So I got the Art of Halo Infinite book and I was really surprised at one of the concept pieces. On page 36,
in amongst some of the multiplayer story images you have a UNSC themed robot. Think Chapee, but with a Spartan style head, shoulders and knee pads. Clear UNSC regalia so it’s definitely not a Promethean or part of the Created faction.
I wonder if this is going to be a multiplayer core or one of the fracture events? Perhaps a Alternate Universe where the UNSC went down robotics instead of power armour for Spartans. Not sure why in the current canon the UNSC’s reaction to Skynet would be to build more robots with guns. 
But on the other hand it doesn’t look mad enough to be a Slipspace Fracture event considering the two we know of.
Has ACA-07 written on its forearm. So I am assuming this is a Smart AI operating it as Cortana designation starts CTN 0452-9. So ACA is probably short for a name of some kind. Maybe it’s a named character in the multiplayer if that’s an ongoing story.
I wonder why the UNSC doesn’t have autonomous robots.
I know the Covenant were technologically superior to humanity so they potentially might have counter measures against autonomous weapons which is why we don’t see drones and the like but human AI is far superior to anything the Covenant had, you’d think sticking an AI in an armour suit might have been a good idea.
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I suspect because of Rampancy. If you know that every AI will go mad in seven years there’s too obvious a risk of them being taken over. Perhaps centuries in the past they had more drones but the first Smart AI came along and problems ensued.
Right now in the Canon it would be really bizarre or an act of desperation. They were clear on the Weapon killing herself and that was Laskey. Why would they be okay with giving a Smart AI a Spartan robot? What stops it killing everybody? Unless this is something the Created initially made with the UNSC stuff they captured; although I’d have assumed they would just use Forerunner constructs for this. 
Plus I think it’s just an accident of the Marines being based off Starship Troopers and Aliens which were about people fighting aliens. Mechs and power armour. Whilst robots is usually something associated with the Forerunners. So it’s just kind of stuck and there’s been no real moment to introduce the idea.
In Halo Wars 2 there are some small drones and a Mantis that’s remotely piloted by it’s AI.
Considering what happened with the whole fiasco of “The Created Uprising”… … … it doesn’t surprise me.
I get humanity in Halo are the goodies and it’s all about Hope. But, I am still not sure why this wouldn’t result in an Animatrix style throwing the Toasters in the sea. Just because one AI uprising fails doesn’t mean you should tempt fate.
Rampancy is a problem so yeah maybe that’s it but I can’t see a robotic soldier lasting 7 years anyway and if they were lasting that long I’m sure they could find some workaround like a forced deletion, self destruct or overwriting the AI every few years as part of a service. AIs are in use elsewhere in the UNSC so there must be some pretty robust rampancy mitigation.
Maybe they wouldn’t even require a ‘smart AI’ the regular AIs in the Halo universe seem to still be relatively impressive and I don’t think they have the same vulnerability to rampancy as ‘smart AIs’ do but I could be wrong.
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Oh it’s not a normal droid. The reason I say it’s potentially a multiplayer Spartan Core is because it’s very clearly a robot Spartan. With the helmet and chest armour partly resembling Mark 7. So I am guessing this thing has shields, super strength, speed etc etc. But with a Smart AI embedded in it.
That’s terrifying.
They could use Dumb AI like Super Intendent. But, it seems to have a name on its Forearm ACA-07 which suggests it’s a Smart AI. Plus, Dumb AI could be more vulnerable to hacking and you wouldn’t want that with a Spartan Droid.
The created uprising took place well after the war with the Covenant so that wouldn’t explain a lack of robotics during the war.
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Plus, the way the war is described in Fall of Reach, the UNSC never had any real set backs on the ground. It had a much more professional army that just fought better than the Covenant. They also had Spartans. The issue was that the Covenant Fleet destroyed everything and then glasses the Planet. Chief actually thinks that they win every ground battle but always lose in Space.
So from that there’s no real incentive or need to create droids or drones to improve your combat effectiveness on ground. They were winning anyway.
Now however the UNSC does seem to be losing on the ground to the Banished and Prometheans. So, improving ground capabilities makes sense. Especially if they’ve lost that many Spartans and don’t have easy access to population centres for recruits. It might make sense if you have an AI you really, really trust, and the parts to build something like that.
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Yes you’re right I think one of the first Halo books I read specifically mentioned the UNSC winning consistently in ground engagements but essentially unable to win in space so quite right maybe they never felt the need to develop battlefield robotics because they didn’t need them.
I imagine despite winning ground battles they lost a fair number of troops that they couldn’t get back to capital ships prior to the Covenant ‘glassing’ the planet. If the Covenant ships are easily defeating UNSC ships in battle then recovering/evacuating troops must have been difficult especially if those troops were ground based rather than being deployed from ships i.e would sufficient ships with sufficient carrying capacity be readily available at the tail end of a battle? If not then even if you win every ground engagement with no casualties the moment the Covenant starts orbital bombardment you’re losing those troops.
I remember that the Spartans were originally created to fight insurrectionists, I’d have thought that might have been a good opportunity for robotics. I imagine the UNSC forces were often chasing shadows fighting the insurrection and you’d have to worry about sympathisers within the ranks. You could create robotic forces and deploy them essentially everywhere only for use when needed and wouldn’t need to worry about loyalty.
Sorry OP I know I’ve gone a bit off topic, just enjoying the lore discussion.
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I am not sure which book it’s in but I am sure it’s stated humanity lost 2/3 of its population. So yes, they probably lost a lot of marines and certainly were losing ships. In Ghosts of Onyx they say only one in ten ships made it back from Reach.
However most of those were likely civilian casualties. We never hear about Mass conscription so military losses can’t have been that dire. So in Halo people were never the issue. Which means you can just build machines for Organics to use which are probably less complex and don’t carry the risk from rampant AI.
Plus going down the Hearts of Iron 4 route. All that money, resources and R&D making robots could be going into ships instead. Complex AI are probably more usefully employed here than on the ground. So that’s where the resources went rather than investing in experimental robotics and drones.
Now that I think about it as well. They make quite a big deal about the Chief being able to carry Cortana around in his armour. So in Halo it’s presented as not being particularly easy, at least during Covenant War, for AI to integrate with smaller machines. Perhaps remote control is considered too risky.
Also, it would probably be politically dangerous to make machines that kill other humans. More than making a death squad of super soldiers. That’s true in our world and it would be in theirs. That could be the Slipspace fracture. ONI opted for robotic instead of power armour.
I mean, looking at this concept art piece. If we infer that this robot has the same capabilities as a Spartan. My next question would be how expensive and how many can be built. Ghosts of Onyx implied that the shields and armour were the expensive part; not the actual soldiers. But if you could build tens or hundreds of thousands of Spartan Droids then; that becomes a very different proposition. But I suspect it’s a niche and experimental model of some kind if it’s not a Slipspace fracture.
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You raise some really interesting points and I can’t disagree with what you’ve said.
I wasn’t aware of the 2/3 figure but I suppose with so many colonies a sizeable chunk of the human population would have been on planets other than Earth so it sounds entirely plausible.
I do wonder what the resource cost of a ‘smart AI’ is, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything in the lore that really explains the cost of producing and maintaining a ‘smart AI’ in the Halo universe.
Obviously Halo takes place hundreds of years in the future but the fact that Cortana can exist on a pretty tiny chip (I suspect some of the bulk of the chip is so Chief doesn’t snap the memory card in half when he slams it into the back of his helmet) and can run within the confines of a suit of armour almost makes it seem easy for the UNSC.
I’m sure somewhere it’s said (although might be an exaggeration) that one suit of Mjolnir armour for a Spartan-II costs about the same as an entire capital ship. Obviously having saved the universe a few times the Chief has made that investment worth it’s money but to me that suggests that there is a gap for cheaper forces. Even something on the level of the battle droids from the Star Wars prequels could potentially bring some value?
Was it the Spartan-III headhunters where they basically existed for suicide missions? That almost sounds like an ideal scenario for robots, mass produced and disposable.
I think an alternate reality where that was a route the UNSC explored certainly makes sense.
I just think it’s a bit weird that in a time where seemingly every ship in the UNSC fleet has a ‘smart AI’ and given how incredibly capable they are and far ahead of anything the Covenant has that mass produced, smart, autonomous weapons don’t seem to be a thing in the Halo universe.
Am I correct in recalling that when Halo was originally conceived (and for a time I think an RTS game rather than a FPS) Master Chief was at one stage a robot? I’ll have to Google it later.
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Yeah, Ghosts of Onyx books premise is that the army wants cheaper Spartans. Your Spartan 2 costs as much as a Destroyer and they think that’s a waste of resources.
So Spartan 3 just get a cheap version of the armour, no shields and are pumped with drugs that burn them out but make them hyper aggressive.
Oh there probably would be a lot of utility in something like a B1 battle droid. In Contact Harvest book they even have the Colonial AI control all these harvesting machines and use them to attack the Covenant. So, perhaps it’s more an ethics, safety and control question rather than being unable to build drones or droids.
I think he was meant to be a Cyborg initially, can’t remember where I read that, might have been CE instruction manual. They never really go into what a neural interface is exactly. I am not sure if Cortana is literally in his brain or if it’s more mundane than that. But apart from that I think Halo moved away from the notion of the Spartans being cyborgs.
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