Lola
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Lola is a nonvolitional artificial intelligence in the service of Chloe Hall. She was originally used by James Solomon during his career as an Office of Naval Intelligence contractor,[3] though passed onto Chloe after his death at the Battle of Boundary in late 2559.[2]
Service history[edit]
Early career[edit]
Lola was provided to James-005, now James Solomon, after the Spartan's "death" in the space battle over Reach on August 30, 2552. During the engagement, James had been flung into deep space and his body later recovered by a cargo tug during the cleanup operations after the battle. This caused the Spartan to be listed as missing in action per ONI Directive 930, though he was resucitated by ONI at a secret facility hidden with the Sol system's Oort cloud - eventually waking from his coma nearly a year later. As such the Spartan began to work for ONI, directly under ONI Section Three's Octavio Morales,[4] as a private military contractor, able to do the jobs ONI didn't want to do and without them needing to invoke the military bureacracy needed to deploy other, more conventional, Spartan assets. They outfitted James with a customised Winter-class prowler, Cataphract, alongside other equipment to help in his covert work - including Lola.[1] For the next six years,[1] Lola accompanied James on ONI-sanctioned black ops missions against both humanity's allies and enemies across a number of colonies including Fumirole, Gilgamesh, Minister, and several others. On these missions, Lola acted as James' eyes and ears, alerting him when he was spotted by enemy forces - something which apparently happened frequently.[3]
After James discovered an untouched garden world, Suntéreó, in an old colonial directory, Lola worked to ensure it was erased from every single catalog she had access to, alongside several that she didn't. This allowed James to keep the planet hidden for himself, and it became the centrepiece of his retirement plans, remarking that if Lola were human the sights would have "taken her breath away".[2] However, in an effort to keep the world secret, James based himself and Lola out of the small and out-of-the-way township of St. Anino, Far Isle.[1]
For the three months[1] leading up to November 5, 2559, Lola and James were involved in an anti-slavery operation on the colony world of Terceira. Solomon had been tasked by ONI with dispatching five Paris-class heavy frigates that were conducting human trafficking across the planet. During the mission, Lola remote-piloted James' Shearwater aerodyne, allowing him to board one of the frigates and plant explosives on it. The original mission called that, once James had jumped out of the Shearwater to board the frigate, Lola would remotely pilot the craft to rest just above the Dalamask River below, trailing the frigate convoy at a distance.[3]
However, once James was spotted by the frigates' Janissary defenders, Lola began using the Shearwater's Anvil-III missiles to provide air support while James completed his mission. After planting the charge on the sixth frigate, Lola used the Shearwater to pick James up, granting him control of the aircraft and allowing him to escape as the frigates detonated and plummeted into the valley below. Lola's interference in the mission was unprompted, something she reasoned as necessary as James could not collect his pay if he was dead; however, James countered that he had wanted Lola away from the combat zone to ensure that even if he was killed, she could still remotely detonate the charges.[3] After returning to Cataphract, James ordered Lola to return the prowler to Far Isle while he slept. The ship arrived on November 8, with Lola managing the ship's reentry into the planet amidst its busy civilian orbital traffic. During the downtime she attempted to uncover more information on the Janissary supersoldiers that James had encountered on Terceira, though was unable to find much due to them still being under active investigation by ONI.[1]
Hunt for the Lithos[edit]
Just over two weeks after their return to Far Isle, James (and by extension, Lola), were given a new, final assignment by ONI - one promised by Octavio Morales to be both the key to winning the war against the Created and also James' final mission with ONI. Morales visited James personally at St. Anino, choosing not to distribute mission orders over Waypoint as they usually would, and tasked James with a relatively simple mission: abduct an orphan girl, Chloe Hall, from an orphanage in Mindoro, on the colony of Cascade.[4] Unbeknownst to either James or Lola, Chloe was a clone of the Spartan program's director Doctor Catherine Halsey, originally created as part of Halsey's experiments in using a living brain to create a smart AI, Cortana - who had gone on to form the Created and bring the galaxy into submission. ONI planned to take control of the Domain (a Forerunner information network used by the Created to cement their power), but required a brain with an identical neural pattern to Cortana. All of this information was kept from James and Lola, with follow-up information instead provided as-needed in the form of dead-drops.[5]
To begin the mission, James tasked Lola with finding Chloe's location, using a series of extremely comprehensive database sweeps to track down the child's location. Lola noted that Chloe was not listed as a Cascadian citizen, nor did her name appear in local directories or any official record. The only information Lola was able to recover on Chloe was the name of a girl of similar age tagged as a dependent in one of Mindoro's nightclubs, located in the seedy Tamaraw district. The two travelled there, arriving on November 23, and James proceeded out alone and without his MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor; as such, Lola was kept in touch with him through wireless communications. While James patrolled the streets, Lola provided him information on the district and attempted to hurry him along, noting that the coming nightfall would make the district much busier and harder to search. This prompted James to enter one a bar, No Guilt, and attempt to get information from a shopkeeper - resulting in a fistfight against multiple men that James handily won. In the process, the barkeep finally admitted that Chloe was located in a money-laundering business, Miko's Wheel.[6]
As James took to storming Miko's building, Lola pulled up the schematics from Waypoint and was able to find the room Chloe was residing in. After escaping the building with Chloe, and catching the attention of Mindoro's law enforcement, Lola began to build a route for him to take to the colony's space elevator. Meanwhile, she also prepped a cargo car for James' arrival, ultimately allowing him to enter just as the doors closed and the tether lifted him and Chloe off the planet.[6] After leaving Cascade, James and Lola were provided their next location by ONI; a dead-drop located around 30 kilometres (19 mi) outside of the town of Tyrrhen on Boundary, which would contain further instructions.[5]
Cataphract arrived on Boundary on December 14, 2559, with James finding the dead-drop and his new instructions - to inject Chloe with a provided syringe (albeit with no explanation of what that would accomplish), and to then head to Tyrrhen's northernmost entrance, Gate Lipari, to find a lockbox with further instructions, just over 36 kilometres (22 mi) away. As the group began their trek, Lola provided information on Boundary's hostile fauna, though the group were eventually slowed later in the day by the arrival of a massive Banished occupation force in Tyrrhen, who had arrived to secure an artefact under the town called the Lithos - the same target as the UNSC.[5] After arriving at Tyrrhen, Lola analysed the patrol patterns of the Banished infantry now calling the town home, though was unable to deduce much about their intentions on the world. James, however, realised that the Banished occupation consisted of multiple clans with divided loyalties, and planned to use that to their advantage - kickstarting a fight between the Jiralhanae troops. While he went out on his own to infiltrate the settlement, he tasked Lola with watching over Chloe, who remained outside the settlement's walls.[7]
While Lola watched over Chloe, James eventually came into contact with Admiral Jilan al-Cygni aboard the prowler Akkadian, who explained the true nature of his mission, and its importance. However, while he was occupied, eventually becoming the target of a Banished search party, Chloe was abducted by one of the Brutes, which Lola alerted him to.[8] During the fighting, James was temporarily knocked out, with the blow dislodging the data crystal chip in his helmet that housed Lola - as a result, neither knew how long the Spartan had been unconscious when he finally awoke. As he headed back into Tyrrhen to find Chloe, James eventually came across his fellow Spartan-II Adriana-111, who attempted to take Chloe from James. However, now-disillusioned with the morality of his mission, James refused to hand her over, and instead told Adriana that he was going to protect the child. Adriana in turn agreed with James' decision, and promised that she would tell ONI that she had found James and Chloe dead, and blown apart by a Banished Ravager. This gave James a window to get back to Cataphract with Lola and Chloe and get offworld, amidst the now-massive battle raging in the sky and orbit of the planet between the Banished, Sali 'Nyon's Covenant, and the United Nations Space Command. [9] The trio were far enough away from Tyrrhen that they were safely outside of the blast radius of UNSC Victory of Samothrace's orbital bombardment of Tyrrhen, which was ordered after it became clear the UNSC would not be able to capture the Lithos buried under the town.[10]
By this time, James' injuries were so great that he could no longer continue, and instead decided to stay back, hoping to distract the search party looking for him and Chloe long enough for Chloe to escape. He gifted Chloe his Mark V helmet so that she could communicate with Lola, and encouraged her to proceed on without him. James' last words to Lola were to "take care of her".[10][2]
New service[edit]
With James' death, Lola passed into the service of Chloe Hall, serving as her caretaker and guardian. After boarding Cataphract, Lola piloted the ship back to Suntéreó, making the journey in a matter of hours rather than days due to the absence of the Created, arriving at the world on December 15. Here, Lola presented Suntéreó to Chloe and told her that the planet was hers.[2]
Personality and traits[edit]
Lola manifests inside James Solomon's MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor as a faceless, incorporeal voice projected directly through the helmet's speakers. Her voice is soft, but always clinical and precise - something that James actively preferred.[3] Her nature as a "dumb" nonvolitional AI meant that she did not fear death or rampancy in the same way that her "smart" volitional cousins did, and this also left her curious why the Created never attempted to recruit her kind - noting that much of humanity's colonial infrastructure ran on them.[2]
As part of her commitment to protecting James, Lola frequently scolded the Spartan, reminding him that he needed to shave his beard and that it was "too early" in the morning to be drinking alcohol after his engagement on Terceira.[1] However, this also manifested in her disobeyment of orders to ensure James' survival, choosing to use their Shearwater VTOL to provide air support and exfiltration for James even despite his explicit orders to stay well away.[3] When clad in his MJOLNIR suit, Lola also warned James of any injuries he had sustained.[9]
List of appearances[edit]
- Halo: Empty Throne (First appearance)
Sources[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g Halo: Empty Throne, chapter 9
- ^ a b c d e f Halo: Empty Throne, chapter 41
- ^ a b c d e f Halo: Empty Throne, chapter 5
- ^ a b Halo: Empty Throne, chapter 13
- ^ a b c Halo: Empty Throne, chapter 21
- ^ a b Halo: Empty Throne, chapter 17
- ^ Halo: Empty Throne, chapter 25
- ^ Halo: Empty Throne, chapter 29
- ^ a b Halo: Empty Throne, chapter 33
- ^ a b Halo: Empty Throne, chapter 37
