Brannon Boren made good on his promise over the weekend, putting together a nice little retrospective on the thinking process that went into creating the parts of the Halo Bible that deal with artificial intelligences like Cortana.

Just about everything that he mentions is revealed, in one way or another, either through the games or the novels, so there are not any spoilers. However, it is interesting to see the choices that were made and the reasons for them.

Perhaps the most interesting bit is this footnote on the seven-year lifespan of AIs:

Many fans saw a connection between the seven year figure and Bungie's mythology regarding the number "7". In truth, it was an arbitrary choice on my part. I was unaware of Bungie's past games or stories at the time. Sorry.

Sorry, Boren, we just can't buy that :)