[quote]The whole "Cheif x Cortana" was crap, and just for my sanity's sake, I view it as a long-running friendship.[/quote]Halo 4's portrayal of Chief and Cortana's relationship is accurate. They did love each other. But 343i intentionally left their love for each other to be ambiguous. Was it platonic love? Friendship love? Mother-son love? Romantic love? 343i (and even Steve Downes) has made it clear that there is no right or wrong answer. But, if you look at the story, and how it was developed, you can very clearly see that mother-son love was an extremely strong influence. Josh Holmes, Creative Director for Halo 4, put his own emotion into the story of the game. He pushed very hard for the Chief-Cortana plot to take prominence in the game because he knew what they were going through. During Halo 4's development, his own mother suffered from dementia. This isn't fan conjecture either, he's stated in interviews that much of his inspiration for Chief and Cortana in Halo 4 came from the pain of his mother's descent into dementia. Then you have the marketing Campaign for advertised Chief and Cortana's relationship as being mother-son.