Zeke

Zeke (AI serial number: ZKE-0778-3) is a Class-C military "dumb" AI assigned to Battle Group Endymion's Naval Special Warfare Group Theta. He specializes in intelligence processing and operational control of ground engagements as well as liaising with the other AIs of the battle group.

He styles himself after Commander Ezekiel Lorentz, a particularly famed soldier of the newly-formed UNSC during the conflicts of the 2160s. A hero of the Liberation of Rio de Janeiro, the Mars Campaign, the Ceres Incursion and the Siege of Europa, the real Lorentz eventually killed in a space engagement over Titan during the later years of the Interplanetary War, but his memory lived on among the great war heroes of history.

Zeke has an old-timey propaganda poster air to him; his overall habitus is based particularly on a famous photo known as "The Hero of Mars", taken immediately after the UNSC's first deployment in the Argyre Planitia in December 2163. In the photo, the original then-Lieutenant Lorentz is stepping out of a surface-to-orbit troop ship's landing ramp, helmet in carry, orange-brown Martian dust covering his battered military-grade pressure suit. Such gear was standard to combatants operating in the interplanetary colonies and orbital habitats at the time, as even in sealed environments the threat of depressurization - intentional or otherwise - was ever-present during combat operations. During engagements Zeke's avatar tends to don his space helmet.

Although a "dumb" AI, Zeke is a very convincing simulation, though his theatricality tends to give him away—he's more of a mythical archetype, a character rather than a person. He's very self-assured, has a flair for the dramatic, and tends to make obscure historical references to battles and people long forgotten; a lot of the source material for his persona was drawn from not only history books but propaganda and popular culture.