I can only see a tangential link. Dr. Halsey is both the creator of the Spartans, and the creator of Cortana. The equipment the Spartans use was created on Mars, but I don't see anything directly connecting Cortana to it. The closest I got was a possible reference in the Cortana letters (that appears to have been debunked): [url]http://marathon.bungie.org/story/cortana.html[/url] CTRL-F "Island Four" and [url=http://halo.wikibruce.com/Halseys_Journal#X16-69909-01]NGC 2244 2524.18.01 - CFHT-MARS X16-69909-01[/url] in name alone. Misirah is apparently Arabic for Egyptian, and Cortana's original model was said to be inspired by Nefertiti, an Egyptian Queen. Actually... wait, no. The thing I was going to link that to happened in 2003, so unless Bungie has a one-up on the archaeological world forget it. Other than that, nothing except a few things I noticed that only make sense in retrospect involving the poems referenced in the Cortana letters (The little girl going away when she was [I]seven years old[/I] in "Little Girl Found". Huh... that one involves Tigers...). At this point, I'd think that the link won't be explicit with Cortana. Her temperament and goals (originally seeming to be very similar to Durandal), seem to have changed a lot before release. And given how divergent a lot of Halo canon has become (and that Bungie no longer owns it), it may be better to just focus on the Durandal-Tycho link. Personally, I think I'm going to go look through the Durability/Girlfriend narrative in Infinity again the next time I get a chance.

The only I can find is that virtually every other man-made[url=http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Misriah_Armory]"sword"[/url] in the Halo universe is made there.