Astral

*This article explains the overall principle of Astral on the TG Survival Server. For the original dome build, see* Astral (Build). *For an overview of the group, see* Astral (Group).

Astral is a large location on the 1.16 survival server. It is also the name of the group that operates at the location. Astral is located on the survival server and likewise primarily operates on the survival server. The group is known to be very exclusive and only accept the most active and dedicated players into their circle. As a location on the server, Astral is the largest single claim on the 1.16 map and is larger than any claims in previous iterations of the survival server.

## Group History

Astral was founded by TheDoctor7562 and WinterStars in very late 1.15. It functioned as a small base for the Anarchy Days event. During Anarchy Days, they added player exgodstatus to the group. These were the three members of Astral at the launch of the 1.16 server. Player Dasckepur was also briefly added, but due to the lack of group consensus he was quickly removed. Eventually player and moderator iiEthan would be added to the team. Later into the 1.16 reset, player cheeeeca would be added to the team. On April 22, 2021, ABlazingEBoy was added to Astral after being sponsored by ex and eventually shoehorned in by winter. There have been some other players voted onto the team and swiftly removed as a joke, technically making them members of Astral for a few minutes. Examples include Undesiring and Wesley.

In order to be added to Astral, all current members must vote to allow a player in. This system was proposed by exgodstatus after both Winter and Doc had agreed to allowed him to join. Any player is allowed to request a vote into Astral, but most of the time Astral looks for new members themselves. Astral does not plan to expand past 7 players at any point.

## Group Culture

*Main article:* Astral (Group)

Astral players are known for being incredibly active and dedicated to the survival server. In 1.15, 3 of the 5 top players according to 5space's statistics viewer were future members of Astral. The two players who were not, exgodstatus and cheeeeca, were not very active in the 1.15 server. Similar results are projected in 1.16. Astral members are on the top playtime leaderboard in 1.16 and 4 Astral members are in the top 15 overall playtime leaderboard according to the 1000 Hour Club spreadsheet.

Astral members primarily communicate with each other in a group chat on discord. The original group chat was deleted as a joke by WinterStars at around 20,000 messages. The new group chat is owned by exgodstatus and has been used for months. The Astral group chat is very active, and they discuss many things outside of minecraft, but mostly plan their new projects and share the hottest new server drama.

Members of Astral are known for prioritizing their projects before any else. By fully focusing on their agenda, Astral members have succeeded in completing incredible feats in relatively short amounts of time.

Of the Astral members, exgodstatus is the most active. He has the greatest playtime in 1.16 out of the members of Astral and is responsible for conceptualizing most of the Astral projects, including Astral 1.0, Astral 1.5, TG High, mistake and The Astral Hub. He directs many of the Astral members with these projects, but does not assume a role above them. As a result of their time spent together, Astral members work together very well and can easily pick up on what the others are doing.

Astral members are also known for their PvP capabilities. Most of the Astral members have been considered the best PvPer on the server at one point. exgodstatus succeeded in defeating Doc and Winter during Anarchy Days, and cheeeeca managed to defeat ex. exgodstatus created the HIV group chat, which hosts players that control the PvP environment on TG Survival and work to move it in a more friendly, encouraging direction. Through this, Winter and cheeeeca have built their PvP skills to a stunning degree and are both considered some of the best PvPers on TG Survival.

Astral has been known to employ the work of other players to assist with their projects. Examples of this are the mining of the end island in 1.16 and the mining of the Astral 1.0 hole.

## Location History

In the first hours of the 1.16 reset, the first 3 Astral members gathered materials at a small village in a snow biome northeast of spawn. They eventually moved to an end portal east of spawn.

They based at this end portal for a few weeks as they worked on preliminary farms such as a started gunpowder farm and the public 1.16 gold farm. TheDoctor7562 also built the public enderman farm around this time. Located at their stronghold base were storage rooms for each of the members and some automatic villager breeders. Far from their base is a raid farm and cave spider farm.

Eventually, Winter decided that they needed to make a larger base. Inspired by youtuber pippenfts, he suggested that Astral embark on a multiple-month project to construct a large overworld base of operations, unlike anything else on the server. Somewhat jokingly, exgodstatus conceptualized a large dome that goes down to bedrock with blackstone walls. To his surprise, Winter agreed and they began work. The dome was to be made of black glass and have a glass base to prevent mob spawning. It was also perfectly centered around the end portal owned by Astral. This dome structure was simply known as Astral for the first few months of the 1.16 reset. It stood as the largest structure on the server for many months, but was eventually surpassed by Marineford. As more projects were created and the Astral claim expanded, the dome was renamed to Astral 1.0.

After a few months of slow activity on the server, exgodstatus started work on Astral 1.5. This is a smaller dome east of Astral 1.0. Rather than going down to bedrock, it only goes down around 20 blocks and has artificial terrain contained inside of the dome, with houses on top. It is nearly finished and will be converted into a town-like enclosure upon completion.

For the December 2020 ice sculpture contest, TheDoctor7562 designed a statue of the titan Atlas holding up a square Minecraft world. It was built in a single day with the help of ex and winter. It won first place in the ice sculpture contest.

Winter eventually started mining the end island again. Astral had claimed the main end island after gentry failed to make use of it. Originally, they planned to flatten it and make a base layer of mycelium covered by glass in a similar manner to the base of Astral 1.0, but eventually decided to mine it out fully.

While winter was mining the end island, ex started work on TG High. TG High is modeled after the real life Abington Heights High School and is the largest single building on the server. The main building is completed, and ex is working to finish the surrounding area to make it look more natural.

Having recently finished mining the end island, winterstars moved all of the collected endstone to the overworld and found a large end island to recreate in the overworld. With a schematic created by ex, they started a series of marathons to make large amounts of progress in a single day. Winter did most of the work on the island. At the end of the first day, after working for 18 hours straight, winter and ex decided to name the island mistake, because they had concluded that taking on such a massive project was certainly a big mistake. Winter designed an end city made of Blackstone, and ex made it on top of the island. Mistake is 100% completed.

With winter working on mistake, ex felt burnt out, so he started thinking of new projects. He eventually decided to work on a massive wall surrounding all of the existing Astral projects. The wall ended up becoming the largest structure and defined the Astral claim, the largest claim on the server. Just as winter did most of the work on mistake, ex did most of the work on the Astral Wall, and did large amounts of it as a part of long marathons.

After completion of the Astral Wall, Astral members joined in on the creeper farm rush and started digging a new hole southeast of Astral 1.0. This project is ongoing as of 4/13/2021 and once completed will house a large creeper farm to be used by Astral members and those who greatly contributed to its construction.