: When she was becoming rampant Del Rio wanted to put her in a box like a
: broken micro-chip. If he'd have his way she'd be land-fill. A very small
: piece of landfill, in amongst the plastic bottles, rotten food, and junk mail.

: That's no way to treat a person. The Chief would get a hero's funeral.

: I remember thinking, "Can he really just have her disconnected? Is that
: it for her?". It was so callous and... ordinary - like that's just
: what happens to them. No final words even. Not actually a person.

No? I really doubt that's what would've happened for a variety of reasons. The Chief is attached, she's unique, she's got important information in her... I thought it was just about removing her from control, not killing her.

That said it sounds like that's the standard thing for AIs-- but 343i, I think it was Frankie himself, said that AIs in Halo don't begrudge their status like in many sci-fi universes because they think it's a fair trade for what they can do and have access to in their limited time; honor or respect didn't come into it. Conversations from the Universe introduced this some time ago, the idea that both AIs and Spartan-IIs see how they're different from (normal) humans and are OK with it mostly because of the benefits and also because they do have certain legal recourse. Now 343i is going back on a lot of that. I'm sure having every AI have the same view would hurt believability but for it to be like this... I don't know.

As for the means of death and the potential suddenness, it's hard to talk about it because no one's come back from being properly dead to tell us what it's like, much less an AI that's been completely shut down and had its circuitry wiped.

Regardless, to me that doesn't give motivation, not for this. This is pointedly not revenge, it's control by someone that thinks they know better. There are comments about treating humans better than AI were treated, but it's supposedly about peace and protection and safeguarding, just through the application of force and threats of force. That sounds like the Didact to me-- or Mendicant Bias maybe, but he had a change of heart, right?