One day, my friends and I got bored and decided to play Minecraft, specifically Java Edition. This was not just any regular Minecraft: Java Edition playthrough – it was a modded one. How unique and fun, right?
One problem, Minecraft: Java Edition’s multiplayer features are straight out of the Stone Age, requiring players to directly connect to a host’s public IP address to join the game. Because none of us wanted to get doxxed, it was collectively decided that a server was the best way to move forward with this process, as it would have the double benefit of having a decentralized IP address, meaning it was a part of a larger network of infrastructure rather than being fixed to a single source, and it could also be joined regardless if anyone was online, which was a nice plus.
The provider for the server, it would be decided, was a company that worked differently from all the rest. Rather than charging a fixed monthly fee, the server would be kept running through what was known as “credits,” which would be depleted at the rate at which they were used, a metric that would be calculated once considering things like player activity and hardware specifications.
After getting the server sorted, the group moved to recommend various mods to add to the server, ranging from quality-of-life changes to a complete overhaul of the game’s combat system. Once all was said and done, the server had around eighty mods installed. The most significant is the Origins mod, which added classes and what are known as “Origins” to the game, which allows the player to role-play as different mobs with varying abilities that can affect gameplay.
The class I chose, the Blazeborn, for instance, is based on the game’s Blaze mob and, as such, has players who chose this start off in the Nether. I did not know this, because I am apparently unable to read. The game gives the player a little selection menu with a description of each before they spawn in. I guess I blew right past those.
So, when I joined the game, being surrounded by Hoglins, Piglins, and lava, I had no clue what to do. I kept dying, hundreds of times. Hundreds. The server happened to have this minimap mod installed that would track each player’s death locations as Xs on the map. I ended up having to respawn so many times that the Nether’s spawn chunks looked like a UN peacekeeper- surveyed minefield somewhere in the former territories of Yugoslavia. Eventually, I managed to somehow stumble my way to a portal another Blazeborn on the server, named Auditor, had made.
Once in the overworld, I quickly came to the conclusion that I may have chosen one of the worst Origins in the game. Every time it rains, a Blazeborn will take damage from the incoming raindrops like poison, so I dug a two-by-one hole into a nearby cliff with my fists, closed it up with dirt, and just stayed there for the night because I lacked the resources to make a wooden pickaxe. In the Nether, there are trees, but every time I would try to chop one down, I would die and have to repeat the process all over again.
The reason why I wanted to get to the surface, despite it being openly hostile towards me, is because I knew it would be far easier to obtain resources. After that, I planned to live underground so that I could avoid the rain. I would periodically break one of the two dirt blocks in my hidey-hole to see if the rain had stopped. The moment it did, I collected as many logs and saplings as I possibly could.
With my saplings and wood acquired, I wandered in search of a new area to build my below-ground domicile, preferably a forest with lots of trees that could act as a canopy if I had to head to the surface during rainfall.
A few minutes later, I found exactly that, opting to initially mine directly below where I was standing before soon after expanding outwards in all directions. I used the stone I gathered from that to build a simple shelter around my newly excavated bunker. I then took a break to write some lore.
Another gimmick of the Minecraft server was that role-playing elements and character writing were heavily encouraged. Although this is not usually my thing, I decided to still partake in it by creating lore around my bunker as a form of state role-play rather than my character. I eventually came up with the idea that the Minecraft world itself was a post-apocalyptic timeline of the real world, where all remnants of what once was had ceased to exist. However, I, due to some past-life storyline, still knew the foundations that built what was now known as the Old World, such as democracy and the rule of law. Through those values, a sovereign state based below the surface, the Underground Republic, was born.
My vision of the Underground Republic, and the bunker it was formed in, was that it would someday grow to become completely self-sufficient, with its means of food production and sustainability. On top of that, I began work on a legitimate constitution for my Minecraft nation, with its framework hopefully facilitating the creation of a parliamentary representative democracy with a strong legislative base. I even began drafting some laws and provisions, such as the Watchdog Act, which aimed to establish an espionage doctrine for the newly defined country.
Did any of these efforts come to fruition? Nope. Everyone burnt through their one-week Minecraft phase rather quickly, giving up the entire server in a matter of days. How unsatisfying. The whole thing was a huge shame. From what I know, while I was busy digging a massive hole, everyone else spedran the entire game and used the “Create” mod to rapidly industrialize, causing them to be incredibly overpowered progression-wise. Do I blame them? Absolutely not. That sounds incredibly fun. I just wish it all had not ended so quickly – I had plans to establish a banking system.