Sydney (Aurora)

Sydney, nicknamed the "Emerald City," or the "Harbour City," is a town in Australia, more specifically in New South Wales. Sydney was the first town to be made not only in Australia, but in all of Oceania, as well as the 19th town to be made in Terra Aurora. Sydney is currently owned by its founder, Seranil.

Early History

Planning Phase

When Terra Aurora was first teased, Seranil recruited around 20 people, known as the Dexterists, who were originally going to create Italy, but decided to switch to Australia for various reasons. Soon after, they were alerted that the Terra Nova Australians planned to go back to Australia, which could mean competition for the Dexterists. Rather than compete with the Terra Nova Australians, or TNA, Seranil proposed to the TNA's leaders, SCOBlade and GabeTheInsomniac, that the two groups merge into one for the purpose of avoiding a conflict in Australia as soon as the server started. Given that at the time, the Dexterists outnumbered the TNA 19 to 11, the TNA accepted this deal and made an agreement that Seranil would own Sydney, MapleVK would own Brisbane, SCOBlade would own Canberra, and GabeTheInsomniac would own Melbourne.

These initial town plans fell through, however, after the TNA leaders recruited other TNA members to the new server, who wanted towns such as Brisbane. There was also a small issue with LordHashbrown threatening to claimblock Melbourne if he wasn't the one to own it, and another short conflict with a prospective New Zealand nation, which looked to claim Sydney for themselves. These problems were solved, however, and after some time, it was agreed that SCOBlade would make Coober Pedy, a central town in Australia to serve as capital, GabeTheInsomniac would own Canberra, Gagg27 would own Brisbane, Seranil would own Sydney, and MapleVK would own Melbourne.

A Québécois player on Terra Nova, and long-time Dexterist, Enanemes agreed to join Sydney with Seranil for the time being, along with long-time Brit and Hamburger on Terra Nova, LordRiley.

Shortly before Terra Aurora opened to Premium and Legacy Donator players, it was agreed upon that Sydney would be the first town made with the collective funds of Australians, as to provide a quick teleport from Central Asia to Australia.

Day One

Seranil was among the first few non-staff to log into Terra Aurora, being the 7th non-staff player to do so. The community quickly realized that all players first spawned in Central Asia, specifically in Western China and Tibet. Seranil quickly raced to the Bay of Bengal, in the hopes of sailing to Australia and quickly gathering the 64 gold necessary for creating Sydney.

During his voyage from the Bengal to Sydney, roughly when he was sailing alongside the Malay Peninsula, Seranil received several urgent messages from Morgini asking for his vote gold. After inquiring why, Morgini told Seranil that Singapore had a good shot at being the first city on Terra Aurora, if everyone helped out. Given that Seranil and the Dexterists had been historic friends of Morgini and the Trimortum, he agreed to give Morgini his vote gold and help mine for Singapore. Seranil was able to convince the few other Australians, both TNA and Dexterists, to give their initial vote gold to Morgini to create Singapore, and in return, Morgini promised to raise gold for Sydney. Singapore was made about 18 minutes into the server's lifespan, which meant Sydney would have good funding soon after.

Unfortunately for the Australians, the server soon crashed, and even less Australians were able to get back in once the server reopened. Even worse, Morgini was not able to get back in, and no one had permissions in Singapore to take from the town vault. This meant that the approximately 50 gold that had been raised for Sydney was locked until Morgini could get it. To get around this, the good people of Indochina gave their own gold to Seranil for Sydney's creation.

The first known screenshot of Australia, taken to celebrate the creation of Sydney. Pictured from left to right, LordRiley, Seranil, and Gagg27.

Once 64 gold was amassed for Seranil, he departed Singapore and sailed for New South Wales. Seranil created Sydney almost immediately after finding its real-life location on the EarthMC map. Sydney was the 19th town to be created on Terra Aurora, and the first in Oceania. Seranil invited LordRiley, Gagg27, and Flotix_ to the town. Flotix_ was making his way towards Western Australia from the Bengal region, as he planned to create the town of Denmark, south of Perth. Seranil, LordRiley, and Gagg27 set up some furnaces to smelt their ores and then took the first known screenshot of Australia to celebrate the creation of Sydney.

Remainder of Early Access

For the remainder of the Early Access period of Terra Aurora, Seranil focused first on the creation of other Australian towns, such as Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Canberra, and Coober Pedy and the creation of the Australian nation. He then turned his attention to expanding Sydney's physical borders. While he was working on getting more land, an old friend, Minecraft252, rejoined the server and joined Seranil in Sydney. By the end of the Early Access period, Sydney had grown to 17 chunks in size, with some gold to spare in the town vault. Seranil constructed a crude deepslate house in Sydney, as to prevent foreigners from gaining access to Sydney's mines and hunting down the people mining within them.

Placeholder Name (Post-Early Access)

The first commercial building in Sydney, HoShack & Co. Built by DreamOnSunshine on May 15th, 2022.

When the server released publicly Seranil recruited a stranger named DreamOnSunshine and a long-time friend outside of EarthMC GreenSpy2. For the first two days of Public Access Seranil and GreenSpy2 mined hundreds of gold to expand Sydney to a whopping 40 chunks by the end of May 14th. Early the next day DreamOnSunshine established Sydney's first company, HoShack & Co.

Architecture

Buildings

There are currently two buildings in Sydney, Seranil's deepslate hut, constructed to prevent outsiders from accessing Sydney's mines, and HoShack & Co., Sydney's first store.

Infrastructure

There is no infrastructure in Sydney, aside from a nether portal, a wheat farm, a cow farm, and a non-functional wool farm.

Plans

Sydney has ambitious plans for the city, including digging out the Sydney Harbour and constructing the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Tower Eye, the Victoria Building, the Harbour Bridge, and a bustling modern city center for a future /n spawn shop.