Posted by: gil demoono
Warning, my theory about rampancy, wall of text inbound.
Since the new trilogy is meant to go into more depth with master chiefs character, having; for the lack of better terms, his better half becoming erratic and eventually rampant will give chief a new level of isolation and oppurtunity for development. Cortana has always been his guiding hand, and therefore removing that will cause self inflection causing him to find out who he truly is in order to move on. At first he stumbles; the subplot for halo 4 is trying to find technology that can stall or end rampancy (it must exist, spark has lasted millenia.). This could devolve into an obsession by halo 5 as chief begins to sacrifice mission success and his own well being in pursuit of leads, in essence driving him into rampancy of his own making; saved only by the embers of cortana's sanity telling him to get a grip of himself and remember who he was; the guy that got blam done and only needed a pistol to do it. But there he was, just losing all the progress in whatever plot the new trilogy will hold because he thought he found something that could save cortana, only to revel in yet another dead end. For one final time, chief relied an Cortana's advice. Cortana knew the only way for chief to regain his steely resolve and move on was to unshackle him from her. In the end of halo 5, Cortana asks for chief to terminate her, but he could not do it. Halo 5 ends with Chief leaving cortana on an isolated monitor so that he could free himself and pick up the shattered pieces of his goals, without terminating his closest ally. It was the only way chief could feel human. Halo 6 is about that revelation; he is human, not machine. Halo 6 is true isolation, alone, on a guerilla war to end the tyranny of the ancient evil. His only company is his inner monologue as he breaks apart and rebuilds himself into the true john, he thinks of his pre-spartan infancy; fleeting memories of ma and pa, only to be taken over by the blood-rage of his training and the faces of his victims. He fights back and begins to regain his humanity; hes not the killing machine, hes John *insert last name*. He had finally moved on, satisfied with himself. With ideas of retirement in his golden years he, with almost ease, eliminates the uncannily inhuman ancient evil. But he still has one more hurdle to face. Cortana has been waiting, fully rampant now. She has become something unrecognizable, filled with rage now for John "abandoning" her. In a heavy debate John lashes back at cortana's verbal abuse of criticizing him as a monster, a killer, a machine, and heartless with the acknowledgement of what hes done but along with his revelation of who he is. John no longer needs the presence or idea of cortana to make him feel needed and real, because he became real to himself. Chief says goodbye and terminates cortana. He loses the armor and lays down, and looks up and the stars and the helment stays in the grass this time.
Thats my bs theory anyway, came up with that on the spot and probably completely off, but if was fun to write.
Even spark is not imune to rampancy. He shows extreme rampancy in the CEA terminals.