The Weapon and Cortana - Deletion / Restoration

Community Halo Universe
1

I’m playing the campaign again and coming up on the ending. As I try to piece together the events that took place between The Weapon / Cortana / Halo ring explosion I started to do some research.

I found this post from @total_war1402 that I am going to link here, and I wish to continue the conversation as it didn’t receive any replies last time.

Infinite spoilers: About the Weapon
https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/infinite-spoilers-about-the-weapon/474801

There are a few pieces of this post I wish to highlight:

The Weapon tells us that “upon successful deployment, my deletion routine was supposed to complete”. So why didn’t it?

Also if her deletion was prevented then why does she have amnesia and finds a chunk of herself and “the last part I remember being deleted”.

Why does this part of herself have a memory of Cortana in it along with the activation index? If they’re completely separate entities they shouldn’t be jumbled up like that.

The Memory Fragments of Cortana are depicted as these glowing wisps of light. When you first meet the Weapon, why do we see a constellation of that stuff dramatically combine to form the Weapon?

With my first few playthroughs, I was under the impression that The Weapon locked Cortana down and Cortana prevented her deletion, to then sacrifice herself and count on Master Chief retrieving The Weapon. “Something stopped your deletion. We need to find out why.” But unless this is just a plot hole, it wouldn’t make sense for Cortana to stop the deletion and then later on come to the conclusion “He needs her.”

With our approach to The Weapon depicting the Halo ring’s explosion (and combined with how it mirrors the Control Room on Alpha Halo), as well as The Weapon’s statement of “this is the last part I remember being deleted.” I do think they were deleted, or something to that effect. I then think either Cortana somehow brought her back for Chief before sacrificing herself, or to the OP’s point, deleted the parts of her to essentially become The Weapon herself / combine with The Weapon?

This is why I wanted to continue this topic, to better understand what really happened with The Weapon / Cortana.

3 Likes
2

I think, ultimately, the story plays out best if you consider these two things and extrapolate forward:

1.) Cortana knows that she is going to be gone after she sacrifices herself.
2.) Cortana also knows that Chief needs her, or rather, will need The Weapon.

Since we don’t have any definitive proof to back up the “Cortana is actually The Weapon” line of thinking I choose to not lean that way. (I also think that would cheapen the weapon’s character development and also devalue cortana’s sacrifice.)

Instead, I think the interpretation of “He needs her” is more poetic and human from the standpoint of Cortana. In her own head, she needs to atone what’s happened, so the idea of stopping the weapon from deleting herself allows her to:

Sacrifice herself / atone for her actions
Leave the weapon behind as a means to fulfill chief’s “need” in her absence

Additionally, I honestly think Cortana modifying the deletion protocol is more likely than actually recompiling or putting the weapon back together after a successful deletion. It also makes that part of the narrative better because it implies a little more about Cortana’s intentions. (Also, “Something stopped your deletion” is pretty hard to overlook.)

2 Likes
3

I agree with you completely.

I think my disconnect comes from assuming that once The Weapon was successfully deployed / Cortana was locked down that her deletion would be instantaneous.

However if I take a step back and assume it takes longer than that (let’s say a month to fully delete just to have a time frame.) Then it all fits with The Weapon’s line of dialogue of “this is part of me” and “it was the last part I remember being deleted.” as well as time needed for Cortana to come to the conclusion the Master Chief needs The Weapon, and will stop her deletion while also then sacrificing herself.

2 Likes
4

Yeah, the lack of details we have about the amount of time all of these things are taking really leaves the door open to a lot of speculation.

I think you’re right in assuming the process would start immediately (once she was locked down), but how long would it take the weapon to actually delete Cortana? Hours? Days?

Even if things happen very quick in relative time, for the AI’s that could mean a lot of time comparatively, given how fast things are happening at their level.

2 Likes
5

It’s funny, because if it takes a substantial amount of time to delete an AI piece by piece and it was interrupted part of the way through, doesn’t this immediately open the Weapon up to another Cortana situation, even though she’s not yet come to rampancy? Cortana was missing threads of herself that died at the end of 4…
The story of Infinite leaves a lot to be explained if you start thinking about it, too much even, IMO.

6

I think it’s more likely a case s that Cortana gave the Weapon her ability to get around her own deletion protocols (which was one of the first things Cortana did after her creation)

1 Like
7

Even 343 wont know as your putting wayy more thought into the halo story than they bother to do with there poor writing

8

Yeah but the big question is : How was she able to interact with the Weapon without her consent ? She was trapped but she still manage to do that and to destroy the Auditorium !

9

The real question is “did 343 scenarist think to this and did they care ?”

10

I’ll have to ask the AI council to see if it’s AI approved to talk about this fictional AI.
References for my ironic posting.

https://www.halopedia.org/Halo:_Reach#Data_pads

https://www.halopedia.org/The_Assembly

https://www.halopedia.org/Assembly_Majority

https://www.halopedia.org/Assembly_Minority

11

I’ve never been a fan of those stories of secret group controlling the world, but never appear in the storie

So we don’t even know if they joined the created, if Cortana rule the Assembly or if they try to fight it

12

Or even if they might have allied with Intrepid Eye

1 Like
13

You mean that logic plague infested hunk of junk?

14

Logic plague infested? If anything Intrepid Eye is one of the least-exposed AIs to the logic plague

15

I think that was a joke on the claims made by some…
https://www.halopedia.org/Intrepid_Eye

16

Ah, yes, never reply to forum posts before first coffee of the day…