User:Imperial Misanthrope/Mammon

"Humans are naturally primitive and advance on their own, but the Covenant choose to be primitive"

- Mammon commenting on Covenant Technology after his upgrade

Mammon is the personal “Smart” AI of Admiral Lord George Hood (Son of Lord Terrence Hood). He is described as being somewhat of a jokester, but is dedicated and loyal to Lord George Hood. He has performed numerous actions on behalf of his owner, and is one of the most advanced human AI’s because of his coming into contact with a broken Forerunner Construct.

Creation and Personality
Initially created as a “Smart” AI to serve a high ranking Naval Officer on Reach, Mammon was created in 2549CE, and given to then Vice-Admiral Lord George Hood as his personal assistant. Mammon assumed the form of a dark robed figure wearing a hood, commenting that it made him “Look the Part”.

Mammon is a light hearted AI who finds interactions with people and other AIs to be quite enjoyable, however he dislikes several notable individuals for being rude or too uptight with the rules. Such people include the AI Beowulf, Araquiel, James Ackerson, and several high ranking naval officers, though he often didn’t express these feelings outwardly under Lord George Hood’s request.

Evolution
Mammon is considered to be one of, if not the most advanced UNSC AI. This is not because he was created as a “Smart” AI, so to speak, more because his abilities as a smart AI allowed him to become so, much like Cortana.

After the battle of Reach, Lord George Hood ordered him to guide the Marathon-Class Cruiser Gun Shield to a random space, as per the Cole Protocol. Initiating this, the ship exited Slipspace 5 weeks later into an unknown region of space without any celestial bodies, the only thing near being a large structure that seemed to have been torn from somewhere. After being ordered to analyze the structure, Mammon sent out a number of probes that found a working computer terminal with a shard of a Forerunner Construct within it. Personally confronting and speaking with the Construct, Mammon found it to be the main intelligence of a Forerunner AI that had broken from the rest of itself in an explosion that broke the building from where it once stood. The Construct shard lacked any sort of personality except for its cheeriness.

Mammon at the time, was suffering from a virtual fight he had had with a copy of the AI Araquiel, and was slowly becoming corrupted. Seeing the Ancient Construct as a method around this, he offered the AI a chance to follow a new purpose, and merge their programming. The subsequent merge extended Mammon’s life span from the usual less than 10 years of a standard smart AI, to that of an average human lifespan, and increased his intellect immensely. As such he is one of the most intelligent AI’s in existence. In fact, his intelligence of Forerunner technology is so great that he constantly berates the Covenant on every occasion he can get about how primitive their technology is in comparison. On one occasion when he is told that human technology is less advanced than the Covenant’s, he replies:

“Humans are naturally primitive and advance on their own, but the Covenant choose to be primitive”

Abilities
Mammon was created as a “Smart” AI, meaning that he is capable of learning just like an ordinary human, however because he is a computer based life-form, he has therefore a better memory than the average human, and different capabilities. His specialized capabilities are file organization, weapon system control, but mostly security. He has learned over time however, mostly from Cortana, about how to hack into places, and knows numerous tricks on how to defend himself from hostile Constructs. Cortana usually played with and made fun of him because she was always the better hacker on Reach.

Although no where near the hacker Cortana is, Mammon is far superior to her in terms of virtual combat, able to manipulate security programs and coding to his whims at will, whether they are human, Covenant, or some lower Forerunner models (Forerunner Constructs he admits that he would probably not be able to defeat). In file organization, he employs his security abilities to great lengths, creating security programs, false files and misleading folders, and employing complex codex modules to deter even skilled hackers, whether they are human or Construct. In addition, no AI, even Cortana has managed to steal anything from him without him noticing, although on numerous occasions Cortana was able to take them even after that, which she would later tease him about.

Like most AI’s, he is programmed to be able to fire large assault weaponry, like the MAC gun. He is quite proficient at this, dealing numerous lethal blows to Regret’s Excavation Fleet during the First Battle of Earth. He is also quite well adapted to operating ships of all sizes and designs, including Covenant vessels, and after his upgrade, he speculates that he would be able to direct a Forerunner ship, though he has never attempted it.

Combat
Mammon uses quite a unique style of virtual combat. Unlike the usual release of security codes and bombardments of programs, he is known among his peers for using deceptive strategies to achieve victory. Most of these deceptions, such as the fight with Araquiel’s clone, involve him offering something desirable to the opponent, leading them to drop their guard, at which point he lands a death blow. Even after his merge with the Forerunner Construct shard, his tactics in battle have little changed, the only difference being that he has become somewhat more cheery, making him seem arrogant sometimes.

”Death”
Mammon died during the Fifth Battle of Sanghelios in the last engagement of the Covenant Remnant forces. Along with his owner, the now aged Admiral Lord George Hood, Mammon delivered the decisive blow to the Remnant Fleet of Ultimate Aggression by detonating a newly created ANGEL Bomb, a Plasma-Slipspace device explosive device directly in the face of the Remnant Fleet, destroying about two thirds of the fleet and the Remnant leaders present at the battle.

Both Mammon and Lord George Hood are remembered as heroes of the UNSC, having a position in both the Museum of Human History on Earth, and a place in the Step of Honour on Sanghelios.