If we'd been two people sitting there in person, Robert would have seen a look of disbelief cross my face. To my mind, there was nobody more unlikely to create and run a MUSH than me. I'd only gotten into MUSHing on January 22nd, 2000, because of an illness that would soon take a real toll on my life. But suffice to say, I was bored, and having done Champions in tabletop gaming for 11 years by then, it was natural that, lacking the ability to go out much, I'd turn to MUSHing.

ChampionsMUSH. It inspires strong feelings in people, both positive and negative. Emotions run deep. I was asked to help build a new MUSH which would be much better than ChampionsMUSH. It seemed like something interesting to do, so I said yes, and was given builder powers on Champions Unleashed! It was a pretty interesting place, and Temporus had set a lot of it up quite differently than had Steven of CM. Some stuff was a failure, like trying to totally automate combat and chargen (There's way too many variables and combinations). While I wasn't the best builder there ever was, I gave it my all. After accidentally @destroying the Building Nexus, I learned "always use database numbers." After 3 months, the true failure hit. Most of the staff did nothing. Temporus typed @shutdown, slightly disgusted with everyone.

During this whole time, I'd still be RPing and active on ChampionsMUSH. The two code staff there were friendly, and Alikai had decided I'd be a good alpha playtester for a MOO she was making (In other words, if I could do it, anyone could). I've never been so lost, codewise. Even TinyTIM wasn't this confusing. Sadly, SandyMOO ended when Alikai passed away. While Algernon and I had the will, only Wisq had any idea how to code, and he simply vanished.

So, still on ChampionsMUSH at this point, RPing with everyone. I get asked to help out on a new MUSH which will (of course) be better than ChampionsMUSH. I decline, at this time, because I don't get along with some of the people on the project. In September of 2000, CM staff make a fateful decision to end the current campaign and "reboot" in 2051, with all new PCs. I don't know the actual numbers, but it seemed like half the playerbase left because of that. I became upset with the lack of playerbase and actually began to play on Shadowrun Detroit, and even did some Builder work there. While my time there ended rather on a sour note, I took away a lot of lessons on coding, building, and staff ethics. Meanwhile, on CM, I helped desc some of the grid for 2051 and made a character and RPed and ran stuff, as usual.

Somewhere around December 2000, I got talked into joining Astro City MUSH (which I had earlier declined). We'll just say a LOT of lessons got learned during this time, and leave it at that. I finally couldn't take too much more of it, and quit in July or August 2001. Meanwhile, ChampionsMUSH was beginning the slide downwards. Staff had almost totally stopped RPing, and few would run scenes. The theme was guarded so tightly that even staff couldn't run plots they wanted to. It was around November 2001 (right before the first Harry Potter movie) that Robert said to me, "You should try again." I told him I didn't think I could do it. He said I could. I told him he'd have to help me, and I'd need to ask Temporus if I can use his code, since I couldn't code well. Robert agreed, and then, at a Harry Potter party, Temporus also agreed to let me use code. During this time, a new player on CM offered me a free server to work on, in trade that all code made there is also for his MUSH. I agreed and PipeMUSH was born.