How It Came To Be

In late 1995 Haakon found the Stone Dagger BBS, one of a few in the local area for one without an area plus calling plan. There, Haakon met Arelas. Quickly they realized they went to the same high school and met in person. Back in the day, Haakon first called a BBS called Nightcrawlers on his 2400 baud modem and black and white screen. Sadly, no ANSi. Arelas first caught a glimpse of the Pigg Sty, in between friends fighting to be in front of the monitor, and promptly acquired a similar modem to be a part of the action.

Haakon moved to Clemson in early 1995, and found Cuneus BBS, a board based on Egyptian themes, and eventually Stone Dagger and met Arelas in a door game called Usurper. That was the first clash of Haakon -- Lord Nemesis at the time, and Arelas -- Heartbreak Kid at the time. Haakon proceded to whip Arelas's ass in Usurper by exploiting a bug, but explained how he did so and a friendship began.

After several exchanges of Whitesnake lyrics, the two met at the high school they both attended. Many BBSes later the two had met Boba Fett and 'Possum Killer, along with many lieutenants in his PWO ('Possum World Order) at the time. Fun antics ensued, including the takeover of the Modulations BBS in Clemson, SC, where they faked and practically assumed sysop powers and a very real ability to lock others out for months.

Arelas by then had put up the Astral Plane BBS, and Haakon put up the Other Dimension. Boba Fett had the Power of the Darkside. However, phone related complications delayed the launch of TOD. At some point, no one is truly sure, the wars began. Conniving and backstabbing,
Haakon and Arelas battled to infiltrate each others BBSes to wreak havoc. Arelas stole Haakon's runra.bat, the batch file that controlled the entire BBS, and left nothing in its place, although he denies this to this day.

The two semi-hacked each other and each others' BBSes until the culmination at which point Arelas executed a backdoor hack of a new BBS software Haakon had just gone live with, when Arelas gained sysop access while Haakon was at the prom. Haakon came back to some amount of anarchy, and the wars went on, but ultimately the warring stopped, as everyone began to accept that it was best to combine talents.

Boba Fett and Arelas contributed ANSi to Graven Images. GI was acquired by RCA, and eventually Boba Fett formed Plan 9. Haakon contributed XMs and music to Plan9, while Arelas drew a few ANSi pieces, and both focused on BBS modding. Boba Fett, however, grew to become a highly respected ANSi artist. All three were heavily invested in the scene and community efforts, and Plan 9 later began the 864 Revival Project.

Around this time Plan 9 helped produce the Vortex which later became the Plan 9 World Headquarters. Shortly after the launch of the Vortex, the Astral Plane crashed, and there were no survivors. As the months passed, BBS antics and lazy saturdays led to graduations and jobs and real life and college.

A couple of years later, Arelas and Haakon combined efforts on the Vortex. The board went telnet and the first website went live. The success of the Vortex arguably peaked when Plan 9 members focused on a new project, Ultimate Usurper, which led to 6 telnet nodes in use at times. The board went down a time or two over the years, and some things happened and some things have changed, including a new port to Mystic, but the Vortex is back ... and it's only just begun.