Jump to content

  • Welcome!

    Register and log in easily with Twitter or Google accounts!

    Or simply create a new Huddle account. 

    Members receive fewer ads , access our dark theme, and the ability to join the discussion!

     

Halo 4

CatofWar

By CatofWar,
in Huddle Lounge

Recommended Posts

Doc Holiday Grand Master

Doc Holiday

Posted
Posted

This is a post by JESUSAURU5 REX on the halowaypoint.com forums that I found very interesting. And if you don't already know Halo Waypoint is the now official everything Halo site, Bungie.net only has to deal with their games now.

WARNING BELOW IS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR HALO 4 IF YOU HAVE NOT YET FINISHED THE GAME, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

As we all know, Cortana was left with a suspicious and vague "death" after the events on the Composer. Though there has been much speculation as to her outcome, there is no way to tell what fate she found. Many people have concluded that such an event has lead to the indefinite end of Cortana, while others speculate that this is only the beginning of a very dark, but intriguing plot. As much as I'd love to take the easy way out and say "Yep. She's super dead!" I can't help but ponder as to what really happened to her. The way she left us seemed so... out of place, and the events leading up to the ending left us with so many unanswered questions.

But I want to give people some peace. How? By telling them that I wholly believe that Cortana is indeed alive, and we will see her again soon. That's the most straight up way to state my thesis, and I hope many others feel the same too.

What you will find below is a list of in game quotes that I believe serve as a clever foreshadow to Cortana's future. Also in the paragraphs to come, you will find scenes from the game that are also suspicious and oddly connected to Cortana.

___________________________________

Bear with me as I go a little into the background of this all. Trust me, my support for Cortana's survival shall come.

We were told by 343 that the new trilogy will be focusing on character development of Master Chief. In the past three major installments, John-117 has been portrayed as this "BA" space marine that can fight against all odds and save the day. We never have time to dwell into his character because he is too busy saving the galaxy and plowing through numerous enemies. But now, with the next three installments, we are finally able to get a closer look at the Master Chief, and how he is as a human. Wait, there's that key word. HUMAN.Through-out all of Halo 4, we are given lines of dialogue that portray John's struggle between what he really is --- machine or human. But John is not the only one who is struggling with this concept. Cortana is too.

This is what leads me to believe that the theme of the upcoming games is the line between machine and human. What is synthetic and what is organic. The mysterious interviewer of Dr. Halsey during the Prologue already states that Spartans such as John already display sociopathic tendencies and are viewed as military hardware rather than as humans. Given this and the other various hints towards this theme, it is within reason to assume that upcoming events in the Halo series will focus on John, and Cortana finding that line between humanity and machinery.

For those of you who are curious as to what lines draw attention to this theme. Here you are:

"Your mistake is seeing Spartans as military hardware." - Dr. Halsey

"Before this is all over... promise me you'll figure out which one of us is the machine." - Cortana

"You say that like soldiers and humanity are two different things. Soldiers aren't machines. We're just people." - Latsky.

"She said that to me once. About being a machine." - Master Chief.

So I am sure you have all understand the point about the theme, so let's move on to the part where Cortana gets involved. You know how I mentioned above that both Cortana and John are struggling to find the line between synthetic and organic? Well, Cortana yearns to find the human side of things. Let's begin the real speculation:

Warning: Major Speculation Below!

Cortana wants to be human. I never noticed it on my first play-through, but after my second, I began to notice dialogue that hinted towards her longing to be human. Let's run through a few.

"...But for all that, I'll never actually know if it looks real... If it feels real."

During this scene we have Cortana explaining only a few of the "48,000" reasons why the star she is looking at isn't real. These reasons are calculated so fast they are beyond human ability, but yet, Cortana wants to know what it truly looks like and what it feels like --- human capability. (Except burning from touching the star. Whatever, yo.) I can't believe I missed this on my first play-through, but it pretty must just throws Cortana's longing for humanity in your face.

Of course, she is limited as an AI. Although she capable of hyper-intelligence, she lacks the senses that a human has. And sometimes, I feel as if she is jealous due to her limitations. This leads me to the quote below:

"IMPRISON HIM? LIKE HE IMPRISONED HIS PROMETHEANS? LIKE DR. HALSEY IMPRISONED ME?"

Once again, we're seeing this idea that Cortana is angry because of her limitations as an AI and wants to be free --- like a human. Many would argue that this quote is due to her rampancy, but rampancy or not, she is expressing her "emotions" or thoughts about her state. And clearly, she is not satisfied with her imprisonment as an AI, and wants to find that element that makes her human. But how could an AI ever be human?

The Composer

Yep. We've all seen this theory before! Because of that fact that the composer can turn organic flesh into AI, it can also turn AI into human flesh. To be honest, this is correct. The Librarian even stated it herself, even though she also stated that the reverse process created abominations... but still, it's possible.

So how does this theme, Cortana's longing for humanity, and the composer prove her survival? Well here is where it all ties together:

The game is all about character development. We all want to see Master Chief finally show some heart and grow emotionally through-out the new trilogy. But the only time we ever see John show affection is when he is showing it to Cortana. Without Cortana, Master Chief is a borderlining sociopath and we're left with a Spartan who is literally nothing but a husk. How can you build a character emotionally when he is a lifeless piece of hardware? You can't. That is why the story NEEDS Cortana.

With Cortana longing for humanity, and John longing for Cortana so he can find his human side as well, 343 could never kill her off as this would slam the door shut on his character development. Halo 4 was the beginning the the trilogy, so it needed to create questions that will eventually be answered. Why would they start this idea of Cortana wanting to be human if they were just going to kill her off in the first game? Why would Cortana be kinapped by the Librarian for a few minutes for shizzles and giggles? Why would the Librarian specifically mention Cortana as "unique" "more than coincidence" if she was only going to die in the end? Why would the Composer have this function to turn AI's into organic flesh if the only AI we ever cared about is dead?

The answer is simple. She lived, and she'll return. 343 gave us all the questions, and now we have to find the answers. Speculation galore, indeed. But there's too many hints to simply say "she died."

Please, feel free to add your speculation to this thread! I want it to be a massive discussion regarding her role in Halo 4. Please, keep this alive and get thinking!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
SOJA Veteran

SOJA

Posted
Posted

This is a post by JESUSAURU5 REX on the halowaypoint.com forums that I found very interesting. And if you don't already know Halo Waypoint is the now official everything Halo site, Bungie.net only has to deal with their games now.

WARNING BELOW IS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR HALO 4 IF YOU HAVE NOT YET FINISHED THE GAME, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

that's interesting.....I was majorly under-whelmed with the story, but if that's true it seems like the trilogy could turn out ok

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Doc Holiday Grand Master

Doc Holiday

Posted
Posted

Did you ever try playing COD WaW campaign on the hardest difficulty? I got it done but my god my blood pressure went up 3 notches for sure.

Nope, I only bought that game because my brother wanted to play it, so I played the multiplayer with him for a month, and then he switched to something else, and I returned to game to gamestop

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Doc Holiday Grand Master

Doc Holiday

Posted
Posted

Funny moment today, one guy accused me of using a Aim bot, some people can't accept the fact that some people are just better then them at the game lol.

btw I'm not blowing people up like I was the first week anymore player pool finally normalized and there is decent competition again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ivan The Awesome Mentor

Ivan The Awesome

Posted
Posted

Funny moment today, one guy accused me of using a Aim bot, some people can't accept the fact that some people are just better then them at the game lol.

btw I'm not blowing people up like I was the first week anymore player pool finally normalized and there is decent competition again.

IN some replay cams I see, they are shooting at me but their cursor is not even near my body and they are getting head shots. While I'm blasting them in their dome and they win the BR/DMR battle. I won't lie, I suspect them to be using something at times when I see the kill cams. Either that or they are host and I'm not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Doc Holiday Grand Master

Doc Holiday

Posted
Posted

IN some replay cams I see, they are shooting at me but their cursor is not even near my body and they are getting head shots. While I'm blasting them in their dome and they win the BR/DMR battle. I won't lie, I suspect them to be using something at times when I see the kill cams. Either that or they are host and I'm not.

What you are seeing is a lag issue, you see that all the time.

aim bots on xbox are a big pain in the ass to make, Just to use one on a Xbox 360, 1 you have to have a modded xbox, and 2 have a Aim Bot program made just for the game. every game has slightly different programing so they have to adjust it on a case by case biases.

Modded Xboxes are so widely banned now, that modding one to use online is like throwing money down the drain, they even have ways to tell if you have a modded controller now.

Aim bots are rare to see, there are a few tell tail signs that they are using them but I haven't seen someone use one since MW2, but a lot of what you think is a aim bot is just someone taking advantage of the games built in Aim assist, like in MW2 the quick scopes, worked because you just had to tap zoom-in and pull the trigger really fast in the general direction of someone with a Sniper rifle, the scopes Auto aim on to the other player when you first zoom-in basically lining up the perfect shot.

Halo 4 has a pretty heavy handed built in aim assist, much more so then the COD games, I think its because it's not a reflex shooter, so they can afford to do it without it drastically changing the game play. if they put the aim assist in COD that they do in Halo no one would ever have to aim.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Doc Holiday Grand Master

Doc Holiday

Posted
Posted

not as interesting as yours mr halo champ

go back to playing games that play themselves for you and bragging about how bad ass you are at them

Funny I don't remember Halo Playing itself, I would try and explain why the game actually needs an Aim assist that's a little and I mean little bit more noticeable then say the CoD franchise. but why bother with you.

and yeah what's wrong with bragging, not playing a game for 18 months and you kick ass on it as soon as you pick it up again I believe is grounds enough for a little brag time.

but I come into this topic because it interest me. you on the other hand only came in here to troll

but honestly I know I'm wasting my breath with you since I'm basically feeding the troll, please continue with your sad existence, but let it just be somewhere that you are less of a eye sore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...