Extra Timeline Info

== The choices behind naming eras and periods ==
=== Pre-History ===
The Pre-History Eon represents all the events that happened from July of 2016 up until the launch of Townscraft. It marks important events that happened that lead up to the creation of Townscraft. The name was chosen for pretty self-explanatory reasons, it was the history that happened before Townscraft started.
=== The Early Days ===
The Early Days capture the time of when the server was in its infancy and holds roughly the first two weeks of the server's life, from the launch until the First End Dragon Fight. The server during this time was very young and a lot of people from this period who would have been considered prominent then no longer play. The future of the server was yet to be shaped and its identity had not yet been formed, being view as a Simplistica clone, even by Historio to some extent. The reasoning behind this name was chosen for fairly self-explanatory reasons again, this was the early days of the server and couldn't be defined by one theme yet.
=== The Bilgewater Era ===
Shortly after the dragon was killed, Montrex would see a slow burn of a decline while Bilgewater, the smallest of the original 3 towns, started skyrocketing in population and popularity, being the largest town without a doubt by the time BruisingToaster became a Jr. Moderator. Basically every other town during this time was overshadowed by Bilgewater, with Montrex's slow crumble and Summerhall not drawing much attention to themselves. As a result this era in the server is called the Bilgewater Era. It may be easy to think the era ended when Bilgewater closed recruitment, but the town would continue to stay dominant for an extra two weeks after that.
=== The Early Shenanigans Period ===
The Early Shenanigans Period started with Bilgewater slowing down and more or less ending up on the same level as the other towns. But what truly started this era was the sudden appearance of various events and Shenanigans, most notably the button and the rise of roleplay-like religions/cults, including Townscraft Catholicism and Spudism. This was a very eventful time on the server but it was short lived and transitioned into its gloomier twin following a string of back to back drama and incidents.
=== The Late Shenanigans Period ===
The Late Shenanigans Period would see shenanigans happening on the server, though not as much of the light hearted things that happened in the Early Shenanigans Period. It saw two prominent players get permanently banned and a sudden spike in drama. One thing to remember though it the players causing this drama were typically the same general group of people and most of the server continued business as usual. This is why The Times of Troubles and the Toxic Period/Era were dismissed, as it put too much attention on a loud minority on the server. Naming it the Late Shenanigans Period shows that it is more of a variant/extension of the Shenanigans Period and not an era marked purely by drama and toxicity, though it was a major player. With Historio making a return to the server and doing a mass crackdown on various things and making staff roles more clear this period may see its end before the end of July.
=== Reconstruction Period ===
The reason is at least (I, Historio) plan on getting Townscraft set back on track after the rough-patch of the late shenanigans period. In the tail end of the late shenanigans period and the reconstruction period a lot of OG players have either left of are taking extended breaks from the server due to burnout or being repulsed by the rampant toxicity that had been happening the last few weeks. Historio doesn't plan on actively trying to make these older players come back, but instead recruit a new generation of players, while still hoping some OG's will make a return. Hence he is trying to "reconstruct the community"
=== The Three Kingdoms Period ===
This name is pretty obviously taken from the Three Kingdoms Period from China's history. But the reason it is being used for this new period in Townscraft's history is because with how things are currently going, 3 large towns or "Kingdoms" are rising to the top, Dustpeaks, Summerhall, and Bilgewater.
== Major Events on the Timeline Explained ==
=== Pre-History ===
Luccalol creates The CraftersDimension (7-4-2016*): Luccalol was a young adult from the Netherlands with a passion for architecture and Minecraft, he used to play on a server with the same name as The CraftersDimension, but something happened to it so he created a server with the exact same name. The CraftersDimension ran a little under 4 years with a 10 month break in the middle. It is where a lot of people who play on Townscraft today first met each other.
Historio joins The CraftersDimension (6-17-2017*): Historio wanted to play on a small scale SMP server since he saw Mindcrack, but never knew where to look, one day he found The CraftersDimension and joined the server. It would see him gain a renewed passion for Minecraft and finally get good at survival after playing the game for 4 1/2 years.
The CraftersDimension is Shut Down (8-20-2018): 2 Years and 1 month after The CraftersDimension first launched it was shut down. This was caused by a combination of Luccalol going back into college and the server slowly shrinking over the last few months until no one really played on it anymore. Despite the server shutting down many of its former players remained in touch with eachother.
MagicTyFighter Relaunches The CraftersDimension (4-8-2019): After 10 months of TCD being shut down talk of reviving the server started sparking up, Luccalol backed the idea but didn't have time to actually run the server. A former admin MagicTyFighter offered to become the new owner, and with that preperations to relaunch TCD started, with it officially being relaunched on April 8th, 2019. 
The Vanilla Experience: TVE was the SMP Historio used to run from October 2019 until January of 2020. The SMP was short lived due to some major flaws in the community and how it was ran, but it was an important learning experience for Historio and Townscraft would not have considerably worse management if it wasn't for this server. It is best viewed as a prototype for Townscraft. No one from this server regulars Townscraft besides an irl friend of Historio, Shroomnite.
The 2nd End of TCD and Historio Retiring from TVE: Historio retired from running TVE in early January to due burnout from being the only active staff member. He transferred ownership to a player called Noobie_Action and stopped playing any active role in the management of the server. TVE would hardly stay alive over the next 4 months before effectively shutting down in April. TCD ended for a second time in mid-February after slowly fizzling out over the last few months. Once again though many former members remained in contact in a group known as The Cactus Family Mafia.
=== Simplistica===
Simplistica was an SMP that was only a few days shy of being a year old when Historio joined it. Historio was attracted to the server due to it having a Towny system, which you can see in Townscraft today. He was shocked to find they had been running the same map the entire time, as most severs that didn't die in a month usually reset once every 5-9 months or so. He also was greatly surprised by the lack of core protect or any anti-griefl/theft measures. Despite this he decided he and his friends from TCD could get used to living here and invited them, with around 9 of them becoming regulars on Simplistica. They would create a desert town called Sabaar and had a lot of fun building it, but constant unwanted drama with players drove them away from the server after two weeks or so.
Re-purposing what was left of TVE: After Historio retired from running TVE he kept and extremely downgraded version of the server's hardware that he and a few of his friends messed around on. After leaving Simplistica he still really liked the idea of the server, and decided to try doing it himself. Thus Townscraft was born, a 3-way fusion of TCD, TVE, and Simplistica. He re-added plugins and started advertising the server, launching it on the 17th of April, exactly 3 years after he first joined TCD. (I just realized that while writing this)
=== The Early Days ===
The Server Launches (4-17-2020): Historio whitelisted all the applicants and then posted the IP, and the first group of players joined the server. Most of this original group no longer plays, but a lot of them still went on to make an impact on the server.
The First 3 Towns: Montrex, Summerhall, and Bilgewater were all created on the first day of Townscraft in that order, all 3 would have major impacts on the server's history.
Bluemax2000/Spartacus and _Pork are promoted to Jr. Moderator (4-21-2020): Despite seeming somewhat far apart on the timeline, the two were promoted only a day apart and were originally planned to be promoted at the same time. These were the two players Historio had spoken to and trusted the most at the time (this trust did not age well as you will see further in the timeline).
=== The Bilgewater Era ===
Zhu09 Becomes the First Player to be Permanently Banned (4-23-2020): Despite doing nothing of note on the server, they became the first player to receive a permaban after griefing half of Montrex in their first hour on the server.
First Dragon Fight and 20 Players on at Once (4-25-2020): This is arguably the largest event on the server to date, seeing 20 people attend it and well over 10 people in the VC all at once. The actual fight ended up being quite chaotic but was still fun for those involved. 
PoofThonk Becomes the Server's First Ruin (4-30-2020): After an incident where the town's leader burnt down a building he didn't like, PoofThonk fell into a mess and all of its members left the server, making it the first ruin.
Bilgewater Closes Recruitment (5-22-2020): Bilgewater had dominated the server since the Dragon Fight and wanted to give other towns a chance, so they closed their doors to new players.
The Great Purge of District 66 (5-25-2020): In short almost the entirety of District 66 got banned in a single night, and is still the largest group ban on the server to this day.
Chat Format Change (5-30-2020): Originally towns didn't use prefixes, instead they just had colored names, for example if you lived in Bilgewater your name was dark blue. Eventually though, usable colors basically ran out and the server switched to the prefix system used today.