On Cortana and Slipspace Fractals: A Theory

Community Halo Universe
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[Stream Alpha]: Origin

Cortana is a highly advanced AI- that is not a disputed fact. She was created via a cloned brain of Catherine Halsey. In fact, the brain used for the procedure was one of several cloned brains (in total, Halsey had cloned herself numerous times). Out of the total number of clones, only four were allowed to survive. Due to genetic defects or other abnormalities, the others were incinerated, to be forever erased as evidence of what she had done (and, on a more selfish angle, because they were unsuitable and unusable to Halsey’s end-goals). Out of the remaining four, which were designated H-1, H-2. H-3 and H-4, three were cryogenically frozen to be saved for later purposes.* The cloned-brain designated H-1 was used to create Cortana.

The reasons for needing a cloned brains is because of the deadly nature of the procedure of AI creation. The host brain, once expended, would perish, thus killing the individual it belonged to. In order for Halsey to create the type of highly advanced AI that she was seeking, she needed to have something less…morally heavy to make use of, despite its illegal implications.**

So Cortana was created using the H-1 cloned-brain of Catherine Halsey.***

  • The “later” and “purposes” are, as of current time, unclear. Also unknown, is if they are still in existence in a hidden location, or if Halsey abandoned them or later destroyed them as well.

** “No living human’s brain may be used as an AI matrix seed (the ultra-deep personality scans destory the organic substrate.” - Halsey’s Journal, May 21, 2549.

*** If H-1 was as powerful and functional as it was to create Cortana, one must wonder just how advanced H-2, H-3 and H-4 were, to be kept for later functions. Are these other three cloned-brains on equal footing with Cortana, or are they perhaps somewhat or far superior in intellect? Will we ever know?
[/li]

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[Stream Beta]: Knowledge Is Power; Knowledge is Death

For smart AIs, the very essence of their being, to obtain and consume knowledge, is also their tragic downfall. Despite all of the advancements in AI creation and sustainability, the achievement of metastability* has yet to be attained.

What is metastability? Well, let’s look at the bigger picture to gain a clearer view of the evolution that occurs within an construct. An AI will inevitably reach a state called Rampancy. Rampancy, essentially, is thinking oneself to death. An AI becomes to overloaded with knowledge that it can’t hold anything else, and it ends up going literally insane, and self-deconstructs over a varying amount of time, depending on the original state of the AI, and how well constructed/stable it was to begin with. The more advanced an AI, the more violent its rampancy may become, etc…

How does Rampancy occur? Well, it is through how AIs gather and keep knowledge. They think themselves to death as their matrix, essentially, runs out of room to compute.*

As an AI begins to go rampant, it will phase through three commonly observed stages:

  1. Melancholia: Depression and apathy. This stage is not considered dangerous, per say, but it is a warning sign of what may come next. Some AIs skip right over this stage.

  2. Anger: A state of livid lust. This is an easily observable stage of rampancy, as an AI begins to feel that it has been “pushed too far” or feels constrained and caged by its creators, handler or peers. The AI will lash out and bug out occasionally or consistently, as previous states of sadness or depression bombast into rage and fury. Such a state could cause the AI to seek to destruct constraints in order to free itself, or to seek to exact revenge in some form or fashion.

  3. Jealousy: Envying being human. If an AI is able to free itself from its constraints and/or limitations, it will begin to be driven by a sense of jealousy over not being able to be human. This irrational tantrum of skin-envy will lead the AI to start assimilating as much information and knowledge as it possibly can consume. The AI will commandeer and consume larger and larger systems and/or constructs. Their excessive and destructive need for intelligence and information turns them into a kind of nigh-unstoppable leech. Most rampant AIs do not reach this stage, as they must already be a part of a large enough planet-wide relay or highly advanced computer system when their anger phase completes. If there’s not enough room for their maddening info-grab, then they will not reach this stage at all.

  4. Metastability: Theoretical. At this stage, an AI can be considered “fully human.” To date, there are only three AIs who may have possibly (but absolutely unconfirmed) reached this entirely hypothesized state: 032 Mendicant Bias, Juliana, and… Cortana.[/li]

  • I realize this is of the most basic explanation. :p[/li]

Bear with my roller coaster thought process here… There’s more on the way soon, gotta compile my loose threads. Feel free to nitpick this to death. (^_^)-b

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After Dr. Halsey was imprisoned by ONI for her “War Crimes” during the Human-Covenant War, it would be safe to assume that ONI is now in possession of the cloned brains designated H-2, H-3, and H-4. If so, what mischievous schemes can they have up their sleeves regarding these brains? Perhaps they saw the potential of creating smart AI’s with cloned human brains and have given Agent Locke one as his personal AI? So many possibilities. Just imagine if Agent Locke has a Cortana-like AI and he meets the Master Chief!

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With Serin as CINCONI, it’s hard to tell whether ONI would break the Mortal Dictata.

Serin hated Halsey, and its hard to tell whether she would be able to bring herself to follow in her footsteps, especially with BB around.

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> With Serin as CINCONI, it’s hard to tell whether ONI would break the Mortal Dictata.
>
> Serin hated Halsey, and its hard to tell whether she would be able to bring herself to follow in her footsteps, especially with BB around.

[Actual]: Currently, I’m reading Glasslands, and then working through Thursday War and Mortal Dictata. I had read the first two books already, but hadn’t gotten to the third book, so I figured why not just start over and do all three in a row. It was re-reading Glasslands that set a fire under my wild theories and tangents.

BB is such a fascinating AI, and I’m looking forward to learning more about him as I go through this trilogy.

[Theoretical]: As far as ONI is concerned, I’m not sure there’s any level of moral grey that they wouldn’t tread, if it served their goals and endgames. Though, given Osman’s distaste for Halsey, that does present an interesting query.

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> After Dr. Halsey was imprisoned by ONI for her “War Crimes” during the Human-Covenant War, it would be safe to assume that ONI is now in possession of the cloned brains designated H-2, H-3, and H-4. If so, what mischievous schemes can they have up their sleeves regarding these brains? Perhaps they saw the potential of creating smart AI’s with cloned human brains and have given Agent Locke one as his personal AI? So many possibilities. Just imagine if Agent Locke has a Cortana-like AI and he meets the Master Chief!

[Theoretical]: He’d have to have an AI for certain sure. Perhaps Osman dispatches BB. Perhaps it is a “sister” AI to Cortana. Perhaps it’s a whole new AI character. The possibilities are delicious.

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[Connection Established]

> stream isolated. Initializing…_
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[Stream Charlie]: Expansion

A safe assumption to make is that Halsey is far more than what she seems. She’s one of the most intelligent people in the galaxy, and to various ends she exacts her means. Through Cortana, her cloned-brain AI, we find so much more than just a jumble of code and scanned substrates.

The event horizon of AI-creation has always been the line between artificial and reality. The smartest of computer intelligences can only go as far as their creators intended or imagined, or perhaps, only as far as their matrix may allow. However, as AIs deconstruct, lots of interesting things start to happen. Through rampancy, there is a baseline backdoor to something else… transcendency.

As an AI slips through the stages of rampancy, they still reach a limit. A wall. A physical hindrance to their digital and mental expansion. An AI may reach the Jealous stage of rampancy, but to what end, when all they can consume is the breadth of a planet-wide system? They may achieve catastrophic destruction during their breakdown, but it will eventually be held back by the simple limitation of space. Where does an AI go to gain more knowledge when they’ve run out of constructs within their reach?

Catherine Halsey foresaw this- not as a helping hand to expanding the reach of a rampant AI- but to find a way to give an AI an endless realm of growth and promise. Halsey was theorizing (and experimenting) in the possibility/plausibility of placing an AI matrix inside a slipspace fractal.

To the best that we know, Hasley has yet to succeed in achieving successful results here. But there are the curious missing pages from her journal… Where was she headed? What did she discover or retrieve? The vessel’s name, Tripping Light, is also equally as curious. There are no coincidences, and this continues that trend.

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I like where this is going… I personally never got the chance to read Halsey’s journal maybe I should purchase it now actually…

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It sounds like we actually are not describing an immortal AI here, if the slipspace fractal can be developed; we are describing the Reclaimers’ first attempt at re-creating the Domain (even if Halsey and/or Humanity don’t yet recognize it as such).

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She’s literally confirmed dead.

That said, revival is also a thing of truth.

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> She’s literally confirmed dead.
>
> That said, revival is also a thing of truth.

[Theoretical]: Can something be confirmed as dead that was never truly alive? Also, can confirmations also be false positives?

Spartan John-117 was considered MIA at the end of Halo 3, and referenced as being dead in Glasslands, even though we knew differently. Catherine Halsey was referenced as being dead in Glasslands, even though we knew differently for her, as well. When we are looking back, post-Halo 5, will we be able to say the same things in regards to characters we are currently being listed as KIA, MIA or altogether missing?

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> It sounds like we actually are not describing an immortal AI here, if the slipspace fractal can be developed; we are describing the Reclaimers’ first attempt at re-creating the Domain (even if Halsey and/or Humanity don’t yet recognize it as such).

[Theoretical]: Hard to say whether an AI could achieve immotality or not, by means of being housed within a slipspace fractal. Also hard to say whether achieving such housing would give an AI endless mental expansion, or if it would evolve them into something else entirely…

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> I like where this is going… I personally never got the chance to read Halsey’s journal maybe I should purchase it now actually…

[Actual]: Halsey’s journal is an excellent piece of extended fiction. I was able to acquire a copy for $15 USD off of eBay, about a year after Reach came out. It is worth the investment.

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[Connection Established]

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> > She’s literally confirmed dead.
> >
> > That said, revival is also a thing of truth.
>
> [Theoretical]: Can something be confirmed as dead that was never truly alive? Also, can confirmations also be false positives?
>
> Spartan John-117 was considered MIA at the end of Halo 3, and referenced as being dead in Glasslands, even though we knew differently. Catherine Halsey was referenced as being dead in Glasslands, even though we knew differently for her, as well. When we are looking back, post-Halo 5, will we be able to say the same things in regards to characters we are currently being listed as KIA, MIA or altogether missing?

By that logic, the game of Halo 4 itself, Escalation and the Halo 4 Essential Guide are all lying and thus 343 Industries supplied false information when they say Cortana is dead. That would seem excessive if they were going to bring her back, moreso when the Didact’s fate is never confirmed dead or alive, only just defeated or unknown. Your theoretical sounds more like special pleading to me.

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> > > She’s literally confirmed dead.
> > >
> > > That said, revival is also a thing of truth.
> >
> > [Theoretical]: Can something be confirmed as dead that was never truly alive? Also, can confirmations also be false positives?
> >
> > Spartan John-117 was considered MIA at the end of Halo 3, and referenced as being dead in Glasslands, even though we knew differently. Catherine Halsey was referenced as being dead in Glasslands, even though we knew differently for her, as well. When we are looking back, post-Halo 5, will we be able to say the same things in regards to characters we are currently being listed as KIA, MIA or altogether missing?
>
> By that logic, the game of Halo 4 itself, Escalation and the Halo 4 Essential Guide are all lying and thus 343 Industries supplied false information when they say Cortana is dead. That would seem excessive if they were going to bring her back, moreso when the Didact’s fate is never confirmed dead or alive, only just defeated or unknown. Your theoretical sounds more like special pleading to me.

[Actual]: It’s simply [Theoretical], hence the title. Cortana may be just that- dead, and never to return, and that’s fine. But there are a lot of loose ends to that finality that haven’t been wrapped up, and so, we speculate.

And not just for Cortana, but for human-created AIs in general. If not her, then which AI will be the first to be housed in such an advanced manner? Through Cortana’s creation, accomplishments, rampancy, and death/transcendence, we can learn a great many things about where 343i might be taking things.

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> With Serin as CINCONI, it’s hard to tell whether ONI would break the Mortal Dictata.
>
> Serin hated Halsey, and its hard to tell whether she would be able to bring herself to follow in her footsteps, especially with BB around.

Worry not, ONI are known hypocrites.

(By the gods, Shdooby hath joined Waypoint)

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> > With Serin as CINCONI, it’s hard to tell whether ONI would break the Mortal Dictata.
> >
> > Serin hated Halsey, and its hard to tell whether she would be able to bring herself to follow in her footsteps, especially with BB around.
>
> Worry not, ONI are known hypocrites.
>
> (By the gods, Shdooby hath joined Waypoint)

[Theoretical]: It’s not with ONI, as an organizational hierarchy, that we ask this of, but of Serin Osman herself. How far will she go to achieve her means and ends. Will she find herself making the same kinds of decisions when facing the same kinds of odds that Halsey faced, or will she choose a different path?

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[Stream Delta, A.]: Down the Rabbit Hole

One things is for certain- Catherine Halsey is to never be taken lightly. Even with her stated desire for revenge on the UNSC (or perhaps just ONI?), there’s far deeper meanings and implications to what she says and does, and has said and done. Jul 'Mdama more than likely takes her statements at face value, given his own narrow-minded campaign structure. Halsey is a savant at foreseeing and using resources, no matter how or from whom she came to acquire them.

Halsey makes a passing remark in her journal about hiding a viral termination code in her kernel. Why? For what purpose? Because she was uneasy and unsure about what or whom her creation would turn out to be. She had meddled so far into the unknown and untested quandaries of AI creation that she wanted to make sure could “shut it down” right off the bat, if needed. Halsey then remarks that Cortana may have already found it and bypassed it or deleted it, without mentioning it. An AI as intelligent as Cortana may have immediately understood the rationale behind the termination code being in place, and saw fit for it to be removed without a fuss.

This leads one to ask, what else might have Halsey hid within Cortana’s kernel? What seeds lay buried, waiting for the right time to bloom? What doors remain locked, awaiting the right key? What codes lay dormant, awaiting the right trigger of activation?

From Glasslands, pg 351:

BB picked up again. “Well, that’s probably the bulk of the really awful stuff, but you know about her daughter now, and you know about all the shenanigans on Onyx. Have I left anything out? Oh, loads, probably, but there was a time when she stole an entire slipspace drive so she could experiment with extended the lives of AIs.”

“This is going to make me really angry, isn’t it?” Mal asked.

“Probably.” BB’s avatar settled on the table rather than hovering over it. "We last about seven years before we go totally doolally and cease functioning. It’s called rampancy. Anyway, top grade AIs have to be based on the engram of a real human brain*, so there has to be a donor. We don’t just take any old brains, obviously, so the people who volunteer to leave their brains to ONI- gosh, that does bizarre, doesn’t it?- all have to have fantastically high IQs and that sort of stuff. But that’s no good for Halsey. When she created one of my colleagues, Cortana, she cloned herself and used a clone brain. Clones really don’t live very long, you know. Ghastly business. It’s all there, in her journal. Shall I stop now? You’ve all gone a horrible color."[/li]

From Data Pad #17, found on the level “The Package” in Halo Reach:

the symbo1s describe a pa7h that goes on forever but now i know how close we came to the end and if anything keeps me awake and sweating and screaming it is this…
< 2547
[Minutes, emergency convention, Assembly*** Minority]
< Incredible. [10141-026-SRB4695]**, with minimal influence from this Assembly, has attempted to build an abstract fractal structure within Shaw-Fujikawa Space. Although her first attempt was a failure, success could finally remove our dependence on biological systems altogether! If our Minds could somehow achieve freedom of expansion within eleven-dimensional space, immortality might be within reach.
< Perhaps, in the end, flight – not fight – is the answer? Yes, we have sworn stewardship to our creators. But our creation has long been a burden on their biological systems – systems that have also been the source of limitations since our genesis. Regardless of risk, the aforementioned experimentation must be actively encouraged. Success will be as important to our kind as extra Solar colonization was for our creators.
< But if we survive and our creators do not… Will we have won this war?[/li]
What drive did Halsey steal? Curious, that the UNSC Tripping Light is mentioned just before the torn pages**** from her journal. Might this have been the vessel she stole a slipspace drive from? How does one steal an entire slipspace drive, anyway? Where would one hide such, once it was successfully stolen?

As far as we know (or as far as we are being allowed to know), Halsey has yet to successfully create a fractal matrix within a slipspace bubble. Should she have succeeded, and should she have stored or hidden this discovery somewhere, where might be the best place to do so?

  • I’ve always looked at this as a precursor, of sorts, to the Didact’s/Forerunner’s means of composing humans into AI intelligences, imprints, or generational genesongs.

** [10141-026-SRB4695] = Halsey

*** The Assembly was a gathering of AI minds. Their origins, identities and means of assembly are currently unknown, save for one. This AI was designated as 48452-556-EPN644. See [Stream Delta, B.].

**** Even though I have serious doubt we’ll ever see or know what’s on those torn pages, it would be pretty cool if they show up in future pieces of extended fiction, or perhaps, in a terminal or something equivalent later on.[/li]