This is all very plausible since Jason Jones, Robt McLees, and Joe Staten are all a part of the story team for their next game. Some old quotes that may put smiles on your faces if interested in this stuff: "If you look back to the Marathon days, there's always been a strong interest in the idea of artificial intelligence. When we began to look at Halo, we certainly wanted to carry that idea forward. There was a clear correlation and relationship between the Marathon and Halo universes -- they were different, but the idea of an AI was really compelling. So Cortana began as one of those early sparks for the whole Halo universe. The idea that she could speak to players long before we revealed what this universe was about was really interesting to us, especially because we were trying to talk to our old fanbase and get them excited about our next big thing. That was the idea behind the Cortana Letters." -Joe Staten "I'll say this: Observant fans of our games will note that certain themes tend to run through our games. For example, the sword Durandal (from the "Song of Roland") first appears in Minotaur as a magic sword and goes on to become a central character in Marathon. There are many other examples of common themes running through our games." -Jason Jones