The Secret Society

The Secret Society Banner.

## Overview

The Secret Society, or TSS, was founded on the 28th of February 2020 by Rebecka, but is now led democratically by both Rebecka and ohKast. The group was originally meant to be a small, secretive group (hence the name) that Rebecka would use to help out new players, but it started to get bigger and gain more members very quickly, so after the move to their first Capital Isbukt, the group became more serious.

### Foreign Relations

TSS originally allied with every non-belligerent group that they could think of, as was the custom for groups in early 2020. After the server's "culture shift" and the breaking of the Lumen alliance, TSS became a lot more picky with their allies. The war with M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. also caused them to be a lot more careful with who they trusted.

#### Enemies:

* Provinces of Lumen (formerly)
* Odyssey (inactive group)

## Towns and Outposts

Active locations - 1.18 map-present:

* Oasis
* New town

Inactive locations - 1.18 map-present:

* TSS cave base

TSS towns from 1.15-1.17 map:

* Terra - Standing until map reset
* Aurora - Standing until map reset
* Morioh - Standing until map reset
* Obi outpost - Abandoned due to inactivity
* TSS Christmas town - Standing until map reset
* Varva - leaked by benchkcb
* Lagom - griefed by M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E.
* Namibia - found by multiple outsiders
* Sam and Sophie's humble abode - abandoned due to inactivity
* The Stronghold - raided by early TSS members
* Isbukt - griefed by The Boomers
* Ikea - griefed by a TSS member
* Torne Town - griefed by a TSS member
* Pigstep outpost - abandoned due to inactivity
* Farmen outpost - abandoned due to inactivity
* Gelato - griefed by M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E.
* Stargate - griefed by M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E.
* Aska - griefed by M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E.
* Khalida - griefed under suspicious circumstances
* Redacted - griefed by InterOrbital and AsterxBabie
* Utopia - griefed by AerialSN1PER

## History

### Early days

TSS began on the 28th February 2020, when Rebecka, a member of Chronos at the time, founded the group to secretly help out new players, inspired by the hospitality that Chronos had shown her when she was new. The first town, The Stronghold, was built on the same day. It would last a while until some of the new recruits raided the base. After that, on the 11th March 2020, TSS moved to a new location where they built the town of Isbukt, the first capital city.

On the 26th March 2020, TSS would end their secrecy and become allies with the Provinces of Lumen, Heretics, and Chronos; on the 10th April 2020 Rebecka would create The United Nations to grow closer with Lumen and Chronos.

### Growth

On the 19th April, the first recruitment town, Ikea, would be founded. Sam and Sophie's humble abode would also become a TSS outpost 10 days later. During May, TSS extended alliance offers to Moon Clan and The Order, both of which accepted. They got their first major taste of griefing though when on the 24th May 2020, Isbukt would get found and griefed by a hacker. Its residents moved and created a new town, Lagom, hoping to return to Isbukt later and to keep Lagom as a "middle town", not wanting to abandon their original location.

By this point TSS had been growing rapidly. At the end of May 2020 Farmen Outpost was founded, and 3 days later Obi Outpost was created too. On the 19th June 2020, Isbukt would finally be reinhabited, but Ikea was griefed by a TSS member's alt on the 23rd June (though they did not know who it was yet). On the 24th June, TSS would enter The Great End Race, and although they were the first to reach the end, they did not get the final hit on the dragon. Yet another outpost, Pigstep Outpost, was founded on the 25th June, along with Torne Town, a recruitment town to replace Ikea. To celebrate the nether update, on the 26th June 2020 members of TSS would gather together at spawn and mine for netherite.

On the 1st July 2020, TSS held an event on the creative server with pvp and parkour with a "beach party" theme. They also won wertia3's end race on the 18th July, gaining a coloured sword named the "Dagger of Isbukt". TSS also finished construction of a giant obsidian dragon outside spawn named Simon. Although things were going very well for the group at this point, their luck would eventually run out.

### [The Summer Wars] - Click for backstory.

On July 6th 2020, The Boomers would manage to kill TooAtomic whilst griefing the spawn farm, and acquire a map of Isbukt. Tynominally and Alkyrn would use the map to search for Isbukt, and even narrowed its location down to one quadrant, but were ultimately unsuccessful. CreamForce, however, wasn't, and unbeknownst to them, had used the server's seed to get coordinates to the town. So, on the 22nd July, The Boomers and AT&T would move out to grief the town. TSS were aware of this though: they had an insider in The Boomers, so they were able to evacuate all valuables and prepare for the incoming griefers, and so the Battle of Isbukt occured. After the town was abandoned for good, TSS's second capital, Gelato, would be founded.

Despite losing their capital, the battle was considered a TSS victory, as CreamForce would be banned for his use of exploits and his group would quit (for the most part) with him. In the immediate aftermath, TooAtomic, a notable TSS member, partially griefed an abandoned Heretics town due to its connection with EdgyCommunist69. Edgy was (correctly) speculated to have been connected with The Dongos and the Isbukt griefers. Upon learning that Edgy had left the base ages ago, Atomic stopped his attack and carried on to grief The Boomers' old base. This event would cause the reformed Heretics to not renew their alliance with TSS.

### Tensions with Lumen

During TSS's initial rise to power, a Lumen member and the most notable leader of the Provinces of Lumen, became very worried about the growth of what he originally thought was a group safely in Lumen's sphere of influence, and saw it as a potential threat to Lumen's position as the richest and most powerful group on the server. He had already offered that TSS become a sub-faction of Lumen a few times, but all of them were declined. After Isbukt was griefed, Lumen did not offer any aid to TSS to help rebuild their group. Plus, another leader of Lumen at the time, griefed Simon out of jealousy. The final straw happened when TSS was celebrating the completion of their gold farm at Gelato, only for a Lumen member to point out that Lumen had the best gold farm. Rebecka asked Lumen to stop their belittling, and recieved an apology. A few days later though, Lumen were back at it. This prompted Becka to seek a diplomatic resolution again, but the Lumen leaders couldn't see what they were doing wrong. Feeling like she had no other option anymore, Rebecka ended the alliance between TSS and Lumen.

The two groups would still be in contact though via The Senate, but all that happened was constant arguing among themselves. Tired of this, TSS would leave the senate on the 12th October 2020.

### Brief Reconstruction

Since M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E.'s attention was solely focused on Lumen in August, TSS recieved little trouble from either group, going so far as to form a non-aggression pact with M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. Torne Town would be griefed on the 6th August by a TSS recruit on their alt account, thinking that the group wouldn't find out. The griefer was wrong though, and they were killed and kicked from the group. It was also revealed that this same player had griefed Ikea. 2 days later, Namibia would be founded to replace Torne Town. On the 14th September 2020, Stargate, a TSS end base, would be founded, and Obi Outpost would be recolonised on the 26th. On the 2nd October, TSS held another event with the winner of it recieving an optifine cape and an ingame prize. The winner was KingGroyo, but he chose to gift the cape to LoneMiner247. Namibia would be abandoned on the 11th October due to multiple players from outside the group finding it. A new recruitment town, Varva, would be created in its place.

### [M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E.-TSS War]

AT&T were unbanned on the 1st September 2020, and the first thing they did was fully mine Simon, the obsidian dragon at spawn. EdgyCommunist69 would help with this. This broke the truce that M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. and TSS had made and put them at war. M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. would achieve the first victory, after Edgy killed TooAtomic on an obsidian platform made from Simon.

When The Void was griefed by M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E., TSS would show up and take over defense when their ally Lumen didn't. Their superior numbers would drive the griefers away, but not before the base was partially destroyed.

At this point, TSS were yet to lose an actual town to M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. This would change on the 14th October 2020, when the Battle of Lagom occured. TSS was not affected much though since Lagom had been quietly abandoned earlier due to suspicions that Lumen had the coordinates. Although M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. won the battle, TSS managed to cut their losses by identifying benchkcb, a TSS member, to be the one that leaked the town. This prompted them to abandon and grief Varva too before M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. could, since benchkcb also had access to it. Construction of Aska would immediately begin to replace the town.

Seeing a Lumen member at the Battle of Lagom would prompt more conflict between TSS and Lumen. The Lumen member spotted at Lagom revealed to them that he was insiding M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. to try and get Edgy's base coordinates so that Lumen could grief them. He promised to give TSS a heads-up whenever M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. was to grief another town.

On the 11th November 2020, the Battle of Aska occured. After almost a month of inactivity in TSS, Rebecka got a DM from the same Lumen member that was supposedly insiding, showing him and EdgyCommunist69 griefing the town. A few TSS members logged on to attempt to defend the town, but fled after commandervv and KingGroyo were killed by Edgy. Since the Lumen member in question failed to let TSS know that an attack was incoming despite his promise, it led them to believe that Lumen was behind the grief, so they retaliated by griefing Howick Plains, a Lumen recruitment town. The Battle of Howick was a victory for TSS as they had griefed the base thoroughly, but Edgy showed up and chased the attackers off. Confirming the suspected alliance between M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E and Lumen. Stargate would also be griefed after the outbreak of war between TSS and Lumen by 2 lumen members and M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E member Tynominally.

On the 13th November 2020, a Lumen member working with the griefers would 'accidentally' (whether or not it was truly an accident is still unknown) leak plans to grief Gelato to erikblue1234, a friend of TSS, who then warned Rebecka about what was going to happen. This was not ideal for neither TSS nor M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. - TSS had to abandon the capital they had worked for months on, and ruin M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E.'s plan to grief Gelato the very next day. Out of options to deliver a thorough blow to TSS, M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. gave coords to Lumen. One of their members would make their way over to Gelato and begin griefing it, and they were later joined by Edgy. The lumen member would be killed by ohKast whilst afking at the grief.

After the attack, Lumen and TSS signed a peace deal. The treaty was that TSS reveal how they acquired Howick's coordinates and to stop claiming that certain Lumen members were griefing TSS bases in the name of Lumen. Gelato would be the last town to be griefed during the war.

Eventually, when M.I.C.R.O.W.A.V.E. disbanded and the Soviet Stardust Crusaders were formed, the war ended.

### Post-War

After the signing of the peace treaty between TSS and Lumen, the people of TSS voted for the group going completely passive, which had been considered ever since TSS left The Senate. This meant that TSS would no longer have official enemies, but also allies, and instead aimed to be a group of friends playing the game together instead of getting involved into server politics. This sentiment came from the feeling that they were forced into a war they didn't want, and that their reputation was very poor following the attack on Howick. TSS also began scouting for a new base location, and on the 21st November 2020 Khalida was founded.

On the 11th December 2020, after accidentally finding the base via a open tunnel from the highway, Rebecka and ohKast travelled to Pluto, the recruitment town of the Soviet Stardust Crusaders, and left gifts and an invitation to the TSS Christmas event set to take place on the 19th December. Although SSC leadership wasn't too pleased about them showing up uninvited, they appreciated that they didn't grief the town despite the history of their members. This led the two groups to grow closer together into a sort of unofficial alliance.

The TSS Christmas event took place on the 19th December 2020. There was a pvp competition, won by EdgyCommunist69, a boat race, won by Najivka, a minecraft version of Hungry Hungry Hippos, and a team deathmatch involving crossbows and fireworks.

On the 17th December 2020, a Lumen leader would save coordinates to Khalida after they were accidentally shown on the preview to a stream. He flew to the location to get a 2x4 map of the town, which he put in a museum at the Lumen capital. Another Lumen member noticed this and would become concerned about the prospect of another war, so they reached out to Rebecka to ask how Lumen had aqquired the map. This was the first time Rebecka was notified about the issue and Khalida would be almost immediately abandoned while Rebecka asked the Lumen leader to take the map down, which he did, but only a few days later the map was back up. On the 24th December 2020, Khalida would be griefed. It was widely speculated amongst TSS members that Lumen was involved in some way, but there was no concrete evidence to point to that fact.

Tensions between the citizens of TSS rose after realizing they hadn't been informed by Rebecka about Lumen having coordinates to Khalida so they demanded a democratic vote for a possible change in leadership. On the 24th December 2020, Rebecka made ohKast co-leader in preparation for him to take over the group entirely, and on the 28th a new council was elected, being Rebecka, adamercsn, AdmiralHelios and Queueue. On the 4th January 2021, TSS voted to end their passiveness. On the 27th January, TSS formed their first official alliance with the Soviet Stardust Crusaders, making the pseudo-alliance they had previously set in stone.

A TSS member at the time of the election was nominated for a position in council and was very open about her dislike for the previous leader Rebecka. She made it clear she wouldn't support Rebecka having any power at all in the group, but lost the vote for council to Rebecka anyways. Despite Rebecka's poor decision in not letting her members know about the Khalida situation, she was still the founder that had made TSS from nothing to the biggest group on the server so many citizens were still loyal to her, hence why she still won the vote for council. The other girl was very unhappy with the result of the democratic vote, so she left TSS and joined their enemies Lumen instead. It was speculated that all she wanted was power and if she couldn't have it in TSS she would go as low as joining their enemies just to get some. She soon became council in Lumen instead and would spread lots of hate towards TSS, making tensions rise more between the groups once again.

### The continuing rise and decline of TSS

February of 2021 saw even more growth for TSS. Aurora was founded on the 2nd February, and on the 10th and 17th of February, SSC respectively became a TSS sub-faction, whereas the faction of Omega became the closest ally to The Secret Society - SSC brought Morioh into the fold as a TSS town. On the 28th February 2021, one year after the initial founding of TSS, ohKast became the sole leader, with Rebecka stepping down during a beautiful ceremony held in TSS capital [Redacted] February would not be free from controversy though: on the 8th, a TSS member commandervv, against orders not to, raided Hisashi, a base made by some Heretics members. This led to him losing the vote to gain capital access, which in turn made him leave the group and form Odyssey, a new griefing group.

On March 6th 2021, TSS officially moved from their previous capital [Redacted] to Utopia. A base founded a few weeks earlier as a backup when a capital citizen commandervv had left the group. On the 22nd of March, a pvp and costume contest was held at Morioh. TSS was doing well and at their peak of activity and power on the server, but this would soon change. 3 days later, the admins of the server would forbid any interaction between TSS and Lumen, who were still feuding, in an attempt to prevent drama. This only caused more drama, and several members of TSS took a break from the server in protest. After seeing the outrage, the admins quickly lifted this rule.

During April 2021 and leading into summer, tensions between TSS and Lumen were still high. Outside of the server and the VC discord a TSS member TooAtomic and a lumen member were arguing, leading to the lumen member making a racist comment towards Atomic. When the admins found out about this they were conflicted at how to respond considering it happened outside of VC. They ultimately decided they didn't want a racist person on the server and therefor banned the Lumen member. This led to Lumen blaming TSS and claiming wrongful ban to the admins. Lumen's behaviour escalated quickly and eventually led to them leaving VC, but not before their leader used VC as an avertising ground to move with them. Their leader was banned for advertisement and retaliated by leaking the world seed. During Lumen's removal from the server Odyssey would spark controversy as well. Odyssey led by former TSS member commandervv would start griefing TSS builds close to spawn. On April 13th, Simon was griefed by Odyssey member Captain\_N00B. In an attempt to reach out to their leader, TSS was answered with a lack of interest in stopping Odyssey members from griefing, worsening the relationship between TSS and their former member. Diplomatic affairs between Odyssey and TSS continued for most of april without much progress.

On the 20th of May, TSS would form an alliance with The Free People. They would also manage to win the second end race and get the dragon egg on the main server. They also managed to get the dragon egg on the hardcore server, but not without losing Rebecka and Storm\_Surge1 to a bed bomb from Captain\_N00B, while Najivka and adamercsn died to the dragon. On may 26th Odyssey accused TSS of being involved in their recruitment town being leaked, despite having no involvement at all.

Summer 2021 was slow for TSS and VC. Many players went inactive due to finally being able to travel after the pandemic. Many TSS players did as well and some quit the server completely after not agreeing with the admins trying to stop drama and toxicity on the server, especially surrounding pvp at the spawn farm.

On August 10th 2021, TSS capital Utopia would be griefed by AerialSN1PER. How he obtained the coords was unknown at the time but later found out to be a TSS member themselves leaking them to Odyssey. The group had plans to mess with the town instead of griefing it, by adding their own builds or altering already existing ones, but they never got the chance. Aerial waited for TSS members to log off before going there alone. Unfortunately for Aerial, he was quickly spotted by AdmiralHelios who was online working on a new build. Aerial attempted to crystal him but failed. Helios managed to escape and log off in midair before alerting other TSS members who logged on right away to defend and secure valuables. Later Aerial would state their intent was to steal, not grief, but in the heat of the moment Aerial would go on to grief using what explosives were available, as well as posting the coords on the VC discord. Many players began their own journeys to the town with the intent to grief or steal what was left.

Afterwards, TSS was very inactive but Rebecka refused to let the group die so she immediately went scouting for a new base location. Terra was founded the same day and construction began. With only 9 active members at this point compared to their previous 31 active at the start of the year TSS still managed to get most essential farms up and running in just a few days. They were very pleased but would slowly become more inactive.

Only one day after the name Terra was chosen for the capital it got griefed on the 9th of September 2021. Only a couple TSS members were playing at this time and one of them was DerpyFrog. He claimed to not have been at the base despite being seen as the last player there by council member Queueue. Coincidentally his friend Purpeen, who was not in TSS and actually disliked the group, had been pardoned from a previous ban on the day of the grief leading TSS to draw the conclusion that DerpyFrog leaked coordinates to Purpeen who griefed it. With this information they also understood DerpyFrog was the player who leaked Utopia coords to Odyseey in August. The few TSS members still active lost almost everything they had left, especially council member Rebecka who had emptied her entire e-chest to make room for a Becka's Boutique order. All of her valuables, including sacred artifacts such as The Dagger of Isbukt were either stolen or blown up in the grief. Following the grief and the groups inactivity, they decided not to rebuild before the coming map reset.

During late night boredom and no base to go home to, TooAtomic was messing around at spawn farm. He was complaining about the servers inactivity and with his many previous bans the staff decided to ban him one last time for disrespect on October 2nd. Odyssey leader commandervv was also banned at spawn farm, but for spawnkilling on November 28th. TSS now had no official enemies with Odyssey falling apart, but also no activity with so many of their members gone. TSS had reached their lowest point ever and wouldn't been seen for several months.

However, Rebecka was still semi-active and had started a newspaper with other TSS members for the server. The Sunday Scoop was popular at the end of the 1.15-1.17 map and even covered the start of the new map before being put on pause in January 2022.

### Long term inactivity

On December 4th 2021 the VanillaCraft map was reset but with TSS members having left the server and the only two council member left being on vacation, they didn't attend the traditional end race. This was the first time in over a year that the group didn't win an end race and hence didn't get the dragon egg.

The longest lasting TSS member aside from the founder was still active and almost alone on the server. Bass\_drummer took initiative and founded TSS' first 1.18 map location. A base located in the new cave biomes and was simply named Cave Base on the 16th of December 2021. TSS slowly became more active again but was no longer recruiting. Despite only having 8 active members, the group was happy and just enjoyed the new update, no longer feeling the will to be the biggest and most powerful and simply focusing on themselves. Later in the month council member Rebecka would move out of the Cave Base to found a new location for a big project she had planned during the groups inactivity. A massive palace named Oasis, which also became the name of the base and new capital of TSS. Only 6 out of the 8 members made the move to Oasis and they remained the only active TSS members until 2023. During this time TSS remained passive and had no enemies. The only council member Rebecka and the leader ohKast focused mainly on projects outside of TSS such as The Vanillacraft Union in 2022 and The Building projects in 2023.

### Modern TSS

Following a rise in activity on the server and many players from the pandemic era coming back, The Building Projects started doing very well, leading ohKast and Rebecka to open up recruitment to TSS again. On the 18th of May 2023 ohKast made Rebecka leader of TSS once again but this time together with him. Their first recruits were long term VC players and friends Sugasnaps, Najivka, Petachip and Nathan6 (formerly known as Wertia3). They also recruited newer players they had gotten to know in The Building Projects such as Infixai, CoolPerCool and Kellynator. A new TSS base was also founded for the new recruits to move in to.