Aurora:Greece
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Greece is a European nation in the Mediterranean. It's capital is the City of Athens. Greece was the 33rd nation to be created on Aurora, making it one of Aurora's earliest and oldest nations.
History
Founding
On a fateful morning before the opening of Terra Aurora; users Rollins, Ju2nananas and Alzxdnr came together to form a nation on the new server. Since Rollins was Greek in real life, he inspired the idea to form Greece and brought Ju2nananas and Alzxdnr in to help establish the nation. They gathered their friends to join their pursuit of an empire, fending off the other groups who had shown interest in forming their own government in the Greek region. The three leaders worked hard with their citizens to form Greece as soon as the server opened, and the nation of Greece was founded on May 5th, 2022. The nation capital was made in Delphi, the town which would become the current Athens. At its founding, Greece held three towns, each held by one of the founding leaders: Delphi, Athens (later deleted with Delphi taking its name) and Crete, with Crete being the oldest of the three towns.
Development
Over the coming months, Greece would develop to become one of the largest and most active nations in Aurora. On the 8th of May, one of Greece's founding leaders, Alzxdnr, was banned from the server for alleged homophobia. However, despite this setback, Greece continued expanding, with both the capital Delphi and Crete expanding at a rapid rate. Along with this, new towns were founded in Greece, most notably Naxos, led by OBILderHurtige and Thessaloniki led by greekenderman. On the 22nd of May, Greece surpassed the 1000 chunk milestone, becoming the 7th largest nation on Aurora at the time. Greece would continue expanding, with towns such as Sparta, and Alexandreia joining the nation.
Conflicts
Before establishing Greece, a player named MLGTerra created the town of Sparta with his own group, Seaterrica. One of Greece's founding members Alzxdnr had planned to establish Sparta themselves, which started the first of many conflicts between the two groups. Prior to the nations founding, Greece and Seaterrica settled their differences, outlining claim agreements that divided the land within Greece. Following Greece's founding, Seaterrica and its Greek towns were invited to the nation, with an agreement between the two groups made, where MLGTerra would become a defacto leader of Greece, who would oversee the Seaterrican towns in the nation and work in collaboration with Rollins and Ju2nananas
Over the coming months, tensions began to flare up again between the two parties. Seaterrica's organised expansion began to break the claim agreements established between the two parties. Along with this, internal conflicts began to arise within the nation, with a disorganised democratic structure leading to questions of which group should have authority over the Greek nation. Conflicts between the two groups were also flared by Greece's more radical members such as greekenderman and his associates. In July of 2022, Seaterrican members asserted that they believed they were the rightful leaders of Greece, and gave Greece's leaders an ultimatum: to give the nation to MLGTerra or else Seaterrica and its Greek towns would split from Greece, creating a separate nation. Greece's leadership refused this and so on July the 3rd, Byzantium was founded, with MLGTerra's Sparta being the capital. Greece lost a majority of its towns, with Athens, Crete, Naxos and Thessaloniki remaining in the nation. Over the following month, relations grew more hostile between Byzantium and Greece, with Byzantium residents hunting Greek players in the wilderness. On the 24th of July, Greece declared war on Byzantium.
One of the major factors of Seaterrica's departure from Greece was greekenderman, one of the nations town owners and a radical member of the Greece community. Greekenderman had himself developed his own small faction within the nation over this time, with two other town owners within the Greek nation. Initially, he and his two other friends stayed within the nation following Byzantium's formation. However, in August of 2022, he and his two mayors threatened a coup of Greece, with the same ultimatum that Byzantium made. The Greek government did not budge to his threatened coup, and cut all ties with greekenderman, denouncing him completely. Later in Aurora's history, greekenderman would be IP banned from Aurora for repeatedly breaking Rule 2.4 and 2.5.
Greece's conflict with Byzantium also affected relations with other nations, Turkey being the most prominent. Over 2023, Greece and Turkey have exhibited a strained relationship, with both nations planting towns in each others territory and sorting out constant disputes of land. One of the main factors to Turkey's strained relationship with Greece is Byzantium's attempt at creating an Eastern European Empire. After a few months of conflict with Greece, Byzantium sought to turn its attention towards taking land in Turkey too, planting around 6 towns in Turkish mainland, with Sardis being the largest, taking up a space of over 300 chunks. Turkey felt that Greece's mismanagement of the alliance with the Seaterrican party that led to Byzantium's formation was responsible for their loss of land, and thus sought to claim parts of Greece as a compensatory measure. Another reason for Turkey's strained relationship with Greece is the nationalism of its residents and mayors. Many members of the nation are also Turkish in real life, and due to the strained relationship of Turkey and Greece in real life, many Turkish players hold the desire to invade Greece's land. Currently, Greece and Turkey remain on neutral terms.
The Golden Age
By December 2022, Greece had retaliated largely in the Byzantium War, reclaiming a large amount of land from Byzantium and surpassing them in size. At this point in time, Greece had reclaimed the towns of Mykonos, Ioannina, Ionian Islands, parts of the Peloponnese around Sparta, as well as reclaiming Thessaloniki from greekenderman. Greece had amassed over 100 active residents, with Athens growing to a population of 50 residents. Greece had also claimed around 1600 chunks, and held 20 towns. Greece was one of the most active nations on Aurora for a period of a few months, with a poll on the Earth MC subreddit placing Greece as the most popular nation on the server at the time. On the 25th of December, Greece won the inaugural Christmas Spawn Building Competition for the best decorated Christmas spawn on the server, Aurora's first official server event. By September 2023, Greece had reclaimed over 80% of the Greek mainland and islands since August 2022, when Greece had only 3 towns.