Since Halo 5 released, the general attitude towards the actions of Cortana has been one of general hatred and disgust. Her decision to activate the guardians, the destruction their awakenings caused, and the plan to enforce “peace” throughout the galaxy are all generally pointed at as reasons why she is completely insane and evil in H5.
This attitude has always puzzled me and with the approach of Halo Infinite, I’ve seen the discussion around Cortana being evil and needing to pay for her crimes pop up again.
The reason I don’t fully agree with the treatment of Cortana and her plans as purely evil and insane is primarily because of the events that occurred in the century or so preceeding Halo 5.
Humanity had spread across the stars and colonized dozens if not hundreds of worlds. It is reasonable to estimate that the human population across all of the colonized worlds numbered in the hundreds of billions if not higher, though someone more versed in the lore can correct me on that. Regardless, we know that by the end of the Human Covenant War (HCW), the last planet held by humanity in any meaningful sense, was Earth. Every other world had been turned into an inhospitable rock by Covenant glassing.
At the very least we know that hundreds of billions of humans were killed in the HCW, and the Covenant likely suffered casualties in the the tens of billions when we consider the HCW, the Covenant Civil War, and the loss of High Charity to the flood. This is not to mention the trillions of other lesser lifeforms and hundreds if not thousands of unique ecosystems that were destroyed by glassing or similar events throughout the covenants long reign.
Additionally, the galaxy was alternately nearly purged of life by the “Great Journey” or converted and killed by the flood.
Any way you look at it, the evidence shows that the path the sentient species of the galaxy are on is one of absolute destruction and, as evidenced by Sangheili Covenant War, this behavior did not end with the HCW. It is very plausible that many more worlds will be purged of life and many more species will be erased as time goes on.
In that context, is Cortanas decision to assume the mantle of responsibility and force the galaxy to behave so insane? Is it a pleasant idea? No. But humanity and all of the other species we’ve encountered have demonstrated that, left to their own devices, they WILL destroy themselves and everyone around them.
I think Cortana was represented poorly in H5 and that certainly doesn’t help her case, however it really do not understand why her actions are treated as completely insane and evil.