Cortana
Encyclopedia
Cortana is a fictional
artificially intelligent
(AI) character in Bungie
's Halo video game series
. Voiced by Jen Taylor
, she appears in Halo: Combat Evolved
and its sequels, Halo 2
and Halo 3
, in the prequel and epilogue of Halo: Reach
, as well the novels Halo: The Flood
, Halo: The Fall of Reach
, Halo: First Strike
, and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
. During gameplay, Cortana provides backstory and tactical information to the player, who assumes the role of the Master Chief
. In the story, she is instrumental in preventing the activation of the Halo
installations, which would have destroyed all sentient
life in the galaxy.
Cortana's original design was based on the Egyptian queen Nefertiti
; the character's holographic representation always takes the form of a woman. Taylor, despite her extensive voice acting for video games, is not a gamer; she described portraying Cortana as challenging, due to the character's lack of a physical form.
Bungie first introduced Cortana—and Halo—through the Cortana Letters, cryptic emails sent during Combat Evolveds production in 1999. Since then, the character has been used extensively to advertise the series. Action figures of the character were sold in conjunction with the latter two games, and she appeared in other forms of marketing for Halo 3
. Cortana has been recognized for her sex appeal
, believability, and character depth; she was rated as one of the ten most disturbingly sexual game characters by Games.net and one of the fifty greatest female video game characters ever by Tom's Games.
s [...] coincidentally, modeled Cortana." Cortana's original Halo model was based on the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti
.
Voice actor Jen Taylor
said that she remained somewhat distanced from the character, and attended only one fan convention in six years after the release of Halo: Combat Evolved. Despite her role in voicing other video game characters, including Princess Peach
, she is not a gamer. She felt that portraying Cortana was occasionally challenging because the character lacks a physical form and is "a computer". Interviewed about Cortana in Halo 3, Taylor said that "There’s a lot more drama and a lot less technical jargon
this time around. I actually just finished a couple of lines that nearly had me in tears." When choosing a voice actor for the character, Bungie originally wanted Cortana to have a British accent. Although this idea was later discarded, Cortana still uses British colloquialisms in Halo: Combat Evolved.
brain of Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, the creator of the SPARTAN Project; Halsey's synaptic networks became the basis for Cortana's processors. According to the Halo novels, Cortana is classified as "smart", meaning that her creative matrix is allowed to expand, in contrast to the limited matrix of other "dumb" AI characters in the stories. This allows Cortana to learn and adapt beyond her basic parameters, but at the cost of a limited "lifespan" of only seven years; eventually, she will literally "think herself to death".
Cortana is highly skilled and capable of hacking alien computer systems and decoding transmissions, and is occasionally smug about her abilities. In Halo: The Fall of Reach she hacks
into Top Secret Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) documents out of boredom. Her intellect occasionally causes her to be loquacious to a fault; in The Fall of Reach
, Halsey notes that if she were to let Cortana continue with her hypothesis, the AI would talk all day. The Doctor also sees Cortana as a teenage version of herself: smarter than her parents, always "talking, learning, and eager to share her knowledge." Cortana is also described as having a sardonic sense of humor; she often cracks jokes or comments wryly, even during combat. Her high spirits and lack of programming restrictions give her a set of behavioral "quirks" unique among most AI characters in the Halo universe. For example, she becomes irate and impatient when the Master Chief doubts her judgment in Halo: First Strike.
to the first video game. Dr. Halsey allows Cortana to choose which SPARTAN-II soldier to accompany on an upcoming mission; Cortana picks the Master Chief
, whom she believes is her best match. Cortana and the Spartans are assigned a near-suicidal mission: to take the cruiser Pillar of Autumn to the home world of the Covenant
, an alliance of alien races, and capture one of their Prophets to force a truce. Before the mission, Cortana helps the Master Chief to survive the near-lethal exercises designed to test the Chief's MJOLNIR battle armor. Afterward, she plants incriminating evidence in the files of Colonel Ackerson, the ONI operative who nearly killed both of them, as revenge. When the Covenant
attacks the planet Reach, one of the largest planetary military bases besides Earth, Cortana guides the Pillar of Autumn based on star charts on a Forerunner tablet, thus bringing them to Halo.
Cortana first appears in the video games during the introductory cinematic of Halo: Combat Evolved. In the 2003 novelization of the game, Halo: The Flood
, Cortana likewise plays an important role. Controlling the Pillar of Autumns defenses, Cortana destroys four Covenant targets before the ship's weapons are disabled. Under the Cole Protocol, Captain Keyes, the Autumns commanding officer, prepares to abandon ship. Since the protocol mandates the evacuation of any AI constructs, the Master Chief is charged with safeguarding Cortana from the Covenant. When the Master Chief arrives on Halo, Cortana monitors the communications channels, helps direct human survivors scattered across the ring, and assists the Master Chief in the rescue of Captain Keyes from the Covenant ship Truth and Reconciliation.
Inserted into Halo's Control Room, Cortana looks for a way to activate Halo to use as a weapon against the Covenant, but becomes visibly agitated and sends the Master Chief to find Captain Keyes. Cortana stays in Halo's computer core as the Master Chief encounters the parasitic Flood and is conscripted by the Forerunner construct 343 Guilty Spark to activate Halo's defenses. The Master Chief and Guilty Spark return to the Control Room, intent on using the Index, the key to Halo, to eliminate the Flood, but Cortana reveals the truth that she has learned: Halo does not kill Flood, but their food. If Halo were activated, all sentient life in the galaxy would be destroyed. She takes the Index and thus becomes a target for 343 Guilty Spark. Having captured the Index, Cortana and the Master Chief plan to destroy Halo. They succeed after Cortana helps the Chief to detonate the Pillar of Autumn' s fusion reactors, causing an explosion powerful enough to destabilize the ringworld. The two escape in a fighter and witness the ring's destruction.
takes place immediately after the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Cortana and the Master Chief, seemingly the sole survivors of the events of Halo, discover a small number of other United Nations Space Command (UNSC) personnel have in fact escaped the ring. Cortana helps to take control of a Covenant cruiser, Ascendant Justice, and later returns to Earth with the remaining survivors after destroying the Covenant space station Unyielding Hierophant. In this novel, Cortana gains the ability to create imperfect clones of her program. A clone that the Master Chief and his Spartan Blue Team bring to Unyielding Hierophant eventually re-clones itself hundreds of times to aid the Spartans in completing their mission.
, on the Earth defense platform Cairo Station, at an awards ceremony for the heroes of Halo: Combat Evolved. When a Covenant fleet arrives, Cortana takes control of the Cairos coilgun
, the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, to repel the invaders; she successfully deactivates a bomb that would have destroyed the station. Later, upon discovering Delta Halo, Cortana gives Commander Miranda Keyes access to all information on the original Halo, and provides intelligence to the Chief and UNSC Marines on the surface of the ring. When sent by the Flood leader, Gravemind
, to the Covenant city-ship of High Charity, Cortana stays there as the Master Chief follows the Prophet of Truth. She promises to detonate the crashed In Amber Clad' s reactors to destroy the city and Halo if the ring is activated. The firing of Halo is averted by Keyes, the Arbiter
, and Sergeant Major Avery Johnson, but Cortana is left with Gravemind, who has overrun High Charity.
game Halo 3. During gameplay, Cortana appears to the player in broken transmissions, often reciting lines from Fall of Reach and earlier games. Cortana manages to send a message to the Master Chief on Earth, through a Flood-infected ship. In her message, she states that Gravemind is unaware of the portal opened by a Forerunner artifact on Earth. Cortana continues to appear to the Chief, who later recovers her from Flood-controlled High Charity. Surprised that the Chief has against all odds rescued her (as promised), Cortana produces the Index from Installation 04, which she has kept as a souvenir. With it, Cortana is able to activate a new ringworld being constructed. While the Flood are destroyed as planned, a slipspace portal collapses as the Master Chief, the Arbiter, and Cortana attempt to escape through it, thus stranding the Chief and Cortana. Cortana activates a distress beacon, but knows that it could be years before they are found. As the Master Chief prepares to go into cryonic sleep
to await rescue, Cortana confides to him that she will miss him. He replies to wake him when she needs him.
, which in the game's fiction takes place before Combat Evolved. When the Spartan group Noble Team receives orders to destroy important intelligence inside the military installation Sword Base, Cortana contacts Noble Team and sends them to an excavation site under the base. There, Halsey contacts the team and shows them a massive Forerunner structure buried beneath the surface. Halsey downloads Cortana and gives her to the soldier Noble 6, instructing the team to bring the AI to the UNSC ship Pillar of Autumn. While the rest of Noble Team was killed, Noble 6 hands Cortana over to Captain Keyes and elects to stay behind and protect the ship while it makes its escape.
. The strategic use of cryptic messages in a publicity campaign was repeated in I Love Bees, a promotion for Halo 2
. Although Bungie does not consider most of the letters to be canon
, Cortana speaks many of the same lines in Halo 3. According to C. J. Cowan, Bungie's director of cinematics, the studio used the character here to give story clues without actually revealing the story.
Cortana has been turned into an action figure twice to promote Halo. The first was released as a seven-inch (178 mm) miniature as part of the Halo: Combat Evolved
series of action figures. The character is also featured in the first series of Halo 3 action figures, distributed by McFarlane Toys. In an interview, McLees noted that the first action figure was supposed to convey an older appearance than was depicted in the games. This was accomplished by making the figure look a little buxom, despite McLees' direct request to reduce the mass of the figure. She explains that the sculptor appeared reluctant to make the change and that time constraints ultimately left the design intact.
quoted another website that thought that the game plodded along without Cortana, "who provided the series with most of what humor it had and most of the exposition". Similarly, CinemaBlend.com decided that the "love story" between Master Chief and Cortana in Halo 3 provides "a focus to the game that an epic war between species can not accomplish. As Chief, the player needs something to anchor them into the story, and that happens to be Cortana." One publication simply noted that Cortana "has inexplicably had a sexy makeover."
Part of Cortana's appeal has lain in her looks; the character was ninth on a list of "Top Ten Xbox
Babes",Gamedailys "Babe of the Week", and the sixth most "disturbingly sexual game character" by Games.net. 1UP.com
's Scott Sharkey listed the character as the fifth best video game computer, and noted that as Cortana's sanity waned in the video games, her clothing appeared to decrease as well. "If computers have to go nuts," he wrote, "the very least we should ask for is that they get sexier looking while they do it." Aside from appearance, reviewers found other aspects to praise; Cortana was named the fifth best supporting character, and one of the "50 Greatest Female Characters" in a video game; the reviewer thought that the character's determination and fearlessness meshed perfectly with the game's protagonist.
In an essay on references to mythology in Halo and previous Bungie games, Jill MacKay analyzed the significance of Cortana's name. It is a variant of Curtana
, the sword used by the legendary Ogier the Dane
, just as the titular AI character of Marathon 2: Durandal
is apparently named after another legendary sword, Durendal
. Curtana's inscription reveals that the sword has the same "temper as Joyeuse
and Durendal". Accordingly, MacKay speculated before the release of Halo 3 whether the "smart" Cortana would follow Marathons Durandal in succumbing to rampancy, a concept invented by Bungie in which an AI character becomes insane by gaining too much knowledge.
Character (arts)
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
artificially intelligent
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
(AI) character in Bungie
Bungie
Bungie, Inc is an American video game developer currently located in Bellevue, Washington, USA. The company was established in May 1991 by University of Chicago undergraduate student Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones after publishing Jones' game Minotaur: The Labyrinths of...
's Halo video game series
Halo (series)
Halo is a multi-million dollar science fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed by 343 Industries and owned by Microsoft Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant...
. Voiced by Jen Taylor
Jen Taylor
Jennifer Lee "Jen" Taylor is an American voice actress best known for her role as Cortana in various Halo games and the Xbox 360 game "1 vs. 100".-Voice work:...
, she appears in Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved, frequently referred to as Halo: CE, or Halo 1, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The first game of the Halo franchise, it was released on November 15, 2001 as a launch title for the Xbox gaming system, and is...
and its sequels, Halo 2
Halo 2
Halo 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Studios. Released for the Xbox video game console on November 9, 2004, the game is the second installment in the Halo franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved...
and Halo 3
Halo 3
Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2...
, in the prequel and epilogue of Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 console. Reach was released in North America, Australia, and Europe on September 14, 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the...
, as well the novels Halo: The Flood
Halo: The Flood
Halo: The Flood is a 2003 novel based on the 2001 Xbox video game Halo: Combat Evolved written by William C. Dietz. Closely depicting the events of the video game, The Flood begins with the escape of a human ship Pillar of Autumn from enemy aliens known as the Covenant...
, Halo: The Fall of Reach
Halo: The Fall of Reach
Halo: The Fall of Reach is a 2001 science fiction novel by Eric Nylund based on the Halo series of video games and acts as a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game in the series. It is set in the fictional Halo universe, taking place in the 26th century across several planets and locations...
, Halo: First Strike
Halo: First Strike
Halo: First Strike is the third novel in the Halo series and the second Halo novel written by Eric Nylund. Published in 2003, it serves as a bridge between the events of the video games Halo: Combat Evolved and its 2004 sequel Halo 2...
, and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
Ghosts of Onyx is a novel by Eric Nylund, set in the universe of the Halo video game series and released on October 31, 2006. Ghosts of Onyx was the fourth Halo novel published, and Nylund's third contribution to the series...
. During gameplay, Cortana provides backstory and tactical information to the player, who assumes the role of the Master Chief
Master Chief (Halo)
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is a fictional character and protagonist of the Halo fictional universe, created by Bungie. Master Chief is a player character in the trilogy of science fiction first-person shooter video games Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3 and will appear in the...
. In the story, she is instrumental in preventing the activation of the Halo
Halo (megastructure)
Halos are fictional megastructures and superweapons in the Halo video game series. They are referred to as "Installations" by their AI monitors, and are collectively referred to as "the Array" by the installations' creators, the Forerunners...
installations, which would have destroyed all sentient
Sentience
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
life in the galaxy.
Cortana's original design was based on the Egyptian queen Nefertiti
Nefertiti
Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a religious revolution, in which they started to worship one god only...
; the character's holographic representation always takes the form of a woman. Taylor, despite her extensive voice acting for video games, is not a gamer; she described portraying Cortana as challenging, due to the character's lack of a physical form.
Bungie first introduced Cortana—and Halo—through the Cortana Letters, cryptic emails sent during Combat Evolveds production in 1999. Since then, the character has been used extensively to advertise the series. Action figures of the character were sold in conjunction with the latter two games, and she appeared in other forms of marketing for Halo 3
Marketing for Halo 3
The first-person shooter video game Halo 3 was the focus of an extensive marketing campaign which began with the game's developer, Bungie, announcing the game via a trailer at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May 2006. Microsoft, the game's publisher, planned a five-pronged marketing strategy...
. Cortana has been recognized for her sex appeal
Sexual attraction
Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal refers to an individual's ability to attract the sexual or erotic interest of another person, and is a factor in sexual selection or mate choice. The attraction can be to the physical or other qualities or traits of a person, or to such qualities in the context...
, believability, and character depth; she was rated as one of the ten most disturbingly sexual game characters by Games.net and one of the fifty greatest female video game characters ever by Tom's Games.
Character design
In an interview, female Bungie artist Lorraine McLees stated that game designers are generally men, and "women in their games are perhaps portrayed in the way they themselves see women. Here, the same 3-D artist who wanted to not portray women as sex objectSexual objectification
Sexual objectification refers to the practice of regarding or treating another person merely as an instrument towards one's sexual pleasure, and a sex object is a person who is regarded simply as an object of sexual gratification or who is sexually attractive...
s [...] coincidentally, modeled Cortana." Cortana's original Halo model was based on the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti
Nefertiti
Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a religious revolution, in which they started to worship one god only...
.
Voice actor Jen Taylor
Jen Taylor
Jennifer Lee "Jen" Taylor is an American voice actress best known for her role as Cortana in various Halo games and the Xbox 360 game "1 vs. 100".-Voice work:...
said that she remained somewhat distanced from the character, and attended only one fan convention in six years after the release of Halo: Combat Evolved. Despite her role in voicing other video game characters, including Princess Peach
Princess Peach
is a character in Nintendo's Mario series of video games. She is the Princess of the fictitious Mushroom Kingdom, and often plays the damsel in distress role within the adventure series. In 2007, Princess Peach landed on Forbes magazine's Wealthiest Fictional People list, with a fortune upwards of...
, she is not a gamer. She felt that portraying Cortana was occasionally challenging because the character lacks a physical form and is "a computer". Interviewed about Cortana in Halo 3, Taylor said that "There’s a lot more drama and a lot less technical jargon
Jargon
Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he...
this time around. I actually just finished a couple of lines that nearly had me in tears." When choosing a voice actor for the character, Bungie originally wanted Cortana to have a British accent. Although this idea was later discarded, Cortana still uses British colloquialisms in Halo: Combat Evolved.
Personality
Cortana is constructed from the clonedCloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
brain of Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, the creator of the SPARTAN Project; Halsey's synaptic networks became the basis for Cortana's processors. According to the Halo novels, Cortana is classified as "smart", meaning that her creative matrix is allowed to expand, in contrast to the limited matrix of other "dumb" AI characters in the stories. This allows Cortana to learn and adapt beyond her basic parameters, but at the cost of a limited "lifespan" of only seven years; eventually, she will literally "think herself to death".
Cortana is highly skilled and capable of hacking alien computer systems and decoding transmissions, and is occasionally smug about her abilities. In Halo: The Fall of Reach she hacks
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
into Top Secret Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) documents out of boredom. Her intellect occasionally causes her to be loquacious to a fault; in The Fall of Reach
Halo: The Fall of Reach
Halo: The Fall of Reach is a 2001 science fiction novel by Eric Nylund based on the Halo series of video games and acts as a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game in the series. It is set in the fictional Halo universe, taking place in the 26th century across several planets and locations...
, Halsey notes that if she were to let Cortana continue with her hypothesis, the AI would talk all day. The Doctor also sees Cortana as a teenage version of herself: smarter than her parents, always "talking, learning, and eager to share her knowledge." Cortana is also described as having a sardonic sense of humor; she often cracks jokes or comments wryly, even during combat. Her high spirits and lack of programming restrictions give her a set of behavioral "quirks" unique among most AI characters in the Halo universe. For example, she becomes irate and impatient when the Master Chief doubts her judgment in Halo: First Strike.
Outward appearance
As an artificial construct, Cortana has no physical form or being. However, she always speaks with a smooth female voice, and appears holographically as a woman. In Halo: The Fall of Reach, Cortana is described as slender, with close-cropped hair and a skin hue that varies from navy blue to lavender, depending on her mood. Her appearance in Halo: Combat Evolved is similar, while in Halo 2 and Halo 3 she becomes bluer in tone, and has a different hair style. Numbers and symbols flash across her form when she is thinking.Halo: The Fall of Reach
The origin of Cortana is not explained in the video games, but in the Halo novels. Her first chronological appearance in the story is in Halo: The Fall of Reach, a 2001 prequelPrequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
to the first video game. Dr. Halsey allows Cortana to choose which SPARTAN-II soldier to accompany on an upcoming mission; Cortana picks the Master Chief
Master Chief (Halo)
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is a fictional character and protagonist of the Halo fictional universe, created by Bungie. Master Chief is a player character in the trilogy of science fiction first-person shooter video games Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3 and will appear in the...
, whom she believes is her best match. Cortana and the Spartans are assigned a near-suicidal mission: to take the cruiser Pillar of Autumn to the home world of the Covenant
Covenant (Halo)
The Covenant are a fictional theocratic military alliance of alien races who serve as the main antagonists in the Halo video game series. They are composed of a variety of diverse species, united under the religious worship of the enigmatic Forerunners and their belief that Forerunner ringworlds...
, an alliance of alien races, and capture one of their Prophets to force a truce. Before the mission, Cortana helps the Master Chief to survive the near-lethal exercises designed to test the Chief's MJOLNIR battle armor. Afterward, she plants incriminating evidence in the files of Colonel Ackerson, the ONI operative who nearly killed both of them, as revenge. When the Covenant
Covenant (Halo)
The Covenant are a fictional theocratic military alliance of alien races who serve as the main antagonists in the Halo video game series. They are composed of a variety of diverse species, united under the religious worship of the enigmatic Forerunners and their belief that Forerunner ringworlds...
attacks the planet Reach, one of the largest planetary military bases besides Earth, Cortana guides the Pillar of Autumn based on star charts on a Forerunner tablet, thus bringing them to Halo.
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: The Flood
Halo: The Flood is a 2003 novel based on the 2001 Xbox video game Halo: Combat Evolved written by William C. Dietz. Closely depicting the events of the video game, The Flood begins with the escape of a human ship Pillar of Autumn from enemy aliens known as the Covenant...
, Cortana likewise plays an important role. Controlling the Pillar of Autumns defenses, Cortana destroys four Covenant targets before the ship's weapons are disabled. Under the Cole Protocol, Captain Keyes, the Autumns commanding officer, prepares to abandon ship. Since the protocol mandates the evacuation of any AI constructs, the Master Chief is charged with safeguarding Cortana from the Covenant. When the Master Chief arrives on Halo, Cortana monitors the communications channels, helps direct human survivors scattered across the ring, and assists the Master Chief in the rescue of Captain Keyes from the Covenant ship Truth and Reconciliation.
Inserted into Halo's Control Room, Cortana looks for a way to activate Halo to use as a weapon against the Covenant, but becomes visibly agitated and sends the Master Chief to find Captain Keyes. Cortana stays in Halo's computer core as the Master Chief encounters the parasitic Flood and is conscripted by the Forerunner construct 343 Guilty Spark to activate Halo's defenses. The Master Chief and Guilty Spark return to the Control Room, intent on using the Index, the key to Halo, to eliminate the Flood, but Cortana reveals the truth that she has learned: Halo does not kill Flood, but their food. If Halo were activated, all sentient life in the galaxy would be destroyed. She takes the Index and thus becomes a target for 343 Guilty Spark. Having captured the Index, Cortana and the Master Chief plan to destroy Halo. They succeed after Cortana helps the Chief to detonate the Pillar of Autumn
Halo: First Strike
Eric Nylund's 2003 novel Halo: First StrikeHalo: First Strike
Halo: First Strike is the third novel in the Halo series and the second Halo novel written by Eric Nylund. Published in 2003, it serves as a bridge between the events of the video games Halo: Combat Evolved and its 2004 sequel Halo 2...
takes place immediately after the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Cortana and the Master Chief, seemingly the sole survivors of the events of Halo, discover a small number of other United Nations Space Command (UNSC) personnel have in fact escaped the ring. Cortana helps to take control of a Covenant cruiser, Ascendant Justice, and later returns to Earth with the remaining survivors after destroying the Covenant space station Unyielding Hierophant. In this novel, Cortana gains the ability to create imperfect clones of her program. A clone that the Master Chief and his Spartan Blue Team bring to Unyielding Hierophant eventually re-clones itself hundreds of times to aid the Spartans in completing their mission.
Halo 2
Cortana appears next in Halo 2Halo 2
Halo 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Studios. Released for the Xbox video game console on November 9, 2004, the game is the second installment in the Halo franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved...
, on the Earth defense platform Cairo Station, at an awards ceremony for the heroes of Halo: Combat Evolved. When a Covenant fleet arrives, Cortana takes control of the Cairos coilgun
Coilgun
A coilgun is a type of projectile accelerator that consists of one or more coils used as electromagnets in the configuration of a synchronous linear motor which accelerate a magnetic projectile to high velocity...
, the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, to repel the invaders; she successfully deactivates a bomb that would have destroyed the station. Later, upon discovering Delta Halo, Cortana gives Commander Miranda Keyes access to all information on the original Halo, and provides intelligence to the Chief and UNSC Marines on the surface of the ring. When sent by the Flood leader, Gravemind
Gravemind
The Gravemind is a parasitic intelligence in the Halo universe. While only one Gravemind is ever seen in the games, the title is given to the final stage of Flood evolution. The Flood is a highly-infectious parasite which is released several times during Halos story...
, to the Covenant city-ship of High Charity, Cortana stays there as the Master Chief follows the Prophet of Truth. She promises to detonate the crashed In Amber Clad
Arbiter (Halo)
Arbiter is a fictional ceremonial, religious, and political rank bestowed upon alien Covenant Elites in the Halo science fiction universe. In the 2004 video game Halo 2, the rank is given to a disgraced commander as a way to atone for his failures...
, and Sergeant Major Avery Johnson, but Cortana is left with Gravemind, who has overrun High Charity.
Halo 3
Cortana returns in the final installment in the Halo trilogy, the 2007 Xbox 360Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
game Halo 3. During gameplay, Cortana appears to the player in broken transmissions, often reciting lines from Fall of Reach and earlier games. Cortana manages to send a message to the Master Chief on Earth, through a Flood-infected ship. In her message, she states that Gravemind is unaware of the portal opened by a Forerunner artifact on Earth. Cortana continues to appear to the Chief, who later recovers her from Flood-controlled High Charity. Surprised that the Chief has against all odds rescued her (as promised), Cortana produces the Index from Installation 04, which she has kept as a souvenir. With it, Cortana is able to activate a new ringworld being constructed. While the Flood are destroyed as planned, a slipspace portal collapses as the Master Chief, the Arbiter, and Cortana attempt to escape through it, thus stranding the Chief and Cortana. Cortana activates a distress beacon, but knows that it could be years before they are found. As the Master Chief prepares to go into cryonic sleep
Cryonics
Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology...
to await rescue, Cortana confides to him that she will miss him. He replies to wake him when she needs him.
Halo: Reach
Cortana makes an appearance in the last levels of 2010's Halo: ReachHalo: Reach
Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 console. Reach was released in North America, Australia, and Europe on September 14, 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the...
, which in the game's fiction takes place before Combat Evolved. When the Spartan group Noble Team receives orders to destroy important intelligence inside the military installation Sword Base, Cortana contacts Noble Team and sends them to an excavation site under the base. There, Halsey contacts the team and shows them a massive Forerunner structure buried beneath the surface. Halsey downloads Cortana and gives her to the soldier Noble 6, instructing the team to bring the AI to the UNSC ship Pillar of Autumn. While the rest of Noble Team was killed, Noble 6 hands Cortana over to Captain Keyes and elects to stay behind and protect the ship while it makes its escape.
Promotion
Bungie first introduced the Halo series publicly in 1999 by sending the Cortana Letters, a series of cryptic email messages, to the maintainer of marathon.bungie.org, a fan site for one of Bungie's previous series, the Marathon TrilogyMarathon Trilogy
The Marathon Trilogy is a science fiction series of first-person shooter computer games from Bungie, originally released for the Macintosh. The name Marathon is derived from the giant interstellar colony ship that provides the setting for the first game; the ship is constructed out of what used to...
. The strategic use of cryptic messages in a publicity campaign was repeated in I Love Bees, a promotion for Halo 2
Halo 2
Halo 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Studios. Released for the Xbox video game console on November 9, 2004, the game is the second installment in the Halo franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved...
. Although Bungie does not consider most of the letters to be canon
Canon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
, Cortana speaks many of the same lines in Halo 3. According to C. J. Cowan, Bungie's director of cinematics, the studio used the character here to give story clues without actually revealing the story.
Cortana has been turned into an action figure twice to promote Halo. The first was released as a seven-inch (178 mm) miniature as part of the Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved, frequently referred to as Halo: CE, or Halo 1, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The first game of the Halo franchise, it was released on November 15, 2001 as a launch title for the Xbox gaming system, and is...
series of action figures. The character is also featured in the first series of Halo 3 action figures, distributed by McFarlane Toys. In an interview, McLees noted that the first action figure was supposed to convey an older appearance than was depicted in the games. This was accomplished by making the figure look a little buxom, despite McLees' direct request to reduce the mass of the figure. She explains that the sculptor appeared reluctant to make the change and that time constraints ultimately left the design intact.
Critical reception
Although reviewers felt that Cortana essentially functioned as a "cheerleader" in the first two games, the character's role greatly expanded in Halo 3. Some reviewers found that Cortana's cryptic messages during the first part of Halo 3 slowed the gameplay. On the other hand, GamasutraGamasutra
Gamasutra is a website founded in 1997 for video game developers. It is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb , a division of United Business Media, and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer...
quoted another website that thought that the game plodded along without Cortana, "who provided the series with most of what humor it had and most of the exposition". Similarly, CinemaBlend.com decided that the "love story" between Master Chief and Cortana in Halo 3 provides "a focus to the game that an epic war between species can not accomplish. As Chief, the player needs something to anchor them into the story, and that happens to be Cortana." One publication simply noted that Cortana "has inexplicably had a sexy makeover."
Part of Cortana's appeal has lain in her looks; the character was ninth on a list of "Top Ten Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
Babes",Gamedailys "Babe of the Week", and the sixth most "disturbingly sexual game character" by Games.net. 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
's Scott Sharkey listed the character as the fifth best video game computer, and noted that as Cortana's sanity waned in the video games, her clothing appeared to decrease as well. "If computers have to go nuts," he wrote, "the very least we should ask for is that they get sexier looking while they do it." Aside from appearance, reviewers found other aspects to praise; Cortana was named the fifth best supporting character, and one of the "50 Greatest Female Characters" in a video game; the reviewer thought that the character's determination and fearlessness meshed perfectly with the game's protagonist.
In an essay on references to mythology in Halo and previous Bungie games, Jill MacKay analyzed the significance of Cortana's name. It is a variant of Curtana
Curtana
Curtana, also Cortana or Courtain, is a Latinized form of the Anglo-French curtein, from Latin curtus, 'shortened', used for a ceremonial type of sword.-Famous curtanas:For the main article see Sword of Mercy...
, the sword used by the legendary Ogier the Dane
Ogier the Dane
Ogier the Dane is a legendary character who first appears in an Old French chanson de geste, in the cycle of poems Geste de Doon de Mayence....
, just as the titular AI character of Marathon 2: Durandal
Marathon 2: Durandal
Marathon 2: Durandal is the first sequel in the Marathon series of science fiction first-person shooter computer games from Bungie Software. It was released on November 24, 1995. The game is mostly set on the fictional planet of Lh'owon, homeworld of the S'pht, and once again the player takes the...
is apparently named after another legendary sword, Durendal
Durendal
Durendal or Durandal is the sword of Charlemagne's paladin Roland in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France....
. Curtana's inscription reveals that the sword has the same "temper as Joyeuse
Joyeuse
Joyeuse , was the name of Charlemagne's personal sword. The name translates as "joyful".-Joyeuse in legend:Some legends claim that it was forged to contain the Lance of Longinus within its pommel; others state it was smithed from the same materials as Roland's Durendal and Ogier's Curtana.The 11th...
and Durendal". Accordingly, MacKay speculated before the release of Halo 3 whether the "smart" Cortana would follow Marathons Durandal in succumbing to rampancy, a concept invented by Bungie in which an AI character becomes insane by gaining too much knowledge.