Phase II

**Phase II** is the second phase the Vortex Coalition went through. It lasted for 8 months just like Phase I (from May 2016 to January 2020). VoCo gained a lot of members thanks to the Rusher Invasion of June 2016.

## Pre-Phase II

The Vortex Coalition was not as active during the first half of 2016, and consequently suffered a loss of members and relevance. However, they began to increase in activity just before TheCampingRusher joined the server and made a very popular video, that subsequently brought hundreds of players onto 2b2t. With the influx of new players ready to make their mark on 2b2t, and the group's policy of accepting anyone regardless of being a newfriend/oldfriend, The Vortex Coalition was able to recruit far more members than they ever had before.

## Phase II

The Vortex Coalition worked to expand its reach by advertising through memes on /r/2b2t as well as /r/TheVortexCoalition. They also began actively uploading videos to their YouTube channel. This allowed the VoCo community to expand very rapidly. The Vortex Coalition was so prevalent at the height of its popularity that the 2b2t subreddit implemented a new rule forbidding low-quality posts due to VoCo memes that completely covered the subreddit's front page for 4 days.

Roles in The Vortex Coalition had remained relatively static up until mid-2016. After the large increase of activity, The Vortex Coalition was able to obtain a large number of members, which required a shift in roles to distinguish trustworthy members and new members. In mid-August, the Vortex Coalition added its first new Executive member since Cyanlime; Ovnel (now known as Joe as of 2017)

The Vortex Coalition has built ~365 bases (although the logistics of this number are up for debate, Coltsnid claims this is an estimate), which are spread throughout the 2b2t map in all quadrants.

### Vortex Coalition bases

VoCo defines a base as "a relatively safe and controlled area outfitted with amenities including beds, ender chests, defensible fortifications, and renewable food sources". Most of these bases are small outposts that serve as "checkpoints" for members to set their bed and possibly farm/autofish. Some, on the other hand, are large, active bases that can have up to 15 members. One of the largest of these bases (member-wise) being Gamma base.

### Behavior

The Vortex Coalition has remained relatively peaceful during its existence, not antagonizing other groups, and declaring themselves a noncombatant third party in the Rusher War. They are neutral with many groups and have allied with many over the years. They view PVP as "pointless" and the vast majority of their members do not partake in PVP at spawn, due to most VoCo members not being very good at it.

### Lag Machines

In September of 2016, Sengorn\_Leopard built one of the server's largest lag machines. He was later granted an Executive role in VoCo to reward him for his efforts, as well as to solidify the group's control over the lag machine. The coordinates of this lag machine were later leaked by Coltsnid due to Sengorn\_Leopard betraying the Coalition during the disciple/religion meme.

### The Wrath of VoCo

During 2016, The Vortex Coalition created their own take on the Wrath Outpost (monument created by Valkyria overnight and used as a spawn base during the 3rd Spawn Incursion) at 420/911, which they built overnight. It was unfortunately destroyed within days of its creation during the 5th Incursion. This was the first consecutive summer that The Vortex Coalition had renovated its spawn base. They have continued this trend into 2017 with another renovation at 420/911 (which has already been destroyed). Structures build near spawn are not expected to last long, and VoCo knows this.

## End of Phase II

In January, the Vortex Coalition started getting banned unfairly by the mods in the /r/2b2t Subreddit, they were using rule 4 as an excuse to remove any Vortex Coalition related post. This caused some controversy, however many were glad to see the subreddit cleared of VoCo members.

Coltsnid decided that since VoCo had lost the 2b2t subreddit as a meme platform, he needed to push the memes to the next level. He began to call himself a god, and VoCo members that accepted him as their Lord and savior were accepted into his group of disciples. While many thought this was funny, some were not happy with this change of pace, and this caused controversy within the group. Some members who outright denounced Colts were banned.

### VoCo's Fall

Around this time, one of the group's executives, HermeticLock, who was responsible for running the website, decided to change the home page to a meme displaying the Don Fuer logo, which further escalated the tensions within the group, despite it mostly being a joke. On January 13th, 2017, this controversy drove executive member Sengorn\_Leopard to the point of banning all users from the discord. When Coltsnid became aware of this, he deleted the discord server and posted an "official disbandment" on /r/2b2t. This post gained a lot of attention and once again the focus of /r/2b2t was The Vortex Coalition.

### "VoCo II"

Before going inactive for the next several months, Coltsnid had a few more memes up his sleeve, such as "VoCo II" and "selling" the server to "RockyEric" and HermeticLock. VoCo Phase II was to go out with a meme-filled bang.

With VoCo being one of the largest groups on 2b2t, going inactive caused a significant loss of power on the server, allowing several other groups to rise and fill the void the meantime. Some of these groups were created by former VoCo members, notably Singularity and the Spawn Masons.