Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Wild, speculative theories born from the communications with AdjutantReflex.

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UrsusArctos
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Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Unread post by UrsusArctos »

Like Kiloh Ekim already mentioned, AR's naming convention is at odds with that of the two known monitors, Guilty Spark and Penitent Tangent. 'Adjutant' being a second-in-command, and 'Reflex' again, an automatic response to an incitement or stimulus.

I have no requirements. I am a facilitator. The array requirements are paramount.

Duh. Is he the second in command to one of the Installation Monitors, or to the central AI of the Ark/array system as a whole? While 343 Guilty Spark and 2401 Pentitent Tangent have some sort of numerical identification as part of their name, Adjutant Reflex does not. Does his lack of a number give him a superior classification?

343 Guilty Spark:(Two Betrayals) Protocol does not allow units with my classification to... perform a task as important as the reunification of the index with the core.

Is Adjutant Reflex cleared to reunify the index with the core? He's been talking a lot about Array requirements. Is that the array of Halos he's talking about? Intriguing.

As for this guy's existence in the game itself, from the deeply hinted-at but ultimately ambiguous existence of an AI on Pillar of Autumn to Guilty Spark's dialogue in the Maw, there seems to be someone keeping an eye on things while keeping out of sight.

Another AI on the Autumn?
(a) From the novels- In Ghosts of Onyx, the three AI's affiliated with the Spartan-III project are named after the seasons Winter, Summer and Spring. Autumn is missing, and we know that PoA was in the Zeta Doradus (Onyx) system two years before the events of Halo.

Much more directly- in Fall of Reach, Pillar of Autumn is very clearly mentioned as having two AIs- Cortana and an unnamed Point Defense AI. The second AI is never booted up due to a lack of time, and Cortana herself handles the PD for the Reach space battle. This AI never turns up again, and Keyes might have destroyed it when he initiated the Cole protocol, but nothing is ever clearly mentioned. Is PoA's second AI one of Chekov's Guns or a Red Herring?

(b) In game-
Keyes(Pillar of Autumn): Capture or destruction of a shipboard AI is absolutely unaccpetable.

Bungie may have decided to get rid of this AI the way they got rid of Johnson's flood immunity, as a plot point they were unhappy or dissatisfied with, but in the absence of a clear statement to that effect, I'll go with the assumption that the case for this AI's existence is the same as its state at the end of FoR: It's not active, but it exists on the ship nevertheless. Going by Keyes' statement, this second AI should have been removed from the Autumn, but its removal is not mentioned either in the game or in Halo: The Flood.

Who is with Guilty Spark?

343 Guilty Spark:(Two Betrayals):
If you are unwilling to help, I will simply find another. Still, I must have the index. Give your construct to me, or I will be forced to take her from you.

343 Guilty Spark:(The Maw):Why do you continue to fight us, Reclaimer? You cannot win! Give us the construct and I will endeavor to make your death relatively painless...


Notice the change from "I" and "me" in Two Betrayals to "us" in the Maw. Who is with Sparky? "I will endeavour to make your death relatively painless..." endeavour to do so in the face of someone else's anger, or out of his own misplaced gratitude to the seemingly loony Master Chief? What is the position of this second entity in relation to Spark?

343 Guilty Spark :Ridiculous! That you would imbue a warship's AI with such a wealth of knowledge! Weren't you worried it might be captured? Or destroyed?

Spark is no fool and Cortana is not an ordinary warship AI, so this statement's been taken to mean that the other AI on Pillar of Autumn does exist, and Sparky's talking about him. However, Cortana says that Sparky's in her data arrays. Are the data arrays exclusively her own, or are they a part of the ship's computer system, and not taken away with Cortana when she left the Autumn? Spark rambles on about human history like he's been around there for some time before they came and hadn't just entered Engineering, and he continues to say things like "This AI construct has too much data" during our rampage in the engine room. Again, who is he really referring to: Cortana or the unconfirmed second AI?

And not to mention the "We" and "Us" conundrum. If the second AI on the autumn is the person he's talking about, why is it supporting Spark? If it's been quietly disposed of and its existence is a mere red herring, why the "us"?

Enter Adjutant Reflex. There are two ways in which AR can fit in with the whole situation.
(1) He's the second AI from the Autumn, back from canonical limbo and converted into 343 GS's assitant and driven back in time for whatever crazy reason: to learn more of human history, perhaps?

(2) He's the second-in-command of the entire Ark system, the other half of the "us" in the Maw, and he's on Halo 04 in whatever way: Faster than Light data transfer, perhaps due to a higher classification, and maybe to control the Flood outbreak there. He likes the data on the Autumn, and tries to stop the outbreak while keeping Autumn's data intact for study. Halo 04 is blown up, and he makes a cheap escape and heads to our time for more of the data he found on the Autumn.

Our data archiver compared to Spark:

Sufficient contextual data acquired. 871803909 ± 384 hours since event.

Compiling local archives/resources. [Hibernating] until next incident.

Archives/resources will be compiled in approximately 38 hours. No significant incident predicted. Systems, functions and attitudes are normal.

I'll tell you where the Sleeping Princess is.
- reprobate

Detailed investigation complete. You do not possess that location. Data acquisition complete. Compiling local archives/resources. [Hibernating] until next incident.


Guilty Spark:
You can't imagine how exciting this is! To have a record of all of our lost time! Human history, is it? Fascinating.
Oh how I will enjoy every moment of its categorization! And to think that you would destroy this installation. As well as this record. I am shocked. Almost too shocked for words.


Sparky is almost drunk on what he finds on the Autumn, while AR is totally impassive as far as his trawling is concerned. If you ask me, he knows what he's searching for, and I guess he has an idea of what to search for based on what's on the Autumn. It's a stretch, but I'd put it as the best explanation we have available.
kungfudude
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Re: Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Unread post by kungfudude »

That made the most sense ive heard all day.

Im shocked i didnt think of that haveing recently re read FoR.

You may be right, you may be wrong. Its a facinating idea which only time will be able to prove.
gunluva
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Re: Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Unread post by gunluva »

Nice analysis. Really a head scratcher.
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Sir Topham Hat
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Re: Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Unread post by Sir Topham Hat »

An interesting theory. A very interesting theory. Some nice speculation going on, unfortunately not enough evidence to give it much credence. A very nice theory none-the-less.
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LoneRanger 2.5
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Re: Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Unread post by LoneRanger 2.5 »

Definitely an interesting theory you have there, Ursus. But I have to add into the equation my two-fifths of a nickel (Strange wording, I know. Just think about it a little).

The term "Adjutant" could be interpreted several different ways. "Lower", "below", "higher", etc. The list goes on for quite some time. I think one of the most important interpretations is "second."

"Second Reflex" would mean that our good friend is a thinker. He ignores the "natural" reflex to calculate the worst case scenario and prepare for the result. Instead, he's a much more rational entity, not one to decide to kill a Reclaimer because of words.

I'll end my theory there, and let you guys think about it a bit and respond.
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Sir Topham Hat
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Re: Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Unread post by Sir Topham Hat »

An interesting theory as well Ranger, but I still believe Adjutant is meant to indicate that he is a helper, just as he has promised as a facilitator.
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LoneRanger 2.5
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Re: Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Unread post by LoneRanger 2.5 »

All monitors are adjutant (I don't believe that's correct English, but what the heck). Every single one is in place to serve the Reclaimers.

It's going to be weird if we're all right.
UrsusArctos
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Re: Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Unread post by UrsusArctos »

Interesting, LoneRanger. I checked the definiton of "Adjutant" on Google, and all the entries I got were of a military second-in-command. One described an Adjutant-General as being the Chief Administrative Officer of a military General. "Reflex" means an involuntary or automatic response.

Adjutant Reflex, second reflex or not, gives an automatic, involuntary response, and does not initialize anything. The bit about an Adjutant-General being an administrative officer for a General might reflect this guy's duties...he's an administrator for the AI in charge of the array, and judging from his replies, he's searching for data here, perhaps under orders. As he himself says, he's just a facilitator.

As a matter of fact, what does that say about us pumping him for information? This guy knows what he's trawling our time for, but what if our questions, or other stimuli, are the equivalent of tapping him on the knee with a hammer, and he responds to us purely as a reflex? An AI capable of trillions of calculations a second would barely need to think before replying, especially if it were a forerunner creation. If I remember right, he gave CorvetteHalo 300(On bungie.net) the coordinates of Voi(With a North/South latitude error) when asked about it. If he's replying as an automatic response, what question will give us the unthinking response we want, or, even better, give us a thinking response?

It seems like the Voi question made him think a little bit, because he did check on Voi after giving the coordinates, and I think the Sleeping Princess bit made him look about as well...what questions seriously set him searching? And when will he give us a thinking response?
cauc8xsens8x
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Re: Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Unread post by cauc8xsens8x »

I think the us that he refers to is GS and the sentinels of Halo, where as the AI he refers to with too much info is Cortana, but I could be wrong just my opinion.
endejas
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Re: Adjutant Reflex- have we met this guy before?

Unread post by endejas »

I thought the second AI on the Pillar of Autumn was activated to help run human defenses while on 04. His name was William if I remember correctly...
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