way for cortana to return. (plausible)

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

during the mission “reclaimer” the librarian took cortana after she turned off the defence turrets.
cortana and the librarian could have discussed alot in the time it took to get to the beam portal that took chief to the librarians cutscene.
what i mean is that a man to man conversation could take 3 hours but ai to ai it could be done in seconds.
what the librarian could have done would be to have made a copy of cortana giving the perfect replica to chief afterwards with the copy not having known anything.
like the librarian splitting herself to talk to the copy and the other to take the original else where. cortana:“the librarian filled me in when she snached me from the system”
but what about all that “but it wouldnt be me…” stuff? thats simple halo 4 takes place on requiem each time chief inserts her chip into any port certain things could be updated on the original. such as her memories (personal ones).
and im sure every one remembers the janice key scene? pay attention to where halseys body actually is.
floating in that beam of light eyes closed, which suggested to me that that conversation was purely in the mind.
her mind is the important part, her mind is what was flash cloned originally to create cortana in the first place.
she could have scanned halseys mind during that long conversation about gifting the key. to get a base idea of cortanas mind.
-------all this aside-------
forerunner ai have been shown to survive much longer than the “8 year” limit. guilty spark makes several long term exixtance quotes.
one for 100k years, one about 3k years of system failures, and one where he traveled to a near by halo ring and it would take him just over 300 years.
not to mention the librarian being an ai, which has been arround since the rings fired, showing forerunner ai longevity is thousands of times longer than 7 years.

interesting quotes(that support forerunner superior ai longevity and better ai structure)
didact: “Is this the secret you’ve kept from me? " this devolved ancilla”?
librarian: seeds which would lead to an eventuality “your combat skin” “even your ancilla cortana”
343 guilty spark:“3,000 years of system failures, indeed.” “Vexation! 100,000 years of careful maintenance and diligence! 100,000 years protecting the galaxy’s future! 100,000 years spent fearing that our sacrifices - my sacrifice - was in vain! And 16 hours after I finally make contact… This so-called Reclaimer decides to blow it all up.”
“…the only messages I received in the preceding 4,573 years were incomplete…”

2

some things concerning friends…

how after requiem was destroyed did she survive?

she could have been implanted into a vessel, such as an advanced monitor. sentinels were seen using slip space on the arc.
so it wouldnt be a leap to say a monitor couldnt be designed to also have slip space.
would also explain how the last bit of cortanas emotional data could be collected.
via- that monitor, in active camo.(during her death scene)

if she did come back wouldnt that make halo 4 pointless?

no it was just an easy way to stir conversation, or to make an opening to talk more about chief.
and for a creative way to change her character a little when she returns.

will she return as she was or with a greater or different place/purpose?

who knows, ive heard as a human(or living form)…not likely.
but i think maybe she will be given a greater purpose by the librarian, maybe cortana will obtain the mantle.
and take on a slightly more forerunner apperance, forerunner eyes behind her human looking ones that glow thrugh during anger.
the lines on her body, or mayber her face could be the markings of the mantle.

3

Some interesting thoughts, but the idea of the Librarian giving Chief a perfect copy of Cortana with all of her memories conveniently intact strikes me as unlikely and just something to re-establish the status quo. She was still rampant and the Forerunners never managed to have their own ancillas overcome rampancy. There was Mendivant Bias, but that took over 100,000 years. Chief and company don’t have that time to wait. I don’t see the Librarian AI curing the Cortana copies rampancy with what little resources she had. Otherwise, why not just cure her rampancy on the spot? Still going with Cortana truly being dead, its already been confirmed.

4

well her rampancy wasnt that bad when the copy could have been made.
and the only part of her that mattered is her consciousness.

divide her into her components…eg.

unsc data<not needed

core (operating system, etc)<ditch it than it gets re built

and her personal memories<- this one is needed

kind of like if my windows version was corrupted it would impact the performance of other files.

the part of cortana that was in the final cutscene was just a part but it seemed as much cortana as ever.
rampancy to me seems like a core failure, if the core could be replaced the rest would be fine.

her core was reverse engineered from forerunner tech not purely forerunner.
that core plus flash coned brain, and unsc data(ships, history, war data,etc.)

besides killing such an important character…(dead/final)…is just …
if she doesn’t come back i don’t think ill ever play halo again.

what if chef dies in halo 6, that would be the same thing. every thing would be pointless afterwards.

5

> 2533274983213185;4:
> well her rampancy wasnt that bad when the copy could have been made.
> and the only part of her that mattered is her consciousness.

What measurement of her rampancy do you base that on? Rampant is rampant. And even if it was at a less bad stage, it will only get worse anyway.

> divide her into her components…eg.
>
> unsc data<not needed
>
> core (operating system, etc)<ditch it than it gets re built
>
> and her personal memories<- this one is needed
>
> kind of like if my windows version was corrupted it would impact the performance of other files.

If curing rampancy was as simple as that, why did the Forerunners fail to do that with ancillas like Mendicant Bias? In fact, he was split apart and was still rampant. He still had his memories and still suffered from rampancy. Same with Guilty Spark.

> the part of cortana that was in the final cutscene was just a part but it seemed as much cortana as ever.
> rampancy to me seems like a core failure, if the core could be replaced the rest would be fine.

Sure, she seemed fine, but she was only able to have that state for a brief moment before perishing.

> her core was reverse engineered from forerunner tech not purely forerunner.
> that core plus flash coned brain, and unsc data(ships, history, war data,etc.)

Neither Cortana nor her core was not made from reverse engineered Forerunner technology.

> besides killing such an important character…(dead/final)…is just …
> if she doesn’t come back i don’t think ill ever play halo again.
>
> what if chef dies in halo 6, that would be the same thing. every thing would be pointless afterward

Way to completely disrespect every other aspect of the Halo universe outside of two characters. If Chief and Cortana are all you care about, so be it, but them not being a continued presence doesn’t make everything in the franchise pointless. I wish the community understood that, but sadly I doubt they ever will.

6

Not that I enjoyed it, but Cortana’s death was very meaningful to the Chief and I think suddenly having her back would just complicate things and take away the importance of her sacrifice

7

I’ll miss Cortana, but I think undoing her death would do the story a disservice. It seems like her loss will be a driving point for the Chief in Halo 5, and I’m curious to see which direction it takes him moving forward.

8

Every time I see a new cortana comeback thread, I assume DecepticonCobra posted in the thread wrecking every single cortana fanboy argument.

9

As much as I would love to see Cortana again, I can’t think of any way to bring her back that I’d actually enjoy. Who knows, though… maybe 343i can think of something.

10

to return in 5 would be too soon , im saying maybe near the end of 6 after we have learned alot more about chief, felt his pain.
and how he deals with it when locke is chasing him.
i believe chiefs character would become more complex, and he could learn to deal with things without her.
so maybe he wont have a need, and they will just add things to make us miss her more.

halo 4 just seemed adamant on making sure she was dead ,gone , and irreplaceable.
not to mention establishing that chief was getting old. “aging spartan , and his malfunctioning ai”

whats a story without its hero?
when if she is gone forever, he would have nothing to fight for…
sure he could save the world again, but without cortana it would feel like odst, or spartan ops.

11

would explain the “digital signatures leaving requiem to fast to measure” quote from the end of SPops before requiem was destroyed.

12

> 2533274971873081;8:
> Every time I see a new cortana comeback thread, I assume DecepticonCobra posted in the thread wrecking every single cortana fanboy argument.

Yeah, Like when I posted pretty much this same theory back in July. LOL

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/db05ce78845f4120b062c50816008e5d/topics/a-cortana-theory/6be3cf3f-1c15-4a62-b37e-69d415cfbfc6/posts?page=1#post8

13

The only reason guilty spark went ‘rampant’ was the spartan laser to the faceto be onest they have been trying to kill off cortana since it started

she was supposed to go power crazy in halo CE when you returned to the control room than you would have to deal with her
that dead was passed down to guilty spark…

she could have been captured or purged after she got left behind i halo 2.

halo 3 ,she coulhave died durring gravemind’s interrogation, or because that ship she was on crashed and was filled with flood goop
…if there had been a complete power failure and the flood crap growing in and on the ship covered all the ships hardware

theese deaths were decided against and she lived on because she was needed.

14

I can see the Librarian doing something like making a perfect (albeit rampant) copy of Cortana to make something more of her in the future; and to also keep this secret from Master Chief in the long run due to the nature of the Forerunners. Because she was all about knowledge and secrets. But that would be the only way I can see Cortana coming back into MC’s life. 343 studios can have it as a big reveal at the end of Guardians. They can title it “Keep a girl a promise” LOL.

15

> 2533274983213185;4:
> well her rampancy wasnt that bad when the copy could have been made.
> and the only part of her that mattered is her consciousness.
>
> divide her into her components…eg.
>
> unsc data<not needed
>
> core (operating system, etc)<ditch it than it gets re built
>
> and her personal memories<- this one is needed
>
> kind of like if my windows version was corrupted it would impact the performance of other files.
>
> the part of cortana that was in the final cutscene was just a part but it seemed as much cortana as ever.
> rampancy to me seems like a core failure, if the core could be replaced the rest would be fine.
>
> her core was reverse engineered from forerunner tech not purely forerunner.
> that core plus flash coned brain, and unsc data(ships, history, war data,etc.)
>
> besides killing such an important character…(dead/final)…is just …
> if she doesn’t come back i don’t think ill ever play halo again.
>
> what if chef dies in halo 6, that would be the same thing. every thing would be pointless afterwards.

The Chief won’t die in Halo 6. He’s the main protagonist for the whole thing.

Cortana’s death was necessary. It rocked the perceived status quo and had a profound impact, emotionally. Both for us and the Chief. But bringing her back would be a big mistake, especially if this copy seems to be the ‘perfect’ solution. It would reek of Star Trek Voyager tropes, such as when Harry Kim died in one universe but his alternate version became trapped on the original Voyager. What a coincidence!

If she does return, she can’t be anything like she was. She would need to take on an altogether different type of personality, hyper-intelligent and perceptive. Almost god-like, distant, perhaps a little aloof.