PTR MC Civil War (Shiite Version)

The PTR MC Civil War was the most divisive event in PTR MC history. It directly caused the death of Season 9, 10 and several other spinoff seasons, and continues to split the community to this very day. Compared to all other breaks and divides in the community, it is by far the most impactful and most devastating in the community's history. Currently, the community is still reeling from its consequences, though attempts at healing the divisions have been made, though none have been entirely successful.

## Background

In Season 9, directly after the conclusion of the Great War, the server had entered into a period of stagnation and decline. The Great War had involved nearly every single member in the server, and directly led to the destruction of many player nations, including United Values, the Hittite Empire, and the Holy Roman Empire, all of which made up a vast portion of the active playerbase. Many of these players who had previously occupied these nations had been incorporated into the vast and growing Roman Empire, under server owner DeathCow. The other major portion of the server, including Mexico, were allies of the Roman Empire, and were thus de-facto part of it sphere. This unipolar dominance over much of the server contributed to decreased activity and player resentment.

   Before and during the peace, there were murmurings of dissent within the server itself. Previous server-owner Shiite had been making very close friends with a cabal of players including SamuelFreeman69 and his friends, all of whom knew each other IRL or off Steam and who all comprised the nation of Texas. During the Great War, Shiite had been keeping close tabs on DeathCow and the war itself. During the fighting, Hairysonic (an infamous player who also contributed to the increasing amount of grievances within the server), had accused owner DeathCow of using KeepInventory after dying multiple times. The allegations further convinced Shiite that DeathCow might be undesireable as owner, though made no open attempts to remove him or speak out against him.

Directly after the Great War, Shiite increased his contact with the Texas cabal, joining secret voice chats with them frequently and making a group chat to talk behind DeathCow's back. At the same time, the Roman Empire under DeathCow took the opportunity to attack the weakened Hittite Empire, dissolving it and forcing its leader Sungross to concede defeat.

### The Samuel-Sungross Conflict

Before the collapse of the Hittites and before the Great War, Samuelfreeman was a part of the Hittite Empire under sungross. This was not to be for long, however, as Samuel would attempt to take over the Empire himself. This inevitably led to a civil war, in which Samuel would ally himself with the nation of Texas. A battle was fought, and with the aid of Hairysonic\_69, Sungross and his allies within the Empire would emerge victorious, imposing extremely harsh terms on Samuel and Texas.

This defeat would be something Samuel would not forget any time soon. Many weeks later, when he caught word that Sungross had been defeated by the Romans, and instead of being forced into exile was indeed being inducted into the Roman Empire as Co-Emperor, he was furious. This would directly lead into the second biggest conflict on the server.

### The Second Great War

   The details are muddy as to what exactly caused the outbreak of war between Texas and the Roman Empire, but it is clear that this was the turning point in inter-server relations. The English Civil War to restore the United Values took place before the ill-fated Mexican-Texan war, and was the leadup to the fighting. Though the Texans did not actually directly fight in this war, it was one of the major pieces of the conflict that cannot be ignored. After the surrender of Hairy Sonic at the battle of Paris and London, the United Values was restored under a client-state contract with the Roman Empire, essentially incorporating them into the Imperial domain. The world was shocked at this result, including both the Hanseatic League (AKA the Holy Roman Empire) and Texas, who were appalled at the strength of the Roman Army.
The Roman Empire continued to press its advantage world-wide, using the conflict between Sungross and Samuel to ally Mexico and pressure them into declaring war on Texas. The fighting took place first at the Mexican-Texas border wall, which Samuel and his allies had constructed to prevent Mexican players from invading. After some short skirmishing for a few days, the border wall was eventually taken by Rome and Mexico, and their troops flooded into the country with ease. The first city to fall was Austin, and shortly after Austin was overwhelmed by the combined forces of Rome and Mexico, they scattered to the countryside while Samuel holed up in his mega fortress in Amarillo.

    After the victory of the Romans and the Mexicans, the Texan forces decided to go for a scorched-earth policy, burning down and blowing up any valuable buildings within the country before the allies could annex it. This was likely in an attempt to prevent them from having the prestige of owning Texan architecture and/or resources. A similar strategy was employed during the Hittite Civil War by these same players, when the Hittite Emperor was forced to concede the destruction of the entire area's buildings in exchange for a quicker victory.

    Unfortunately for the impatient soon-to-be victors, SamuelFreeman69 refused to concede victory as quickly as his allies did, and prepared an extremely in-depth siege works inside his megafortress in Amarillo. Allied forces began to set up siege, but realized that their work was truly cut out for them, as the reality of the siege began to set in. It was clear that the Texans would not give up without a long and protracted fight, and so the victors were forced to nurse a three-day-long siege of the fort.

Impatient and convinced they were at the verge of victory, DeathCow, Sungross and others prepared all sorts of plans and contraptions to shorten the siege. However, when they learned that Samuelfreeman had dug all the way down to bedrock and refused to leave, they were convinced that the siege would take much too long for their patiences to deal with. They then decided that because "victory was inevitable", DeathCow could use his admin powers to destroy much of the fort with TNT and kill Samuel. Unfortunately for them, the siege continued anyways as Samuel refused to join back into the server, and so the use of cheating was made pointless.

## Aftermath of the Cheating Incident

This was now officially the second time that DeathCow had been accused of cheating, and was the first confirmed instance of him using cheats in any capacity. This, along with numerous other incidents that other players had reported, convinced Shiite that the continued existence of DeathCow as owner was unacceptable. Despite DeathCow being the only one that actually maintained the server, its plugins, and managed the server playerbase, Shiite was the one who actually paid for the server's bills. In effect, Shiite controlled de-facto power over the server itself, even if he did not own either the discord or actually maintain the minecraft server itself.

Knowing that this incident would cause immense outrage in the community, Sungross made an announcement officially apologizing for the cheating done by DeathCow, promising to rectify the offenses done. DeathCow would in actuality rescind the destruction done to the fort and as a further penalty disband the siege, causing the Romans to effectively lose against the city, but the damage had been done. The players were infuriated by this abuse of power.

Sensing that the winds of power had changed, Shiite, without warning, held a poll for the entire server base to participate in on the discord server to vote on whether or not to keep DeathCow as owner. There were many alleged incidents of cheating during this poll, including the use of alt accounts and bringing in other people from outside the server to vote. Regardless of what actually happened, the vote was a clear defeat for DeathCow, who had now been demoted from access to the minecraft server.

### The Banning of DeathCow and his Allies

A VC conference was held on the discord server where Shiite and his allies would attempt to persuade DeathCow to give up the discord server as well. DeathCow was unwilling to do so, even after copious amounts of pleading. Finally, having seen that defeat was likely inevitable, Sungross, who was head admin of the server at the time, personally convinced DeathCow to give up power. Reluctantly, he did so, giving ownership of the discord to Shiite, who now had complete and total control over the entire community.

A day or so passed before any more news of what was going to happen to the server was released. In that time, the server held its breath. People still played on it, but the player count had diminished due to the drama. Almost immediately after the VC conference, DeathCow and a few other conspirators planned to coordinate a mass evacuation from the discord server in protest, and was gathering allies in a seperate group chat to execute this as soon as possible. This was the final nail in the coffin for Shiite; immediately after hearing of this, Shiite officially banned DeathCow, Sungross, Tooger, and many other players and staff members from both the discord and minecraft server who were involved or suspected of involvement in the anti-Shiite movement. The lines in the sand had been drawn: PTR MC was now at war with itself in a series of drama escalations that traced their origins to the very early days of the server.

It's possible that Shiite might have convinced himself that the whole situation was a repeat of the Borat fiasco, and that after taking control the server would proceed as normally. Unfortunately, the server had far outgrown its original intent, and was far more complex and had a much larger playerbase than it had had in the past. This drama had seriously split the server in half and had created a situation far beyond the grasp of anyone that was in it at the time.

## The Split Begins

Now that open hostilities had been declared, the community was divided upon allegiance to Shiite, or allegiance to DeathCow. Many of DeathCow's allies were old staff members and many members of World RP (WRP), whereas Shiite's allies were primarily the Texas players and many of the 'Old Guard' of the server, including Borat. When Shiite kicked DeathCow from the server and banned his allies, he promoted many of his own compatriots to the positions of staff previously held by DeathCow's administration.

Many in the community were undecided on the whole situation. Those who avoided being banned yet maintained connections to DeathCow and his friends were used as spies and messengers of happenings in the PTR MC Discord server, reporting directly to DeathCow. Similarly, allies of Shiite were also able to infiltrate DeathCow's spaces and groups, begnning a series of of backstabs and betryals that continued to seperate the community. Distrust of the other side was at an all time high.

### DeathCow and Samuel's Rivalry

With DeathCow gone, and many of the most active players as well, the minecraft server Shiite had worked so hard to obtain was now falling apart into inactivity. There were a few notable conflicts after this period of time, but the entire nation of Rome was now gone. An immense power vaccum had appeared, but no one was in any capacity to seize it. The server died in just a few weeks, a very slow and quiet death.

In the meantime, the drama continued to escalate in the background. Samuelfreeman and DeathCow, who had previously been fairly close friends even in IRL, were now having beef with the other and had brought the rivalry into the real world. Both of their parents had gotten involved, and after DeathCow's mother had recieved a call from Samuel's father telling her to reprimand DeathCow for abuses of the server's admin powers, DeathCow's mother proposed to pay for a new minecraft server to rival PTR MC.

This was the material foundation for what would become known as War and Peace MC, otherwise known as WAP.

## War and Peace MC (WAP)

    The War and Peace Minecraft server was founded on the 31st of March, just one day after the drama with Shiite and the rest had truly escalated. Allies of DeathCow, and those not so sympathetic to his cause, flocked to the server either to await its release or simply to spy on it and report back to the main PTR MC server.

The server was a joint effort by Sungross and DeathCow, who designed the server itself and gave it its now infamous name, WAP. WAP would go on to attract dozens of the old players of PTR MC, which was at this point beginning to die. WAP MC therefore presented an alternative to the original PTR MC server, for those looking for a rejuvanted player base or simply a different owner. With DeathCow's familial backing, he was able to pay for the server's running expenses, and after nearly a month of setting it up, the Minecraft server officially launched on the 23rd of April, 2021. At this point, Season 9 of PTR MC was now completely dead, with little to no players on it on a consistent basis.

Though it started off strong, the weakened amount of players and lack of a larger community would eventually cause WAP MC to fall as well, dying around the 10th of May, 2021.

### The Spinoff Season

In the meantime, Shiite attempted to compete with WAP MC, starting 'Season 10' of PTR MC, but this would also quickly die. The interest was quickly drying up, and the entire community was dying as a result.

### Slow Death of the Civil War

With PTR MC's community now dead and inactive on both the original and spinoff server, the community now began to slowly forget the scars of the past, even if they never forgave them. The cuts of the alleged 'Shiite-Coup' and the 'DeathCow Treason' still hurt, as they were deep. But many months would past, and the drama died down.

Samuel and DeathCow still refused to speak with the other. The Portal to Reality server, owned by Shiite, began to purge elements of the 'DeathCow Alliance'. DeathCow did the same. Eventually, the community, while not on speaking terms with the other, was no longer openly hostile.

PTR MC was dead, and many thought that Season 9 would be the final season of the server.

## The Restarting of PTR MC

Many within the community still felt a deep nostalgia and sadness for the death of the server. Many months had passed since the events of the Shiite Coup, and the community, though not willing to fully admit it, was beginning to see the wounds of the drama begin to heal.

DeathCow and Sungross therefore came together to plan a revival of the server. They began to rebrand the now dead WAP MC discord server as the new PTR MC server, and made preparations for a new Season 10. However, they could not restart the community and avoid the mistakes of the past without first making peace with Shiite.

At first, Shiite was extremely reluctant to work together with DeathCow again, but after many hours of negotations in a seperate voice chat, Shiite agreed to the following terms:

1. *DeathCow will become the Minecraft Server owner.*
2. *Shiite will become Head Admin and retain all community powers.*
3. *Sungross will pay for the server and retain ownership of the discord server, though not excercise power in either, acting essentially as a mediator.*

With this treaty agreed to, the WAP MC server was remade into the official PTR MC server, with all the necessary channels for running it enabled. The eleventh (twelveth counting WAP) season of PTR MC, with a united server, was officially released on the 22nd of October, 2021.

    The server had many new plugins and features added to it that were not available in previous seasons. There was a small ad campaign conducted as well, drawing in some players and allowing the server to at least in theory flourish.

In the beginning weeks of the server, activity was high, and many new towns were being founded. However, the same old problems of the server arose again. Namely, the arrival of players such as LemonQuartz and HairySonic. These players were exceptionally talented at the game, to the point that it derailed the "roleplay" element of the server. This would lead to the focus of the Unified Season 11 being on combatting these players. In the end, HairySonic and his ally AJModdy (derisively AJBooty) would be banned, while LemonQuartz would end up fighting a winning stalemate against a coalition of Shiite, Deathcow, Tuginha's faction, and Tea Cup. All of this would happen within a week, accelerated by the intense grinding necessary to match these players. After these wars, the playerbase would lose interest and leave for good. The unified season had failed, not because of staff mismanagement but because of player mismanagement.

### The Final Split

Seeing the failure of the unified season, Shiite would become incredibly disillusioned with a public PtR MC. In the future, he would seek to create new servers with different concepts than the traditional public seasons of old in order to incentivize roleplay and try to escape the pitfalls of grinding that led to the collapse of the last few public seasons. To this end, he would leave DeathCow's PtR MC server to its own devices, and focus on his own projects.

## Tony's Growth and Folly: "Season 11"/Homie MC

Indeed, DeathCow did intend to do something with his ownership of the formerly WAP discord, recently used for the unified Season 11. In November of 2022, Tony and Sungross decided to start another PtR MC season, using much of the tradition concept of the earlier seasons. Shiite met this with laughter as well as annoyance, knowing the season would fall into the same traps that had doomed all previous attempts. Though Portal to Reality's now former owner would attempt to convince Tony to change the name of this new server, it would be in vain. DeathCow and Sungross would proceed with their newly (very erroneously) christened Season 11.

    Though initially the server did have some activity, in the end it fell prey to the same spectre that killed the last 6 seasons: grinding. Tony had neglected to ban LemonQuartz, the main instigator of this grinding. In the end, Lemon's faction would declare war on Tony's, and Tony would very predictably fall into a similar trap of exploiting in order to prevent his defeat. Seeing this, Lemon would quit the server with his faction. After this, the server very quickly faded into inactivity, another season killed by intense grinding to one big war.

Yet it must be noted, this was not the Tony of old. Though initially taking advantage of mechanics, he came clean and tried his best in order to play fairly. It was clear to anyone paying attention that he genuinely desired to become a better owner, and was working towards that goal. For this he should be commended. In the end he only failed because he was up against an unmoving wall in LemonQuartz. And so Homie MC (as it was derisively nicknamed by Shiite and PtR) would fail, the last known project of DeathCow's continuity of PtR MC to this date.

## To Escape a Grinded Death: Shiite's Post S11 PtR MC Seasons

However, one of PtR MC's original creators had his own ideas about how new seasons should be structured. Returning to the confines of Portal to Reality itself, these seasons epitomized the name "Portal to Reality Minecraft". However, all of Shiite's attempts to create a season free of grinding where roleplay could flourish have met with failure, for one reason or another.

### First Attempt of Season 12: Modded

In the direct aftermath of the failure of the unified season 12, Shiite would cooperate with his fellow co-creator Borat and veteran player Hueoslavia to attempt the creation of a modded PtR MC in early 2022. This server would contain mods such as Nukemod, Galacticraft, Drugs, and Minecraft Comes Alive. Though initially, it seemed the season was poised for success, unfortunate circumstances would cause it to never materialized.

Hue had built the spawn for the server, a replica of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza from the video game Five Nights at Freddy's. One day while Borat was afking in the pizzeria, a Nuclear Creeper would spawn close to him. Borat would jokingly attack it, leading to the mob exploding, destroying Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. This act would cause Shiite and Hue to be furious at Borat, and in its aftermath all enthusiasm to finish the server faded.

### Season 12: A Microcosm, by Zawen

In the summer of 2022, Shiite would again return to the idea of a PtR MC. With the return of many old users over the summer and the seeming revival of the server from the dark days of June, Shiite would formulate a new plan for the server. It would be terribly simple, too simple in fact. Simply put, it would be the old PtR MC strucutre, but just limited to PtR players. Shiite wagered that with the server only being played by <10 good friends, no large conflicts in the style of s9 would be able to occur, and thus a more roleplay friendly environment would develop. This assertion would prove to be naïve.

A traditional war would develop: Japan, led by future PtR owner Neat and Malleokid, joined later by Shiite's Confederate Brazil would be attacked by a coalition consisting of Goktug, Sleier, Zawen, and Dolphin. In this first war, the Japanese were easily dispatched while Shiite would die after attempting to seize Zawen's loot from his deathchest while not being aware of the rest of the coalition attacking him. Intent on revenge, the Japanese-Brazillian alliance, now joined by England, would build up to counterattack the coalition. However, such a war would never materialize. Coalition leader Goktug would quit the server after tping to Shiite's secret based and being killed by Shiite in rage. This act triggered the war, with the combined Allied forces (Tom Brandy Touchdown, as they were officially called) descending upon the bases of Sleier and Zawen.

Yet, a curious thing would occur. Zawen would... refuse to get online. He kept making excuses, while in private confessing that he knew he would lose and thus wouldn't play. In response to this news, the forces of Tom Brandy Touchdown started to lay siege to his town. It must be noted that this is the exact purpose of sieging, to make sure players can't just refuse to get on and thus never lose. Nevertheless, the coalition would loudly decry the Touchdown as cheating. Flames were further stoked with the very unpopular banning of Tea Cup (in order to prevent a similar situation to what would occur in Homie MC) which occurred concurrently.

All of this fire, combined with the coincidental damaging of Neat's laptop by her dog (rendering her unable to play) would lead to the departure of the vast majority of the servers playerbase. The comedy of errors would conclude when one of the last players, Perseus, would be informed that his automatic sugarcane farm that he worked on for hours was illegal. In a rage, he would leave the server as well, leading to its final fall and collapse. In the end, S12 showed that the traditional PtR MC model was untenable, and needed to be changed to avoid the same pitfalls of old. In the interest of this, Shiite would start to imagine very different concepts for future seasons.

### Season 13: Modded

The first of these ideas Shiite would attempt would be a return to the modded concept of the stillborn first attempt at S12. Retaining the same mods, this season would debut in December of 2022. Yet, an unexpected problem would lead to its failure. That being the simple fact that the server ran very poorly. An error with world generation of the Nukemod led the server to consistently have less than 10 tps. Though the gameplay was fun and engaging and there was much hype and excitement in the server's first few days, the performance issues would ultimately do it in. Within a few weeks, the 13th season of PtR MC would become the 15th season to die.

### Season 14: Naval

In the present, Shiite is testing and preparing to launch a 14th season, with a radically different naval focused concept. It is to be seen if this attempt to revive roleplay will be successful or fail like the 15 iterations of the server before it.