Juliana

"Yes, I am Juliana, the goddess of the Rubble. Your experts may suspect me of rampancy, but a benevolent goddess may be exactly what you need right now. And this one happens to be very, very attached to the idea of saving the people of the Rubble."

- Juliana addressing Gray Team after they realized she was rampant

Juliana was an Insurrectionist "smart" AI operating on the Rubble. By 2535, she was going through stages of rampancy, yet did not seem to be showing it. As she said, she hung onto the edge of rampancy, trying to go back.

Biography
She was originally created to manage the operations of a mining corporation on the colony of Madrigal, helping guide asteroids to processing plants throughout the 23 Librae system. At some point, Juliana was transfered to the Rubble, an Insurrectionist-held asteroid colony. A year after Madrigal was glassed by the Covenant, she was unpacked from storage to help with keeping the course corrections of the Rubble's asteroids in order. At the Rubble, she also helped handle the entire structure's security and defenses along with the Rubble Security Council.

At some point, a group of Kig-Yar led by Reth discovered the Rubble. Instead of attacking, the Kig-Yar began trading with the Rubble's citizens and some even settled on the Rubble. However, while many of the Rubble's citizens trusted the Kig-Yar, Juliana did not and began preparing for the Kig-Yar's inevitable betrayal. By 2535, Juliana began to suspect that the Kig-Yar were secretly trying to find the navigation data that would provide them Earth's coordinates. In order to prevent this, Juliana infiltrated the computer systems of the Petya, SPARTAN-II Gray Team's freighter that they were using to spy on the Rubble. Although Gray Team attempted to remove her from the ship's systems, Juliana was able to convince the Spartans to hear her out. She told Gray Team that she would give them the Rubble's navigational data, if they helped protect the Rubble's citizens. The Spartans reluctantly agreed.

After the was captured by the Rubble's insurgents, Gray Team prepared to help. However, Juliana stopped them and promised that the crew of the frigate would be safe. She then sent the Spartans to go rescue the individual who held the Rubble's navigational data, Ignatio Delgado, after he was left to die aboard a freighter that was quickly losing oxygen. She later told the Security Council that she would stop aiding the Rubble if the frigate's crew was harmed.

After rescuing Delgado, Juliana and the Spartans discovered that Peter Bonifacio had betrayed the Rubble and was attempting to give the navigational data to Reth. Believing the Kig-Yar were preparing to attack, Juliana had Adriana-111 and Mike-120 chase down Bonifacio, while Jai-006 and Delgado hijacked a Kig-Yar raider to ensure that the Kig-Yar were about to attack. Juliana helped Jai free Lieutenant Jacob Keyes and his crew from the Rubble's prison so they could aid in boarding the Kig-Yar vessel. Meanwhile, the navigational data was retrieved from Bonifacio. Keyes and his crew commandeered the Mighty Sparrow and set forth to board the Infinite Spoils, with Juliana's aid. She cut loose one of the asteroids that was being mined and had to drift near the Kig-Yar ship to scare its crew, making the incident look like an industrial accident. Juliana reassured the Kig-Yar crew that the asteroid would miss and aimed a mass driver at the raider to take out its shields, in case the boarding party was killed. Using the asteroid's passing as a distraction, the Mighty Sparrow docked with the Infinite Spoils and ODSTs boarded the Kig-Yar ship. After securing the bridge, Juliana was plugged into the ship's systems where she discovered that Reth was preparing to attack the Rubble with an Unggoy army he had amassed on Hesiod's moon of Metisette.

After Juliana, Delgado, and the UNSC personnel returned to the Rubble's docks, they were attacked by Kig-Yar. Since everyone was vacuum ready, Jai had Delgado plug Juliana into a nearby console. The AI opened the airlocks in the dock and flushed out all the oxygen. Nearly all Kig-Yar in the docks died of asphyxiation, while the survivors that had vacuum suits were killed by the ODSTs and Spartans. With Reth's Kig-Yar and Unggoy preparing to attack, the remaining Council decided to evacuate the Rubble's citizens with Habitat Exodus. Knowing that her rampancy would eventually destroy her, Juliana offered to crash to Rubble into Reth's Unggoy breeding grounds on Metisette. After all Rubble residents and UNSC personnel were either aboard the Exodus or Midsummer Night, Juliana moved the Rubble into a position which would cause Metisette to collide with it. Then she bombarded the Redoubt with the Rubble's asteroids, destroyed the Unggoy army and herself.

Personality and traits
Despite having been rampant for some time, Juliana did not engage in aggressive or destructive behavior like some AIs. The reason for this being that, like she said, the Rubble meant so much to her that the necessity of keeping it running and thriving held her sanity together. Certain elements of her behavior strongly pointed to rampancy, however, such as a somewhat egotistical sense of greatness to the Rubble. This was not exaggerated, but her manner of thinking of herself as almost a god was unusual. Her taking a strong liking to Jai-006, the Spartan leader of Gray Team is somewhat strange as well.

Juliana held the safety of the Rubble higher than any personal interest of the leading council. Despite the council's ruling to be given the navigation data, she helped Gray Team to retrieve the data and rescue the ODSTs from confinement, also another action against the ruling of the council.

Trivia
Her character's role is surprisingly similar to Sif's from the previous book, Halo: Contact Harvest. Both are AIs that are or eventually end up rampant and sacrifice themselves aboard space stations, the Tiara for Sif, and the Rubble for Juliana, ultimately for the better of the UNSC forces nearby. Cortana also went rampant, but held onto enough control to defeat the Didact and protect Earth before being destroyed.

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Cole Protocol