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 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
On January 26, 2553, BB observed David Agnoli and Captain Serin Osman in section Core 5 of HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6. When Osman was called in to see Admiral Parangosky, he introduced himself to her and accompanied her to Parangosky's office. There Parangosky assigned BB to Osman and her black-ops team Kilo-Five, which was tasked with creating Sangheili insurrection and locating Catherine Halsey on Onyx. He later introduced himself to the other members of the team, professor Evan Phillips, ODSTs Staff Sergeant "Mal" Geffen, Sergeant Lian Devereaux, Corporal "Vaz" Beloi, and SPARTAN-II Naomi-010. 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.

BB primarily took on a side role on the first three missions enacted by Kilo-Five. During their weapons exchange with Avu Med 'Telcam on New Llanelli, he 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, monitoring the until the lack of help from Venezia led to the death of all aboard when it was destroyed.

BB later checked on Captain Damien Hogarth through his fragment he had left in ONI's system back at Bravo-6. Hogarth was using his personal AI, Harriet, to dig up dirt on Parangosky so that he could eventually usurp her position as ONI director. While at first offended that Hogarth thought Harriet could get past him, he decided to feed her false information instead to "ruin Hogarth's day". As the attempted intrusions continued, Black-Box accessed Hogarth's files and triggered a false "massive overspending" alert to UNSC Internal Audit as retribution.

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

Sanghelios fragment
In March 2553, Phillips arrived on Sanghelios. While touring the State of Ontom, he met with Avu Med 'Telcam. As they approached the entrance of the Temple of the Abiding Truth, they were caught in the midst of a bombing orchestrated by Jiralhanae dissidents. Back on Port Stanley, BB's cam feed on Phillips was lost, but BB detected that Phillips was still alive. Following a second explosion, BB immediately experienced damaging pain. Captain Osman ordered the retrieval of Phillips and prepared the ship for a slipspace jump back to Sanghelios.

In the wake of the Jiralhanae uprising, 'Telcam planned to launch his attack on the state of Vadam. Phillips was taken into the custody of the Abiding Truth, who permitted him to explore the interior of the Forerunner temple. As Phillips explored the structure, he noted that the micro-camera unit on his shirt, which contained BB's fragment, had been peppered with shrapnel. The placement of the unit had saved Phillips' life, but BB's fragment inside had taken damage and activated an emergency purge function, wiping important data and higher personality functions from the AI's memory. While BB's fragment was far less useful in this state, Phillips nonetheless was able to use him to aid in translating certain symbols inside the structure. The data they collected inside was soon speculated to be the locations and operational statuses of the remaining Halo installations. Phillips and the BB fragment eventually found their way to a room with a translocation portal. Solving an arum-like activation system, Phillips was translocated to the portal's receiving end in Acroli.

After Phillips was rescued from the Nes'alun keep by Kilo-Five and visited over Sanghelios, the primary BB faced somewhat of an internal crisis about the reintegration of his damaged fragment into his core matrix. Phillips and BB reluctantly went to see Dr. Catherine Halsey, then aboard Infinity, and asked her if she could help Black-Box. However, the Doctor stated that there was no solution at the moment.

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.

Thanks to the UNSC's improved, Forerunner-enhanced communication systems, Black-Box is capable of distributing his processes across interstellar distances with no discernible lag. As such, he was capable of monitoring activity on Earth, Sanghelios, and several other locations with his primary matrix physically present on Port Stanley. 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