From what I know, Forerunners maintained an Imperial Peace on the kwon galaxy in their time. Do you consider them evil for that? They destroyed everything (every living organism), but save everything we know now (in the Halo universe). The we have Catherine Halsey, who created Cortana from a clone of herself. Thus Cortana has the same personality as Dr. Halsey, and more so the same desires, she even says, in occasions, some lines spoken previously by Halsey. We know that Halsey desires to know everything, amd as a human being she actually can’t, but Cortana… maybe she can achieve that. She has been acquiring knowledge throughout the story, through every interaction with Forerunner Tech, through her time with the Gravemind… and now through accessing the Domain. So obviously that much knowledge changed her, like it changes humans as they grow up. She is now the inheritor of everything Forerunner, and thus wants to continue their doings. I don’t consider Forerunner as being evil, they did some bad things, but for a greater good, and sometimes doing what’s good is not that simple. Because of that I don’t think Cortana is evil, she is just repeating what Forerunners did before. From humans perspective, imperialism is evil, but capitalism is right, but we all know that good and evil has to do with more than those concepts, it has to do with moral, traditions, culture, and more. Therefore we cannot classify her as evil just because of her actions so far. I think 343 is really setting up for something great with this. What do you think?
The Forerunners killed billions (trillions?) to stop the Flood. There is currently no Flood threat. Cortana is doing what she is doing because she believes AI to be superior to meatbags. We had our fun throughout the years, but it’s time to put her down.
Show me an objective, universally agreed upon code for determining good and evil and I’ll show you a unicorn.
I will say this: Rulers of all types use arguments like “for the greater good” or “they don’t know what’s best for them, I know what’s best for them”.
The Forerunners knew the mantle belonged to humanity yet did everything to keep humans down. For the greater good, or out of their own selfish desire to rule over the other species?
Rephrase the question into “is what Cortana doing the most beneficial thing for humanity?”, and I’m leaning towards “nah, probably not bruh.”