Talk:Cortana (Halo)/Archive 1

Halo 3 Update
Given that Halo 3 has had its release in most parts of the world by now (as well as ahem...widely distributed evaluation copies). I would have expected updates on this page. - Just a Thought. - Roswell Crash Survivor 03:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

= The article is just simply a jumble right now. There is information on the trailers and the game at the same time, which makes no sense (in the trailers she seems to jada jadda jadda- in Halo 3 it is clear that she jadda jadda jadda) we need no trailer information, we have the actual game in our hands now.

Copying from Bungie Site
Plagarized source http://halosm.bungie.org/story/cortana.html --70.24.219.247 15:54, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

--- Maybe someone from Bungie did it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.107.210.176 (talk) 12:08, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible Cortana Rampancy
Does anyone elsa think that Cortana was in the early stages of Rampancy in First Strike? I mean she turned off several of her safety protocols. Im not to big on editing the article myself so if u agree w/ me u can put a blip in about it in the First Strike section.

The Voice Actor of Cortana
Hi! I'm new to this wikipedia contributioning so I'll post the info here instead, the actress who does Cortanas voice is Jen Taylor, who has also done Princess voice in Mario Bros. For more info on more Computergame voice actors see this article in the seattlepi

http://seattlepi.com/theater/289468_gamevoices23.html

I hope that someone who knows the wikipedia contribution system and way better than I do can have some use for it.

Cheers!

Possible cleanup?
I think this page needs cleanup and organization. The one heading it has is hardly organization. Someone needs to reorganize everything and section it out. It would be easier if there was a little more information, too. Basically, I'm just suggesting a cleanup tag be put at the top of this article.

Okay.
I have placed the tag, I don't have time to work on this, but I will.


 * I don't percieve the need here. The article summary is quite competent and informs the reader of the source material. If a clean-up is warrented, please do so. I've removed the tag in the meanwhile. -ZeroTalk 16:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Amiguities Regarding Loyalty
Spoiler
 * Towards the end of halo 2, it would appear that cortana is having difficulty dealing with the intelligence known as gravemind. Also after the credits, there is a dialog between cortana and gravemind indicating that she will answer questions that are put to her. While this is heavily open to interpretation, it may constitute evidence that cortana has been comprimised in some way. cite - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Halo_characters in the gravemind section. I havent read any of the books, so my comments arent fully researched. With the advent of the Halo 3 trailer, this ambiguity of her "state of mind" is intentional. cite - http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?link=weeklyupdatemay1206

addition
 * It would appear that this topic has already been addressed and reverted in previous edits in the main article. With the new (citable) information regarding halo 3 (see above), would it not be wise to note that it is under dispute? or at the very least comment that gravemind proved a competent adversary?

Sword vs. Source
Bungie has made it expressly clear that Cortana is saying "Sword" in the announcement trailer. Any statements that she is saying "source" are incorrect. Peptuck 05:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Do you have a source for this? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:55, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Specifically:


 * ''SlimJim0045 asks,

Please have Cortana's lines pronounced so that I don't see 36 threads about it. "I have defied gods and demons." "I am your shield, I am your SWORD." "I know you, your past, your future." "This is the way the world ends."''

Peptuck 19:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

hair
does her hair gow or something
 * She's a holographic AI. She can change her physical appearance however she wants. Peptuck 08:40, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I think that her color might also change depending on her mood (see her in Installation 04's control room for example.) Plus the bits of data runing across her "skin" reflect what she is thinking at the time, though such data is often indecipherably complex to most people.  - Fearless Son 22:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Cortana and Master Cheif (And a little on her loyalties...)
The article states that there may be some attatchment between Cortana and MC, while the books Halo: The Fall of Reach and Halo: The Flood make it quite clear that there most definately is.

In Halo: TFoR, Cortana is assigned to *cough* erm--forcefully chooses to be MC's MJOLNIR AI (this event is actually quite comical). The book states that she 'would do everything in her power to make sure he was never hurt again'. While this statement does make clear that she has an attatchment to MC, while it does not specify whether this attachment is one of affection or pity. However, in Halo: The Flood, it is revealed that Cortana has a deep-seated affection for MC.
 * Cortana was created out of a cloned brain of Dr. Hasley, and thus has much in common with Hasley, as is demonstrated in Halo: The Fall of Reach. Dr. Hasley has also been shown to be very protective of her Spartans, in all the books but especially in Halo: First Strike and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx.  I think that protective nature has extended to Cortana as well.  - Fearless Son 22:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I have not yet had the chance to play Halo 2 in it's entirety, and it's been a year since I played it at all, so I don't remember all of the interactions between Cortana and MC.

Personally, I believe that Cortana's loyalties lie first with UNSC and second with MC. Her actions in Halo 2 and those seen in the H3 trailer are quite interesting, though...

EDIT: After reading all three books in their entirety, especially Halo: First Strike, It seems that there may be something wrong with Cortana. On the Covenant Flagship Ascendant Justice, she copies herself into the ship's memory core, and the following occurs:
 * "She distantly felt...her mind blur and replicate, assembled line by line into its new location within the Ascendant Justice. It felt strange. Not that it was strange she could think in more than one place about mote than one thing at the same time--she was used to multiprocessing. This was a different strange--as if she had a glimpse into something wonderful...and infinite." (Halo: First Strike p. 196)

Does this statement hint at rampancy? It sounds kind of like it.
 * One thing that I notice about people speculating on Cortana in Marathon terms is that they worry that she is going rampant. I do not believe that is really applicable.  Notice how in the Marathon universe the "Holy Grail" of cybernetics is a "stable" rampant A.I., one who displays the growth and intelligence of rampancy yet is still controlable.  Look at Contana, she is already there.  She has had the limits on her intellectual growth removed in order to increase her intelligence, the side effect being that she will eventually outgrow her own capacity and thus "die."  - Fearless Son 22:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Age?
What year in the Halo Universe was she created?

The book never says she was just introduced I think.

Corana and Durendal
I'm not sure how to add this to this article and thus leave it here in hopes of someone who does coming along. The Durendal article says that a legendary sword was inscribed "My name is Cortana, of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durendal." Given the AI Durandal in the Marathon series and the closeness of the Marathon and Halo series... --Kizor 15:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * This is simply one of the quirks of Bungie. They named Cortana after another legendary sword from the same era as Durandal as a means of catching the attention of Marathon Fans.  This was done initially in "The Cortana Letters" sent to the Marathon's Story web page to build hype.  The letters were written with Durandal-like tones so a deliberately similar name was chosen.  They kept the name for the character in the game, because it kept fans of Marathon guessing and thus held their intetest.  - Fearless Son 22:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Cortana in Trailer
I never heard anything like "Leave me" by cortana in the ESPN trailer. She said "Chief?". Thats it.
 * Its barely audible, but a female voice very similar to the one that says "Chief, chief...." is audible, saying "Leave me." Peptuck 05:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Cortana?
When you kill Keyes on the Truth and Reconsilitation level, Cortana says something like "No... Without the captain... The covenant-" and then gets cut off with the respawn. What is the full part?- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.34.30.166 (talk • contribs)
 * Cortana only speaks two lines after you kill Keyes, and they don't have to do anything with the captain... the transcripts of the mission can be found here if you're interested. Dåvid Fuchs [ talk &bull; contribs ] 01:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Truth and Reconsilitation level, not ship... I meant when you kill him after you rescue him. Sorry if I made any misunderstandment. I'll look for the level from it though. Thanks.

Link to Cortana's Eyes
Hello. I am the one who added the bit about Cortana's eyes in the picture of Master Chief (currently reference 9) but I'm having a bit of trouble getting the link to work. I think I have all of the information right, though. If anyone can help me with this, I'd appreciate it. Here it is, albeit missing the so that it's not taken as a part of context and formatted by this talk page: ref></ref   Thanks! Enker Dot EXE 15:56, 1 May 2007 (UTC)Enker Dot EXE EDIT: okay, apparently it's not working here, either. Here's the link, if someone is willing to fix it: http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/734/734817/img_4504995.html

Notablity
Okay, so we've been having an argument lately over whether this article meets the requirements for notability. I would like to point out that, according to WP:FICT, ''Major characters (and places, concepts, etc.) in a work of fiction should be covered within the article on that work of fiction. If an encyclopedic treatment of such a character causes the article on the work itself to become long, then that character can be given a separate article.''

Now, I don't think anyone can deny that Cortana is a major character in the overarching Halo series, and if what Bungie has been saying lately is any indication, she'll be even more important. I also think that its fairly clear that the List of Halo series characters page is already very long as it is. So, I don't think the article requires third party sourcing any more than the other million and a half articles on Wikipedia.

While I agree that every article needs third party sourcing, I would point out that the vast, vast, vast majority of articles about fictional characters, objects, locations, and the like on Wikipedia do not have an immense amount (or even basic level of) third-party sourcing. Unless we're going to start throwing out giant, ugly templates on every one of these articles, I don't think Cortana's article deserves it anymore than any other article relating to fictional characters. And third-party sourcing is not necessary for an article on fictional characters, as the above passage I quoted lays out.

I think what we really need to work on here is applying a sufficiently encyclopedic treatement on the Cortana article so that it can exist on its own without having to necessarily meet notability requirements. This means doing out of universe work, slimming down what is present, and filling in all the gaps (that Halo 2 section is so short and sparse it makes me cry). This does not mean we should be waging a silly edit war over tags and templates that may not even be needed.

Thoughts? Peptuck 05:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: in checking the notability critereon for fiction page, it backs up my assertion above that Cortana, being a major character in the Halo series, rates her own article so long as we can apply an appropriate encyclopedic entry. Peptuck 01:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I think Cortana's notability is pretty clear, but is the dablink really notable at the top? Is Curtana close enough to Cortana that it needs to be disambiguated? Another issue entirely is the notability of the Curtana article. ZG 17:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm all for slapping tags on the 500,000-or-so fiction articles. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Cortana is a video-game character, from merely three games even. Wikipedia would be a lot more useful if we didn't have plot summaries for every Simpsons episode ever and if we could be content with articles about games and not their characters.


 * This article is hardly encyclopedic. It contains no third-party sourcing, even though it went through an enormous afd. Yes, I started that AfD. I still think I'm right: read the general notability guideline in WP:N closely. The AfD failed, I believe, because of this line in Notability (fiction): If these concepts are by themselves notable (meaning they include substantial real-world information as mentioned above) and an encyclopedic treatment causes the article on the work itself to become long, then the concepts are split into succinct sub-articles that maintain such an encyclopedic treatment; this shows that the information is notable enough to stand on its own.


 * It basically states that if the Cortana section would be too large in the Halo article, it may be split to a subarticle. That's the keep reading of it, anyways. When I read it, I see the words "encyclopedic treatment" in bold and flashing. Is this article encyclopedic? No.


 * Excuse my unplanned rant. Jobjörn  (Talk ° contribs) 12:58, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

easter egg
I added a part under Character history (but forgot to sign in) and it might ought to go in a 'trivia' section. yeah... somebody else decide for me.
 * I'm pretty sure that trivia sections aren't really important, nor are easter eggs.--60 Delta 00:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Appearance
I'm not sure if it's worth entering, but could her drastic change in appearance from Halo to Halo 2 have some significance? There is quite a large change, and I wonder if it could have been done to make her seem more attractive. That's just speculation, but if someone knows more, it seems like it might be worth adding. 129.59.8.10 21:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Trivia Section
This could just be me but I feel that this section needs a triva section for "extra information" such as the second part of the introduction where is talks about the swords Cortana and Durandal. Rearete 19:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Trivia sections are discouraged as a way of organizing information. If we can find sources, there should ideally be a section or paragraph for references and connections to other games and works. — TKD::Talk 19:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Cortana lingerie
The source for this doesn't mention any Cortana lingerie. Should this just be removed? --194.203.201.92 17:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Legendary Extras
On the Legendary disc of halo 3, if you watch the "re-designed" cutscenes in halo with the director/developer commentary on, the people talking say that they had originally intended for Cortana to be British, in fact they had the voice actresses speak their lines in British, i'm just wondering if this should be added in to the article, considering that it does have to do with the creation of the character READY TO FINISH THE FIGHT! 01:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * If you can cite it properly, put it in. David Fuchs ( talk  ) 17:46, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

oh well like i have an idea, i'm just not sure where to put it READY TO FINISH THE FIGHT! 22:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It would most likely go in 'Character development'. Just throw it in there; if it need's formatting, I can do that. David Fuchs ( talk  ) 18:45, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Word for word this is what they say in the Developers Commentary on the Legendary Edition "Essentials" disc 2. This is said when Cortana is arguing with 343 Guilty Spark in the Control Room. She mentions the chief "toadying about with [his] little friend". J: "Toady, Toady?"

S: "Do you remember why she says things like 'toady'?"

J: "No"

S: "Because originally you wanted Cortana to have a British accent."

J: "What?"

O: "That's actually true because when we cast Cortana we asked every woman to do an English accent for us."

J refers to Jason Jones, S refers to Joseph Staten and O refers to Marty O'Donnell. I added it to the article diff. The wording might be a little odd and it might need a fix though. James086 Talk &#124; Email 09:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks pretty good, thanks! David Fuchs ( talk  ) 12:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

yeah looks great, thanks for doing that READY TO FINISH THE FIGHT! 18:53, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Opening text
there's a direct quote along with some other text about Cortana's sex appeal, but none of it is cited, and it definitely needs it. Hotshot977 23:36, 3 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It is cited later in the article, does it need a citation in the lead section? James086 Talk &#124;  Email 01:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * i think it is more important to cite it the first time it appears in the article, as a reader will assume that a repeated statement is from the same source as earlier in the article Hotshot977 18:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)