Iratus

Iratus
Biographical information
Activation site:	Lux Voluspa
Gender:	Male programming
Color(s):	Red
Political and military information
Affiliation:	Banished

"For Doisac! For the three moons!"

— A personality shard of Iratus during a War Games simulation.^[3]

Iratus is an artificial intelligence construct, based on a Jiralhanae donor and aligned with the Banished.^[4]^[5] He is the personal smart AI of the Banished Spartan Ilsa Zane, who captured him during a brutal raid on the UNSC's Avery J. Johnson Academy of Military Science.^[6]

Biography[edit]

Origins[edit]

"That project was a walled garden. No one on the outside should have even known about it."

— LV106, regarding the Iratus project.^[4]^[5]

Iratus was created by the Lux Voluspa company as part of an effort to research artificial intelligence creation utilizing brain donors from species aside from humanity. This included Jiralhanae donors, a decision considered by researchers "LV038" and "LV106" as something that was "always going to draw some attention eventually."^[4]^[5] The Lux Voluspa facility was ultimately breached by a cyberwarfare attack, with an intrusion package deployed using internally-sourced encryption and displaying a Jiralhanae retrieval signature. The originators of this attack were later indicated to be the Banished, who were able to steal the Iratus AI matrix from the facility.^[1]

At some point after the fall of Cortana in December 2559, High Auxiliary Sloan of the Created eventually discovered the existence of Iratus while it was under Banished possession, contemplating if he should be considered friend or foe. He would devote resources to keeping watch over the AI.^[7]

Attack on Nysa[edit]

"The entire history of the Spartan program. Your weaknesses. Your failures. And now...all of it...belongs to the Banished!"

— Iratus, after revealing his control over the secret ONI facility.^[8]

After Cortana's defeat at Zeta Halo, Iratus was utilized to oversee Banished shipbreaking operations on Camber.^[9] When Spartan-IVs Sigrid Eklund and Hieu Dinh were deployed to the facility on January 24, 2560,^[10] they were able to trap Iratus inside of Dinh's neural interface, compromising his armor and cognitive functions. Eklund was ultimately able to commandeer an Eklon'Dal Workshop Phantom back to the Avery J. Johnson Academy of Military Science on the hidden world of Nysa to seek aid from friendly forces,^[4]^[5] arriving on February 15.^[10]

Hieu Dinh unconscious while under the effects of Iratus.

Upon arrival at the Academy, Spartan Laurette Agryna took the injured Dinh indoors where Iratus aggressively introduced himself. Agryna found schematics of the Banished facility on Camber through him and uploaded it to the Academy's combat simulation. In an attempt to irritate Iratus to leave Dinh's armor and go after another Spartan instead, on February 18^[10] she ordered her Spartans to hit the simulations in hopes that Iratus would attempt to enter the neural interface of one of these Spartans.^[11] While Spartan Dinh was unconscious, Iratus forced him to relive several painful memories in an attempt to break him.^[2] However, the plan was ultimately a success and Iratus eventually left Dinh for another Spartan, only to be contained within one of the academy's servers along with a Banished archive.^[11]^[10]

Iratus taking control of a suit of Mirage IIC armor.

At Commander Agryna's request, an instance of Iratus was isolated from the rest of the AI and was put into quarantine before being replicated and distributed to qualified Spartan-IVs as a personal AI to test within War Games.^[5] On occasion, Iratus encouraged Spartans to join the Banished.^[12] Throughout this time, Iratus' presence in the academy's network caused multiple glitches and issues which were noticed by UNSC cybersecurity teams in the facility, with techs setting to work on alleviating the issues on February 21.^[10]

On February 29, 2560,^[10]^[13] Iratus managed to release himself from the academy's servers and, using Dinh's memories, was able to learn about a hidden Office of Naval Intelligence Section Three facility buried beneath the academy.^[8] After multiple intrusion attempts,^[14] he finally managed to take control of the ONI facility, including a suit of abandoned Mirage IIC armor left inside a Brokkr Armor Mechanism.^[8] Spartan Dinh, hearing strange noises coming from the door leading to the ONI facility, enlisted the help of a Spartan recruit, "Rook", to investigate.^[15] Upon their arrival at the laboratory where the Mirage IIC armor was located, Iratus revealed that he had broken containment and claimed that all of the Spartans' secrets now belonged to the Banished.^[8] Following this, Iratus began to infect the armor and neural interfaces of the academy's Spartan trainees, taunting them by projecting holograms of his face on their faceplates.^[16]

Iratus jammed the communications devices of Dinh and Rook as he began to spread throughout the rest of the academy's local network, bypassing ONI's firewalls. To counter, UNSC techs scrubbed local servers and filled them with zetabytes of randomly-generated data, though this was a temporary measure that could not hold out forever, as Iratus - now unleashed for the first time - found himself able to easily break through all of the encryption that he was faced against. While sifting through ONI's files, he archived a number of files relevant to the history of the Spartans; PROMETHEUS, Aster, ORION, MELAENO, YGGDRASIL, JAVELIN, and STOLEN GAUNTLET. Iratus' end goal was ultimately to call the Banished to his aid and join them, and he hoped that by acquiring such a swath of classified intelligence, he could pursuade a Banished commander that it might be worth deploying forces against such a highly-fortified facility. In the mean time, now with near-total control of the academy, he began spreading his influence to the academy's outlying installations - predominantly its missile defences and offworld communications. While Spartans Agryna and Dinh used the facility's backup slipspace COM launcher to send a distress call to Anvil Station, Iratus used the facility's deep-space communications relays to signal to the Banished that Nysa was ripe for taking; meanwhile, he also used the base's missile batteries to shoot down a Zheng He-class courier attempting to evacuate. After shooting down the ship, he turned the missiles on the base itself, giving the Spartans still in the base an unenviable choice: destroy the base's formidable anti-air defences, leaving it vulnerable to a Banished attack, or leave them online and let the base be obliterated by its own weapons. Commander Agryna ultimately elected on the former, ordering the base's aircraft and Spartans to destroy the base's missile launchers before they could be reloaded and fired.^[17]

Three days later on March 3, Iratus' signal to the Banished was answered in the form of a dreadnought operated by the New Colonial Alliance.^[17] During the initial negotiations, the NCA's commander, Ilsa Zane, offered to the UNSC that if they handed Iratus over, she would leave Nysa without spilling any blood - even offering to keep her word if they also handed over Spartan Dinh to her. Agryna refused, and the Banished began a massed invasion of the planet, with a focus on storming the academy. While the base's defenders put up as much resistance to the overwhelming force of the invasion as they could, Iratus continuously taunted them over the base's speakers, reminding them that he was really in charge of the facility.^[6]

Zane recovers Iratus' data chip.

During the fighting, Spartan "Rook" was able to enact the Cole Protocol at The Artifice, purging the academy's servers of classified materiel and preventing it from falling into enemy hands. As part of the protocol's enactment, a subroutine - RUINA - was also enacted, which threatened to purge Iratus from the system entirely. As such, Iratus was driven into the servers of the base's AI laboratory - the room that Agryna, Dinh, Eklund, Vesco, and Chief Engineer Hannah Roberts were also holed up. Despite congratulating Roberts on enacting such a stalemate, Iratus noted that the Banished would break into the room and free him sooner or later. Ultimately the group elected to evacuate, with Roberts and a handful of Marines electing to stay behind to try and purge as much information from Iratus as possible. Ultimately though, this last-ditch defence didn't hold out at all against Ilsa Zane and her entourage, who entered the AI lab and forced Roberts to eject Iratus' data crystal chip - despite Roberts' warnings about what had happened to Dinh when he had Iratus inside his head. Zane dismissed the concerns and ordered Roberts' execution anyway, before putting Iratus' chip inside her helmet and inviting him to make himself at home.^[6]

In-game information[edit]

Halo Infinite[edit]

Iratus was added into Halo Infinite multiplayer as a personal AI in Season 02: Lone Wolves.

Personal AI	Manufacturer	Lore	Rarity	Unlock Requirements
Iratus	Lux Voluspa	Even contained, diminished, and leashed, Iratus rages against its limitations.	Legendary	Season 02: Lone Wolves Level 50 (Premium)

Gallery[edit]

Concept art[edit]

Concept art of several facial expressions for Iratus.
Concept art of Halo: Infinite's Infection game mode.
Concept art of an Iratus-infected Spartan Alpha and Beta.

Screenshots[edit]

Iratus' avatar.
Iratus' avatar in the academy.
A personality shard of Iratus being used in a game of Land Grab on Catalyst.
A personality shard of Iratus opening a door on Fragmentation.
A personality shard of Iratus smiling after the capturing of an objective.
A Spartan-IV holding a personality shard of Iratus in the Avery J. Johnson Academy of Military Science.
Iratus talking with Hieu Dinh in a vision.
Spartans bearing the face of Iratus in Halo Infinite's iteration of Infection.
Iratus/Flood infected Spartan.
A data center at The Artifice under Iratus' influence during the Battle of Nysa.
Rook's personal AI deployed against Iratus at The Artifice to implement the Cole Protocol.
A Phantom under Iratus' influence during the battle.
Another Phantom under Iratus' influence.
Iratus during the Battle of Nysa.