: 343i was easy to work with, very helpful and very accommodating. He was
: discussing the outline for Cryptum with the writing team, and he said that
: the book needed a human character for audiences to latch on to. The
: immediate reply was "I know who that could be!" And that's how
: Chakas came to be 343 Guilty Spark.

So it's all his fault, good to know.
I contest the idea you need a human character. I know Tolkien said the same thing but I think he was wrong too. In a visual medium, maybe, but in a book they just need to not deviate from human form and function too much, or even if they do they just need to not talk about it much. In what I read of it I didn't have any more trouble relating to... whatever the young Forerunner was called... than your average novel character.
I really contest having 343 GS be human, I think he's better as an unrelatable, unknowable, unbalanced, ancient intelligent machine.

: It wasn't all smooth sailing. Primordium needed a rewrite because it had
: diverged too far from several plot points in Halo 4. No hard feelings on
: Greg Bear's part. As he said, it's easier to rewrite a book than a 20
: million dollar video game. I agree, but... I can't help but feel that a
: Halo 4 that cleaved closer to Bear's vision would have been so much better.

Despite my misgivings above, I'm inclined to agree, but mostly because I suspect no one at 343 can write plot to save their life-- interactions, they're fine with, but somehow when it turns to plot everything goes sideways. I'd be interested to see them go the route of Gears 3 or Half-Life and hire a novelist to write the next one.

: I don't know. I just had to get that awesome story off my chest.

legitimately cool story, bro, sounds like fun