Great Migration

A non-contemporary image representative of the Oak Boat Incident.

The **Great Migration** (2/27/2021), also known as the **Migration Age** or the **Stone Age**, was a period in history marking the initial phase of exploration and establishment of homesteading across the globe. It is generally considered to have ended four to six hours after the opening of the server to the public.

#### **Initial Phase**

Beginning at 12:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time, Imperator was officially opened to the public as the whitelist requirement was lifted. An initial phase of study took place where approximately 40 players joined, and attempted to leave the hub world before the exact mechanism was clear. The /wild command, whose function it is to teleport a player to a random location, costed gold, of which nobody had, and therefore all were stuck with their initial teleport. While some were stranded, almost half of server members found themselves off the shore of Gabon in the Atlantic Ocean.

#### **Oak Boat Incident**

As most players were in water, pleas were made for boats to be given out as to allow for initial travel. This culminated in an accident, as Armenium gave every online member an inventory full of oak boats, instead of a single instance, causing mass panic. During this period, the United States became the first nation to be declared as existent, followed by Quebec seconds after (the first iteration of the US was disbanded later that day due to a nation-breaking glitch, and was recreated immediately afterwards).

### **Server Issues**

It became apparent that the initial phase of loading chunks would severely impact the performance of the server, and the entire server experienced multiple issues including intense block and mob lag, slow chunk loading, and server crashes, experienced every dozen minutes. Upon rejoining after crashes, chunks occupied by players would refuse to load, which was countered by using oak boats to escape the glitched chunk, or simply leaving and rejoining once more.

### **Travel & Suicide**

Instead of a mass exodus concentrated around a singular point, players began using the /wild command, made free due to demand, to teleport to random locations every five minutes in the hopes of reaching their point of interest. Anomalies caused an increased chance of this teleport location being in Antarctica, and many players purposefully killed themselves to avoid the wait times between using the command once more. Drowning, the most common method, was unstable due to slow tick speed, and would often take up to one minute, causing further outrage. Server resets would also cause a gap between a player's previous position during a crash and a previous point a few minutes prior, causing players to lose their location, and in some cases, be teleported somewhere different entirely[1]. Travel times under these circumstances ranged from approximately twenty minutes to three hours.

### **Establishment**

Within the first few hours, homesteads were built, and Washington, DC became the first official town (though at the time of founding lacking territory). Nations established during the period include the United States, Italy, Quebec, Emus, Razanesia, Taiwan, Poland, the Holy Roman Empire and Nocturis. OfficialPyre mined the first diamond at 3:14 PST in the United States, this marking the beginning of diamonds in the world’s market. The first diplomatic dispute began when the Holy Roman Empire established themselves near Torino, in what is today Italy, in land claimed by the Kingdom of Italy. This culminated in a skirmish between Daedreus (of the Empire), and Herkko (of Italy) in the Alps. A discussion was called for, and the nation of the Holy Roman Empire agreed to disband themselves as to respect Italian sovereignty.