BZPB

BZPB is a multi-authored crossover fiction project centered around stories and role-playing games that are set in the BZPB Multiverse, an elaborate science fiction/fantasy world that combines elements from hundreds of different works of fiction, as well as the creators' original characters and ideas, into one chaotic sandbox setting. BZPB was founded in the form of a text-based role-playing game on the Bionicle fansite BZPower on March 31st, 2008, before the game moved to Wikia and finally its own forum, bzpb.forumotion.co.uk, in November 2010.

The BZPB Multiverse was developed primarily in the role-playing game BZPower Battles (later shortened to just "BZPB" after the move to the independent forum bzpb.forumotion.co.uk), but also in other role-playing games and stories that were created by its players over the years. BZPB is now developed primarily in the form of prose fiction that is hosted on bzpb.forumotion.co.uk, most notably The Mazkertis Paradox, which explores what happens to the main universe of the BZPB Multiverse (the Original Universe) after the events of the BZPB RPG.

History
The events that led to BZPB's conception were a flame war known as the "BVM war" on BZPower, where members Heat/DRJ (then known as "brutaka555") and "king charvak" met. When the topic in which the flame war was taking place was locked, brutaka555 changed his name to Makuta: Master of Shadows and began playing a simple forum game called Endless Feud where BZPower members would fight each other as their online personas. However, MMos found that he was accused of "God-modding" whenever he did anything at all, so he sent Charvak an idea for their own version in a private message, then went to bed. When MMoS woke up, he found that Charvak had started the game, called "BZPower Battles", and had gotten many users to play it. MMoS was glad, but soon noticed that Charvak had twisted his original idea out of recognition (MMoS wanted to allow people to play solo or ally themselves into teams if they wanted to, whereas Charvak made being in a team mandatory). Since the end result wasn't actually that bad, MMoS stuck with it, and the game carried on, surviving many god-modders and flame wars, until a server problem caused BZP to lose six months' worth of posts. Even then the game carried on, with a plot explanation (Blackout using the Vahi Cube to rewind time by six months) given for the server wipe. Around this time, MMoS, who had by now become -Blackout-, suggested that a wiki be started for the game. This would prove quite useful in the future. A player by the name of "King of Nynrah" (who now goes by "Kon") created the first BZPB wiki on Wikia.

The game carried on, until, finally, on April 22, 2010, the topic was closed by staff member Friar Tuck because it had grown into a full-fledged RPG (RPGs were not allowed on BZPower unless submitted through a formal process and approved by a committee). But this would not be the end of the game: it moved to the Wikia wiki and stayed there until a player called ({Insert pun here}) (later known as "Shroom") created a forum called bzpb.forumotion.co.uk, where the game continued for five years until it was decided it would be relaunched as BZPB Reborn.

However, many wanted to continue to explore the Original Universe of the original RPG, so a BZPB player named Klak created The Mazkertis Paradox for this purpose.

Setting
Most of BZPB is set in the BZPB Multiverse, a fictional multiverse that contains hundreds of universes, the most prominent of which is the Original Universe. The BZPB Multiverse itself was created for fun by a mysterious and enigmatic group known as "the Users" (the authors' self-inserts), who mostly exist as deus ex machinas who use their powers to resolve otherwise irresolvable plot situations and provide meta commentary on themselves for comedic effect, but some players have written them into the main plot itself.

The original BZPB RPG was primarily set in the Original Universe, which was a massive science fiction/fantasy universe that combined elements from hundreds of different works of fiction, as well as players' own original characters and ideas, into one chaotic sandbox setting. The story of BZPB mostly focused on the lives of the players' main characters as they struggled to fulfil their destinies, achieve their goals, and survive in such a chaotic world. Because BZPB originated on a Bionicle fansite, concepts from Bionicle were prevalent at the beginning, with others from Transformers, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Marvel, DC, Fringe, One Piece, Tenchi Muyo!, Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, and countless other works of fiction introduced over time. Elements from all of these works coexisted with concepts created by BZPB's players, with stories woven between them: for example, the original characters Blue and Lord Zrintch worked for the original character Mazkertis, but so did the Green Goblin and Raziel, who originated from Marvel Comics and the Legacy of Kain series, respectively. Fictionalized versions of certain real-world individuals, such as US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who existed in-universe as heads of state on the planet Earth, were occasionally added to the narrative to provide comic relief or commentary on current events.

In the second major iteration of BZPB, named BZPB Reborn, the setting was changed to the Reborn Universe, which was created as a completely original work of fiction that did not include elements from any other works. This iteration was moderately successful for about a year until it fizzled out and was replaced with BZPB Unending, which was set in the Unending Universe and was also formed completely from original ideas. However, BZPB Unending ended a few months after it began and was succeeded in prominence by Weird Games: A BZPB SORAverse Story, which was set in the SORAverse. As of 2020, the last remaining active project on the BZPB website is The Mazkertis Paradox, a prose story separated into chapters that continues the narrative of the original BZPB RPG while also incorporating elements from some of the others.

To view a rough, incomplete timeline of events that occurred in the Original Universe, see Timeline.