- DonVinzone1
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- Exalted Mythic Member
Well, I think that's due to Gravemind basically being an actually living AI. Lets face it: Cortana is the smartest AI the UNSC have ever made, even smarter than anything the Covenant has ever made, so we can regard her as the pinnacle of "modern" AI within the Halo Universe.
Still: Forerunner AI are one step beyond that. Where Cortana can seem to be a living creature, the Forerunner made AI that simulate being alive even more. 343 GS, 2401 Penitent Tangent, Medicant Bias and the other Monitors for instance. They are still machines, but can think for themselves, move as they like without restrictions, learn etc, and their appearance is "real".
Cortana has most of those qualities, but her appearance is just a hologram, therefore bound to holopads to be visible and "move around" and her appearance is just a representation, a puppet. The Cortana we see can't actually see "us". She needs external cameras to do that for instance.
And Gravemind goes even one step further than what the Forerunners made: he is a biological AI. Instead of existing in bits and bytes and having files as a memory, he exists as a biological mass, capable of moving around, capable of self awareness, capable of acting on its own terms, capable of anything a Human can, but with a collective mind made up out of the memories of everything he has taken over.
So in terms of ranking I think it's reasonable to say its like this: Gravemind > Forerunner AI > Cortana.
Being the "ultimate" AI has its advantages I guess: having the knowledge of billions inevitably comes with the knowledge to tap into technology as well. And in Halo 2 and Human Weakness (Evolutions) Gravemind has shown to be able to take over other AI as well. First 2401 Penitent Tangent and later on Cortana.
How can he hurt her? Well, Cortana seems to be able to tap into Gravemind's mind as well, so maybe Gravemind is, to put it in his own words: "both machine and nerve"? Or his body allows for integration and transferring of digital signals...
I guess that will never be explained, but Gravemind being the final step in AI-evolution might play a huge role in it.