but Brian Reed said that Cortana surviving (not her rampant fragment surviving, not an evil personality surviving, just point blank Cortana surviving) was known since before Halo 4 was done being developed. Now, I have several things that would make me think otherwise, but that’s the reality of the situation. Either way, I’d prefer Halo not become a soap opera with literal “evil twins” running around that the “good twin” has to help stop. 343 Industries have already ruined Cortana, I say let her die for real in Halo Infinite. If Chief gets a new AI, let it be something completely different. Not a clone of Cortana, maybe not even an AI from Halsey’s mind.

4

> 2533274812652989;3:
> The revived Cortana is the real Cortana. It’d be nice to think otherwise, but Brian Reed said that Cortana surviving (not her rampant fragment surviving, not an evil personality surviving, just point blank Cortana surviving) was known since before Halo 4 was done being developed. Now, I have several things that would make me think otherwise, but that’s the reality of the situation. Either way, I’d prefer Halo not become a soap opera with literal “evil twins” running around that the “good twin” has to help stop. 343 Industries have already ruined Cortana, I say let her die for real in Halo Infinite. If Chief gets a new AI, let it be something completely different. Not a clone of Cortana, maybe not even an AI from Halsey’s mind.

Really? I thought it was the opposite and she was just a rampant fragment

5

> 2533274830166194;4:
> > 2533274812652989;3:
> > The revived Cortana is the real Cortana. It’d be nice to think otherwise, but Brian Reed said that Cortana surviving (not her rampant fragment surviving, not an evil personality surviving, just point blank Cortana surviving) was known since before Halo 4 was done being developed. Now, I have several things that would make me think otherwise, but that’s the reality of the situation. Either way, I’d prefer Halo not become a soap opera with literal “evil twins” running around that the “good twin” has to help stop. 343 Industries have already ruined Cortana, I say let her die for real in Halo Infinite. If Chief gets a new AI, let it be something completely different. Not a clone of Cortana, maybe not even an AI from Halsey’s mind.
>
> Really? I thought it was the opposite and she was just a rampant fragment

Nobody at 343 to my knowledge has ever specified if what we see is just a rampant fragment. Even the comic short story “Dominion Splinter” is ambiguous considering the Cortana there says she is just a fragment before more fragments show up to sneak past the Warden Eternal. And given how she is a known liar and manipulator in Halo 5, why should I take her word for it?

6

Yeah Cortana coming back to become our evil robot overlord was easily the dumbest thing about the halo 5 campaign but I would actually be ok with it if they say that she has the logic plague from her time with the grave mind. Cortana having the logic plague has been teased recently in some of the halo loot crates so it’s very possible.

7

> 2533274932512744;6:
> Yeah Cortana coming back to become our evil robot overlord was easily the dumbest thing about the halo 5 campaign but I would actually be ok with it if they say that she has the logic plague from her time with the grave mind. Cortana having the logic plague has been teased recently in some of the halo loot crates so it’s very possible.

So has her just being innately untrustworthy (as seen in the crate where her not telling anybody she had the Index is discussed), to her being rampant (as seen in the crate where she kills Aine) to even being corrupted by a Covenant AI. It’s all just stuff being thrown to the wall to see what sticks. I think even the logic plague is a stretch. Yeah, she contacted the Gravemind, but we see her entire journey in the short story Human Weakness and she rejects everything it offers her and outlasts its torture. For her to have been super-duper secretly corrupted this whole time would be a slap in the face to her character.

8

> 2533274812652989;7:
> > 2533274932512744;6:
> > Yeah Cortana coming back to become our evil robot overlord was easily the dumbest thing about the halo 5 campaign but I would actually be ok with it if they say that she has the logic plague from her time with the grave mind. Cortana having the logic plague has been teased recently in some of the halo loot crates so it’s very possible.
>
> So has her just being innately untrustworthy (as seen in the crate where her not telling anybody she had the Index is discussed), to her being rampant (as seen in the crate where she kills Aine) to even being corrupted by a Covenant AI. It’s all just stuff being thrown to the wall to see what sticks. I think even the logic plague is a stretch. Yeah, she contacted the Gravemind, but we see her entire journey in the short story Human Weakness and she rejects everything it offers her and outlasts its torture. For her to have been super-duper secretly corrupted this whole time would be a slap in the face to her character.

The thing I always found most interesting about the logic plague is the idea of a super-intelligent, super-malevolent being corrupting the mind of another being just by having a conversation, though subliminal stuff like speech patterns and choice rhetoric that gently nudges the other mind down a new path. Not the brute-force hacking and torture and open argument. So the victim might walk away from the encounter thinking they won, but changed in ways they might never know or understand. I guess that taps into a lot of conspiracy-type paranoia but that’s probably why I find it compelling.

9

She should just die in Infinite

10

> 2533274953123640;8:
> > 2533274812652989;7:
> > > 2533274932512744;6:
> > > Yeah Cortana coming back to become our evil robot overlord was easily the dumbest thing about the halo 5 campaign but I would actually be ok with it if they say that she has the logic plague from her time with the grave mind. Cortana having the logic plague has been teased recently in some of the halo loot crates so it’s very possible.
> >
> > So has her just being innately untrustworthy (as seen in the crate where her not telling anybody she had the Index is discussed), to her being rampant (as seen in the crate where she kills Aine) to even being corrupted by a Covenant AI. It’s all just stuff being thrown to the wall to see what sticks. I think even the logic plague is a stretch. Yeah, she contacted the Gravemind, but we see her entire journey in the short story Human Weakness and she rejects everything it offers her and outlasts its torture. For her to have been super-duper secretly corrupted this whole time would be a slap in the face to her character.
>
> The thing I always found most interesting about the logic plague is the idea of a super-intelligent, super-malevolent being corrupting the mind of another being just by having a conversation, though subliminal stuff like speech patterns and choice rhetoric that gently nudges the other mind down a new path. So the victim might walk away from the encounter thinking they won, but changed in ways they might never know or understand. I guess that taps into a lot of conspiracy-type paranoia but that’s probably why I find it compelling.

The big issue you run into, however, is that you start to create plot holes where none previously existed. Cortana’s no Contender-class ancilla, so it wouldn’t take 43 years to subvert her with the logic plague. But if the Gravemind could infect her, then it should have had no problem taking the Index from her (which was an immediate threat to its existence). You could argue it was all part of some master plan that the Gravemind didn’t need to the Index (thus suggesting it wanted to lose on the Ark and Installation 08), but it strikes me as odd how nobody detected the logic plague since. We know Chief contacted Mendicant Bias and you mean to tell me it couldn’t detect the plague within Cortana? The Ur-Didact, a fellow victim of the plague, didn’t notice it? The Librarian AI didn’t notice it? The Warden Eternal didn’t notice it? Exuberant Witness never noticed it? It’s not like it was something the Forerunners were unable to detect.

11

> 2533274812652989;10:
> > 2533274953123640;8:
> > > 2533274812652989;7:
> > > > 2533274932512744;6:
> > > > Yeah Cortana coming back to become our evil robot overlord was easily the dumbest thing about the halo 5 campaign but I would actually be ok with it if they say that she has the logic plague from her time with the grave mind. Cortana having the logic plague has been teased recently in some of the halo loot crates so it’s very possible.
> > >
> > > So has her just being innately untrustworthy (as seen in the crate where her not telling anybody she had the Index is discussed), to her being rampant (as seen in the crate where she kills Aine) to even being corrupted by a Covenant AI. It’s all just stuff being thrown to the wall to see what sticks. I think even the logic plague is a stretch. Yeah, she contacted the Gravemind, but we see her entire journey in the short story Human Weakness and she rejects everything it offers her and outlasts its torture. For her to have been super-duper secretly corrupted this whole time would be a slap in the face to her character.
> >
> > The thing I always found most interesting about the logic plague is the idea of a super-intelligent, super-malevolent being corrupting the mind of another being just by having a conversation, though subliminal stuff like speech patterns and choice rhetoric that gently nudges the other mind down a new path. So the victim might walk away from the encounter thinking they won, but changed in ways they might never know or understand. I guess that taps into a lot of conspiracy-type paranoia but that’s probably why I find it compelling.
>
> The big issue you run into, however, is that you start to create plot holes where none previously existed. Cortana’s no Contender-class ancilla, so it wouldn’t take 43 years to subvert her with the logic plague. But if the Gravemind could infect her, then it should have had no problem taking the Index from her (which was an immediate threat to its existence). You could argue it was all part of some master plan that the Gravemind didn’t need to the Index (thus suggesting it wanted to lose on the Ark and Installation 08), but it strikes me as odd how nobody detected the logic plague since. We know Chief contacted Mendicant Bias and you mean to tell me it couldn’t detect the plague within Cortana? The Ur-Didact, a fellow victim of the plague, didn’t notice it? The Librarian AI didn’t notice it? The Warden Eternal didn’t notice it? Exuberant Witness never noticed it? It’s not like it was something the Forerunners were unable to detect.

Yeah, you’re right. I suppose I feel the Flood should have been depicted as more direly virulent than it ever really was in the games.

12

> 2533274953123640;11:
> > 2533274812652989;10:
> > > 2533274953123640;8:
> > > > 2533274812652989;7:
> > > > > 2533274932512744;6:
> > > > > Yeah Cortana coming back to become our evil robot overlord was easily the dumbest thing about the halo 5 campaign but I would actually be ok with it if they say that she has the logic plague from her time with the grave mind. Cortana having the logic plague has been teased recently in some of the halo loot crates so it’s very possible.
> > > >
> > > > So has her just being innately untrustworthy (as seen in the crate where her not telling anybody she had the Index is discussed), to her being rampant (as seen in the crate where she kills Aine) to even being corrupted by a Covenant AI. It’s all just stuff being thrown to the wall to see what sticks. I think even the logic plague is a stretch. Yeah, she contacted the Gravemind, but we see her entire journey in the short story Human Weakness and she rejects everything it offers her and outlasts its torture. For her to have been super-duper secretly corrupted this whole time would be a slap in the face to her character.
> > >
> > > The thing I always found most interesting about the logic plague is the idea of a super-intelligent, super-malevolent being corrupting the mind of another being just by having a conversation, though subliminal stuff like speech patterns and choice rhetoric that gently nudges the other mind down a new path. So the victim might walk away from the encounter thinking they won, but changed in ways they might never know or understand. I guess that taps into a lot of conspiracy-type paranoia but that’s probably why I find it compelling.
> >
> > The big issue you run into, however, is that you start to create plot holes where none previously existed. Cortana’s no Contender-class ancilla, so it wouldn’t take 43 years to subvert her with the logic plague. But if the Gravemind could infect her, then it should have had no problem taking the Index from her (which was an immediate threat to its existence). You could argue it was all part of some master plan that the Gravemind didn’t need to the Index (thus suggesting it wanted to lose on the Ark and Installation 08), but it strikes me as odd how nobody detected the logic plague since. We know Chief contacted Mendicant Bias and you mean to tell me it couldn’t detect the plague within Cortana? The Ur-Didact, a fellow victim of the plague, didn’t notice it? The Librarian AI didn’t notice it? The Warden Eternal didn’t notice it? Exuberant Witness never noticed it? It’s not like it was something the Forerunners were unable to detect.
>
> Yeah, you’re right. I suppose I feel the Flood should have been depicted as more direly virulent than it ever really was in the games.

I will say that before Halo 5, I’d have probably been cool with the logic plague in the games (some of the stuff happening in Hunt the Truth made me think it was coming after all), but besides my issues above, I also fear what we’d get in the games is a watered down version that misses what made the original so scary. It’s like how the Domain went from this semi-sentient repository of esoteric knowledge and information in the books to “Thing that lets Cortana assume direct control of Forerunner stuff”.

13

If you ask me making Cortana good again would be even cheaper than bringing her back as a villain in the first place. There just isn’t room for a meaningful redemption arc here.

14

> 2533274876631466;13:
> If you ask me making Cortana good again would be even cheaper than bringing her back as a villain in the first place. There just isn’t room for a meaningful redemption arc here.

As much as I don’t like the current story, it’s very true, I guess I just have to trust them to make the story good doesn’t matter what they do to Cortana.

15

Just something came to my mind, they made the Windows AI Cortana, if the do make her pure evil, that’s would look pretty bad for Windows doesn’t it? From this I would say there is still hope for Cortana to be good again, but how they execute that I don’t know.

16

I don’t think that’s really much of a concern.

17

> 2533274812652989;7:
> > 2533274932512744;6:
> > Yeah Cortana coming back to become our evil robot overlord was easily the dumbest thing about the halo 5 campaign but I would actually be ok with it if they say that she has the logic plague from her time with the grave mind. Cortana having the logic plague has been teased recently in some of the halo loot crates so it’s very possible.
>
> So has her just being innately untrustworthy (as seen in the crate where her not telling anybody she had the Index is discussed), to her being rampant (as seen in the crate where she kills Aine) to even being corrupted by a Covenant AI. It’s all just stuff being thrown to the wall to see what sticks. I think even the logic plague is a stretch. Yeah, she contacted the Gravemind, but we see her entire journey in the short story Human Weakness and she rejects everything it offers her and outlasts its torture. For her to have been super-duper secretly corrupted this whole time would be a slap in the face to her character.

Yeah ik but idk any other way they could justify her character doing a complete 180 like the way she did in 5

18

Can I accept it? Hell no. My favorite character was ruined by halo 5, not only do they bring her back from the dead and ruin part of H4s plot for chief, they then decide to run with the story of “good turns evil” while being revived. Cheap 343, cheap :confused: there’s nothing they can do to fix that either, what’s done is done.

19

> 2533274932512744;17:
> > 2533274812652989;7:
> > > 2533274932512744;6:
> > > Yeah Cortana coming back to become our evil robot overlord was easily the dumbest thing about the halo 5 campaign but I would actually be ok with it if they say that she has the logic plague from her time with the grave mind. Cortana having the logic plague has been teased recently in some of the halo loot crates so it’s very possible.
> >
> > So has her just being innately untrustworthy (as seen in the crate where her not telling anybody she had the Index is discussed), to her being rampant (as seen in the crate where she kills Aine) to even being corrupted by a Covenant AI. It’s all just stuff being thrown to the wall to see what sticks. I think even the logic plague is a stretch. Yeah, she contacted the Gravemind, but we see her entire journey in the short story Human Weakness and she rejects everything it offers her and outlasts its torture. For her to have been super-duper secretly corrupted this whole time would be a slap in the face to her character.
>
> Yeah ik but idk any other way they could justify her character doing a complete 180 like the way she did in 5

You can’t.

20

it could be another cortana. After all she is seeded from DNA of Halsey who made plenty of herself to go around (that sound dirty on so many ways but screw it lets roll with it.)

Just stay optimistic buddy, I doubt theyll throw in someone BRAND NEW into the mix because i for one too have a soft spot for Cortana.

You do need to put into a count thought that the voice actors are deteriorating themselves. They can only work so long before they retire. Alot of people dont know but the guy who voices chief does a radio talk show for some part of California I forget where and if he still does it Im pretty sure he was set to retire soon in a public announcement he made on the show but none the less if you ever felt the need to listen to his legendary voice all the time whilst grinding for your REQs then go check out his works.