So based on the events of Halo Reach, we learn that Cortana is more valuable than the lives of multiple Spartans. She must be integral in the war effort, but I can’t shake the feeling that John 117 did a lot of the work.
I understand that she was the one to realize the purpose of the HALO rings and prevent the eradication of sentient life in the galaxy, but that hardly seems a scenario that humanity could foresee/plan for.
Was the data Halsey uploaded to Cortana that important? Am I overestimating how important she was intended to be? Or are there other factors I’m missing. It’s been a while since I played the games studied the Covenant Wars in UNSC school, and I didn’t really pay attention to the cutscenes instructor. So I definitely missed parts of the lore history.
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I’m going to try and keep inside the lore, but Cortana was designed to be a hacker. She was going to go with Chief on Operation: Red Flag, where they’d capture a covenant ship and find the prophets, kidnap them and negotiate an end to the war.
Of course, just as they were about to do that, the Covenant attacked Reach.
Could a human have figured out what Halo was? Sure, but she only realize that by being in Halo’s system and digging into it’s info. Similarly she was the one who set up the pillar of autumn to blow. Her being an AI also meant she was safe so long as Chief was safe.
My headcanon has always been that since Cortana’s original function was to assist with flying a spacecraft and John 117 is in a robotic suit that she’s partially responsible for everything he does in combat when she’s in his head. Like he has faster reflexes, better aim etc because there’s a lady in his head
calling him studmuffingiving him a helping handBut also, maybe making a new Cortana would be really hard, and they’re important for capital ships to function. So she’s more valuable than multiple Spartans the same way that the Pillar Of Autumn’s main reactor is more valuable than multiple Spartans, just in terms of how hard they are to replace and how important they are to the war effort
I haven’t played Halo 5, but going purely by Halo 4 and Reach, Cortana was effectively the closest thing the humans had built to a Forerunner level AI ( like Guilty Spark or even Mendicant Bias ).
Cortana was basically created via Halsey’s brain/DNA whatever, and fully formed from a Forerunner site ( which is where you go in Reach to retrieve her ). To say that she’s the only one who could access, interpret and control Forerunner tech is possibly accurate.
To add to that, she’s clearly more sapient than any other AI the humans have. The main AI used by Noble Team is far simpler in speech and capability, only doing things like providing onsite intel and coordinates.
Cortana is capable of genuine innovation and imagination, on top of having the power to pilot a station’s MAC gun, to the level that a human team probably couldn’t.
Halsey was hoping that having an AI able to interface with Forerunner could provide the silver bullet that humanity could use to end the war.
It didn’t exactly work out that way, but Cortana’s ability to locate and interface with the Halo rings led directly to the destruction of the first one, and alongside a whole lot of other shit going down, led to the Sangheili/Elites splitting from the Covenant and effectively ending the war.
The data Cortana downloaded from the Forerunner ship under Reach contained partial coordinates for Alpha Halo, she combined them with the data Chief obtained at Cotê d’Azur to get the location of the first Halo Ring.
At that point in the war, humanity was so desperate that Halsey thought the only way they could win was by getting their hands on a cache of ultra advanced alien technology that would give them an edge over the Covenant, she didn’t know that a Halo was there, only that it was some important Forerunner stuff.
Based on what I remember, Cortana also piloted ships like The Pillar of Autumn when on board, ran the Cairo MAC gun defense when the Covenant attacked Earth, hacked into Covenant systems (and one of their AI), coordinated troop movements, called for reinforcements/pick-ups/drop-offs. A team of humans could do that, but Cortana was a lot faster.
You’re better off asking this in the r/HaloStory sub, because so far most of the ‘answers’ in here are incredibly off.
Boobie a McGuffin
Her point was to put Master Chief’s capabilities onto another level. Hightening his awareness, increasing his reaction speed, and relaying to him areas of importance. Her skills in infiltration also mean she can pretty much get him anywhere he needs to go.
Depends on what you accept as canon. Before halo: reach the game came out, in the novels cortana was created to assist the spartan 2s in trying to infiltrate covenant terrritory and capture a prophet to broker a ceasefire. Cortana’s main role was to break into covenant computer systems and take control of the ship, hack into their datasphere, and track an appropriate target. She was equipped with the newest translation ciphers and cyber security protocols to fulfill the mission. When plugged into the master chief, she enhanced the neural link between him and his armor. Master chief had a neural implant that let him activate basic computer functions of his armor, like radio, by thought alone. She enhanced his neural impulses, effectively increasing his reaction time while also translating the armors sensory data and feeding it directly to his mind.
The game never game a clear answer, only working as a portable hacker/mission control.
The tv series had cortana as the theoretical next step of the spartan program. The tv show had spartans as chemically mind controlled soldiers with suppressed emotions. However, the emotion and personality suppression wasnt as strong as they liked, especially when the master chief’s was broken. Cortana was supposed to plug in, suppress the master chief’s higher brain functions while taking direct control, melding the body and muscle memory of a super soldier with the efficiency and speed of a super computer. We briefly see this happen in the season 1 finale, where in order to prevent an alien artifact from taking over chief and leaving him helpless, he allows himself to be knocked unconscious so cortana can take over. When she does, she is able to use the other spartans’ head cams to see where to shoot without looking, remotely pilot their gunship to aid in the fight, and touch the artifact without being rendered helpless.
She was incidentally the catalyst for the events that led to the end of the war, as she was responsible for the Pillar of Autumn finding Halo. She used information from Forerunner sites to pick the destination as opposed to a purely random jump that would have been dictated by the Cole Protocol.
More deliberately, she was intended to act as the cyber warfare specialist for Operation: RED FLAG which would have been humanity’s hail mary mission to capture the Covenant leadership and end the war.
In addition to that, her integration to Chief’s MJOLNIR represented a technological milestone in general, but the ability to be partnered in that way meant that the AI could enhance the capabilities of the suit in various ways, alongside providing more general logistical and intelligence support.
There was also some pretty dodgy stuff that happened in her creation that meant she was a significantly higher quality AI compared to others but thats a whole other thing.
Who else is gonna open the doors for chief when they are in covenant territory?
Master chief might get off the POA.
He doesn’t get evaced in mission 2 and if somehow he gets in contact with Silva and locates keys, they get trapped inside TFOR.
Silent cartographer or AOC? Cannot finish.
Destroying halo? Cooked.
In addition to what everyone else says she is apparently a tactical genius. In the opening of the first game, she is controlling the pillar of autumn and apparently disables multiple covenant cruisers while severely outnumbered in a ship that shouldn’t have been a match for even a one.