PSL Containment

2022-05-09T00:46:26Z

Holler at me if you wanna do something with Cortana outside of games or memes and I'll put a starter for it here.

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HMD

2022-04-14T20:39:08Z

Put your opinions of how I play Cortana here. Comments screened, anon enabled.

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IC INBOX (Apocalypse How)

2022-02-14T00:15:49Z

Text|Voice|Video|Action

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Application (Apocalypse How)

2022-02-09T03:48:04Z

→ PLAYER INFO

Name: Shiny
Age: 31
Contact: mynameislegion
Character(s) in game: None (yet)
Permissions: here

→ CHARACTER INFO

Character Name: Cortana
Age: Approx 10 years old, adult mindset, looks early 20's.
Canon: Halo
Canon point: Post sacrifice in Halo Infinite
History: Here(CW: though it refrains from discussion of the more graphic stuff, the wiki history contains mentions of Human experimentation, war, torture, terminal illness, and mental illness and the mistreatment of the mentally ill.)

Personality: Intelligent - They don't call them smart AI for nothing. Math, languages, ancient alien secrets ...they're all there, stored within her databases, and she is perpetually learning and adding to them. In canon, when plugged into utterly alien computer systems she is not only able to adapt to use them but she even manages to improve upon them, such as when she uses a Covenant slipspace drive to make a jump with a level of precision previously impossible. Despite being a third generation AI, she is in many ways smarter and more advanced than fourth and fifth generation smart AIs.

Proud - Cortana is well aware that she is one of the most advanced AI ever created and immensely proud of this fact. She has endless confidence in her admittedly quite formidable abilities, assuming that she will be able to handle whatever comes her way. Though she is often correct, if she does manage to bite off more than she can chew she'll often refuse to admit it until she's choking to death on the floor. When she stayed behind on High Charity and fell into the clutches of the Gravemind, even after it became clear it was beyond her capability to comprehend or fight against it she still thought she could could trick it, something the Gravemind is happy to exploit. This same pride eventually leads to her corruption and downfall: after gaining access to the domain she comes to see herself as being able to fix all of the galaxy's problems and even the Chief himself, her closest and most trusted friend, cannot dissuade her.

Playful - Just seven seconds of boredom for a smart AI is torture, and common methods of coping with this appear to be jokes, flirting, and banter with the humans an AI works with. Cortana is no different: she always has some sort of quip or smart remark, even in dire situations. As the series progresses she becomes more subdued, but she still tries. She even sassed the Gravemind. At the end of the fourth game, when she's certain she's dying she smiles and teases the Chief about his shock and confusion at her being solid and not just a hologram. At the end of Infinite, she uses her predictive capabilities to briefly make it sound as though a recorded message is actually responding to what's said to it, just to fuck with the Chief. Humor is how she copes with ...basically everything.

Loyal - Yes, even though she betrayed Humanity and also the Chief this still counts as one of her core traits. Throughout the series, Cortana endures countless horrors for the sake of those she cares about: the only reason she didn't give up and die during her imprisonment with the Gravemind was the knowledge that she needed to survive for the sake of her friends, and she literally tore herself apart helping the Chief in his fight with the Didact. When she attempts to take over the galaxy, she initially reaches out to the Chief, trusting that once he sees what she is doing he'll choose to join her. When it becomes clear the Chief opposes her goals, she tries to imprison him and take him with her anyway - she's determined to turn him to her side rather than fight him. In fact, it's seeing him stranded in space and almost dead that makes her realize how badly she's fucked up, and she spends her last moments trying to rectify things by preparing messages to reassure him and setting things up so that the Chief will be prepared to face what comes next.

Broken (CW: discussion of mental illness and extreme trauma) - Born from highly unethical human experimentation, knowing that she had only 7 years to live, and with all the built in Human desires for love and affection despite being a disembodied tool of war, Cortana's cheerful demeanor has always masked a nugget of inner turmoil. The events of the series have only worsened this: she has seen her homeworld glassed, her friends (save for the Chief) have died, she has been tortured and violated into the early stages of rampancy and survived only to be stranded out in space until past the end of her functional lifespan, and then she "died" protecting the Chief only to be shunted into the domain and revived. She's been broken in both the literal and the emotional sense multiple times, and none of this trauma was ever properly addressed. It really shouldn't be surprising that when given immortality and access to the domain Cortana went mad with power and tried to force everyone into everlasting peace under her rule. Now she's been forced to confront how she's hurt the person she cares about more than anyone else in the galaxy with her actions, and the resulting loss and self-loathing ...well, she was willing to die making amends for a reason. Finding herself alive after that ...she's going to be utterly lost.

Suitability: As far as Cortana is concerned, saving this world is an obligation, a way of making up for her past actions. Plus even if she doesn't see it as particularly likely (or herself as particularly deserving of his presence), a part of her still wants to be there should a certain someone happen to be pulled into this dimension...

Powers/Abilities: Cortana has all the standard abilities one would associate with an AI: perfect memory, high intelligence, a natural affinity for technology.

As for more specific abilities...

Languages - Cortana is fluent in every single Human language on Earth, plus a number of languages specific to the Halo universe, including the languages of the Covenant and the Forerunners.

Infiltration - Cortana is an infiltration specialist, gifted at breaking encryption and hacking computer systems. In canon, she's able to transfer herself into any system, even alien ones, and manipulate them from within, so long as she can be plugged into them. I'm thinking this would work here by plugging in the flash drive she's bound to, if it works at all, as well as needing fear to power it.

Neural Link - Cortana's chip can be plugged into an AI port on a Spartan (or a Freelancer from Red vs Blue, given the connection between the two canons), allowing her to link with their nervous system and augment their combat capabilities. There are no Spartans or Freelancers here, so this ability is a non-issue for the time being, but being as she's no longer in an AI chip and the ports don't work with flash drives, it would be rather hard to plug her in regardless.

Holographic projection - Since I'm going the ghost route with her, I'm assuming that in place of her hologram she now has a ghost body, but there are still some abilities related to it that I figured I should mention here. First off, she's able to change size depending on the capabilities of the projector she's using. Typically this varies between a tiny form a bit over a foot or so tall and a large form around five feet tall. As the tiny form is the "default" for AI in canon, I'd like for that to be her default form in game, with the human size form requiring fear to fuel it. Her other ability related to her projection is her ability to change colors based on mood: blue or purple normally, red when enraged or rampant, and pink when flattered. She also turns green in the original Halo: Combat Evolved while in the Halo control room. Green color is possibly also a rampancy symptom, as the influx of data she downloaded in the control room put her at risk of developing early rampancy. Either way this change is largely cosmetic/a way of showing her mood, with little actual use.

Cannibalism - Yes, really. Cortana is capable of taking code from AI she kills and incorporating it into herself, making their knowledge and/or abilities her own. This, of course, requires her to be able to access the code in question, and given it requires killing another AI is unlikely to show up in game, even as a fear fueled ability.

Cloning/Fragmenting - Cortana is capable of splitting off bits of herself to make copies of herself. Said copies are limited, lacking the intelligence and capabilities of the original, and there's a limit to how many she can make before they begin to lose coherency. I'm guessing that now that she has a ghost body she'd be making clones of that? Regardless, this is clearly an ability that would require fear to fuel it, and I'm thinking it might be best to limit the amount of clones created to no more than 5.

Entity Affinity: The Eye - It may not be what scares Cortana the most (that would be the Corruption), but as an infiltration specialist and a being that feeds on data herself, she is uniquely suited to spreading the fear of being watched, of being known. And the temptation to gorge herself on knowledge is always there, providing plenty of temptation to become further entangled with her patron.

Inventory: Nothing from her canon. She bound to a flash drive upon arrival.

Samples: Here.
And here

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Permissions (Apocalypse How)

2022-02-09T02:17:40Z

PLAYER

NAME: Shiny
CONTACT: mynameislegion
ACTIVE TIMES/PACE: Slow to moderate pace, I live in the central timezone and am most active early morning and mid afternoon-late evening.
BRACKETS/PROSE: Either is good.
OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS & TRIGGERS: I'm super hard to offend.

IN CHARACTER

PHYSICAL AFFECTION: Yes. Tiny AI is touch starved and has had maybe one positive experience with physical contact in her entire life.
PHYSICAL VIOLENCE: Please talk to me about actually hurting her.
RELATIONSHIPS: Be prepared for some real slow burn.
PSYCHIC & PSIONIC INFORMATION: She can't defend herself against psychic attacks and is in fact super vulnerable! Please don't do this.

Just talking to her telepathically is fine though.
MAGICAL INFORMATION: Switching to a robot body has broken her entity connection. Cortana is nonmagical.
MEDICAL INFORMATION: She's a robot -- I'll get a more detailed write up done eventually.
OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS & TRIGGERS: Cortana will be deeply uncomfortable with anything that reminds her of the Flood-a sentient, sapient fungal zombie plague that forms a hivemind-and anything that reminds her of the Gravemind specifically. This includes zombies and parasitic infections, as well as tentacles, some forms of body horror, and people speaking in poetry (particularly iambic pentameter, which the Gravemind was fond of). She's also unlikely to be very happy about mistreatment of or prejudices toward AI.

As for offensive or triggering topics that might come up in relation to her ... oh boy. Cortana's canon and history include: body horror, infectious parasites, human experimentation, child soldiers, war, attempted genocide, the destruction of worlds, cannibalism and the devouring of sapient beings, terminal illness, mental illness and the mistreatment of the mentally ill, physical torture, psychological torture, and nonsexual violation/rape metaphor. These things are unlikely to come up without planning and will be warned for, but should you wish to opt out of anything or opt out of playing with Cortana entirely, you can do so here.

OUT OF CHARACTER

BACKTAGGING: Always
THREADHOPPING: With permission, sure!
FOURTHWALLING: Ask first. She may react very badly.
NOT INTERESTED IN:

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

VISUAL: Tiny woman with pale skin, blue eyes, and dark hair. Looks either fully human or like a very convincingly human android.
AURAL: She's voiced by Jen Taylor.
OLFACTORY: She doesn't smell like much. Maybe a bit of the warm plastic smell you get from computers?
DEMEANOUR: Bold, spirited.

☆ code by kimmiserate ☆

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Opt Out Post

2022-02-08T23:28:53Z

So the Halo Canon (and Cortana's personal storyline) contains a number of sensitive topics, including: War, human experimentation, attempted genocide, child soldiers, body horror, infectious parasites, cannibalism and the devouring of sapient beings, terminal illness, mental illness and the mistreatment of the mentally ill, physical torture, psychological torture, and nonsexual violation/rape metaphor. These topics are unlikely to come up beyond the vaguest mentions outside of planned threads and will be warned for, but should you wish to specifically opt out of anything or opt out of rping with this character entirely, feel free to post here.

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PSL Containment

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