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[Necromancer518]

[OT] Brutes

[DreamOfTheRood]

If you're asking whether or not the different caste-races within the covenant have varying degrees of technology, the answer is "I don't know (my bff jill)." We've always been led to believe that all the caste-races are able to use any of the forerunner tech. We've never been given any indication whether certain races have more advanced technologies like artificial intelligence or, for instance, the ability to make beverages.

Which leads me to my next question: wouldn't the covenant be much more laid-back if they knew how to make beer?

[Jordan117]

I don't think so. Covenant AI is pretty weak according to the books, even after being modeled after Forerunner tech like the rest of the Covie's armament. I doubt the Brutes could come up with anything better.

[carbonize]

I'd say that the books point to all Covenant technology being made by the Engineers and just utilized by the other races.

[Necromancer518]

But see thats the thing, I think one of the main points of Halo 2 was that the brutes were a force of change within the covenant. They did things their own way, forsaking the traditions and (aside from stealing their thunder) making enemies out of the elite. Looking at all of the brute weaponry, its most definitely not created by the covenant engineers. The covenant weapons are all sleek and plasma based, while the brute weapons are based all around force and brutality. So that leads me to believe that the brutes are free thinkers, not shackled by the covenant-forerunner traditions/limitations. My original question was if you thought it was possible for brutes to have AI of their own.

Personally I think if they did, they would compliment the covenant AI quite well. Think about it, the covenant AI are pretty intelligent, but pretty weak. Based on the personalities of the brutes, their AI would probably be pretty dumb but capable of breaking their way through firewalls and fighting off attacks from enemy computer systems and AI.

[carbonize]

The Brute/Elite hostility has been raging for years according to the books.

It's more likely that each race has full access to the Engineers and their knowledge and use it to make weapons/vehicles to their own design. To me th brutes don't seem the type to make an AI. I see to remember that Tartarus wasn't overly impressed with the Monitor.

I'm not sure that even the Covenant as a whole know how to make AI's due to what Cortana discovered in First Strike. Cortana discovered that the Covenant AI on the ship was slightly retarded due to being a copy of a copy of a copy or something similar. Which to me would indicate that neither the Covenant nor Engineers have the knowledge to make a new AI.

[Siege88]

I don't really see that at all. To me the Brutes seem completely in-line with the Covenant and a major point of Halo2 was that the Brutes were uncomprimisingly loyal to the Prophets, whereas the Sangheili think for themselves and when faced with the evidence of what was really going on, decided to break away.
The new technology the Brutes have, I think, is just newer Covenant technology that the Brutes are given simply because they're the only race left that's 100% loyal to the Prophets. I mean they use giant hammers in battle. They're not exactly the most technologically advanced creatures. And like Dream said, any Covenant AI we've seen so far has simply been a Covenant AI, not a specific race.


OT: I was playing the end of Halo2 the other day and is it just me or was it really stupid for Tartarus to refer to his races as "The Brutes" in-game? It seems sometimes like Bungie comes up with these really cool storylines and backstories and everything and then when it comes to the actual game, they water things down so casual fans can understand everything, too.

[carbonize]

When we hear the Covenant speaking in game it is actually meant to be getting translated by the translation matrix Cortana made so possibly Brutes is just the translation she put in for the brutes name for themselves.