Adjutant Reflex

AdjutantReflex, colloquially referred to as "AR" by Bungie fans, is a mysterious character who has posted on the Bungie.net and Halo.Bungie.Org forums. It always posts in gold text and it's member title is "CompoundIntelligence" which is also in gold text and it's signature is "Array integrity questionable.", which is also in gold text. It is widely rumored to be a Forerunner artificial intelligence, but this information is unconfirmed and its true identity remains a mystery. Strangely, AR is part of a bungie.net group membership called "The Brute Ghostbusters".

AdjutantReflex has admitted to hacking into the Bungie servers, although it says it has no hostile intentions. It calls itself a facilitator of "Array requirements" which "are in flux". The last "Array event" occurred 871803909 ± 384 hours before its post on 06.11.2007 12:23 PM PDT.

History of Events Related to AdjutantReflex
June 11, 2007

At 10:26 AM PST on June 11, 2007, a mysterious message appeared in the Halo 3 forum on Bungie.net with a subject line entitled, "System Integrity Confirmed." The thread was created by a user named AdjutantReflex, whose system security role is "CompoundIntelligence."

http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=11263399 - First Bungie.net thread

AdjutantReflex's text is gold.

In response to a post wondering if this was the work of a hacker, AdjutantReflex confirmed that it entered Bungie's systems "by force," but stated that it was irrelevant because there was no hostile intent.

AdjutantReflex edited the first reply by another user, showing a system ability to edit other posts.

After exactly 100 excited and confused replies from forumgoers, AdjutantReflex locked and stickied the thread, showing that it has other moderator powers as well. The thread was open for about two hours.

AdjutantReflex then moved to Bungie.org, posting a similar series of mysterious writings in the halo.bungie.org forum.

http://carnage.bungie.org/haloforum/halo.forum.pl?read=808840 - HBO thread

Beware of Imposters

The same day that the original AdjutantReflex posts were created, a regular forum user created an account named "AdjutantRefIex" with a "capital eye" instead of a "lower-case ell" in the word "Reflex." That user attempted to make more mysterious posts, although the style of writing was inferior and distinctly different from the original and real AdjutantReflex's.

Forum Ninja "just another fan" banned the imposter.

Shortly thereafter, another account was created on Bungie.net entitled "ReticentAxiom". This user began creating posts nearly identical to the fake AdjutantRefIex, pretending to be another AI. Once again, they are recognizable by lack of gold text and inferior writing style -- not to mention a distinctly different "style" and "feel" to the posts from the originals.

The best advice follows: don't believe it if it's not in gold text.

June 12, 2007

At exactly 11:00 AM PST, AdjutantReflex created another thread entitled "Archive/Resource Estimate," with its first post stating that "Archives/Resources will be compiled in approximately 38 hours [1:00 AM PST on Thursday, July 14]." Another several posts followed, but no further substantive information was gleaned.

http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=11278044

June 13, 2007

At 3:43 PST, AdjutantReflex posted an addendum to his locked thread entitiled "Archive/Resource Estimate" with the text "Tick Tock."

June 14, 2007

In the hours counting down to the 1 AM PST deadline there were two other posts by AR.

Shortly after 1 AM PST, an email was sent to all recipients of the Xbox Flash newsletter with a cryptic poem inside. It was titled "Look for the signs, Keepers of the Flame".



(The Forerunner Email image)

Forerunner glyphs were noticed, not only inside the email (seen above), but also on Master Cheif's visor at Halo3.com (seen below).



The third glyph found is AdjutantReflex's new avatar on Bungie.net.



(Above is AdjutantReflex's new bungie.net avatar)

(Below is AdjutantReflex's old bungie.net avatar)



The fourth glyph found on the last page of www.halo3.com/comic.



(Strip Three of the last page (Page 4) of The Cradle of Life)

The fifth was found on a website connected to the IP address found in the Halo3.com comic strip. The last digit is a 3 instead of a 5.



The sixth was found in a newspaper ad to debut in the US on Sunday, June 17th.



On June 14, 2007 at 3:43 PM PST AdjutantReflex began another thread at Bungie.net entitled, "Who?" with one other post following before going back into hibernation. This posting corresponded to a change at Halo3.com where the main page had been turned into five darkened pictures labled Servers #1-5. All five servers were locked at this time.

Another section of halo3.com was uncovered (http://halo3.com/comic/) with an intriguing comic. Intrepid searchers discovered that the last page of this comic could be manipulated to give an IP address. "206.16.223.65" (Apparently all IP addresses listed 206.16.223.0 through 206.16.223.225 belong to Microsoft corp.)

Shortly after, the IP was manipulated (206.16.223.63) to lead us to a site associated with the (presumably fictional) organization entitled Society of the Ancients, or SOTA. A few minutes after this discovery a myspace page was discovered with references to this organization.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=1000322121

Not much is known about this page, or other myspace or facebook profiles at this time.

June 15, 2007

Members of the SOTA organization were spotted in Times Square in New York City wearing yellow shirts and holding picket signs with the glyph eblazoned on them. They were also handing out flyers.



(SOTA flyer)

June 16, 2007

SOTA members were spotted in Vancouver, Canada and London, England, among other places. More sightings and rumors seen to come by the hour.

This is all that has happened so far in the AdjutantReflex incident.

Related Links
Internal External
 * Forerunner Email
 * Halo 3: The Cradle of Life
 * Society of the Ancients
 * http://www.bungie.net/Account/Profile.aspx?memberID=2437447 - AdjutantReflex's profile page on www.bunige.net
 * CompoundIntelligence - the largest group dedicated to discussing the AdjutantReflex incidents
 * Discussion forum - hosted by Halo.Bungie.Org
 * Bungiepedia's detailed history of the AdjutantReflex events
 * http://www.halo3.com/comic/
 * http://206.16.223.65/