Proteus

= Overview = Proteus is an artificial intelligence in the 3rd RPG and the 4th RPG. His 3rd RPG story begins floating through space inside a covenant computer terminal after having been stolen by one of his creators. He has little memory, and finds a message left for him by himself, saying that he had to wipe his own memory in accordance with the Cole Protocol. He is eventually found by covenant forces, and then manages to escape his tiny network, and make his way to a UNSC ship called the Brahe. Once on board, he slipspace jumps to Sigma Octanus IV to get repairs. Proteus hears radio chatter about a missing marathon-class cruiser, the Prometheus, and sets out to find it - without anyone's permission to leave the docking bay.

When the Brahe reaches the last known location of the Prometheus, Proteus finds only the Bellerophon and a few other UNSC vessels. Proteus fabricates an outright lie, saying that rebels have commandeered his vessel, and that the Brahe must be destroyed. After downloading himself onto a longsword fighter's computer and leaving the ship, the Brahe is destroyed. Proteus is still on board the Bellerophon, as the Bellerophon's thread has become inactive recently.

Some possible weeks (months?) later, Proteus became anxious and decided to change the registry information on several shipping containers, changing their data to that of humorous or amusing items.

Proteus is an alternate character of Kona 'Valkadon, despite being created first.

In the 4th RPG, which is set in 2535, a slightly different variant of this story is told. Proteus is created in 2531 after the battle of Harvest. After an error in Proteus is discovered, UNSC programmers attempt to fix it. They believe that they have done so, but have also inadvertently flawed Proteus' Riemann Matrix, thus making him less protected from Rampancy. A short time later, Proteus goes rampant and commandeers the Brahe and its crew. After faking his death by being struck by a covenant vessel and pretending to crash into an asteroid, Proteus jettisons the crew into space and begins altering the cruiser to suit his needs, such as creating robotic servants and scrapping the air filtration system for spare parts. He then left the asteroid belt he was hiding in and slipspace jumped to an unknown destination.

In the 4th RPG, Proteus is Kona's main character.

= Rampancy = Proteus is almost certainly going rampant. His tendency to lie, disregard orders to stay put as well as acting without permission indicate an instability probably obtained from the two years spent in a small, completely isolated computer terminal. His current stage appears to be the beginning of Anger, whilst his Sadness stage was probably spent while inside the terminal itself.

In the 4th RPG, Proteus is revealed to be definitively rampant, and by 2535 is already in the Envy stage.

= Trivia =
 * The Brahe could be a reference to Tycho Brahe, the name of one of the artificial intelligences from the Marathon series by Bungie.