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Cortana Rampant
Posted By: poena.dare #CP#Date: 1/29/03 8:31 a.m.

(For those of you who don't follow the HBO forums obsessively.)

There was an interesting post on HBO recently that suggests that there was a deeper meaning behind some of Cortana's behavior. I thought I'd mention it here for those who are fans of unstable AIs.

For those of you who want to read the posts yourself:

http://carnage.bungie.org/haloforum/halo.forum.pl?read=187716

In a nutshell, the author, Mark Simmons, points out a number of inconsistencies that he believes that suggest that Cortana has ulterior movies for her actions. His initial point is that after you and Cortana have deliberately ignited the Pilliar of Autum's reactors, Cortana calls in a dropship for evac:

CORTANA: (radio) Cortana to Echo 419, come in Echo 419!

FOE HAMMER: Roger, Cortana. I read you, 5 by 5.

CORTANA: The Pillar of Autumn's engines are going critical, Foe Hammer! Request immediate extraction! Approach the crash site and be ready to pick us up at external access junction 4C as soon as you get my signal!

FOE HAMMER: Affirmative. Echo 419 going on station.

(A few moments later, still on the elevator)

FOE HAMMER: Echo 419 to Cortana. Things are gettin' noisy down there. Everything okay?

CORTANA: Negative, negative! We have a wildcat destabilization of the ship's fusion core. The engines must have sustained more damage than we thought! (off radio) Analyzing! We have six minutes before the fusion drives detonate. We need to evac NOW!

What I attributed to overly dramatic writing on Bungie's part, Mark Simmons says is a lie. Cortana should have said that you had just set off the reactors. If this is where Mark had left it I would have ignored the thread, but there was more. Consider this quote from the beginning of The Maw:

CORTANA: I leave home for a few days, and look what happens. This won't take long.

(She concentrates for a moment, and the main screen flickers to life. "Self Destruct Sequence Initiated" is displayed across the top, and numbers begin counting down from what is, as far as I can tell, a random starting point between twelve and sixteen minutes.)

CORTANA: There. That should give us enough time to make it to a lifeboat and put some distance between ourselves and Halo before the detonation.

So Cortana's first escape plan was to use a lifeboat.

Another interesting point; the title of the last section of the last level is Warning: Hitchhikers May Be Escaping Convicts. Mark's belief is that Cortana 'picked something up' when she was in Halo's core and wants to make sure that everyone on Halo dies.

Interesting interpretation.

To this I would add two things from Halo: FoR. 1) The jump that took the PoA to Halo was not a blind jump, but a blind-educated-guess based on some information Cortana garnered from some Forerunner artifacts. 2) Cortana is a special AI which means she is very advanced, but also she has a limited lifespan.

Taken all together, I start having deja vu flashbacks (!) to issues of AIs, rampancy, and the closure of the universe.

I'd like to believe that there was much more to the plot behind Halo than Bungie is letting on. My hopes are probably in vain. On the other hand, they did it once, didn't they? Maybe they will do it again...

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Replies:

Cortana Rampantpoena.dare #CP# 1/29/03 8:31 a.m.
     Re: Cortana RampantTodd 1/30/03 2:19 a.m.



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