Catherine Halsey: Difference between revisions
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{{Quote|The Office of Naval Intelligence had apparently had their eye on me for years and knew that the only way to convince me to join them was to get ''me'' to convince me. It worked. I joined.|Catherine Halsey recalls her recruitment by ONI in [[Dr. Halsey's personal journal|her journal]].}}{{Ref/Reuse|HJ12410}} | {{Quote|The Office of Naval Intelligence had apparently had their eye on me for years and knew that the only way to convince me to join them was to get ''me'' to convince me. It worked. I joined.|Catherine Halsey recalls her recruitment by ONI in [[Dr. Halsey's personal journal|her journal]].}}{{Ref/Reuse|HJ12410}} | ||
[[File:Halsey self portrait.jpg|thumb|right|300px|This self-portrait was sketched by Halsey at the age of eighteen, just a few months after she began her work on Reach.{{Ref/Reuse|HJ8810}}]] | [[File:Halsey self portrait.jpg|thumb|right|300px|This self-portrait was sketched by Halsey at the age of eighteen, just a few months after she began her work on Reach.{{Ref/Reuse|HJ8810}}]] | ||
Catherine Elizabeth Halsey was born on [[2492#March|March 19, 2492]] within the colony of [[Endymion]]'s coastal city of [[Port Vernon]].{{Ref/Reuse|WaypointCatherineHalsey}} While an impressionable young child her father recited to her every adventurous tale of [[Wikipedia:L. Frank Baum|L. Frank Baum]]'s [[Wikipedia:Land of Oz|Oz]]<ref name="HJ9447">''[[Dr. Halsey's personal journal]]'', ''September 4, 2547''</ref> At this age she was already contemplating ideas having to do with [[artificial intelligence]]s and their longevity.{{Ref/Reuse|HJ9447}} As an adolescent she was smarter than her parents and was continually reading, learning, and talking, being eager to share her knowledge with anyone who would listen.<ref name="HTFOR25">''[[Halo: The Fall of Reach]]'', ''Chapter 25''</ref> Among the works Halsey read | Catherine Elizabeth Halsey was born on [[2492#March|March 19, 2492]] within the colony of [[Endymion]]'s coastal city of [[Port Vernon]].{{Ref/Reuse|WaypointCatherineHalsey}} While an impressionable young child, her father recited to her every adventurous tale of [[Wikipedia:L. Frank Baum|L. Frank Baum]]'s [[Wikipedia:Land of Oz|Oz]].<ref name="HJ9447">''[[Dr. Halsey's personal journal]]'', ''September 4, 2547''</ref> At this age, she was already contemplating ideas having to do with [[artificial intelligence]]s and their longevity.{{Ref/Reuse|HJ9447}} As an adolescent, she was already smarter than her parents and was continually reading, learning, and talking, being eager to share her knowledge with anyone who would listen.<ref name="HTFOR25">''[[Halo: The Fall of Reach]]'', ''Chapter 25''</ref> Among the works Halsey read was an [[English]] translation of [[Wikipedia:Dante Alighieri|Dante]]'s ''[[Wikipedia:Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]''.{{Ref/Reuse|HG18}} The first game of [[chess]] Catherine that played with her mother was the only one she ever lost to her.<ref name="HJ11749">''[[Dr. Halsey's personal journal]]'', ''November 7, 2549''</ref> Upon beating her daughter she had said, in [[Human languages|Italian]], "When the game is over, the king and pawn go into the same box."{{Ref/Reuse|HJ11749}} At a young age, Halsey was sent to the elite academy [[Endymion Gifted]], where she continued to defy educatory standards. She was eventually afforded a trip to [[Circumstance]] in [[2501]] from the Dean of Biological Science at [[Koletre-Browning University]], who completely funded her education until the completion of her second doctoral thesis sometime after her fifteenth birthday in [[2507]].{{Ref/Reuse|WaypointCatherineHalsey}} While working on that second thesis, Halsey learned various [[Wikipedia:Command-line interface|line command]]s, long discarded and forgotten due to their archaic nature, with which she could interact with computer programs.<ref name="HFS13">''[[Halo: First Strike]]'', ''Chapter 13''</ref> | ||
In 2507, while still a doctoral candidate, Halsey met Doctor [[Elias Carver]] at an academic social mixer and couldn't resist correcting his obsolete algorithm implementation when she heard him describing the matrix mechanics of the socio-economic and politico-economic vectors of human expansion.<ref name="HJ12410">''[[Dr. Halsey's personal journal]]'', ''December 4, 2510''</ref> She outlined a corrective matrix calculation to him which revised his dimensional parameters so that the sixteen dimensions were used rather than seven. Doctor Carver did not appreciate being challenged by someone he saw as a young upstart, but her words seemingly caused [[Captain]] [[Michael Stanforth]] of the [[United Nations Space Command]]'s [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] to take note of her. Three weeks later, a [[Wikipedia:Grant (money)|grant]] she had proposed for using [[artificial intelligence]]s to control N-dimensional matrices was green-lit by the UNSC, with its funding contingent on the successful testing of a model of its choosing. Naturally, it was Carver's model which she was directed to test. Halsey knew his flawed model would produce flawed results, so she ran her sixteen dimensional variant as a [[Wikipedia:Controlling for a variable|control]] in addition to his seven-dimensional version. Carver's model predicted a breakdown of social order in the [[Outer Colonies]] within twenty years unless strict governmental control was established, reinforced by an immediate and permanent military presence. Catherine ran more than fourteen hundred simulations during this time, varying every parameter, and even in the best-case scenario it was clear to her that the Outer Colonies at large would [[Insurrection|rebel]] against the [[Unified Earth Government]] ''soon''. She determined that at a minimum, the resulting conflict would lead to thirty years of war and the deaths of five billion people. The maximum effect was unbounded and could involve interminable war and a new [[Wikipedia:Dark Ages (historiography)|Dark Age]] for [[humanity]]. Halsey took her findings to Stanforth only to learn that ONI had already reached the same conclusion. The agency had been keeping an eye on her for years and it had been decided that in order to recruit her, she would need to convince herself that working with the agency was necessary to save the human race.{{Ref/Reuse|HJ12410}} [[Ysionris Jeromi]], who considered Halsey his star pupil at the time, discouraged her from working with ONI.<ref name="HTFOR6">''[[Halo: The Fall of Reach]]'', ''Chapter 6''</ref> Halsey, however, had no problem admitting that ONI's tactic had worked on her.{{Ref/Reuse|HJ12410}} She allowed herself to be recruited in [[2508]] and in early [[2510]] she was brought to the [[Inner Colony]] of [[Reach]] and contracted to work as a [[civilian]] consultant on a number of classified projects.{{Ref/Reuse|WaypointCatherineHalsey}}<ref name="HJ8810">''[[Dr. Halsey's personal journal]]'', ''August 8, 2510''</ref><ref name="HM60">''[[Halo Mythos]]'', ''page 60''</ref> | In 2507, while still a doctoral candidate, Halsey met Doctor [[Elias Carver]] at an academic social mixer and couldn't resist correcting his obsolete algorithm implementation when she heard him describing the matrix mechanics of the socio-economic and politico-economic vectors of human expansion.<ref name="HJ12410">''[[Dr. Halsey's personal journal]]'', ''December 4, 2510''</ref> She outlined a corrective matrix calculation to him which revised his dimensional parameters so that the sixteen dimensions were used rather than seven. Doctor Carver did not appreciate being challenged by someone he saw as a young upstart, but her words seemingly caused [[Captain]] [[Michael Stanforth]] of the [[United Nations Space Command]]'s [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] to take note of her. Three weeks later, a [[Wikipedia:Grant (money)|grant]] she had proposed for using [[artificial intelligence]]s to control N-dimensional matrices was green-lit by the UNSC, with its funding contingent on the successful testing of a model of its choosing. Naturally, it was Carver's model which she was directed to test. Halsey knew his flawed model would produce flawed results, so she ran her sixteen dimensional variant as a [[Wikipedia:Controlling for a variable|control]] in addition to his seven-dimensional version. Carver's model predicted a breakdown of social order in the [[Outer Colonies]] within twenty years unless strict governmental control was established, reinforced by an immediate and permanent military presence. Catherine ran more than fourteen hundred simulations during this time, varying every parameter, and even in the best-case scenario it was clear to her that the Outer Colonies at large would [[Insurrection|rebel]] against the [[Unified Earth Government]] ''soon''. She determined that at a minimum, the resulting conflict would lead to thirty years of war and the deaths of five billion people. The maximum effect was unbounded and could involve interminable war and a new [[Wikipedia:Dark Ages (historiography)|Dark Age]] for [[humanity]]. Halsey took her findings to Stanforth only to learn that ONI had already reached the same conclusion. The agency had been keeping an eye on her for years and it had been decided that in order to recruit her, she would need to convince herself that working with the agency was necessary to save the human race.{{Ref/Reuse|HJ12410}} [[Ysionris Jeromi]], who considered Halsey his star pupil at the time, discouraged her from working with ONI.<ref name="HTFOR6">''[[Halo: The Fall of Reach]]'', ''Chapter 6''</ref> Halsey, however, had no problem admitting that ONI's tactic had worked on her.{{Ref/Reuse|HJ12410}} She allowed herself to be recruited in [[2508]] and in early [[2510]] she was brought to the [[Inner Colony]] of [[Reach]] and contracted to work as a [[civilian]] consultant on a number of classified projects.{{Ref/Reuse|WaypointCatherineHalsey}}<ref name="HJ8810">''[[Dr. Halsey's personal journal]]'', ''August 8, 2510''</ref><ref name="HM60">''[[Halo Mythos]]'', ''page 60''</ref> | ||
