Over the course of video game history, there have been many different game series with many amicable characters that we came to adore and root for. One such series is the Halo series created by Bungie, Inc. The Halo series is a wildly popular video game series that debuted in November of 2001. Sin♛ce then, the series has had many sequels, and ev🐽en some spin-offs, and the characters have continued to grow and evolve throughout the series.
Halo series has two main protagonists throughout the series: John-117 and Cortana. John-117, or Master Chief, is a cybernetically enhanced soldier who was recruited into the SPARTAN-II program at a very young age, an🎶d Cortana is his trusty A.I. companion. Together, the two fight through the forces of the Covenant who threaten hum🧔anity, and work really well together. But what if we go more in depth with the characters, specifically Cortana?
Well, Cortana is an A.I. created by the UNSC who goes on adventures with the M🌱aster Chief. Throughout these adventures, Cortana appears to be extremely useful as an AI, so why aren't there other Cortana-like A.I.'s out there helping out others in the UNSC? Surely, more A.I.'s like Cortana would have made the war with the Covenant go much more smoothly. So maybe there are bits of information about Cortana that we're missing. This is list is aimed at answering questions like these, and more, as we explore 15 crazy things that you didn't know about Cortana.
15 🎀 UNSC Blackmailing Scandal
As we have seen from the games, Cortana is not afraid to bend, or even break the rules from time to time, and at one point she even blackmailed someone. The person she blackmailed was a UNSC Colonel named James Ackerson. Now the blackmail wasn't completely unprovoked. Before the Fall of Reach and shortly after Cortana and the Master Chief were first introduced to each other, they were given a test by Colonel Ackerson where the test was designed so that there would be almost no way that they would survive. They did survive, of course. Shortly after this test, Cortana took her rev♑enge by hacking into the Colonel's system and blackmailing him in the hoped of getting him sent to the front lines. Somewhat extreme measures to take, but maybe she was justified. The Colonel did try to kill her and the Master Chief, after all.
14 𓄧 Cortana Is A Human Clone
At some point throughout the Halo series, you may🙈 have started wondering why Cortana, and AI, seems so human. Well, it's because Cortana is human... kind 🐽of.
Cortana is an A.I. that was "flash cloned" from Dr. Catherine Halsey's brain. What this means is that Cortana has Dr. Halsey's brains, this includes her intellect and personality. This is why Cortana behaves so human-like instead of like a compuไter program, she essentially is Dr. Halsey. Cortana even takes on the appearance of a younger Dr. Halsey whenever she appears in her hologram form.
A fun little thing to note, Cor𒀰tana will occasionally say things that Dr. Halsey has already said at some point while Cortana was not present to hear her say it. That's how alike the two of them a🐈re.
13 Cortanaꦫ Has Family
When Dr. Catherine Halsey was in the process of creating Cortana (by flash cloning her brain), she actually ended up creating 20ﷺ cloned brains. Of those twenty, only two ended up surviving. One of those two was Cortana, the A.I. that we've all come to know and love. But who was the other one?
The other flash cloned brain that Dr. Halsey createꦑd was named Kalmiya. Dr. Halsey used Kalmiya to test prototype subroutines that would later be used for Cortana. Afterwards, Dr. Halsey was supposed to destroy Kalmi﷽ya, and she refused to do so, and kept Kalimya around.
Because Cortana and Kalmiya were both cloned from Dr. Halsey'♍s brain they are essentially sisters, with Kalmiya being the older of the two. And that would also make Dr. Halsey their mother.
12 ⭕ Who Needs A Crew? You've Got Cortan🥀a
There are many thing🌼s that Cortana is good at: helping kill aliens, coming up with plans, reassuring the Master Chief, but there is one skill that she has that she wasn't actually designed for.
Cortana has shown to be extremely good at managing spaceships. She has acted as the A.I for a variety of different ships, including the Pillar of Autumn and the Forward Unto Dawn. She even did such a good job on the Pillar of Autumn that 𝄹the A.I. that was designed to manage the spaceship was ♕never actually implemented.
But her ship management skills are just limited to crew duties and deciding the menu in the cafeteria — and pret𓆏🅷ty much every combat situation. If I ever need a manager for a spaceship I know who I'm calling.
11 What If... Cortana Was British? 🅠
If you're like me then you probably get some strange ideas in your head, like, "what would Cortana sound like with a different accent?" Well, strangely enough, she was originally planned to have a British accent. Martin O'Donnell wanted Cortana's accent to be British before they had even found a voice actor for her. This led to Cortana's script having several British idioms. And even after casting the non-British Jen Taylor for the role, they left some of her original British-esque lines in. In the Halo: CE campaign, she uses the British idiom "sod off" when talking to 343 Guilty Spark. Although, the first game is the only one where this occurs because Jen Taylor stayed on for the long run. It's still kind of weird to im🀅agine though.
10 𓂃 There Have Been Lots Of Cortana 𒊎
Whil✨e it's technically not possible to make another Cortana, there have still been a few ..𝕴. kind of.
Cortana actually has the ability to make clones of herself. She got this ability from a Covenant A.I. who she encountered on a Covenant ship.🗹 She dissected and destroyed that A.I. and gained the ability to create clones of her💞self. These clones have a lot of the same abilities as Cortana, but not all of them and are also less functional than the original.
Essentially, Cortana has the ability to create disposable copies of herself that can been u♎sed to fulfill specific purposes. In one instance, she used hundreds of clones in order to overwhelm a Covenant security AI, and in another, she used the clones to create a shield for the Master Chief. They may be imperfect clones, but it's still a pretty versatile ability.
9 ♏Sneaky Hologram Storage
As an AI, there is a very real possibility of running out of data storage space and, in the Halo Universe, this can be a very bad thing. Running out of data storage space, or learning too much, can cause the A.I. to go into a state of rampancy which usually means that the A.I. doesn't ha🅺ve long before it dies.
Our favorite A.I. Cortana found a pretty neat little workaround for this problem: she stores information in her hologram. She is capable of storing very large amounts of data in the microscopic lines of her holographic appearance. Th💜is increases the maximum amount of data st♚orage that she is allowed, as well as making the information that she stores in her hologram harder for others to find. I don't know about you, but I probably would not think to look in the hologram for information.
8 She's Probablyไ Really Good At Chess
I can very confidently say that I would not bet money in a chess game against Cortana, and it's not just because 🍌the last chess game I played was five years ago. Cortana is a genius at planning ahe𒊎ad. The Master Chief may have superhuman abilities and an awesome suit, but most of the time it's Cortana that comes up with the plans.
She has planned many of Master Chief's missions, including destroying the Halo installations. In the first game, she f♑igured out what Halo's true function was and stopped the Master Chief from activating it, essentially saving the galaxy. It was also her plan that lead to the destruction of the floo𝓀d, which —once again— saved the galaxy.
7 She Would Do Well In Thꦆe A.I. Olympics
While not being able to physically kick any butt, she can definitely cause mayhem when going up against other A.I.s. She gives pretty much any A.I. a run for their money. She has been shown to be better at UNSC spaceship Aജ.I.'s at runnin🐠g spaceships. She's destroyed the spaceship A.I. of a Covenant ship and then probably ran that ship better than the Covenant A.I. did. She even went up against a forerunner A.I. once.
During the Battle of Installation 05, she fought against the forerunner A.I. 032 Mendicant Bias in order to prevent a ship from leaving without the Master Chief on board. The forerunner A.I. may have been rampant and had d🌠egraded a bit, but it's still quite the impressive feat. She's definitely one of the best A.I. out there. The Didact was even curious about how advanced she is.
6 Luck As The Deciding Factor 🐻
There are many reasons to choose a candidate f𓆉or a position: intelligence, qualifications, experience, but what about luck?
Cortana was allowed to ch𝕴oose which Spartan she would be working with. She did her research and drew up a list of candidates that would all do very well. She, of course, ending up picking John-117, the Master Chief, but for what reasons. There were two things that really set The Chief apart from the other candidates: he has better neural compatibility than the others and, most importantly, his luck.
This makes me wonder how luck is measured because I also think I'm a lucky person, but I also have the🃏 worrying suspicion that I just repress all my unlucky memories. In any case, Corta🔴na did choose The Chief, and that's definitely pretty lucky.