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The Cortana Letters are a series of e-mails that were sent by an unknown communications place (Bungie Software in the past) under the alias of Cortana to the fansite marathon.bungie.org across the time period of February to May in 1999. There are six Cortana letters in total, including one "invisible message" from the Myth v1.3 CD. A complete archive of early talk regarding the letters can still be found at marathon.bungie.org's Cortana Letters page. Image File history File links Question_book-3. ... Image File history File links Emblem-important. ... Cortana is a fictional artificial intelligence in the Halo series of video games. ... It has been suggested that this article be split into articles entitled Myth: The Fallen Lords, Myth II: Soulblighter, Myth III: The Wolf Age and Myth series. ...

The letters were originally believed to be new material concerning Bungie's Marathon series, but were later revealed as the first publicly released material concerning a new Bungie game, Halo: Combat Evolved. The Cortana Letters are not considered to be canon in the Halo universe, but nevertheless persist as relics of Halo's early days of development. The primary author of the letters was later revealed to be Bungie staffer Nathan Bitner, who left the company in 1999. Marathon is a series of science fiction first-person shooter computer games from Bungie Software originally released for the Apple Macintosh. ... Halo: Combat Evolved, or simply Halo, is a video game in the first-person shooter (FPS) genre, created by the Microsoft-owned Bungie Studios. ...

In the Halo 3 trailer, certain elements of the "Cortana" from the Cortana letters seemed to appear, including entire passages seemingly directly quoted. Towards the end of the game, several passages appeared which were either identical or very similar to lines in the Cortana letters, which seems to prove the connection to the canon.

History

The letters were received by Hamish Sinclair, maintainer of the marathon.bungie.org website. As each was received, it was posted on the site's story page. Immediate analysis of the first letter by fans (including tracing the emails' header information to a terminal at Bungie Software) proved the official nature of the message and subsequent follow-ups. Subsequent correspondence with Bungie resulted in further confirmation, with Matt Soell replying: In information technology, Header refers to supplemental data placed at the beginning of a block of data being stored or transmitted, which contain information for the handling of the data block. ...

The email was not a hoax. It definitely originated from within our offices. And I suspect it will not be the last message of that type you receive.

Bungie continued to feign ignorance as to the exact source of the letters, even going so far as to send subsequent emails from other terminals (to provide confusing header information), and by incorporating fan discoveries into the ongoing story, with subsequent letters and correspondence turning to how Cortana was now having to sidestep Bungie security measures to continue sending messages.

External links

• Bungie Studios - The company creator of the Halo and Marathon game franchises.
• Cortana Letters - The main website containing the Cortana Letters on first publication.
• William Blake: Songs of Experience - A contemporary list of all poems created by William Blake in his book, Songs of Experience. Includes "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" and "The Little Girl Lost/Found" poems.
• Halo 3 announcement trailer - Released in 2006, has possible tie-in to Cortana Letters.
• Halopedia section on the Cortana Letters
• Halo Story Page "Joe Staten Interview - 2006" - about the canon nature of the Cortana Letters.