The Great Schism is the period of stagnant development and innovation by users that took place after Z-Day and the end of The Classical Era. It is best broken down into the events that took place on the forums during this time.

GearBrain and It's Demise

GearBrain was an "elite" Phun clan that had the support of Link0007, but was disbanded after only a few days due to the founder's mental state. GearBrain was the brainchild of a phunner named theshadowsun. Theshadowsun came to the forums with an idea others had had before, to create an elite group of phunners that would work together and make scenes that would rival those of the Classical Era. After getting the "okay" from Link0007, theshadowsun began assembling his dream team, but he met resistance every step of the way. Phunners, led by jrv2005, assaulted GearBrain from various topics in the Off Topic Forum until Link0007, having seen theshadowsun crack under the pressure, disbanded GearBrain indefinitely. As a show of faith he cleared the GearBrain's hidden forum and renamed it the Collab Forum which is still open to the public and is used for group collaborations in Phun.

Death of the Off Topic Forum

With the coals of the flame war that brought down GearBrain still burning bright in the Off Topic Forum, members who saw GearBrain's demise as a blow to Phun's technological advancement set their sights on the spam-filled Off Topic forum and called for reform! In a flame war as fierce as the one that brought down GearBrain and with wounds unhealed, the Off Topic forum was finally closed due to a lack of moderation. Jrv2005, who had led the attack on GearBrain from the Off Topic Forum then went on to create an external Off-Topic in hopes that it would replace the old one.

The Collab Forum and The Apache Collab

The Collab Forum which had been added as a result of growing tension over GearBrain's status as an "Elite" group became the hub for a handful of collabs in it's early life. The first attempts at collabs were poor and reflective of the, now, primitive nature of Phun technology. On the horizon there was finally a ground-breaking advancement. Coinciding with an elegant helicopter created by Conundrumer, RaRaMalum demonstrated that you could manipulate airfriction in notepad and make very powerful helicopters. Paradigm 29, still wanting to continue the close collaborative work witnessed in GearBrain, took interest in the new technology. Together the three started The Apache Collab which led to further improvements in high air friction and negative air friction exploits, new weapons designs, more powerful helicopter rotors, and the famous Raunit stabilizing device. Though the Apache Collab never finished it's main objective it evolved into Phun's longest running collab to date - The PoC. And with these advances the period known as The 4.22 renaissance began.