Skora-NDZ Pylon Conflict

The Skora-NDZ Pylon Conflict occurred on September 12, 2016 on Civcraft 3.0, and involved the towns of Skora and Crocodile Isle briefly invading and occupying Nova Danzilona over pylon rights in the shard of Volans.

Background
One of the major changes between 2.0 and 3.0 was the introduction of pylons in the latter. Pylons were quasi-factories that had a large upfront cost but could be used to produce XP, a huge departure from 2.0 which simply used vanilla Minecraft methods of XP gathering. To drive resource scarcity and either conflict or cooperation between nations, only so many pylons could be built in any one shard before the amount of XP each one could make was reduced.

At the beginning of 3.0, few groups settled in the snowy floating island shard of Volans. All but one of them died out and went inactive, with that one surviving group being the former members of the U3P from Civcraft 2.0. In Volans, they founded the cities of Whisper, Cascade, First Hearth, Endeavor, and Nova Danzilona, with the intention of eventually uniting under a single federation. They cooperated well together, and communicated mostly in-game and in private third-party applications. This, along with jokes made by the residents saying that Volans was barren, led the general public to believe that Volans was a quiet, drama-free shard, and that the nations that lived there were poor and defenseless. This may have led some foreign nations to believe that Volans was the perfect place to form colonies and set up infrastructure. Libra was the first to do this, setting up a wheat farm on the Volans-Drakontas border. They cooperated with the locals when doing so, and it was officially recognized by the nations of Volans. However, unbeknown to the citizens of Volans, Skora had done something similar.

Discovery of the Pylon
On the night of September 11, 2016, while exploring, some Danzilonans found an obsidian bunker floating in the void, connected to the mainland only by a 1x1 bridge. Believing it to be a foreign pylon, a view that was strengthened as they were unable to verify the owner, the Danzilonans went over to the bunker and broke in. Their theory was correct, as inside the bunker, they found an unreinforced pylon. Since it was hindering the production of their own pylon, the Danzilonans broke the pylon and took the materials it dropped back home.

Prelude to the Invasion
The next day, the Danzilonans began reaching out to the nations of nearby shards to try to figure out who owned the pylon. Soon, the nation of Skora claimed it was theirs, and this claim was later verified by Danzilonan officials. Wanting reparations, Skora negotiated with a private Danzilonan citizen, who offered to repay them with enough materials to make a full pylon. However, this was not well received by the rest of the Danzilonans. Later, a Danzilonan foreign representative made Skora an official offer, offering to give them back the materials they got from breaking the pylon (which was about half of the materials needed for a full pylon) so long as Skora doesn't build another pylon in Danzilonan land. Skora declined the offer, and instead issued an ultimatum to NDZ. Skora demanded that NDZ give them the materials to make a full pylon within 24 hours, or else the city would &quot;face consequences.&quot; Unable and unwilling to gather the requested materials, the Danzilonans revealed the situation to the public and discussed what to do next. Suspecting an invasion, one Danzilonan citizen built a barricade to try to thwart the future attackers.

The Invasion of Nova Danzilona
Two hours after the ultimatum was issued, citizens of Skora and Crocodile Isle, clad in diamond armor, invaded and occupied NDZ. With no way to defend themselves against the ~8 invaders, most Danzilonans logged off or fled the city.

While occupying the city, the invaders dug into a tower, breaking a snitch in the process.

In order to ease tension, Endeavor citizen Darkflame826 interviewed Skoran leader Skeps100 in-game, trying to figure out the logic behind the invasion and the conflict as a whole.

Unable to find the aforementioned logic, the invaders left NDZ and returned to their respective home cities. With international support and complete military inaction, the Danzilonans declared victory.

Aftermath
Skora and NDZ made no contact with each other for a few days after the invasion. However, a representative of Skora contacted a Danzilonan foreign rep some days later, accepting the original offer the Danzilonan official had made Skora, where NDZ would return the materials they got from the broken pylon.

While the barricade was almost completely ineffective, it nevertheless became a symbol of Danzilonan victory in the conflict. Most of it was torn down, but a part of it was kept up to act as a memorial.

Since the invaders didn't break any chests, it is presumed that the invasion was a scare tactic, where Skora tried to bully NDZ into giving them what they wanted. Skora had previously done this with the nation of Rosevale and succeeded.

When the snitch that the invaders broke was replaced, infamous raider Soapbucket came to NDZ some days later and broke it. It is rumored that Skeps was seen with Soapbucket when this went down, but that claim remains unverified.

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