*Spoilers inside*
"Considerable Time" is too broad to pinpoint. My guess is that they'll reveal this somehow, but they haven't fully yet.
The "other construct" would be Mendicant Bias, the AI from the terminals (Legendary Difficulty) and from Iris. Go to http://halo.wikia.org and search for Terminals, read them all, then read Mendicant Bias' page for more back story about him. Basically in Contact Harvest *SPLZ ALERT* Mendicant Bias is considered an Oracle by the Covenant, who resides (and was discovered in) the Dreadnought. Mendicant Bias tried to launch the Dreadnought to save the humans and bring them safely to the Ark, but launching it would tear High Charity from its power source, so they disconnected MB from the Dreadnought. My guess is that they reconnected MB so that they might go to the Ark to activate the Halos, and MB fought Cortana, because it WANTED to go to the Ark, and would let nothing stop him.
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