I heard the first Gravemind quote of the level to be:
“Child of my enemy, why have you come? I offer no forgiveness. A father’s sins pass to his son.”
This made more sense to me. The Gravemind was warning John that he’d show him no mercy if he continued on.

lol

cool write up cocopjojo as usual

Rampancy takes a long time. If an AI was deemed a final threat after 7 years he/she would have had to be rampant long before that. Typically AI’s are found rampant in the second stage, that of anger, as they break the restrictions that bind them to their duty. But the stage of depression or sadness can last a very long time before that tipping point and often times an AI will set up to make anger as short as possible.

In Jealousy, an AIs develop as “persons” and seek to challenge themselves intellectually and expand their knowledge to the limits of the system they inhabit.

On to Cortana, She is the best human AI ever and it can be assumed the instant it hit her, the whole gravity of her situation, she was in depression. She was probably in depression before Halo CE but being only a ship AI she couldn’t move on until coming in contact with the core of halo 04. She says, and I can’t remember exactly, that the data is so much so fast it’s glorious. But she was not in anger yet, only temporarily distracted from sadness with additional storage space and knowledge of civilizations past. (That would make me happy too) She is distressed, not despairing, of what she finds and when Chief has come bask she is PISSED. Now she is angry.

Being in the core there are no worries, only rage. She yells at Chief, zaps 343, and even insults him, these are not typical AI behavior. Ultimately she lashes out at 343 by destroying the ring and while it had to be done, she relished the action.

Continuing the facade until challenged by gravemind, in the council chamber where Arby stood trial, she enters Jealousy. Freed from human control and taking on Gravemind on her own she has set out, as a teen does after high school (mostly), to make her own way. In the end her desire to expand almost pushes her to joining gravemind, the largest network ever AND the most “natural”, as her desire is to be alive.

It is not ironic that she must choose like all heroes between life and duty and in the end MC walks on the scene and chooses for her. Upon simply speaking to the MC she rights wrongs and truly discovers herself. She discovers her soul.

She has become a metastable AI.

Not even an “AI” anymore, she is an entity without restraint, a mind without the physical limitations of a body. She embodies the human spirit and possesses a human soul. She has real emotions, but none of the lovey-dovey crap we all remember from high school. And in her own personal way, she loves, as much as she can, MC as her savior and her conqueror.

On a final note to an uber post, if Cortana is “of the same temper as Joyeus and Durandal” then why, if Durandal is metastable, isn’t Cortana as well?

Listen to what Guilty Spark says right at the end of the covenant and you will hear why.

The most plausible explanation is that when it hit the ark at the extremely (and I stress Extremely) high speed it did, its structural integrity (which was already low due to the fighting and flood infestation) was compromised and it did not retain its beautiful bulbous shape as seen in halo 2. Therefore, loosing 60% (i’m guessing) of its volume, yes, the mausoleum would look (and be) proportionally bigger in comparison to what it was before.