Monitor

The Monitors are highly advanced Artificial Intelligence constructs created by the Forerunners 100,000 years ago to service and maintain the Halo installations, and to make sure that the Flood stayed imprisoned. Monitors are extremely intelligent, yet completely devoted to their original function. They are zealous about containing the Flood: monitors have been known to turn violently on their allies if the latter should attempt to violate containment protocol.

The Covenant refer to the Monitors as Oracles.

There is one monitor per Halo Installation.

Appearance

 * The body of a Monitor consists of a roughly spherical shape, concave on 3 sides, with an illuminated photo receptor/eye with the Marathon logo on it located on the "front" of the orb. A monitor's silvery metal covering is reminiscent of other Forerunner constructs. All the monitors so far portrayed speak in a tinny, but level, male voice.

Features
Halo's Monitors seem to have a defensive resistance to small arms fire, though they will eventually succumb after taking extensive damage. In the novel, Halo: The Flood, John-117 fired half a magazine from an MA5B Assault Rifle at 343 Guilty Spark with no apparent effect. In Halo 3, Master Chief destroys 343 Guilty Spark using a Spartan Laser, demonstrating that Monitors can sustain damage from high power weaponry. Should a Monitor be damaged, he is capable of self-repair.

Each Monitor commands the Sentinels, Sentinel Majors, and Enforcers of the Installation they are based on. The latter two are only activated if a catastrophic outbreak occurs, to hold back the Flood while the monitor locates a Reclaimer. Although such Constructs are programmed to assist the Monitors in combat-oriented tasks, the Monitors themselves are capable of producing a powerful beam from their "eye" that is powerful enough to stun or mortally injure a human.

Monitors have the ability to teleport themselves and others around their installations. It is unclear exactly how this teleportation works, but it seems that a Monitor on an Installation other than its own has no access to that installation's transportation grid. In the book, Ghosts of Onyx, Dr. Halsey comments that Onyx's teleportation matrix is powered by a Slipspace generator of some sort. The Monitor's may use similar technology when teleporting.

Monitors keep daily logs of all things that occur on their Installation. As with UNSC AI's, the Monitors have been speculated to be in stages of Rampancy due to their isolation for literally hundreds of thousands of years.

Known Monitors

 * 343 Guilty Spark (Installation 04)
 * 2401 Penitent Tangent (Installation 05)

Each Monitor, of the ones shown so far, glows a unique color: 343 Guilty Spark is blue, while 2401 Penitent Tangent is red. It is unknown whether each was created with a different color, or if Penitent Tangent's red color is due to some malfunction (Or due to his proximity to Gravemind). Important to this debate is the consideration that 343 Guilty Spark changes hue when he experiences Rampancy, going from his regular blue to a bright red color. However, Penitent Tangent seems perfectly aware of protocols such as conduct towards possible Reclaimers, something that 343 Guilty Spark forgot during his ramapncy.

Trivia



 * When the numbers of each Monitor are examined, a pattern emerges: each seems to be seven raised to the power of the installation number minus one; therefore this grid can be established.


 * ''Note that the first three digits of the monitor of Installation 07 are 117, Master Chief's service number.

''


 * The 'eye' of the monitor resembles the Marathon symbol - only one of many references to this series that appear in the Halo series.


 * It is revealed in Halo 3 that the Monitors, or at least 343 Guilty Spark, have offensive capabilities very similar to that of a Sentinel's, which can stun or kill an opponent. Guilty Spark primarily uses this ability three times in the third installment of the series: once to destroy a Flood Combat Form that was about to attack Master Chief, once to prevent a marine from attempting to open a door on the Ark, and later against the Chief, Sergeant Johnson, and the Arbiter. Spark may also use the ability on The Covenant level. When you join the Arbiter after defeating the two Scarabs, Spark may zap any enemy that gets too close to the bridge. He will also use it when you kill too many marines and cause all allies to shoot at you.


 * Monitors turn red in defense mode, and it can be speculated that 2401 Penitent Tangent is in defense mode because he is surrounded by the Flood(Gravemind), but his beam weapon is not working.


 * The voice effect can be achieved by Flanging, a technique often used for electric guitar.


 * If a Monitor is destroyed or captured, Sentinels will become hostile to any life form on the ring. This was shown in the levels Sacred Icon in Halo 2 and Halo in Halo 3.


 * The Spartan Laser is the only known weapon that is able to do significant damage to a monitor, the sentinel beam has almost no visible effect, this could mean that monitors were created with resistance to sentinel weapons systems, possibly meaning that sentinels went rampant against a previous monitor.