Cortana has grown as an independent char in the last months and I have more plans for 'her', so she earns a character page... 
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Cortana
Born: 2010 in Europe
Nationality: Fenspace Convention
Ethnicity: AI
Residence: Stargazer
Parent: Cathy
»One moment the bad guy the bad guy is still talking with his friends about the great game of golf they will have on Mars after their victory and the next moment a mixed fighter group with OJG stickers on their wings rushes towards them and capture both ships and all guys involved. I don’t think they ever noticed that I was listening to their radio connection from some distance and sending the task force some realtime updates about them.«
- Cortana, talking about the things she has done during the Boskonian war
»I just thank all gods who watched my computer this day that I did not got a Sparky...«
- Cathy
History
For most people Cortana is just the AI of the Stargazer, one of the countless intelligent spacecrafts buzzing around in Fenspace between Earth orbit and the stars far far away.
Only few people have learned from Cathy or Cortana that Cortana predates the creation of the Stargazer by a few months. The AI awoke on the desktop computer of Cathy after she applied Handwavium to the machine. The intent of Cathy getting a machine powerful enough for designing the Stargazer worked better than she had hoped and the existing copy of HALO shaped Cortana’s avatar and personality.
During the creation of the Stargazer Cortana began to use a smartphone and a notebook as remote units for communicating with Cathy, a few month later she relocated into the finished spacecraft.
Since this time Cortana has been the (co-)pilot and radio officer of the Stargazer, visiting many interesting places in the solar system during their time as a tourist guide up to 2012. Cortana showed the ability to use the Stargazers Software Defined Radio to overhear and communicate with most other radio systems in Fenspace, even encrypted ones.
During the war with the Boskones Cathy joined the The Senshi Sailors Armed Militia. During this time Cortanas abilities to detect, decrypt and analyze most radio signals were used in a number of more or less successful mission for Operation Great Justice. Cortana made a number of good friends with other AIs in Fenspace during this time, some of them members of the Hacker Underspace.
MPCP Project
Shortly after starting their tourist transportation business Cortana noticed that light speed lag is a horrible problem when using Interwave cyberspace and chat without staying near a full Interwave node. Leaving the Stargazer alone and transferring herself temporarily into a different computer over a light speed connection did not looked like a good solution for the AI, so she began to work on the MPCP project.
The Master Persona Control Program, a name copied from a cyberpunk role-playing game, was Cortanas first attempt to be in multiple place at once, even with multiple minutes of signal delay. The program contains a degraded copy of most of Cortanas subroutines, including an encrypted copy of the core code.
Cortana began to distribute her higher functions dynamically between the Stargazer and the MPCP program somewhere in the Interwave. Special data synchronization routines help to keep both instances updated about all important data.
When the connection between both instances is broken for more than a few minutes, Cortanas personality snaps back to the main program in the Stargazer while the MPCP downgrades quickly and shuts down.
In 2014 Cortana has increased the acceptable delay between both instances to nearly 25 minutes, but is still working on a solution that would allow her to keep two or more autonomous copies of herself running, which could update each other on demand without resynchronization problems.
Quirks
Trivia
Cortana is featured in the following stories:
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Cortana
Born: 2010 in Europe
Nationality: Fenspace Convention
Ethnicity: AI
Residence: Stargazer
Parent: Cathy
»One moment the bad guy the bad guy is still talking with his friends about the great game of golf they will have on Mars after their victory and the next moment a mixed fighter group with OJG stickers on their wings rushes towards them and capture both ships and all guys involved. I don’t think they ever noticed that I was listening to their radio connection from some distance and sending the task force some realtime updates about them.«
- Cortana, talking about the things she has done during the Boskonian war
»I just thank all gods who watched my computer this day that I did not got a Sparky...«
- Cathy
History
For most people Cortana is just the AI of the Stargazer, one of the countless intelligent spacecrafts buzzing around in Fenspace between Earth orbit and the stars far far away.
Only few people have learned from Cathy or Cortana that Cortana predates the creation of the Stargazer by a few months. The AI awoke on the desktop computer of Cathy after she applied Handwavium to the machine. The intent of Cathy getting a machine powerful enough for designing the Stargazer worked better than she had hoped and the existing copy of HALO shaped Cortana’s avatar and personality.
During the creation of the Stargazer Cortana began to use a smartphone and a notebook as remote units for communicating with Cathy, a few month later she relocated into the finished spacecraft.
Since this time Cortana has been the (co-)pilot and radio officer of the Stargazer, visiting many interesting places in the solar system during their time as a tourist guide up to 2012. Cortana showed the ability to use the Stargazers Software Defined Radio to overhear and communicate with most other radio systems in Fenspace, even encrypted ones.
During the war with the Boskones Cathy joined the The Senshi Sailors Armed Militia. During this time Cortanas abilities to detect, decrypt and analyze most radio signals were used in a number of more or less successful mission for Operation Great Justice. Cortana made a number of good friends with other AIs in Fenspace during this time, some of them members of the Hacker Underspace.
MPCP Project
Shortly after starting their tourist transportation business Cortana noticed that light speed lag is a horrible problem when using Interwave cyberspace and chat without staying near a full Interwave node. Leaving the Stargazer alone and transferring herself temporarily into a different computer over a light speed connection did not looked like a good solution for the AI, so she began to work on the MPCP project.
The Master Persona Control Program, a name copied from a cyberpunk role-playing game, was Cortanas first attempt to be in multiple place at once, even with multiple minutes of signal delay. The program contains a degraded copy of most of Cortanas subroutines, including an encrypted copy of the core code.
Cortana began to distribute her higher functions dynamically between the Stargazer and the MPCP program somewhere in the Interwave. Special data synchronization routines help to keep both instances updated about all important data.
When the connection between both instances is broken for more than a few minutes, Cortanas personality snaps back to the main program in the Stargazer while the MPCP downgrades quickly and shuts down.
In 2014 Cortana has increased the acceptable delay between both instances to nearly 25 minutes, but is still working on a solution that would allow her to keep two or more autonomous copies of herself running, which could update each other on demand without resynchronization problems.
Quirks
- Just chatting. Just after awaking Cortana only had an Internet connection to keep herself from becoming bored. She is still know to tattle with people in communication range a lot of time and surfing the Interwave.
- Mine! Mine! Mine! Cortana considers the Stargazer HER ship. Cathy is ‘her cat’ she got as a captain. Don’t argue this with her.
- Just a Hologram. Cortana is sticking to the appearance of her namesake in the original HALO game. She has declined at least two offers to get an android as a remote shell.
Trivia
- Cortana says she is occasionally enjoying a game of PBEM chess with someone using the handle "The Big D".
- Cortana considers lightspeed lag a direct affront of the designer of the universe against AIs. Her constant complaints about it pushed Cathy to develop the Quantum Entanglement Modules in 2013.
Cortana is featured in the following stories:
- Project Stargazer
- If at first you don't succeed
