Halsey awakens the flash clone of herself, and the two converse about all that has happened since the clone was created: only 35 SPARTANs survived the augmentation process, but Halsey has made enough progress on neuroelectric imaging that the Cortana Project is can proceed. The clone is sacrificed to create the Cortana Artificial Intelligence. Cortana is, at first, resentful that she is being held back from her true purpose — to overwrite John's mind and use him as a Meat Puppet — but abandons this line of inquiry when John touches the Keystone: when Cortana takes over him, the artifact turns off again.
John-117 is augmented with a neural link that allows Cortana to ride around in his head. John, though initially resentful of this Restraining Bolt forced on him, becomes more amenable to her when she returns to her roots as a virtual assistant and helps him compile a list of planets he might have come from. She then, on Halsey's orders, helps him remove the real Restraining Bolt: the hormone-regulating pellet at the base of his spine which turns him into a Super-Soldier via Emotion Suppression. With this pellet removed, he's able to use the Keystone to access more of his own repressed memories... including those of a larger artifact which the Keystone fits into. Cortana helps him narrow the search for his home planet down to a single candidate, Eridanus II, which was clearly the site of some sort of Government Coverup (something about a plague and lockdown), and John hypothesizes that the UNSC can find the second Keystone there.
After a flashback which reveals Makee was chosen specifically by the Covenant for her status as a Blessed One who can interact with Precursor artifacts, Makee begins her quest to infiltrate the UNSC. She starts with a Trojan Horse: posing as a Sole Survivor aboard a Covenant ship. The crew of the USS Gladius bring her onboard, and she neutralizes them with a bunch of worm-creaturesnote . However, Makee is apparently unaware of the Cole Protocolnote and is therefore unable to glean any useful intelligence from the ship.
Miranda Keyes is commissioned by Adm. Parangosky to head a separate investigation into the Keystone. Meanwhile, Kwan chafes at life on Rubble and eventually bribes Soren to take her back to Madrigal. The episode closes as both John and Dr. Halsey, and Soren and Kwan, strike out for their respective destinations. Halsey's assistant Adun expresses concern that John will discover whatever the UNSC covered up; Halsey reminds him that this is precisely what Cortana is for.
Tropes:
- Alien Sky:
- Reach has a ringed planet and its moon visible from the surface.
- John's childhood homeworld has ice rings visible from the surface, the clue that finally enables him to narrow down his search.
- All for Nothing: Makee's detour in attacking the Gladius proves to be a waste of time. The ship's databanks are wiped in response to the attack, per the Cole Protocol, and the crew are all killed, so she has no means to locate Reach. She decides to move on to Madrigal, which was her original plan.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: This is tested when Halsey has Cortana put John into stasis when testing the Keystone, causing it to instantly power down. It doesn't just need his body, but his active mind.
- Brain Uploading: In a sense. The architecture for Cortana's neural net requires a scan of a living human mind, that being Halsey's flash-grown clone. However, it also liquifies the brain in the process, hence why illegal flash-cloning is needed to get the project off the ground.
- Decoy Damsel: Makee arrives in a disabled Covenant corvette pretending to be a prisoner left behind when the ship was abandoned, so the UNSC will take her aboard, unaware that she has a disembodied Lekgolo worm swarm waiting for them. The crew isn't completely gullible, however; suspecting a trap, there are a dozen Marines on standby, and she isn't formally welcomed aboard until she's been searched for weapons. The second she attacks the crew, the captain verbally orders the Cole Protocol, making her sprung trap worthless.
- Defiant to the End: Restrained by worms and about to die, the captain of the Gladius defiantly tells Makee that she won't find any data on their computers and he'd rather die than help her.
- Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Done in an even creepier way with Adun trying to kiss Halsey's clone, who is not only strapped to a table, but conscious and completely paralyzed. Mercifully, Halsey pops in before he does so.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When John is trying to figure out where his memories come from, one of the planets that comes up in Cortana's search is where Nora-098 was lost. John recalls her death, but because of his hormone pellet didn't feel anything from it. However, his memories of his childhood do evoke an emotional response. Cut to Halsey's lab, where Cortana calls in to inform her that John is removing his pellet.
- Expendable Clone: Halsey thinks almost nothing of sacrificing her own clone, complete with her memories at the time of her cloning, to finish Cortana.
- Eye Scream: The process of extracting the clone's memories, for some reason, includes driving a needle into her eye. While she's awake but paralyzed and able to feel it all.
- Femme Fatalons: Makee has a small plasma blade hidden beneath a fingernail.
- Flashback:
- The episode opens on a flashback showing how Makee was found/taken by the Covenant.
- John experiences another memory of his childhood when touching the Keystone, apparently having been to some Forerunner ruins in the past, and believes he encountered a companion artifact.
- Handwave: Cortana is said to have a holo-particle exciter to explain how she can and will appear in places which don't have holographic projectors.
- Humans Are Bastards: Makee has a very low opinion of humanity since her childhood was spent being brutalized in a forced labor camp before being taken by the Covenant.
- Landfill Beyond the Stars: The planet Oban, a UEG waste salvage colony, is littered with trash and the water is orange from the toxins.
- Music Soothes the Savage Beast: With his pellet removed, John-117 can appreciate an open-air concert being held in the park.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Halsey forcing the Cortana project on Adm. Parangosky causes her to set up a rival research team under her daughter. This team has a suspiciously timed computer crash (no doubt arranged by Cortana) but Halsey going on the mission with John to keep tabs on him gives Miranda another opportunity.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Cortana freely intrudes on John whenever she feels like it, ignoring him when he tells her to go away. This is justified as Cortana was made to take over John completely, and she's chafing under the suddenly limited role she's been given.
- Not What I Signed on For: Cortana declares this when ordered by Halsey to help John remove his pellet in direct violation of standing orders, since Halsey wants John to trust her.
- Organic Technology: Miranda identifies the Keystone as organic with obvious technological elements.
- Properly Paranoid: The Gladius wipes its databanks the second Makee attacks them, rendering her entire assault pointless. This is in accordance with the Cole Protocol, one of the most important standing orders for all UNSC personnel, stating that under no circumstances can the Covenant be allowed to learn the locations of Earth or other strategically important human installations, such as the facility on Reach containing Dr. Halsey's lab.
- Pretentious Latin Motto: There are numerous propagandic phrases written on the interior walls of Reach's military base. This includes the UNSC motto "Per Mare, Per Terras, Per Constellatum" or "Through Sea, Through Land, Through the Stars" inside the Spartans' barracks.
- Restraining Bolt:
- Halsey places a limiter on Cortana so she can't completely control John, instead only being able to shut him down on command, wanting to test how the Keystone affects him and her before allowing Cortana full access. When the Keystone immediately shuts down after John is placed in stasis while touching it, this only further justifies her reluctance.
- John, in turn, removes the hormone pellet which is restricting his emotions, allowing him to experience the world as normal people do. It also allows him to interact with the Keystone more effectively.
- Rubik's Cube: International Genius Symbol: Halsey's clone effortlessly assembles a futuristic puzzle, making it clear to her that it's her brain she's been cloned for. When John meets up with his fellow Spartans, one is doing a memory exercise while the other is playing a three-dimensional puzzle to demonstrate they are Genius Bruisers.
- Rule of Symbolism: John is in two crowd scenes in this episode, and is constantly portrayed as moving against the flow of traffic. The first time it's to symbolize how much he, a Super-Soldier Famed In-Story, stands out from (and is revered by) the UNSC rank and file; the second, after the pellet is removed, is to emphasize his nature as a Sense Freak experiencing almost everything about civilian life for the first time.
- Scenery Censor: When John is naked while performing Self-Surgery in front of the bathroom mirrors, his groin is strategically obscured by the gap between two mirrors, along with the camera being positioned off-center.
- Self-Surgery: John pops out his hormone pellet using a knife, with a little help from Cortana telling him where to dig.
- Sherlock Scan: Halsey's clone deduces from meeting herself and the puzzle in front of her that Halsey needs her brain for some reason.
- Stalker Shot: Kai is revealed to be watching from around the corner as Cortana and Chief remove his pellet.
- Tragic Keepsake: Makee's book of fables is revealed to have belonged to her friend, who was killed by the guards on Oban.
- We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: Oban is a forced labor planet where civilians, including children, are forced to sort trash all day.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- The guards on Oban beat Makee's friend Det to death and one tortures her with a shock prod before being smacked into a garbage pile by an Elite.
- Soren implies he would kill Kwan for being a problem if not for his promise to John to keep her safe, and likewise has no issue turning her in for the bounty if she can't deliver on her promise of payment upon reaching Madrigal.
- Halsey's younger self is shocked to discover how few children survived the augmentation process to turn them into SPARTANs.
