A Dark Age is a defined specific time or era in WIDEVERSE history characterized as the opposite of a Golden Age: A decrease in activity, notable actions and battles, as well as social, and sometimes monetary, depression.

Defining a Dark Age

History

The first usage of the terms "golden age" and "dark age" began when Shelarahn started to collect the histories of COMMUNISM into a comprehensive tome in 2014.

1st Dark Age

Beginning: Shelarahn abandons COMMUNISM
End: Friend Zone
April 16th 2010 - April 3rd 2012 (1 year, 11 months, 2 weeks and 4 days)

The 1st Dark Age was a truly dark time in the communities history. The age had long been coming, offset only by Shelarahns heroic, but futile, attempts to prevent the inevitable. After the failure of COMMUNISM to revive itself as a raiding guild, Shelarahn abandoned it all in pursuit of college, leaving the community without leader nor community. By happenstance, Petrus would find himself buying the guild off of a random officer Shelarahn had left it to, unknowingly saving WIDEVERSE from oblivion.

An end to the Dark Age finally came in Spring fo 2012 when Jorgan pulled many of the old COMMIES back together into Friend Zone, sparking the 2nd Golden Age.

2nd Dark Age

Beginning: Post-Emerald Dream
End: BMW
Fall 2014 - May 25th 2015 (8 months and 2 weeks)

Despite early successes both in game and culturally, the COMMUNISM Revival began to wane in Fall of 2014 after the failures of first Wildstar, then the Emerald Dream Invasion, despite the relative success of the latter. Most of the blame for the 2nd Dark Age fell on Pigeon, at the time one of the pivotal members of the group as he began to drift from the group foolishly into the arms of several terrible women. A brief hope bloomed in December of 2014 when the COMMIES began playing Rust, eventually hosting their own popular but short lived server. It was not until nearly 6 months later in May when Prude began playing on the SomethingAwful hosted server of Goon Playground under the clan name of GAY, did the Dark Age begin to wane, but at the cost of COMMUNISM itself, as the plan to overtake BMW via the Color Coup was put into motion.

3rd Dark Age

Beginning: Failure of Conan Exiles/Gmach Resigns
End: PUBG Revival
Early March - July 4th 2017 (4 months and 3 days)

The 3rd Dark Age hit particularly swift and left a lasting impact in the wake of the success from the foundation of BMW in 2015 through the establishment of the BMW Discord and the antics of 2016. The failure of Conan left BMW leadership without plan nor direction going forward, and resentment and infighting began to afflict the upper echelon, resulting in GMach as well as other high ranking Bimmers leaving. While often cited as the cause of the slump itself, ironically it was the introduction and expansion of political centered chat that kept the group afloat and active in the darkest months.

While considered a Dark Age, it was not without happenings, such as many of the Biggers teaming up with TSS to continue the Rust legacy, as well as the introduction of Bimmercraft.

4th Dark Age

Beginning: Post-COVID
Early 2021 - Ongoing (3 years, 8 months, 3 weeks and 3 days)

Historians have long debated whether or not the post-COVID era of WIDEVERSE constitutes a Dark Age and when exactly it would have begun, though most agree that the downfall of WIDEFORCE in late February 2021 marks one of the most notable points of the WIDEVERSE's slide into inactivity. Early 2021 held many promises, such as the aforementioned WoW raid team, the surprisingly popularity of Valheim, and the successful reformat of WEIRD WEDNESDAYS. All those things however failed to gain any real traction and quickly fell to the wayside. In May of 2021, Prude launched BEEFYBOYS.CLUB to little fanfare outside of the WIDEVERSE faithful. Summer saw a brief blip of activity as a small group of Biggers got addicted to Apex for a few months. Fall saw Prude attempt to revive interests in Guild Wars 2 via WvW PvP events, which were briefly successful but also failed to gain traction.

2022 showed even more promise, with the launched of The WIDEBOYS Community Discord, WIDE Media Group, and its The BEEFY BOYS and WIDEVANIA franchises, however both failed to reinvigorate the community. Fediverse remained a mainstay of happenings, but too had failed to attract any real attention, much to the chagrin of Prude and Taylor. Summer brought an unlikely boon in the form of Fortnite. A brief WIDETV relaunch was considered, but due to continuing infrastructuree problems was quickly shuttered. Dragonflight showed promise, but due to multiple failures in the running of the new WIDEFORCE raid group, never got off the ground.

Things appeared grim going into 2023, as Taylor abdicated once again, eventually leaving the community entirely in Spring of that year. His departure and spats with WBC leadership would eventually lead to the 4th COMMUNISM Civil War: The WIDEBOYS-SCJP Schism.