The Nether Colony

The Nether Colony *(commonly referred to as The NC)* is a Nether themed community. It was officially opened on July 1st, 2021, but existing realm members were allowed to begin building on June 29th. It's the first community to be located in a dimension other than the Overworld.

## History

The idea for some sort of a settlement in The Nether stems back to the announcement of the 1.16 update when new biomes and a food source became a reality for The Nether. Originally, WhiteLikePaste and GaYe BaRs had planned to explore the new content together, but never got around to it.

The concept was put on hold throughout the period where The Island and The Dome were established. After the implementation a cycle where a new community would be rotated in every 3 months, WhiteLikePaste began keeping a running list of potential future communities. The Nether Colony was at the top of the list, but it didn't seem like the right time to move forward with it because the 1.17 update was on the horizon and, at that time, promised new terrain generation for the Overworld.

The opportunity to introduce The Nether Colony came with the delay of new terrain generation to 1.18. It was at this point that WhiteLikePaste began searching The Nether for an area that would be suitable for a community. Unfortunately, he was unable to find an area that matched closely enough with what he had envisioned. He ultimately decided to go the same route as he had gone with The Island and search for a custom map on the Java Edition of Minecraft.

### Preparations

He managed to find one that resembled a nightmarish hellscape and fit perfectly with what he had in mind for The Nether Colony. The original custom map was much larger than needed though and only a small portion of the original map was used for The Nether Colony itself. The process of bringing The Nether Colony into The Old World was WhiteLikePaste's first major project using Amulet Editor after MCC ToolChest was no longer being supported.

The custom map for The Nether Colony had been created in the Overworld. Because of this, WhiteLikePaste initially toyed with the idea of leaving the Overworld cave systems below the colony to give it an even more unique feel. But he ultimately decided against this. Originally the custom map was filled with magma blocks, but this made movement very difficult. The decision was made to replace the ones on the floor and leave them only in the mountains. They were replaced with soul soil.

Another situation resulting from the map being built in the Overworld was that it retained its Overworld biomes after being place in The Nether. This resulted in only Overworld mobs spawning in the area. Although this was unintentional, it was not corrected at the time because it prevented Ghasts from spawning.

Prior to the official start of The Nether Colony, WhiteLikePaste brought RescueLynn81 and Mama071416 out to get some impressions of the colony. Due to the fact that there were no torches lighting the area, they were immediately swarmed by mobs. Suddenly and without warning, a creeper exploded behind WhiteLikePaste which caused him to fall into a pit of lava. In what can only be described a pandemonium, RescueLynn and Mama frantically attempted to place blocks for him to climb up on. In order to avoid certain death and to let cooler heads prevail, White logged out while the two continued to place blocks. After logging back in, he was able to escape the hole and the three immediately left the colony. The incident traumatized Mama and she swore she would never build anything at The Nether Colony.

The Nether Colony was formally announced on June 16th, 2021 and a trailer previewing it was featured at the end of the 2nd Edition of The Realm Report.

### Finding a Mayor

Roughly a month before the start of The Nether Colony, Willowtree90 stepped down as mayor of The Island. ChozoLegacy1129 was chosen to replace her. However, after the announcement of The Nether Colony was made, Chozo reached out to WhiteLikePaste and said that if he had known The Nether Colony was coming, he would have preferred to be the mayor for that area instead. As such, Chozo was switched over to mayor of The Nether Colony.

### Server Transition and the 1.18 Update

Shortly after the move to a dedicated Bedrock server, which occurred immediately after the 1.18 update was released, Chozo reported random floating blocks and lava streams appearing all throughout The Nether Colony. Initially, WhiteLikePaste didn't know what to make of it. And decided to roll the server back in hopes that it was just a one-off issue. But the floating blocks and lava streams began reappeared again. They would then be left alone for almost 2 months while WhiteLikePaste waited for Amulet to be updated for 1.18. When The Old World was taken down for the 2nd World Merge, an additional priority was to attempt to fix the issues at The Nether Colony. WhiteLikePaste suspected that the change in world height from 1.18 mixed with The Nether Colony existing in an Overworld biome was creating some kind of conflict. The resolution was to change the biome of The Nether Colony to a crimson forest.