Black-Box

"They don't have AIs like me. Well, nobody does, because I'm unparalleled magnificence."

- Black-Box

Black-Box (AI serial number: BBX 8995-1), commonly referred to as "BB", is a fourth-generation "smart" artificial intelligence construct built by the United Nations Space Command. He is under the supervision of the Office of Naval Intelligence and was the personal assistant to then-Rear Admiral Serin Osman during her command of Kilo-Five, a highly covert intelligence unit under the direct authority of Admiral Margaret Parangosky, CINCONI.

Creation
Black-Box was created from the brain of Dr. Graham Alban, a senior researcher associated with ONI Special Research, and close friend of Admiral Margaret Parangosky. Alban had committed suicide out of guilt for his part in the SPARTAN-II Program, and had requested that his brain be kept for the AI donor program. Black-Box was to be the personal AI companion for Parangosky in August 2552. He later sent a fragment of himself aboard the UNSC Glamorgan as it was sent to Onyx in wake of the planet's destruction. He then picked up massive Slipspace readings and the transponder of the late Kurt Ambrose.

Kilo-Five
He was then assigned to Serin Osman and her Kilo-Five team which was tasked with creating Sangheili insurrection and locating Catherine Halsey on Onyx. He was put aboard the UNSC Port Stanley where he monitored the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers body signals, deducing that they were excited to have their own rooms. He controlled the ship through Slipspace and they emerged at New Llanelli where Black-Box scanned 'Telcam's ships. As they got back on the ship, Black-Box let his dumb AI functions run the ship while he listened to numerous comms channels at once. Mainly taking a managerial role on the extraction of Mike Spenser, next Black-Box monitored the until the lack of help from Venezia led to the death of all aboard when it was destroyed.

Later, Black-Box assisted Kilo-Five with seizing the Covenant cargo ship Piety and successfully captured an onboard Huragok, Requires Adjustment.

Personality and traits
Possessing a male personality, Black-Box is noted as being incredibly egotistical and fully comfortable with being an entity of pure intellect, and has an innate sense of superiority over not only his human creators, but also other AIs. Due to this, Black-Box chooses not to represent himself with a humanoid avatar, as the majority of "smart" AIs do, and instead appears as a featureless box bathed in blue light; at times, it is mentioned that he uses the brightest side of the cube to indicate which way his avatar is facing. He has been described as deeply narcissistic, and has been noted to speak in a supercilious manner. He has also been noted as having a sarcastic sense of humor. Additionally, he tries not to get too invested in humans, such as he believes Cortana did.

Possibly due to his programming being based off the brain of Dr. Alban, Black-Box has intense antipathy and disgust for Catherine Halsey. As another remnant of his brain donor, BB also possesses a fascination for cognitive psychology and has a tendency of analyzing the behavior of humans and other species in depth.

While a "smart" AI, Black-Box possesses at his core a set of "dumb" processes, which can be separated from his higher thought processes and function as a "dumb" AI, operating independently of the main AI, but still fully within his awareness; he represents these processes as a battered and weathered version of his normal cube-shaped hologram self. Whether this is a trait unique to Black-Box is unknown.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Glasslands
 * Halo: The Thursday War
 * Halo: Mortal Dictata