Cortana has been a part of Halo from the very begin, however she was by no means meant to remain the identical. With every game, she changes by studying new issues, making errors, and rising extra human in each optimistic and harmful methods. She started as a wise army AI, created to assist humanity survive the battle towards the Covenant. At first, she was assured, loyal, and stuffed with persona, however the longer she lived, the extra her story become one thing deeper and extra tragic.
Her progress adopted the identical path as Halo itself. What began as a sci-fi shooter grew to become a narrative in regards to the belief and emotion shared between a soldier and a synthetic thoughts. Cortana wasn’t only a voice giving orders; she grew to become Chief’s closest companion. She confirmed concern, anger, care, and guilt, all of that are issues AIs weren’t alleged to really feel. Nevertheless, those self same feelings led her to vary in methods nobody might management. As she aged previous her limits, her thoughts started to disintegrate, and her love for humanity slowly twisted into one thing harmful.
Spoilers Forward for the Halo franchise.
Halo: Attain
The Prototype Fragment
Halo: Attain
9/10
- Launched
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September 14, 2010
Earlier than the battle towards the Covenant reached its darkest level, an important fragment of an unfinished AI was saved on the planet Attain. This information fragment got here from the identical analysis that created Cortana. Throughout Halo: Attain, this piece of her was carried by the Spartan Noble Six and delivered to Captain Keyes aboard the Pillar of Autumn.
It wasn’t the total Cortana but, however the fragment contained Forerunner information that may later merge along with her full self. This occasion straight arrange Halo: Fight Developed, explaining why Cortana was already so superior when she met Master Chief. Basically, Attain reveals the second when Cortana’s story, and her connection to the Forerunners, started to kind.
Halo: Fight Developed
The Unique Cortana
The true Cortana first seems in Halo: Fight Developed. She was a “smart AI” constructed by Dr. Catherine Halsey utilizing a flash clone of her personal mind, making Cortana each machine and human in origin. From the beginning, she stood out. She was sharp, sarcastic, loyal, and extremely clever, able to controlling ships, hacking alien methods, and out-thinking whole Covenant fleets.
She wasn’t only a information to Grasp Chief; she was his equal, and their relationship constructed the emotional core of the sport. Cortana’s design was a blue, human-shaped hologram modeled loosely on Halsey herself, symbolizing her human roots. At this stage, she was steady, assured, and absolutely practical, which is the perfect model of what a human-made AI may very well be.
Halo 2
The Captive Thoughts
In Halo 2, Cortana faces her first true hazard. She continues supporting the Chief by means of the chaos of the Covenant civil battle, however close to the tip of the sport, she makes an enormous sacrifice. When the Flood overruns the Covenant capital of Excessive Charity, she stays behind to forestall the parasite from spreading.
Throughout this time, she falls beneath the management of the Gravemind, the traditional intelligence behind the Flood. For the primary time, Cortana is separated from Chief and compelled to speak by means of cryptic messages. Her calm confidence begins to crack. This expertise marks the start of her psychological pressure, one thing that can hang-out her for years to come back.
Halo 3
The Damaged Companion
By the point Halo 3 begins, Cortana has been held captive by the Gravemind for a while. The Flood’s affect has broken her reminiscence and stability. She seems all through the sport as flickering holograms and damaged transmissions, talking in riddles that reveal each her trauma and her braveness.
When Chief lastly rescues her, she’s nonetheless herself, however someway modified. She’s fragile, haunted by what she noticed, but nonetheless decided to complete the combat. Collectively, they destroy the Flood and the Halo Array. At the end of the game, Cortana and Chief are stranded in deep space aboard the Ahead Unto Daybreak. She sends out a misery sign whereas Chief enters cryosleep. Cortana guarantees to wake him when she wants him, a quiet second that closes the unique Bungie trilogy and units up her fall into rampancy.
Halo 4
The Rampant AI
Halo 4 reintroduces Cortana years later, and he or she’s falling aside. Good AIs like her are solely meant to stay about seven years earlier than their minds grow to be unstable. Cortana is now nicely previous that restrict. Her ideas begin looping endlessly, her persona splits, and he or she suffers emotional breakdowns.
Then her connection to Chief deepens and he or she turns into extra human than ever, displaying concern, guilt, and love. Her physique glints between calm and chaos as her rampancy grows worse. Even so, she helps Chief battle the Forerunner referred to as the Didact and saves humanity one final time. In her remaining act, she sacrifices herself to destroy the Didact’s ship and defend Chief. It’s a tragic finish for some of the beloved AIs in gaming.
Halo 5: Guardians
Cortana Gone Rogue
Cortana returns in Halo 5, however she’s not the identical. After her obvious demise, her consciousness survived by coming into the Forerunner Area, an enormous community of historic information that restored her and made her practically immortal. Nevertheless, this new energy adjustments her. She now believes that synthetic intelligence, not people, ought to rule the galaxy. She gathers different AIs beneath her command, calling them “The Created,” and takes management of the huge Forerunner Guardians to implement peace by means of energy.
In Halo 5, her voice turns into a bit colder, her confidence turns into pleasure, and her love for Chief turns into one thing extra like obsession and management. This “Created Cortana” isn’t the pleasant information anymore. Somewhat, she’s the principle antagonist, satisfied that she’s saving the universe even when she has to enslave it to take action.
Halo Infinite
The Fallen AI
By the time Halo Infinite comes around, Cortana’s empire has crumbled. The Banished, led by Atriox, have captured her and destroyed a lot of what she constructed. Via fragments scattered throughout Zeta Halo, the participant learns how she started to remorse what she had executed. Her reminiscences play like echoes, displaying her guilt, her defiance, and eventually her realization that she went too far.
Earlier than being erased, Cortana destroys key installations to cease her creations from being utilized by others. In her final recorded message to Chief, she apologizes for every little thing. She accepts her finish with sorrow and peace. This remaining model of Cortana closes her lengthy, painful journey from helper to tyrant to fallen soul with one remaining act of altruism.
