Acteriendian BHH roleplays

The Acteriendian BHH roleplays were text-based roleplays (RPs) of BHH done by Cat, Robert and Kerry from November 2015 through the summer of 2016, probably dying out in the autumn. Initially, these RPs were intended as a revival and narrative continuation of "the game" with Robert creating a new player character: rather than replacing the old lore, it took place later in the timeline. Kerry, at least, also considered large parts of his Oburron and Jenner paracosm canon: he taught some of it to Robert as the existing lore and adapted swathes of it to form a semi-canon background lore for the roleplays that he wrote into BHH Wiki, though Robert and Cat ignored these articles.

Their version of BHH soon developed its own distinctive style and began to overwrite the previous lore. Cat, Kerry and Robert played recognisably modern versions of Ro Elluna, Ciarraí Teagwyn Kavanah and Raven Olympia, with backstories that only changed to account for Tom joining in May 2017, and other characters like Mala Dzumach Kavanah and Sabriel Lunadelle Redena also appeared in modern form. Freddie and Tae were both involved in some RPs at the start, Freddie playing Gru Rasu and Tae playing their own character, and Michael was involved in some RPs at the end, playing Bale Santra. Cat, Kerry and Robert did some RPs that used their BHH characters or differently-named variants of them in different settings, including the Neko Dynasty, Contúirt Uí Chúis and the Order of the Tachi, and these RPs gave rise to the Suijing Cycle and influenced Maisraln and the Crossover Cycle.

After the Acteriendian BHH roleplays had died, BHH was later revived in February 2017 through Facebook Messenger rather than Skype, briefly including Aaron as Gru, and then permanently including Tom as a new character. This version of BHH was merged with Maisraln, another Facebook Messenger RP influenced by the Order of the Tachi, in July 2017, creating Glastieven mythology. At the same time, a new Suijing Cycle based on the June 2016 Neko Dynasty RP was added to the timeline between BHH and Maisraln.

Nomenclature

In late 2015, Kerry suggested that the RPing group needed its own name that was distinct from "BHH", the name of the main RP, and Cat coined the word "Acteriendia". This was now the name used for the out of character (OOC) chatroom. The meaning of the word "Acteriendia" shifted over time and by October 2016 it was considered to have been the name of the friendship group, though it was contentious whether or not it meant just Cat, Kerry and Robert or whether it included Michael and Aaron as well. From at least November 2017 onwards, using the word to mean the old friendship group, Kerry and Robert referred to spring and summer 2016 as the "Golden Age of Acteriendia" or the "Acteriendian golden age".

BHH was originally an initialism for Black Hole Hulk; in "the game", the key character of the player who did not join the Acteriendian BHH RPs was a member of a species called Black Hole Hulks (renamed to Rasunians in the later canon). By May 2016, the view was that the name BHH had been "officially short for Black Hole Hulk until 2015" but was now just a name unto itself rather than an initialism. Just as BHH at primary school had often been called "the game", in 2015–16 it was often called "the RP".

Important plotlines

Fourth Army genesis

Fourth Army genesis — as in, the process by which the Fourth Army got together — was defined in the earliest RPs and subsequently refined. As "the game" was canon, the first RP took place after Ro had been exiled, rescued, formed a group called the Fourth Army with Gru and Ciarraí, and then separated from them. It was established that Rob's new character, Raven Olympia, had used his Ravensgate powers to break up the First Fourth Army, which meant killing Gru, or at least making sure that Ro and Ciarraí believed he was dead, wiping Ro's memories, and making Ciarraí think she was dead. Ciarraí was trusted to quit derareti of his own volition over guilt for Gru and Ro's deaths.

Subsequently, Raven tried to use his Ravensgate powers to assassinate Mala Dzumach Kavanah, but he ended up being captured by Mala after the Ravensgate failed him. Ciarraí found out that Ro was still alive after she was arrested on Evonia for causing chaos in a shopping centre, or after she became an interstellar police officer and arrested him because of his reaction to seeing her alive, and he took her to Mala to find answers on how to bring her memories back. Tied to a chair, and at the end of Ro's sword, Mala agreed to release Raven in exchange for him restoring Ro's memories. Ro then persuaded Ciarraí to let Raven travel with them, and hence the Second Fourth Army was born.

The Long RP

Main article: The Long RP

"The Long RP", so named because it lasted for several weeks, focused on the Fourth Army fracturing, Mala taking over the universe and replacing species-nations with factions, and ended with the Fourth Army reuniting after her death. It is considered the first Ultrix story, though it differed from the later pattern in a few ways, most obviously in that there was no time travel and the Fourth Army co-operated with Mala's new regime and became leaders of their own factions rather than violently resisting her.

Towards the start of the story, Ciarraí forcibly expelled Ro (and a fleeting key being played by Tae) from the Fourth Army by pushing them out of the spaceship. When Raven refused to get with the programme and asked Ciarraí to chill out and find Ro, he too was pushed out of the spaceship, though he managed to throw a tracking crystal first. Ro and Raven reunited and followed the tracking crystal to find that Ciarraí had set up a new base on a crystalline planet, with a so-called "Third Fourth Army" of around eight people sitting around a table. In the end, five of these people were holograms; the only real ones were Ciarraí, an Olympan coded as Irish called Adshek O'Hare, and another Evon called Irais, whom Ro particularly disliked. Kerry was supposed to play all three but he ended up neglecting Adshek and only Ciarraí and Irais were relevant going forwards.

Ciarraí and Irais were apologetic and agreed to unite with Raven and Ro, reviving the original Second Fourth Army. They swapped notes and agreed that Mala was on manoeuvres and that they had to work out what was going on. Ro tried to forcibly expel Irais, triggering another fight, broken up by Raven using crystals. Mala then broadcast an announcement that she had been declared President of Olympa; Ciarraí pointed out that she probably did have enough blackmail on senior Olympan politicians that this might be possible. In the next few hours, she also declared herself leader of Helltuna, the Astranci, the Dylon, the Unlon, and various other nations, until eighty percent of the universe was under her control.

The Fourth Army went to Evonia to work with Sabriel Lunadelle Redena, the only significant leader who had not officially ceded power to Mala. They emphasised that there were rebellions going on across the universe and tried to persuade her to lead them into war. She refused, and said that the Evon would be voluntarily surrendering to Mala to avoid being attacked. The Fourth Army then went to confront Mala, eventually finding her hiding in a hall of mirrors.

She explained that she had taken over the universe with the intention of carving it back up into entities broadly equivalent to species-nations, factions, which would be based on what abilities gave someone value to society. Trapped in the hall of mirrors and with no other choice, the Fourth Army accepted Mala's offer to collaborate. Ro became faction leader of Ultrix, Ciarraí of Callidus, Irais of Ferox. Raven refused to lead a faction and returned to the Ravensgate to intervene in the situation from above. The plot briefly resumed after Mala died, when Ro confronted Ciarraí at her funeral, and after some machinations, the Fourth Army ended up reuniting.

Gru still alive

In "the game", the Fourth Army had comprised Ciarraí, Ro and Gru, the latter played by Kian, a friend of Kerry and Cat's. As noted above, this meant that the new Fourth Army genesis had to dispense with Gru, and the initial position was that he was dead. The version of Gru that was used and developed in the Acteriendian BHH roleplays, Gru Rasu, was inherited from Kerry's Oburron and Jenner paracosm, which had established that Gru and Ro were married. Cat hence played Ro as a grieving widow who was desperately unhappy that she had lost her husband and had become an alcoholic, nicknamed "Alcopop" by Ciarraí.

This made it an obvious potential plotline that Gru might be found alive, and there was a significant RP that centred on the Fourth Army discovering him living in Western Helltuna, on the same planet as the Jenner Gate. Gru believed he had been taken "to another universe" (i.e. to Jenner) and was shocked to discover that he was still in Oburron. He had remarried to a local woman and considered himself the guardian of the Jenner Gate, though he had believed that he was protecting Oburron from incursions rather than preventing people from leaving.

Dating

The earliest confirmed date for the Acteriendian BHH roleplays is 21 April 2016, when Skype says the last message was sent to an early BHH (RP) chat featuring Kerry, Robert and Cat. A BHH (Watercooler) chat from the same date includes Tee and Freddie. November 2015 is when Robert says he remembers introducing Raven as a character, and this date finds weight in Kerry and Robert's shared memory of Cat being at a Green Team session where it was dark by the early evening.