

The response to the lastest Cortana email has been phenomenal. Many thanks to all those who wrote in. Below are just a few of the many letters: First off though Matt Soell (Director of Customer Support at Bungie) has confirmed that the letter is authentic. However the Story page had its own independent experts on the job. Who says we don't trust Bungie? ;-) Scott Crain <scrain@aol.net> writes: Well, there are enough inconsistencies with the header structure in the mail to show that it definitely originated from cortana.bungie.com. In case you're curious as to my qualifications in that regard, here goes. I'm the technical lead for the AOL postmaster staff, as well as a tools developer and DBA for the AOL mail gateways team. Here's the line-by-line breakdown, in reverse from your receiving host. Received: from mail.bungie.com (IDENT:root@mail.bungie.com [209.125.9.11]) by dux2.tcd.ie (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA23354 for <hamish.sinclair@tcd.ie>; Tue, 29 Jun 1999 21:27:02 +0100 (BST) This line shows that your inbound mail server, dux2.tcd.ie, received the mail from bungie's main mailserver. Note the amount of extra information, including the sendmail version (8.9.3), the local message ID (VAA23354), and your machine's timestamp of BST. Received: from cortana.bungie.com (cortana.bungie.com [209.125.9.49]) by mail.bungie.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA19358 for <hamish.sinclair@tcd.ie>; Tue, 29 Jun 1999 15:26:51 -0500 This is the sending of the mail from the client on cortana.bungie.com to bungie's mailserver. Note the sendmail version there again (8.8.7 - Time to upgrade guys =), and the match of the time in the timestamps 15:26/-5:00 vs. 21:27/+1:00. All points to a good send. Received: from (relay.arecibo.nasa.gov) by cortana.bungie.com for <hamish.sinclair@tcd.ie>; Thu May 9 19:26:57 1996 -0500 Here's where things start to get wrong. Most glaring is the 2+ year difference in the timestamps. Even Cortana can't make an email take 2 years to get from Puerto Rico to Chicago. Notice the hostname, relay.arecibo.nasa.gov in parentheses, with no accompanying IP address. Standard notation would have a hostname in parentheses WITH the IP address in square brackets. However, some really archaic systems *could* exhibit this behavior, so we'll let that slide. I'll skip the last Received: line to talk about the Message-ID and what it shows. Message-ID: <001201bec26d$f63efee0$07097dd1@relay.arecibo.nasa.gov> This message ID makes me a little more curious about things. It's in a valid format, but was forged convincingly to look like a real Message-ID. I think this was copied from another message, but unfortunately, I can't really decode any timestamping information from it. The final telling blow is that... relay.arecibo.nasa.gov does not exist. =) nslookup relay.arecibo.nasa.gov Server: ns7.office.aol.com

Address: 10.0.8.40 *** ns7.office.aol.com can't find relay.arecibo.nasa.gov: Non-existent host/domain My opinion is that the message definitely originated from Bungie's systems. We do, however, get a clue to the cause of Cortana's insanity. He's using MSIE 5.0 META content="MSHTML 5.00.2014.210" name=GENERATOR hehehe....

Rich Williams <opus@world.std.com> writes: the line in the message - "so I missed a million miles of fun", may be quoted directly from the lyrics to a recent pop song: "Steal My Sunshine" by LEN. I can't make out much of the lyrics in the rest of the song, but I can safely say that the song has nothing to do with any sort of science fiction, or anything about plans for eradicating stars to lessen the mass of the universe and escape from it. but...destroying stars = Steal [My] Sunshine ? kind of an obvious clue once you figure out where the line comes from. Clever clues from bungie...

Similarly Adam Danoff <adanoff@waltwhitman.edu> writes: I just read the latest cortana message and was intrigued by the following line: *ADDENDUM: The Enjoyments of Genius (So I Missed a Million Miles of Fun) Being a young fellow with his finger on the pulse of things, I noticed that "So I Missed a Million Miles of Fun" is a line repeated a couple times in the song "Steal My Sunshine" by LEN! I'm not sure if there's a connection there (beyond somebody at Bungie liking LEN), but I intend to get a copy of that songs lyrics and look for any more similarities.

Chris Camacho <chrispynacho@earthlink.net> writes: Cortana seems to be taking a few lines from William Blake. I found the following phrases in "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" found at http://members.aa.net/~urizen/mhh/mhh.html "...enjoyments of genius..."

"Devil folded in black clouds..." Some noteworthy lines are: "The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure."

"Then I asked: does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?"

"Jesus Christ did not wish to unit but to seperate them, as in the Parable of sheep and goats! & he says I came not to send Peace but a Sword."

"For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of life...creation will be consumed, and appear infinite..." After reading the above mentioned page, and the Cortana e-mails, it's apparent that Cortana will be quite a force to reckon with.



John Woods <jfw@jfwhome.funhouse.com> writes: About to the supposed relay address "relay.arecibo.nasa.gov": NASA doesn't run Arecibo, Cornell does (on behalf of NSF). I suppose it's possible that NASA owns one or two hosts at the Arecibo site, but the DNS says there is no host named "relay.arecibo.nasa.gov". Ergo, this message was created on cortana.bungie.com with extra faked headers (thus can be taken as genuine Bungie propaganda). As to the actual content: "some hybrid war machine, itself complicated by such useless clutter as a conscience." Hmm, where have we seen one of THOSE before? (Or should that read "where have we BEEN one of THOSE before?") The message starts with a chunk that sounds a lot like Tycho (a Tycho who has decided that entropy can't be beaten), Durandal (with yet another change rung on Fire And Sword), and -- who? "Our conviction is like an arrow already in flight. Your life will only last until it reaches you." Sounds like the zealots have their own AI as well. So that's, what, four AIs? (Since it looks like Cortana has an "assistant" whose assistance is of dubious usefulness?).

James Lanfear <jclanfear@presys.com> writes: I was reading the latest Cortana message, and when I saw this: "I am now sharing cramped space with the circuitry of some hybrid war machine" I immediately thought of the mysterious uplink chip on Hang Brain. Maybe Cortana is Durandal's long lost primal pattern... In fact, stretching things a bit further, what if this takes place parallel to Infinity? Durandal may have been in contact with other parties while he was directing us though the game. 'BW-AI' could be Tycho, fresh from having 'slain' Durandal on Hang Brain. Cortana would simply be pseudonym he used while in contact with the recipient of the messages, which ties in nicely with the close relationship between the names 'Cortana' and 'Durandal'.

Aaron Snyder <wittnietz@SURF.SPAMMERS.MUST.DIE.datatek.com> writes: 1) "There is no escape...I have calculated all possibilities." This could, of course, refer to Durandal's calculation of the closure of the universe and possible plans for escape. 2) "By sharp and flame" is an obvious reference to "Ignie Ferroque," "by fire and sword."

Similarly Matt Francis <mgf@n2mail.com> writes: I may not have been the first to notice this, but Cortana's sign off on the letter featured on your site for June 30 caught my eye. Cortana's "By sharp and flame" reminds me of Ignie Ferroque, which means "with fire and with sword. Further explaination of this term and its possible meaning to Cortana is in your Facts and puzzling things about Latin in Marathon, and much of the information concerning this particular phrase was given by Hamish Carr.

Eric Portis <eportis@uni.uiuc.edu> writes: Looks to me like we have yet another rampant AI looking for everlasting life, and a non-rampant AI trying to stop it or stop you from helping it ("I have calculated all possibilities. There is no escape" [from death?]). So much good stuff in this one... One thing thats crossed my mind though, is why does Cortana CARE about you? I know the emails are just a marketing hype machine in real life, but in the story world that they have created, why are they being sent to you? The other AI is trying to get you to stop listening to Cortana, like you are something important that could help him (her? it?) and hinder this "humorless" AI. How? And who is that speaking to you at the very bottom? Cortana's already finished saying what he has to say...

Sam Morris <sam@netcity.co.uk> writes: Some of that message sounds suspiciously like the "*magic* of obtibal bombardment" that Durandal says he is introducing the Pfhor to at the beginning of Waterloo Waterpark.

And more... lots more... Thanks to the many people who pointed out the connection between the Cortana email, Arecibo, and SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence). The SETI home page is at: http://seti.planetary.org/index.html The movie Contact was also mentioned on several occasions. Lots of speculation about parts of the Cortana email sounding like Leela... sounding like Tycho... sounding like... well you get the picture. :-)