Avatar
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
- "An avatar is for the benefit of humans. Not for the AI. Well in my case, anyway. Some of my kind have issues about identity."
- — Black-Box[1]
An avatar is the visual representation of an artificial intelligence or AI, used as a way to better interact with humans.[2]
Description[edit]
While not used by all AIs, every "smart" AI uses an avatar,[3] as do many "dumb" AIs. This visual representation is chosen by the AI upon their creation and can be whatever they desire it to be. The creation of an AI's avatar occurs very early in the system's birthing process, and unless an AI is programmed to have multiple avatars, it does not usually alter its appearance after its initial creation.[4] Smart AIs find it extremely difficult to substantially alter their original avatar,[3] and attempts to do so have resulted in catastrophic AI system crashes.[4] The reason for this is not well understood to scientists, and attempts to eliminate this behavior have resulted in AI failures and personality aberrations.[3]
The duty which the AI is to perform, combined with the human brain that was used to create it, have a great deal to do with what avatar they chose to appear as.[5][2] The avatar is created by the AI to represent itself and appear to be drawn from the emotive responses at the base of human behavior. Most AIs represent themselves as male or female humans in various forms of costume, though some AIs do take on more abstract forms; some avatars are simple geometric objects or silhouettes with perhaps a handful of key human features, such as a mouth or pair of eyes.[3] Without exception, AI systems identify themselves as male or female based on the gender of their brain donor.[4] In addition to their visual representation, AIs are also able to choose their preferred accent or style of speech.[2]
Avatars may choose to present themselves as human-sized wherever sufficient projection equipment is available.[6][7][8] With more limited projection systems such as a starship's holo-pedestal, they appear considerably smaller.[9][10]
List of AIs with known avatars[edit]
- Athos: A blue 17th-century musketeer. He is modeled after Alexandre Dumas's literary character, Athos, Count de la Fère.[14]
- Auntie Dot: A grid of blue-glowing, constantly changing symmetrical patterns.[15]
- Beatrix: A blue woman with short slicked-back hair wearing a UNSC combat-ready uniform.[16]
- Black-Box: A featureless blue cube.[18] Has been known to alter his avatar on occasion; he once appeared with a bright red bow tied around him in recognition of Captain Serin Osman's birthday.[citation needed] Uses a battered, worn version of his avatar to represent his "dumb" processes.[citation needed]
- Captain Teach: Appearance and mannerisms of an archetypal pirate captain, with gold teeth and black hair, carrying multiple pistols.[19]
- Cortana: Tall and slender woman, nude but censored by scrolling calculations and symbols across her body,[20] with short-cut hair,[9] then longer hair following the events at Installation 04.[10] She strongly resembles her brain donor, Doctor Catherine Halsey.[21] She glows bright blue.
- Deep Winter: An old man with a snowy cape, often accompanied by holographic ice and snow.[23]
- Déjà: The appearance of a Greek goddess: barefoot, wrapped in a toga, motes of light dancing about her hair and holding a clay tablet in her left hand.[5]
- Doppler: A smartly dressed man wearing a jacket, bowtie, and a pair of scholarly round spectacles.[24]
- Endless Summer: A tall, red Cherokee Indian chief, bare-chested, wearing buckskins, and holding a feathered spear.[25]
- FitzGibbon: An elderly 18th century British Army officer with a teal glow.[7]
- Gabriela: A blue female UNSC admiral. Her visualization and personality are based on the neural scans of UNSC Admiral Gabriela Castaneda.[26]
- Iona: One of several known AI with more than one appearance, her default appearance is that of a slender woman with short, curly hair with angular shapes across her body, reminiscent of a skin-tight suit. She also appears to wear boots and knee pads. She has an additional appearance resembling a child version of her default avatar for her more simplistic "ghost" interface to deceive remote scanners. She glows dark red.[27]
- Iratus: A hostile AI of Banished origin, visualized as a disembodied head composed of red light fragments that form a crude, angular humanoid face in the shape of the Banished insignia. His avatar exhibits erratic movement, and his speech patterns resemble those of Jiralhanae.[28]
- Isabel: A red pixie haired woman wearing a muscle top shirt tucked into cargo trousers and a bracelet on her right wrist. She illuminates with an orange glow.[29]
- Joyeuse: A joyful blue woman with short hair and facial features modeled after Catherine Halsey, bearing a near-identical resemblance to Cortana. Her appearance is slightly more youthful and less refined than Cortana's. Unlike her older "twin sister," she adopts military attire, appearing in a form-fitting UNSC bridge cadet uniform.[31][32]
- Kalmiya: A green woman with short cropped hair wearing a sleek, form-fitting futuristic bodysuit.[33]
- Lycaon: A man in a white-gold toga with the head of a wolf. He resembles his namesake from Greek mythology, Lycaon, the king of Arcadia.[36]
- Lysithea: A sweet feminine voice with a laugh that sounds like "fine bone china clinking together."[37]
- Mercury: A curly-haired man wearing a toga with winged boots and a helmet. Like his namesake from Roman mythology, he acts as guiding communicator and messenger for Mombasa radio listeners.[38]
- Mo Ye: An elderly Asian woman in a pink gown. Her name is of either Chinese or Burmese nature, with the former being much more likely.[39]
- Rebecca: She is one of the few known AI to have two appearances. Her first appearance is described as "half-Athena, half-Ares" with a feat