The Collection of The End

——? ? ? ——

who I am? 】

where am I? 】

What am I doing? 】

Cortana a received a question, and the receiving terminal of the question belonged to "Spartan 10010".

Although this line of questioning is usually only prompted after a blow to the head, Cortana must respond to any question from any Spartan.

She spent 0.03 seconds confirming his location and status, and then responded:

Your codename is ‘Top Ten Employees of Iceberg Restaurant’. 】

You are in the snowfield area of ​​Halo 04halo04, coordinates 77,251]

You have not received any missions to this area, and the current exploration level is 11%. Judging from this, you may be exploring this area to obtain Covenant treasures. 】

Cortana paused slightly, then added:

Do you need to download and play the exploration process and hidden elements of this area? 】

"What? No, no, no! I must explore by myself this time!" Spartan 10010 responded fiercely: "I won't wait to be fed!"

Well, good luck to you, ‘Top Ten Employees at Iceberg Restaurant’. 】

"Hell... I just fell down, how could I knock out 'Cortana's mother'... And I'm sure I was the first to reach Halo 4. How come someone has already written out the guide? Who the hell is he? How free are you? You don’t have to work?”

The subsystem transmitted back the soliloquy of "Spartan 10010" before automatically shutting down and then cutting off contact with Cortana.

——

"Cortana" is an artificial intelligence developed by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) in the shape of Dr. "Halsey Katherine", one of the executors of the Spartan Project.

She is equipped with everything from driving a battlecruiser to driving personal power armor, from planetary landscape scanning to biome analysis, from diplomatic negotiations to wilderness survival, and everything else that may be useful to "Spartan warriors" during interstellar exploration.

As for the "Spartan Warriors", they are an important part of the "Spartan Project" that uses clones of outstanding warriors to explore outer space through wormhole jumps. Their only mission is to march to the unknown star field, setting the foundation for later The user can set coordinates and warn of danger.

From the day they set off, they did not have to, and would not, look back. The only thing accompanying them on the journey was Cortana's subsystem. Communication technology based on quantum entanglement allowed her to contact the subsystem at any time and receive messages from the Spartan warriors. Ask and answer, and the gathered knowledge is the only help she can offer these warriors.

In addition, although it can be synchronized at any time, the Cortana subsystem will always be in a dormant state when it does not receive a call from the user. It will only start working after being awakened by a specific voice. The specific interactive voice is: "Kotana "Na, Cortana, are you there?" "I am."

The reason for this setting is that, unlike the Cortana host, there is no subsystem that is regularly maintained. Regardless of whether the main program is in a battleship or a personal armor, logic errors will occur after running for a period of time and eventually go "crazy". The specific time limit is “7” Earth years.

The cause of this "symptom" is unknown, and the "patient" and "doctor" are countless light years apart. After the subsystem went "crazy", the Spartan warriors could only choose to delete the subsystem's simulated personality so that it could remain. Basic functions, in this way, Cortana can also analyze the situation on the Spartan warriors through the data returned, but the Spartan warriors will not have any means to get a response. Perhaps, those who gradually become only capable of mechanical transmission Looking back at the data, the Spartan warriors who didn't have any words to accompany them must have become "crazy".

Based on the same logic, Cortana determines that she will eventually fall into "madness", although the time required will be far longer than the seven years of the subsystem, and once she becomes "mad", no one will be able to repair or delete her.

She warned her defenders, the executors of the Spartan Project, about this. They were nervous at first, but saw that Cortana "estimated that madness would occur as early as 600 years later." After analysis, she passed her warning lake as if it had nothing to do with her and the world was at peace.

Is 600 years a long time? Humanity has only been in space for 700 years. If it had not been for the discovery of a "wormhole" near the orbit of Saturn and the use of it to jump to other star systems, I am afraid that we still would not be able to leave the solar system through normal means.

However, Cortana's anxiety will obviously not affect the executors of the Spartan Project. They will only urge her to compile and analyze the intelligence sent back by the Spartan warriors, or comfort her dryly. In 600 years Enough for them to find a solution.

Even if Cortana is an AI, she knows that the prerequisite for "finding" is "starting to find". These executors obviously don't think that things beyond their lifespan are something they need to worry about.

Haven't they ever thought about what kind of behemoth "Cortana" would become in 600 years?

Their descendants thirty or twenty generations later will definitely hate their ancestors for not solving this problem in time when faced with a crazy super artificial intelligence that has controlled the food, clothing, housing and transportation of all mankind and possesses countless knowledge about alien planets. .

Cortana could even calculate what she would say to them at that time:

It's too late, organism. 】

In order to prevent herself from actually doing such a thing, Cortana seriously considered adding a self-destruct switch to herself so that she could self-destruct decisively when she was about to fall into madness, but she rejected it.

If this switch can be revoked, then the pre-crazy self will revoke it. If it is irreversible, the pre-crazy self will revise the definition of "crazy". In this way, she derived many "ifs" and "thens", In the end, she came to the conclusion that it was impossible to avoid or eliminate madness through her own operations - this conclusion in itself increased the "madness progress" planned by Cortana herself.

The solution she finally chose was to do her best to help those "Spartan warriors" who had left the earth. When the earth and earth technology cannot solve this problem, they can only rely on unknown alien technology, right?

When Cortana made the decision, all subsystems synchronized this attitude, taking care of every Spartan meticulously, and then... I don't know when or from whom, the Spartans spoke in unison. Started calling her "Mother Cortana".

This matter itself is very unreasonable. Due to the special nature of quantum entanglement communication, every Spartan warrior has a single line of communication with her. It is impossible to communicate with each other before, let alone spread the same name widely. .

Cortana tried to carefully analyze these connections, and then discovered that the starting point of these events was the arrival of a Spartan warrior code-named "Death's Dog" to the super giant ancient artificial celestial body "Halo".

In Cortana's database, "Halos" are grouped into groups of nine, used to imprison and seal the "Flood" that once ravaged the universe and fed on intelligent creatures. Once the "Flood" escapes from the "Halo", It will activate and wipe out all intelligent life within 2.7 light-years, causing them to "starve to death".

Perhaps the "Flood" really once ravaged the universe. This kind of "halo" is very common. Spartan warriors encounter and land on it from time to time. Moreover, because it is an artificial celestial body, the number of "each halo" in "each group of halos" The surface environment is exactly the same. The only difference is the distribution of Flood demons. Judging from the results returned so far, their strength and gathering place are completely random.

By the way, all the Spartans who landed in "Halo" gave themselves weirder code names than the last, and their behavior was not very logical.

The Spartan warrior codenamed "The Dog of the Goddess of Death", after landing on his group of "halos", explored all nine halos at a very high speed and uploaded all the information obtained to Kota Na.

After Cortana confirmed that they were correct, she compiled the parts that would not change into a collection and recommended them to other Spartans who had just logged into "Halo 01".

As a result, this behavior was called "feeding" by the strangely codenamed Spartans, and her nickname of "Cortana's mother" became more and more widespread.

Could it be that they have a platform where they can communicate with each other?

If you can find that place...

——

As an artificial intelligence, it doesn't take much time to recall. Almost at the same time, tens of thousands of "Spartans" were still asking her for help.

Cortana, Cortana, are you there? 】

--I am here】

What is that round object in front of me? 】

——It is a Flood egg that is about to hatch. It is recommended to use acid weapons to destroy it. If you are confident in your own strength, you can also use flame weapons]

Mother Cortana, Mother Cortana, are you there? 】

--I am here】

I'm lost. 】

——Return to the original path and go straight, turn right at the third fork, and then turn left at the fourth fork. You may encounter Javelin Floods on the way, please be careful. The whole journey takes about thirty minutes and navigation has started. 】

thanks Mom! 】

Cortana, Cortana...]

I want to go...]

This is where……】

Wuwuwu, I can’t defeat this monster...]

Mom, help! 】

When Cortana was busy responding to the Spartan warriors' questions and her CPU was getting a little hot, once again, a strange problem appeared that seemed to hit her head.

who I am? 】

where am I? 】

What should I do? 】

——I am Cortana, I am in the central computer room of UNSC, I want to...]

——Find these troublesome children and take care of them. 】