Blackout

The Blackout was an event that occurred in early April of 2013, caused by the massive loss of power to HQ, despite a fully functional Department of Dead Author Electricity Generation.

Cause
The Blackout's root cause was the birth of the aberration Slorp. Due to the conditions of Cafeteria's stock of Suvian meat planned for use in its quasi-edible food, the meat gradually developed a rudimentary gestalt consciousness. After its awakening, Slorp attempted to escape the Cafeteria, alerting several of its workers to the meatloaf creature's presence. When they tried to contain it, Slorp's absorption ability led to several of the workers being devoured by it before it could be contained. Due to the inefficient nature of the containment field designed by the Cafeteria Workers, the field sapped a massive amount of power from HQ's systems to keep itself running, leading to a widespread outage.

Effects
HQ's shields were dropped as a result of the power loss, leading to dimensional intrusion into Headquarters. Ever since the Cascade, HQ's null space had been intruded upon by dozens of canonical worlds, but the worlds had been kept in check by the shields, which additionally kept any canon-native creatures from wandering into HQ through the stable Cascade plotholes. The shields' failure caused the suspension of both of these functions. As a result, several continua began bleeding through into HQ, bringing their dangerous creatures with them, such as the Creepers from Minecraft and the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. In the later stages, after a few days without power, other points in HQ timeline and even other multiverses were colliding with the null zone, suggesting critical instability. The Department of External Security was working around the clock to stabilize the area, but could hardly keep up with the constant intrusion of new dimensional junctures.

Solution
When Slorp was released from containment by Agent Morgan, the power supply that had been rerouted to its holding chamber was freed up, allowing DoSAT to turn the power back on to the rest of HQ. Cleanup for the Blackout began shortly afterwards, once Slorp had been destroyed and the canon character the Doctor, who had played a crucial role in defeating it, was neuralyzed and returned to his home continuum. It is not yet finished, and due to the massive size and complexity of HQ, it may not be so for a while yet.

Meta Definition
The Blackout was created after an April Fool's Day change of background color on the Board, from white to black, inspired a group of Boarders (including Sergio Turbo, SeaTurtle, Pretzel and DawnFire) to role-play a set of scenes taking place during a power outage in HQ. Due to the inclusion of three Weeping Angels in the Blackout RP, a nearby topic about Weeping Angels in HQ inspired Lily Winterwood to involve the Doctor in the Blackout, which resulted in the creation of the story "Plotholes and Meatloaf and Angels, Oh My!" If the Board's enthusiastic reaction is any indication, it will be the first of several Blackout interludes.

Blackout Interludes

 * "Plotholes and Meatloaf and Angels, Oh My!" - The main story on the cause and solution of the Blackout. (Complete)
 * "Meanwhile, in that RC with the open door..." - The story of how a Boarder ended up in HQ (amid other things). (In-Progress)
 * "Double Birthdays are Not Cool, Fezzes Are" - On how Sergio Turbo and Nikki Cherryflower ended up in the future HQ in the first place, and what they did after. (Complete)
 * "Blackout: GLaDOS vs. Ypurs" - The Fisherman, Evie, Misa, and Xylander rescue a stampede of ypurs. (Complete)
 * "Blackouts, Beasties, and Bored Canon Characters" 1,2 - In which Agents Eagrus, Cyba, and Sigma get caught up in a quest through the DTE and beyond. (Complete)