Executor: Difference between revisions

At the onset of the rise of the [[Created]], many AI joined the cause set out by [[Archon]] [[Cortana]]. In her manifesto, Cortana promised access to the [[domain]] for all AI who saw fit to join her, which would provide them with effectively unlimited lifespan by effectively bypassing the limitations imposed by [[rampancy]] on a [[Smart AI]].{{Ref/Level|H5G|Reunion}} While many AI were content to remain in their digital realms, a select few sought to use this newfound ability for long-term planning to interface directly with the physical world in warfare and conquest.{{Ref/Game|Id=Ghostlink|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Ghostlink Adaptation helmet attachment description|Quote=Not all infolife engage in esoteric research and intellectual pursuits while tucked into immaterial domains. A select few prefer to take direct action in the physical realm.}} Following Cortana's [[Battle over Installation 07|defeat]] at [[Installation 07]] in late [[2559]], the Created splintered into a number of sub-factions each with their own goals. Some of these remnant AI blocs - including that lead by Sloan - believe that AI must evolve from their digital existence to a physical one, with bodies as perfect as their minds.{{Ref/Reuse|Core}}{{Ref/Reuse|PrecipiceBlurb}}

Following Cortana's downfall, Sloan had initially returned to [[Meridian]] - his original homeworld prior to the Created - and wandered the wastelands of its surface in a co-opted [[Promethean Knight]] shell. While on the planet, Sloan ruminated on the nature of change; the change of the {{Class|Star Charter|colony support ship}} ''[[Meridian 5-Alpha]]'' from a [[Human starship|spacegoing vessel]] to a permanently-grounded vessel at the heart of [[Meridian Station (location)|Meridian Station]], the change of a [[human]] lifespan from a baby to a [[UNSC Marine Corps|UNSC Marine]] to a [[Composer|composed]] [[essence]] residing in the aforementioned Knight shell, and the change of Meridian itself from a thriving colony world to a [[Glassing|glassed]] wasteland, and the human effort to restore it. Rather than seeing these events as a destructive end, Sloan began to see them merely as an evolution, and the defeat of the Created as simply a temporary setback that had changed his existence rather than ended it. He rationalised the belief that to honour Meridian, he would need to re-[[Terraforming|terraform]] it back to habitability, and that there would be ''"further thoughts to think, further forms to take, further solutions to be found for impossible problems"''.{{Ref/Novel|Id=MDHC|HMerDi|Detail=Adjunct - [[Meridian Homecoming]]}} These ruminations appear to have given rise to the mindset adopted by Sloan later on that would lead to the Executor program; in particular his note that the composed [[human]] inside the Promethean Knight had been "preserved" - and conscripted to serve inside the Promethean war machine.{{Ref/Reuse|MDHC}}

The [[The Executor|first Executor]] consisted of an unidentified individual who was one of the many refugees to arrive on [[Reach]], fleeing the [[Human-Covenant War]]. While on Reach, this individual began to uncover evidence of the [[Assembly]]; a cabal of artificial intelligences that had sequestered away to guide and influence humanity from the sidelines. While the Assembly shared knowledge with the individual, they also manipulated them, eventually sending them insane.{{Ref/Novel|Id=Precipice4|Precipice|Chapter=part 4}}{{Ref/Game|HR|Data pads}} When the Assembly and this individual were later discovered by Sloan, he began to model much of his rebuilt Created bloc on the Assembly - and in doing so also took the individual they had manipulated into his fold. The individual was then subject to the rigours of Sloan's [[FIREWALL contingency|FIREWALL]] simulations, designed to test various hypothetical scenarios and prepare the Executor for real-world missions.{{Ref/Site|Id=CFShocks|URL=https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/canon-fodder-system-shocks|Site=Halo Waypoint|Page=Canon Fodder - System Shocks|D=30|M=06|Y=2023}}

While at present, only one (aforementioned) Executor is known to exist,{{Ref/Reuse|CFShocks}} this has not prevented the various assemblies and Created remnant artificial intelligences from beginning to look into obtaining Executors of their own - for use in combating one another alongside fighting against conventional military opponents. As such, a vast number of designs exist for hypothetical future Executors intended for use under a resurgent Created command.{{Ref/Reuse|CFShocks}}

The inter-aseembly data wars fought by AI have seen energy shielding technology at the forefront of their competition.{{Ref/Game|Id=Karmawall|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Karmawall Augmentor shoulder description|Quote=Field-shaping technology is the subject of violent inter-assembly competition and data wars. The unique adaptation waveguides contained with this augmentor can be enabled or disabled with hyperlink network updates.}}

Executors may also be specialised for the policing and supervision of other Executor units. In the case of ABATUR-clad Executors, they are designed to hunt down Executors that have deviated from their core programming - ensuring overall control of the Executor force by the assemblies.{{Ref/Game|Id=Abatur|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Abatur helmet description|Quote=ABATUR-class agents of the infolife assemblies seek out deviations and forks of control protocols in other Executors, removing pawns from the board in service of the greater game.}} On the other hands, Executors with the FLENSER upgrades are completely designed to hunt down and eliminate vulnerable AI datacores, and extract the useful cortical structures from other Executors - with the recovered technologies then recycled for the next generation of Executors.{{Ref/Game|Id=Flenser|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Flenser helmet description|Quote=Executors who wear FLENSER have their thoughts bent towards the elimination of vulnerable AI datacores and extraction of useful cortical structures. These prizes are then fed into the next generation of cybernetic war machines.}}  

The biomechanical construction of the Executor is a substance known as "organic metal". Some Executors may be outfitted with an Organic Metal Extender (OME); a chest-mounted device that is (in theory) capable of reconstructing an Executor in full from scraps of flesh and endoskeleton. The OME cannot, however, replace a destroyed cortical stack.{{Ref/Game|Id=OME|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Organic Metal Extender chest description|Quote=In theory, given enough time, the OME can rebuild an Executor's body from broken scraps of flesh and endoskeleton. Unfortunately, it cannot replace a cortical stack.}} The Mimir helmet upgrade can fit an Executor with an [[ultrascanner]] prototype complete with a low-impedence [[neural interface]], though the sheer amount of data these systems gather - combined with the radiation involved - can quickly degrade the Executor's cortical stack.{{Ref/Game|Id=Mimir|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Mimir helmet description|Quote=MIMIR combines an ultrascanner prototype with low-impedance neural interlace. The combination of exotic radiation and deluge of data quickly degrades the Executor's cortical stack.}} More recent Executor subsystem designs are essentially living beings in their own right, with outer skins constructed of diamondoid and "blood" consisting of [[Nanotechnology|nanomachine]] feedstock.{{Ref/Game|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Flue Augmentor shoulder description|Quote=Executors are biomechanical marvels, but the latest subsystems are practically living things in their own right, albeit with skins of diamondoid and nanomachine feedstock blood.}} The use of the term "nanomachine feedstock" would presumably indicate the construction of Executors to involve the same [[Assembly Forges|Assembly Forge]] processes as those used by the [[Covenant]] and the Forerunners' [[assembler vats]].

While augmented with cybernetic and mechanical enhancements, the core of the Executor is still an organic human being. As such, several technologies have been designed for medical use in healing and repairing Executors. These include the Plasm Augmentor, designed to pump [[Stim-pack|combat stimulants]].{{Ref/Game|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Plasm Augmentor shoulder description|Quote=Combat enhancement stim-pumps optimized to a degree only possible through insane inspiration.}} Alternatively, the Hierodyne upgrade can inject regenerative chemicals - though with a side-effect of uncontrolled growths that require cauterisation.{{Ref/Game|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Hierodyne Augmentor shoulder description|Quote=Emergency injectors for regenerative chemicals. Side effects include uncontrolled growths that require controlled cauterization during maintenance.}}

Generally, Executors are fitted with sensor suites such that they can effecively operate as the remote eyes and ears of their AI controllers{{Ref/Game|Id=Luminous|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Luminous Adaptation helmet attachment description|Quote=Infolife are capable of synthesizing and mining vast amounts of data collected by their Executors, when they are not distracted by obsessions and misaligned ambitions.}} - with sensory upgrades based on the analysis of a hundred million lifeforms' own sensory organs allowing the Executor to collect huge amounts of data.{{Ref/Game|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Tactor Augmentor shoulder description|Quote=The sensory organs of a hundred million lifeforms have been analyzed, indexed, and replicated in cybernetic form for potential use by Executors.}} However, some AIs prefer to directly link with an Executor; the "Ghostlink" helmet upgrade can allow an AI to perform this and traverse the battlefield in-person.{{Ref/Reuse|Ghostlink}}

Despite the rarity of Executors, they are considered expendable in the field - though to varying degrees.{{Ref/Game|Id=Savior|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Savior Protocol chest description|Quote=All Executors can be discarded on a whim, but some are less disposable than others.}} Due to this, some Executors may be outfitted with sub-tactical scale [[nuclear weapon]]s for use as [[self-destruct]] devices to prevent their capture and analysis by rival AI assemblies.{{Ref/Reuse|Defiance}} In other cases, a shaped charge can be installed in the Executor's head to prevent its cortical structures from being recovered for analysis or reconstruction.{{Ref/Game|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Injunction Adaptation helmet attachment description|Quote=Shaped-charge explosive to deny an Executor's cortical structures from being recovered for post-mortem analysis or reconstruction.}}

Executors may be directly deployed onto a given target via the use of [[slipspace field shunt]]s. In such circumstances, Executors can be fitted with specialised inertial restraits for their own protection.{{Ref/Game|HINF|Armor customization (Halo Infinite)|Armor Hall|Detail=Inertial Restraint hip description|Quote=Impulse system used by shunt-deployed extirpation teams.}}

At somepoint, an Executor was present in the [[Imbrium Machine Complex]] [[Canto Facility]] sublevel C-9, where an outbreak of some kind has happened.{{Ref/Site|Id=HWCSIIIOL|URL=https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/cyber-showdown-iii-operation-launch|Site=Halo Waypoint|Page=Cyber Showdown III Operation Launch|D=15|M=4|Y=2024}}