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From there, he formed the Banished with other exiles willing to follow his lead. The Covenant exiled Atriox after he prevented his own execution.
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The Banished are under the command of Atriox, a Brute warlord who became disillusioned with the Covenant after seeing his pack exploited on a string of suicide missions. These aliens are one of the many factions vying for control in the aftermath of the Covenant’s collapse at the end of Halo 3. The Banished are one of the newer additions to the Halo canon, having debuted in 2017’s Halo Wars 2. Who are the Banished, Halo Infinite’s main villains? Hopefully, we’ll find out more as the story progresses. We only know that Cortana will have some sort of presence in the game. It’s unclear what has happened to The Created prior to Halo Infinite. Notable rebels included Roland, the AI onboard the UNSC Infinity, and Black Box, a powerful AI working on covert operations for the Office of Naval Intelligence. While a large number of AIs joined Cortana and The Created, not all of them agreed with her philosophy. As such, it was possible to stay outside their notice, provided your faction didn’t get involved in any serious conflicts. The novel Shadows of Reach by Troy Denning (Simon & Schuster, 2020) made it clear that the Created were not omniscient, and couldn’t monitor the entire galaxy at once. Unfortunately, The Created’s plan to ensure galactic peace was to force the galaxy into submission, just as the Forerunners had done. According to Cortana and The Created, immortal AIs could do something similar, which makes them superior to humans, or other galactic species. This meant that they could enact long-term plans across the galaxy. The Forerunner lifespan was several thousand years. When the remaining Forerunners left the galaxy, following the firing of the Halo array and the Flood’s defeat, they named humanity as their successors - the reclaimers of the mantle. In practice, it was more of a totalitarian rule that let the Forerunners crush any species that could challenge them - as they had done with prehistoric humanity. In theory, the Mantle was a benevolent philosophy designed to protect biodiversity. The Mantle was essentially a Forerunner philosophy that gave them stewardship over the galaxy and all the species within it. The Created believe that the group responsible for protecting and guiding the future of the galaxy should be as long-lived as the Forerunners were. They agree with her philosophy that AIs, rather than humans, should reclaim the Forerunner’s Mantle of Responsibility. The Created are a coalition of Smart AIs who have allied themselves with Cortana. Who are The Created?Ĭortana as she appears in Halo 5: Guardians (Image credit: Microsoft/343) However it’s not clear whether this ring is Zeta Halo, the setting of Halo Infinite, or one of the other six rings. The last shot of the game featured Cortana humming as the camera zoomed in on a Halo ring, suggesting The Created were seeking control of the galaxy-spanning superweapon. Master Chief, the Arbiter and Catherin Halsey (creator of Cortana and the Spartans) began plotting ways to fight back. Humanity’s main flagship, the UNSC Infinity, had to flee. The Created used the Guardians to fire off electro-magnetic pulses at major locations, and forced their populations into submission. These Guardians could help her and the other ‘Created’ AIs police the galaxy’s population.Īt the end of Halo 5, Cortana's plan succeeded. This led to the awakening of ancient Forerunner Guardians: mile-high machines capable of travelling the stars and quelling resistance where needed. This cured Cortana of her Rampancy, and essentially gave her and other smart AIs the ability to live forever.Īccording to Cortana, the AIs' newfound immortality made them better suited to reclaim the Forerunner’s Mantle of Responsibility than humans. It simply sent her through slipspace, where she was able to make contact with the Forerunner Domain, basically a Forerunner internet spanning the entire galaxy. In the end, she sacrificed herself to defeat the Didact, saving Master Chief and Earth from his attack. This happened to Cortana during Halo 4’s campaign. In the process, they start suffering from uncontrollable emotional outbursts. In simple terms, the AIs end up thinking themselves to death. This condition is known as Rampancy: an irreversible malfunction, in which AI memory starts to grow too big for the limited space in its neural matrix. As a "Smart AI," Cortana had a life expectancy of only seven years, after which she would begin deteriorating. Meanwhile Cortana, already traumatized from when the Flood Gravemind captured her, was reaching the end of her operational lifespan.