: The Next 72 Hours comic series came out in August 2014, and we knew what was
: going to happen in those issues for at least weeks if not months
: beforehand, like all the comics. They're done pretty far in advance (one
: of the reasons why despite getting immediate criticisms on some aspects of
: Escalation, it took so long for, say, the art to improve.)

: If Cortana's role was supposed to be filled by the Didact, they would have
: had to change it the better part of a year and a half or longer before
: release. It doesn't seem that likely to me that her role is a sudden
: substitution.

: As for why Cortana would be "stupid" enough to fall into the same
: trap as the Forerunners... when you're a super-intelligent being who plans
: on leading a bunch of super-intelligent beings, you might just think that
: you're better than those fallible meatbags from 100,000 years ago.

She has also shouldered a mantle of responsibility for humanity all her life, and especially during the events of Halo when she had to work out how to stop Sparky and the Flood. And again in Halo 3.

When she found out about THE Mantle of Responsibility, she had to have thought, "that's me, that's my whole life".

: As for why the AIs would care about humanity at all, I think there's a bit of
: an unstated envy on the AI's position. From what we know, they still
: retain some memories or impressions from their physical bases, not to
: mention subconscious and personality elements. Black Box stands out like a
: sore thumb from some pretty human-like AIs (if you can decide what you
: want to be, the fact that they almost all choose human avatars says
: something about how they're still bound by some vestiges of organic life.)
: Basically, even if from a dispassionate perspective AIs shouldn't feel any
: ties to humanity... it's clear they still do (hence why Sloan tries to get
: his people off-planet before he bugs off, why BB despite his "pure
: thought" shell genuinely cares for those put in his charge, etc.)

I felt that Travis didn't get the basic nature of AIs. They were not made from logic, they were made from dead people. How could they be anything other than people?

I wonder if Cortana's offer to the AIs is being made in good faith? Does she just want them on her side for the time it takes to decommission the fleet? Will they have any say over what she does?

If the haloverse was real life and if she gave them power then they could temper her excesses. How could she not know that?

OTOH the other AIs could have looked at the UNSC, ONI, and the innies and could have thought that she was offering something better than what existed before.

If the Guardian activation hadn't been so deadly then we would have less reason to oppose her. We would have been saying, "At least she's not kidnapping children." Which is probably why the innies have to be dicks or we'd be agreeing with them too much.

Cortana could have seen the Guardian activation as the eggs she needed to crack in order to make her omelet. The defecting AIs might see their actions as the way to prevent further loss of life. Essentially: Cortana is right, her victory is inevitable, the humans under my charge will almost surly die, better to act decisively now to reduce bloodshed.

I wonder how 343 will pitch them? Moustachioed villains or something more?

It is going to be odd fighting for the continued existence of the UNSC and UEG's colonial policy. And fighting for the right to kill each other :-)

I think that Cortana's new world is going to have to be more smothering before I'd really want to fight it. I'm thinking of something more along the lines of John Williams' With Folded hands. Now that story depressed me: I would fight that. As an aside: I'm sure that WFH was an influence in the I Robot film. It wasn't just a zeroeth law story. The protagonist detective mentions a carpenter being put out of a job - I think there is a carpenter who is put out of a job in the Humanoid stories.