History of SPQR

SPQR History

Pre-Civcraft History
The earliest roots of the SPQR can be traced back to an old factions server called Titan, this was back around when Minecraft beta 1.5 was first introduced or a bit earlier in Spring of 2011. In those days there was a great war where OGOM and The Ancients allied to take on Vexellium in the Vex War that resulted in their complete destruction. In the aftermath of the war Roma_Victor and Mark_Antony left ancients to each create their own factions with the spoils of war in the new era of peace their victory had won them. A short time after the separation the two groups were merged back together to form the great city of Romanica; a Roman themed city governed by two Consuls and a group of select Senators. However the peace would not last.

Several months after the Vex War, the former ally of OGOM began a new campaign against Romanica that led to a siege and the eventual complete destruction of the city. OGOM would go on to become a great rival of the Romans for over a year until their eventual merger.

The refugees of Romanica fled the ruined city to the abandoned former base of Mark_Antony and founded the faction known as SPQR.

In the second iteration of Titan the SPQR would splinter into two groups, The Templars, and, 10th Legion, with the ultimate goal being to rebuild Romanica after peace had been secured. Things changed after the Templars were insided by a treacherous Ace365 who crippled the faction after it was attacked by OGOM. Mark_Antony fled to take up a main post in the 10th Legion, and would go on to found the 13th Legion... a cadet faction where the infamous Varkanos would be recruited into and brought into SPQR high leadership in due time. The fallout from the destruction of Templars resulted in a civil war that saw the 10th Legion fighting a multi-front war against OGOM led by Herbie and Templar loyalists led by Roma_Victor, a war that ultimately resulted in a stalemate. It was also during the second iterations that the Romans had their first encounter with a group known as The New Republic. In the third iteration of Titan the SPQR would be founded from the start as a faction deep in the -,- quadrant with all of the holdovers from the former 10th and 13th Legion factions. During this map the SPQR celebrated some of its greatest Triumphs.

The SPQR established itself deep in the -,- in a fortress city built upon the lessons of previous maps, it would have the best tnt-protection of its time, it would have the best mob spawner of its time, and use up land efficiently to maximize the its buffer will still retaining enough land inside its walls for buildings. The days of the Civil War were put behind them and the SPQR allied with Templars to build the roots of a western focused alliance.

During the early days of the third iteration that a conflict with The New Republic (TNR) became inevitable. Mark_Antony along with several other Romans including Pineapple, Varkanos, and several 10th Legion veterans under Koorban laid siege to the TNR capital under a sustained assault that lasted for several days. There was heavy fighting on the Roman siege tower and before the walls, but eventually the damage was done and the TNR capital was sacked resulting in an overwhelming Roman victory. After peace was secured and stocks were restored the Romans turned their eyes to their old nemesis OGOM. In the absence of Herbie a combined assault led by Mark_Antony and Roma_Victor attacked OGOM and laid it to waste in just a few hours, their stores were breached and armories looted. The base was left in ruins as the victors returned triumphant, finally having vanished the specter of Romanica.

Nearer to the end of the map the S.P.Q.R. began a second wave of offensives against a resurgent TNR. A lengthy siege of "The Noodle Bowl" resulted in a late night victory due to the masterful TNT work of Varkaons and Mark_Antony... in the ensuing route the TNR remnants were chased from base to base by a force led by Roma_Victor until they finally resettled their old capital from the first war. The Roman alliance laid siege to the TNR capital, but as the rest of the factions aligned against them the Romans were eventually overwhelmed and by the end of the map having part of their home base occupied by TNR itself.

In the fourth iteration the name of the S.P.Q.R. was retired in favor for a new them, Gondolin. A faction made up of SPQR, Templar, and OGOM holdovers who wanted to exact revenge upon TNR for the end-of-the-world destruction of the previous S.P.Q.R. Ultimately the preparation for the offensive was so complete that TNR outright abandoned their base and folded into other factions.... The Romans walking into their base unopposed and ransacking whatever spoils could be found... their throne was dismantled and carried back to Gondolin as a trophy.

From there Gondolin went on a string of successful offensives against Angmar, Icenia, and Arrow. It was during these offensives that a new recruit ITIDeathGod (Cicero) would distinguish himself and join to the group... Cicero still plays in Varkonia today.

The overall accomplishments and flawless record of Gondolin being so outrageous that Roma_Victor and Mark_Antony vowed to retire after the map iteration, but it was not to be.

In the sixth Iteration of Titan the successors to Gondolin warred with each other. After Varkanos and Herbie used OGOM to destroy the the new TNR and URDK factions Mark_Antony and Silianat returned to try and salvage the situation to establish a peace for their former subjects. But this would fail. The Imperium faction would not survive the overwhelming force of attackers and it was eventually destroyed before it could become situated.

There was a Seventh and final map of Titan in which S.P.Q.R. formally made a return but the decline of the server led to a stagnation in which no challenges or threats existed and outside of a few buildings there was nothing more to achieve.

Civcraft 1.0
It was in the December of 2012 when some in the S.P.Q.R. began looking for new servers... searches for "Minecraft Gondolin" directed them to civcraft where the city of Gondolin existed... upon further investigation they discovered that the server was in the midst of a great HCF invasion... naive the former enemies united with the purpose to come to Civcraft and liberate the server from the HCF invaders; they were foolish, but the event resulted in the union of SPQR, OGOM, Templars, and TNR. All groups would have a presence on Civcraft by January 2013.

The new S.P.Q.R. existed as a nameless faction within the sprawling city of Aristopolis (the population center for the Kingdom of Gondolin). In those days the server was on its knees, Augsuta had already been lava bombed and turned into Mount Augusta and cities like Tigerstaden were depopulated. The world police were in hiding, fighting as a resistance from the shadows while a few others (Like Gondolin) were able to maintain an uneasy neutrality. While the ensemble of OGOM, TNR, SPQR, and Templars would not all identify as Romans for some time, it is simpler to refer to them as such from here on out for that is what most of them became. The Romans used their time in Aristopolis to get established, gather wealth and scout for ideal city locations from which to build their eventual planned city. There was some minor collaboration with the resistance during this time... Some World Police were saved with our help and the house in Aristopolis was targeted at one point resulting in the temporary pearling of Roma_victor...

Eventually the Romans decided on a piece of isolated land deep in the -,- in keeping with the tradition of grand cities in that quadrant, and they began relocating the masses out to that region.No sooner than surface constructions of farms and barns were begun out of necessity (most of the original buildings were entirely underground in those days to avoid the still present threat of HCF warbands finding their way to our settlement)... The Romans found themselves in a heated land dispute with a group of communists that had settled virtually on top of the city location... the communists fled from their former settlements both to get away from the Maniacal Zombie_Lenin and to avoid the HCF War. The young settlement was named Belgrade.

Tensions rose and drew international scrutiny from both sides with the overwhelming population of leftist on the server at the time giving Belgrade the air of legitimacy they needed to remain while threatening the Romans with complete annihilation. In a desparate attempt to establish their presence the Romans built a Senate building with Birch columns overnight to contest the claims from the opposite side of the river the Belgrade council hall was being built. The Romans appealed to Berge403, King of Gondolin for assistance and with his help we were granted all land one one side of the river with Belgrade retaining the other half on the condition the S.P.Q.R. joined Gondolin, which they did, And Roma_victor was installed as the First and Only Lord of Gondolin to preside over the S.P.Q.R.

An ongoing cold war consumed both nations with an uneasy peace and total lack of trust dominating the air. Tensions remained high to the point the two enemies couldn't even agree on a bridge to link both sides of the river.

Eventually some of the Romans had enough and dispatched an unknown account to destroy Belgrade in the middle of the night. Although caught in the act the damage was done, Belgrade was abandoned and the Romans would soon come into control of both sides of the river to continue with the grand plans of establishing a grand city. Coincidentally, this border dispute can pinpointed as the event that began the S.P.Q.R.'s obsession with excessively large land claims to ensure comfortable border buffers with neighbors.

It was around this time that the HCF war began to die down; many pearls were released and most of the primary leaders went inactive, leaving around HCF Light Brigade, and other splinter groups to continue harassing undefended towns before they too were driven off. This was also the time at which several Civcraft natives, namely Shadowcon and Logic_Man joined the SPQR and ultimately became the first native Civcrafters to rise to the rank of Senator. (they came from a town called Lazuli or some such place)

Having remained neutral throughout the war while the rest of the server burned, Berge and the rest of Gondolin by extension had drawn the eternal enmity of most of the rest of the server and soon a plot evolved in which a coalition of former WP and reformed HCF allied to take on Gondolin. The saw a number of confrontations throughout the nether and surface around Aristopolis... at one point Zombie_Lenin was killed by a trap and Roma_Victor made off with a few trophies... but eventually the confrontations escalated into a full blown fight to break out that ended in the Valentines day Massacre in Aristopolis... Mark_Antony, Cicero, and Roma_Victor were pearled while Varkanos and the rest of the defenders managed to retreat into the Tower of the King safely.Everyone was freed the following day after a overwhelming outrage from other international groups.

It was during this relatively peaceful time that the Romans explored and expanded throughout much of the deep -,-. There was a small scale war with a group of raiders led by one called Paramoo. They were eventually all captured, but the primary outcome of the conflict was the resulting friendship with Brynley and its citizens, namely Fernum and Grimetone. Brynley had been attacked by the petty raiders as well and together they teamed up with the S.P.Q.R. to help hunt them down and capture them. This friendship with Brynley would last throughout the remainder of 1.0, all of 2.0 and even into 3.0. At some point during this period the S.P.Q.R. would make an amicable separation from the Kingdom of Gondolin and become a true independent republic; this decision would contribute to the success that Berge himself would call one of if not the most active city on the server at this point in time.

In the aftermath of the Valentines Day Massacre the opposition to Gondolin died out except for among the die-hard haters who resorted to alt-raiding in one of the first and worst cases of alt-raiding in a group that came to be known as the Gimmick Brigade. The Gimmick Brigade was notoriously used for using a group of gimmick named novelty accounts to raid soft targets that otherwise would have had no enemies and deserved no such hostility... settlements such as Valenti. In one raid on Valenti Mark_Antony and a few other Romans were killed by the Gimmick Brigade, although not pearled. It would be a few weeks later that Berge403 exposed the alt raiders for who they were and the whole conspiracy fell apart. It's irrelevant other than it marks the beginning of a greyed line in the eyes of the Romans between right and wrong, between the World Police and their HCF enemies... This discontent grew to the point they sided against the World Police holding RKwildCard captive near the end of 1.0, and prompted their joining with many notorious HCF invaders to break him out... many of those same captors were among the Gimmick Brigade while most of the rest turned a blind eye to their alt raiding.

Civcraft 2.0
In the transition from 1.0 to 2.0 the Romans decided to remain allied to their former allies in Gondolin and settle in  'The Metropolis', a group of world border cities centered around the North Pole along the central axis. Plans were made for a grand city and most of the former 1.0 citizens carried over as well, but plans would not go well for the Romans.

For their part the Romans agreed to try to break with tradition and name their capital Solis, to make the city more appealing to a generic audience, a decision that did nothing good, Metropolis began to fall apart before the server began... some groups that had vowed to settle in the Metropolis never showed up and none of the other groups that did ever did anything of import. The only other group to settle was Minas Minas, which was the consolidated Kingdom of Gondolin from 1.0, and they quickly fell apart after the first month. The Romans constituted a large portion of the Metro Marines that chased the Butter Brigade out of Metropolis in July of 2013, which was arguably the high point of Metropolis.