Recon Number 54

Recon's avatar

Recon Number 54 is a former Forum Ninja. He joined Bungie.net on April 15, 2004 at 3:00 PM PST, naming himself after the Marathon Trilogy's protagonist Mjolnir Recon number 54.

Background

“*grins*”

~ Recon Number 54 on Everything

Left to right at PAX 2008: Senor Leche, Achilles1108, Foman123, Recon Number 54, Shishka, Yoozel, Achronos.

Recon became a Forum Ninja in 2004 and held that position until 2016, becoming a Master Forum Ninja in the process. Master Forum Ninjas were chosen based on a multitude of factors, but they were given responsibility to issue permanent bans, edit bans, post news to the front page, and delete threads.

He is known as the "Sage of Bungie.net," always happy to share advice to those who ask, and to those who don't. He is known for making parables; which he can somehow apply to most anything.

In 2006, Recon wrote a rant article in HFCS about why he views the word "noob" as derogatory.

Paul Russel and Recon at PAX 2008

One of Recon's most famous interactions with a user occurred in 2008 when he accidentally banned then-Bungie employee, Paul Russel. Recon noticed a thread in the Halo 3 Forum called "I LIKE PIE" with a poll "DO YOU LIKE PIE," deemed it off-topic to the forum, and banned Russel. Russel sent Recon a message, telling him that he works for Bungie. Jokingly, Recon told him, "Yeah sure kid. I'll tell you what, when you come into work tomorrow morning, swing by Achronos' desk and tell him to unban you, okay?" The next day, Shishka told Recon that he had banned Russel and that the office was in an uproar - of laughter. Recon promptly unbanned Russel, unlocked the thread, and moved it to the Flood Forum.

In 2010, Recon's account got hacked. As a result, he made a new account with the same name and locked down the old one, calling it "Security Officer" to keep on theme with Marathon's protagonist naming convention. He continued moderating for six more years before stepping down.

Cheers from Recon in his last post

After Bungie.net's relaunch in 2013, Recon began posting in the Offtopic forum almost exclusively, sharing news and advice.

Due to forum posting requirements occurring in February 2018, Recon announced that he was moving on from Bungie.net, bidding everyone farewell and saying that he'll always be a fan of Bungie.

Trivia

Recon with HBO friends, including Claude Errera and Miguel Chavez.

Interviewed in a Bungie Community Spotlight. KPaul created a thread to discuss the interview, and Recon (under the Security Officer name) interacted with everyone.

He held the record for the most users banned in a single day prior to Bungie.net's relaunch in 2013.

During Recon's time as a Forum Ninja, he was subjected to a number of memes, which was a common occurrence for Forum Ninjas.

Recon is attributed to the following quote on many wikis, taken from a thread on Bungie.net about canon:

"When a painter starts, they have an idea. They sketch, they doodle, they make strokes on canvas and paper with pencil, pen, brush, charcoal, whatever... Until the painting is finished, any previous stroke of the brush can be covered by a later one, altering the position of a tree, the color of the sky, a reflection in the water, the placement of a person, the existence of anything.... until the artist says "fin", it is not up to others to determine what is "so" and what is an "alteration"."

— Recon Number 54

External Links

• Recon's Bungie.net profile
• Recon's old profile: Security Officer