Halo 1: what if cortana failed to stop the ring from firing?
as we know because of cortana's quick thinking, she prevented the activation index from starting up Halo's bioweapon from firing. But in this universe, things happen that ruins the story you know. This is what would happen if she failed to catch the index before it connected to the control system...
Master Chief places the index into the console, a blinding light flashes through the room. "What happens now?" asks the unknowing spartan, the monitor, 343 Guilty Spark responds "Now the ring will activate the bio-degenerator that will destroy the Flood's potential hosts..." "What!" "My apoligies, Reclaimer, but this is the only way we can defeat the flood. If my makers could've destroyed them any other way, they would. But no, all other alternatives failed, and they had no choice but to fire the rings." The Chief fell to his knees in dispair, "I'm sorry it had to be like this Reclaimer, Indeed I am."
afar in the distance, the marines and the covenant are in the heat of battle, with casualties on both sides they press on. "Keep firing men! We eather destroy these alien bastards, or die trying!" But after Johnson finished shouting,a mysterious energy orb formed in the middle of the ring. The marines looked to the covenant, who also knew what was going on, the ring was firing.
Back in the control room, John-117 sat at the edge of the control room looking down at the bottom of the room. Guilty Spark hovered down to him, "is there something on your mind, Reclaimer?" "Yeah, is this going to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy?" "Not entirely, This ring can only reach a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years, however once the other six are activated, this universe will be quite devoid of life," "do the others need to be activated?" "not yet, but someday, they will all need to be fired." John went back to looking at the bottom of the room, "I see..." then Cortana appeared on the control room center, "Chief?" John looks to the console "Cortana!" Spark looked to the console as well "A construct in the core? That is absolutly unacceptable!" She turns to the monitor "Relax, I'm not doing anything to your system, I mean, what good would it do now?" The monitor backed down, "indeed, the rings are already at 77 power, however I must ask, if you were in the core this whole time, why didn't you stop the index from connecting?" Cortana closed her artificial eyes, "because, I was unsure if I should or not, all this information made me so jumbled up, that I didn't know what to do." the monitor shook it's head in agreement, " I know what you're talking about, before I discovered that the flood had escaped, I was so busy catagorizing your starship's articles, I was unsure if I should go and help contain it, or trust you humans to destroy them." John stood up and headed to the Console, "What was it that you were going to say before Cortana?" she looked down to her friend, "I wanted to say, that I'm sorry." The Chief removed his helmet, "It's alright Cortana, It wasn't your fault that this happend, It's mine..." at that point, the ring's weapon fired.
meanwhile, during their conversation, the marines and the Covenant stopped fighting and started conversing, 96 charged, Sargent Johnson talked with an Elite (who if the rings didn't fire, would have become the Arbiter) "So, why are you guys doing this anyway?" the sargent asked, " we believed that this ring will bring us toward a great journey, where we would become immortal." The sargent turned to the elite, "Really? Well as far as I'm concerned, that 'Great Journey' would stand for death right now." The Elite turns to the Human soldier "It would make sense, you humans believe that Death is a journey to the after life, which grants you immortality." "yeah, You could be right..." At that moment, the Bioweapon detonated.
From a distance we see the devestating explosion spreading across the galaxy, planets instantly changed from being colorful and full of life, to barren and deserted, in a matter of hours, the ring's detonation was complete. every organic thing within a 25,000 light-year radius, was destroyed.
Still in the control room, Cortana looked down at what once was her best friend, now just a hunk of empty armor. "They let me pick." she said to the armor "...Did I ever tell you that? Choose whatever spartan I wanted. I did my research. Watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. Like the others, you were strong and swift and brave. A natural leader. But you had something they didn't. Something no one saw...but me." The monitor looked up at the construct with confusion "Can you guess?" Spark looks to the armor. "Luck." the monitor turned to the construct, "I'm sorry for your loss, I wish there was something I could do..." She looked at the Monitor "there is one thing..." She looked to the armor again "...delete me." "I beg your pardon?" She looked up at Spark "delete me, allow me to join him." Spark headed towards the Console and began the deletion process, Cortana started to disintergrate from the legs up. "Thank you" "My pleasure, Cortana" with that said, her pretty face vanished.
twenty years pass, High Charity's inhabitants all saw what happend to the soldiers on the Ring when it fired. Enraged, the inhabitants turned on the remaining prophets and had them executed. They head towards a human planet and sign a peace treaty, On September 23, 2552, the Human-Covenant war ended. It's the year 2572 and now the Covenant and the UNSC have merged to make the United Federation Space Command. Commander John Keyes, son of Lord Miranda Keyes, pilots the UFNC Marathon-class starship "The Great Journey". On board the ship, Humans and Grunts work together to keep the ship working, John's second in command is Sras Vandum. "All hands to stations, we're preparing to jump." The ship turns away from Cairo station, "Sir!" a grunt shouts, "Where are we heading?" John looks up and smiles, "To Sector 117, ensign." "Aye sir, setting a course to sector 117" a short while later, The Great Journey Jumps to Sector 117, the former SPARTAN training planet, Reach.