In February of 2020 I made a post highlighting the similar naming conventions found in Bungie’s Marathon Trilogy when compared with 343i’s Halo games.
Marathon Trilogy:
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Marathon - Marathon 2: Durandal - Marathon InfinityReclaimer Saga:
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Halo 4 - Halo 5: Guardians - Halo Infinite
Since then I have had this idea in the back of my head wondering if we can use anything from the Marathon Trilogy (or more specifically, Marathon Infinity) to speculate on the plot of Halo Infinite.
I suspect that Cortana has somehow merged with The Weapon, or is in there somewhere. Cortana is what prevented their deletion upon successful deployment. I don’t think they could just get rid of the original Cortana and simply replace her with a look alike. I also don’t think they could just give us back the original Cortana but she’s had a change of heart.
Perhaps we’ll come across instances where The Weapon will interface with Forerunner tech but will be surprised. “How did I know to do that?” Given that Cortana is “gone” but the Weapon was not deleted, Cortana likely prevented the deletion and is in the Weapon now. And over time it will become clear Cortana is still with us.
Cutscene dialogue below.
The Weapon: The rogue A.I. known as Cortana is gone. She’s been deleted.
Master Chief: How? By you?
The Weapon: Of course not. Did you hit your head or something? Don’t you remember? My instructions were to enter this installation, imitate Cortana, and lock her down for retrieval. Yours were to take her back to the Infinity for deletion. So if it wasn’t you… okay then… There’s something else. On successful deployment, my deletion routine was supposed to complete. Still here… hehe.
…
Master Chief: Something stopped your deletion. We need to find out why.
But that’s just my theory!
So how does this relate to Marathon Infinity? The plot of Marathon Infinity is… crazy. Multiple timelines sort of thing. In Marathon Infinity you come across this Hybrid A.I. which is a combination of Durandal, an A.I. prevalent in all 3 games, and the A.I. Thoth, which is an even more advanced A.I. created by the Jjaro (essentially the Forerunners of Marathon.)
Now I am not suggesting that The Weapon has some connection to the Forerunners, only providing some backstory and context. However I do notice the similarity of plot regarding the combining of A.I.s between Marathon Infinity and my theory for Halo Infinite.
Marathon Infinity’s plot also involves the awakening of the W’rkncacnter, which is essentially Marathon’s Precursors. Given the history we know of Zeta Halo from Halo: Primordium, it’s hard not to make more connections to Marathon Infinity.
Perhaps there are other connections from the other two Marathon games that could be made to Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians. Rampancy is a main piece of both games, but I do concede that its place in Halo is wholly inspired from Marathon’s usage too.