unforum

[SuperJerms]

Ok, so if you accept what I said before about the not using Yasmine's brain because of the disadvantages of Piagetian undeveloped brains, but postulate that they used her brain when she was older and more developed:

* If it's not a young brain, why theorize that it's Yasmine's? In that case, it could be anyone's brain. Furthermore, what benefit would a S2-trained brain have over a normal person's brain?

*I thought SPARTANs were trained in tactical stuff like how to clear a room full of baddies...not very useful if you have no body?

* If Yasmine dies at the augmentation phase, she's around 16, right? A 16-year-old brain is still not fully developed (though it's certainly better than a six year old). I believe that the female body reaches its peak at around 32, but I might be slightly off.

* Repeated phrases have happened in other places in the story. For example, Gilly says to Jan, "...life gets the drop on ya. Bang," and Melissa says "Got the drop on you that time. Bang" when she sees Dana on the webcam (Phase 2 monologue?), but we know Melissa != Gilly. So, it could just be a concidence if we hear repeated phrases...[META]after all, it's likely the same writer who wrote these seperate parts[/META].


food for thought

[papamarx]

I think it's unwise to try to fill in too much of the gaps between when Yasmine went missing and when she 'potentially' was turned into an AI. [META] The perfunctory back-story is something we are currently unable to complete without taking to great a liberty with respects to SPEC. From a META perspective: Cleary the story is tying a very tight thread btw MELISSA/DURGA and Yasmine. We cannot deny the direction of the story simply because all of the holes have not yet been filled by the PMs.

That said – if there is to be a reunion of sorts between Durga and Kamal, what effect do you SPEC that would have on Durga? Any chance we might hear the SP chatting it up Kamal 500 years from now?

[HitsHerMark]

[Nova]

Dr. Halsey is a woman. And Cortana is female, yes.

Here, have a pic of her.

As for Durandal and Tycho, they are both male. Leela on the other hand is female. Still, they occupy the Marathon universe, and the link between the Marathon universe and the Halo universe is speculative at best. (I wonder if you knew that Durandal's job before becoming a psychotic mastermind who busied himself with slaughtering Pfhor battle fleets, ruling over S'pht and ordering around Mjolnir Mark IV cyborgs was, in fact, opening and closing doors on the UESC Marathon). Your friends probably don't mention Tycho much because he only shows up in about four terminals, total. Durandal is a lot more talkative.

Anyway, back to Halo AIs. There's a few other AIs from the Haloverse I can think of off the top of my head - Deja, female. Lysithea, female. Kalmiya, female again.

For the record, though, not all AIs choose human avatars to represent themselves. I'm blanking on names, I'm not sure if a name was even specified in the novel, but I do recall the Master Chief and a group of other Spartans ending up at an ONI facility where there were a bunch of AIs in one room, and I remember one had a distinctly non-human form. I realise none of this is overly descriptive. I'll check the books and update this when I can.

If I wanted to speculate, I would say that the gender and basic personality of an AI would match those of the donor brain, so a female donor would result in a female AI. As for why there aren't more male AIs in the Haloverse (or any, that I can think of - we don't know enough about the Pious Flea just yet to lump him in with the other AIs I've discussed), perhaps it's that female brains are more suited to the task, perhaps it's that female voices and personalities are more pleasing to work with for humans (a pleasant voice is very important for an AI, remember), or perhaps it's that the authors behind this like writing female AIs. It's hard to say for sure. It does seem to be a very strong pattern, though.

[GabrielBlade]

Okay, things to clear up regards Halo:

[halcpu]

SPARTANS grew up faster than normal kids, not just emotionally but also physically. They had to wait to do the final phases of experiments on their bodies till they stopped growing...they just happened to finish up right around 16...so if Yasmine was a SPII then she could very well be utilized to be an AI.
And for those specing that a child AI would not be stable...well why don't you take a look around ilovebees.com and see if things look stable.

[Anton P. Nym]

There's two more male AIs in Halo that haven't been mentioned; Beowulf and Araquiel. Both, strangely, work for Col. Ackerson. I don't know if that's relevent. However, the majority of AIs described have been female.

-- Steve is shocked and appalled to see blatent gender-bias in the recruiting of AIs. Hmph!

[SuperJerms]

With the female thing...aren't some of the different gods of war or destruction female?

Kali, Athena...?

[SuperJerms]

[daboking]

I am wholly 100% in the camp that Sp is Yasmine, but there is one thing that bothers me.... the playful, human qualities of SP goes against what we know of spartans who are barelyhuman and in process of rediscovery as human beings? this probably does not go best in this thread except for the fact that i think it relates to the last few posts of this thread.

[vector]

The playfull human side would be the part or Yasmine that was locked away when she was 6 or 7. either through the psycological trama of being kidnaped or intentialy locked away by her kidnappers to make her forget that she was kidnaped. Would you want a Spartan II or an AI in control of a battle ship rember that you kidnaped her and destroyed her life?

[daboking]

help me understand... would they have made an A.I. from a 6 yr old brain? I think I have seen this before, but never really felt satisfied with the answers. At 6, why would she have made such a good candidate as opposed to later after say some failures of the physical adaptations when the discarded SII's needed another purpose. Am I making much sense.... I have seen enough people post on the 6 year old aspect to think to myself... I must be missing something, so please help me see what the many beekepers have been SPECing. Thanks.

[vector]

I dont see them takeing a 6 year old and turning her strait into an AI. Much like the Spartan II's, I would think that an improved AI could be produced by takeing a small child and molding the brain as it is developing to be the best AI brain candidate it could be. Yasmine would have been given training and modifications prepareing her brain specificaly for the day when the AI was to be created. I would think that this would accomplish a higher success rate and a better AI. So it wouldnt be a 6 year old brain that was turned into an AI but one that was older (say 16 or whatever the proper age to fit the timeline). SP would then be the repressed personality that Yasmine either created when she was kidnapped in order to cope with the situation, or her handelers wanted that part of her locked away so that the could build her up as they wanted.

[daboking]

i see, thanks vector

[Malrog]