Some members posing in the city of Poseidon's Trident
A small Cooperative outpost, showing the flag.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
The Cooperative (often abreviated to Coop or co-op) is a major peaceful faction founded in the Sixth Era and remaining active in the Seventh, Eighth Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Era. The faction keeps good relations with other peaceful groups.
History and Cities[]
The Cooperative has a rich history.
Sixth Era (MinerAp)[]
The Cooperative was inaugurated (post ) in the Sixth Era with the foundation of Gaia's Light, a jungle city made between the jungle trees. Due to regular fires, the city was rebuilt in stone. It was griefed regularly while the faction grew, though several outposts in the area, connected by a road built by Ipsa, were added to the territory.
Once the faction gained traction, diplomatic efforts were made with other factions and the constitution was adopted (post ). Amongst all this optimism a second underground base was built at the other side of the world, named Thor's Hammer. Two cities meant a split in the faction as travel was cumbersome, and after the location to Thor's Hammer was compromised and Gaia's Light was entirely leveled, likely by Red Army, and so the faction went through a first crisis.
A part of Poseidon's Trident as seen through a chunk error.
The solution proved to be tightening recruitment policy and reuniting everyone in an underground city called Poseidon's Trident (not to be confused with Neptune's Rise, a temple complex also in Cooperative hands). Poseidon's Trident (tour ) (PT) became home to several shops, a guild hall for the Sun Knights, subfaction of the Cooperative, a sacrificial room, residential quarters for all members, farms and chest rooms, and a secret library housing 67 distinct books.
With PT as a relatively safe headquarters, several Cooperators could build above ground again with less worries. Amongst these builds were a giant circular man-made island called Athena's Shield and an ocean exploration station called Odessa.
Also during this period the Cooperative became part of a larger alliance called the New Alliance. When inevitably the location of Poseidon's Trident was leaked in an accident, the faction realized its days were almost counted and made the best of the situation by dressing up the base and inviting all members of other TNA factions and their friends for a party. It was by all accounts glorious.
Shortly after the successful shindig, a hugely shocking confession took place. Sturm, founder of the faction, admitted griefing several settlements. He had grown mad building Athena's Shield and was unhappy with being part of the TNA and with new members (see also: notable cooperators ). In his anger he became destructive and was excommunicated. The faction was without a base and without a moral leader, until theSwami was chosen while at the same time changing the constitution so leaders are not privileged. Posideon's Trident was sunk into the ocean and made into a ruin, as the Cooperative felt it needed to make a fresh start. A new above ground city 'Damu's Orb' was founded but the faction was still very vulnerable when not much later Sturm terrorized buildings in an attempt to end the Cooperative for once and for all.
Seventh Era (MinerAp)[]
Instead of ceasing to exist, the faction was taken under the wing of team Blu in a subfaction called the Green Hand. With the coming of the Seventh Era however, the Cooperative was rebooted to full glory.
Map of Avalon and provinces, including roads and details.
The Cooperative reboot in the seventh era started on May 16th in Fort Fjord. The reboot was a small effort with only two form members at first, theswami and optimisticspoon. Fort Fjord was a city started by spoon before the reboot of the co-op and served as the first co-op owned structure on the new map. It was not long until it was griefed though and the co-op had a major decline.
David_McNasty, a new member of the co-op would save it on this map by building the beginnings of Ava's Grove with help from CUB3. The city would be under an ocean just like Poseidon's Trident. The style was completely different and much more open. Ava's Grove would continue to grow adding many great structures including a library, colosseum, rail system, head room, 20+ houses and a massive 101 x 101 maze. The city went over a month without being griefed, but then was attacked by the red army but not griefed by them. The most griefing would be done by the inspektors at the end of the city's reign. After learning their city was no longer safe and growing alittle bored of it, the Cooperative moved out of it and left it as it is today.
The Cooperative would leave Ava's Grove to start a new huge project that would start in Fort Fjord. The fort was rebuilt along with several towns rebuilt, walls around coasts, and several new forts built in a short time span. The Cooperative would claim everything on what they renamed the isle of avalon, except safe zone with they would work with and help. The project would never be completely finished with several things happening at once and the island being completely rebuilt. Towns on the island include Slateport, Greendale, Deku and Port St. TownShiretonBurgVille. Forts include Fort Slate, Fort Fjord, Fort Deku, Fort WestWatch and Redstone Castle. There are several other landmarks around the island that have been built or rebuilt by the co-op. The capital city of it all was Hera's Orchard with a center tower built by Seaqlo housing many members of the co-op.
When server activity was very low enthousiasm to maintain the entire island of Avalon suffered. The Coop chose to spend their last two months off the coast of Slate, in an underground city named Kurma Bhu (album including Kurma Bhu ).
Eighth Era (MinerAp)[]
The Cooperative entered the new small map as a strong faction. They joined sides with Iron Order and created the one of the first cities on the map, lasting the entire length of the relative short Era and growing to become the main hub of attention. Rugamora's Tower, as it was obscurely named (in reference to the Tanzanian myth of Rugamora Mahe, a king who created a massive iron tower to reach the heavens), was one of the largest cities of the last Eras and by far the biggest city the Cooperative ever had the chance of building. A constant stream of unknown faces and minerap ancients flocked the streets, causing sillyness and trouble but most of all a lot of new friendships. The faction grew fast.
The joint Cooperative-Iron Order city of Rugamora's Tower.
Tight city planning made durable growth look fancy. Rugamora's Tower featured platforms at different heights connected by an extensive road network, farms, docks, an ever unfinished tower, a high district with 5 houses, a low district with five houses, over a dozen other residential buildings, a vast workshop near the central square connected to a large mining complex, a dark temple, a sewer, a steakhouse, a sheep pen, later turned into a meeting hall, two parks, several bridges. Interest in city expansion plummeted after the server crashed and progress of several weeks was lost. Using the power of PRISM, server moderators restored many of the city, but glitches with the system surged the demand for a new, shorter, experimental map. This became reality with the Ninth Era.
Ninth Era (MinerAp)[]
Announced as a short intermediary map while the server plugins are being updated to 1.7.2, this Era never had the ambitions to foster large cities. The city of Chapa's Den was built and founded by KinArt, but it was not heavily populated. It served as a safe place to build and hang out. The awe-inspiring skylands map was also home to several Cooperative outposts, both above and underground, which each attracted a handful of members. Player activity remained low as many people had no motivation to invest time in a temporary map, or had already upgraded to 1.7.2. Nevertheless, with raiding factions seemingly taking a break and the entire map being covered in easily traversable ocean surface, several beautiful Cooperative structures flourished with little competition.
Tenth Era (Era X-Minerap)
The Cooperative is active but lacking some focus. Cooperators join several different cities, including Voyager's Landing. The constitution is majorly updated, including the recruiting system. New coop recruits now get assigned to a mentor. On the plus side this means new members are very quickly engaged, on the downside the faction can't keep up with membership applications.
Due to the unfocused nature of the faction, most of what we built was scattered and unconnected. Many Cooperators were entertaining themselves with the building of their own settlement, rather than focusing on one. Some settlements were able to rise above this and becoming a meeting point.
The first city to gain a collective attention of the faction was Spacklebox's Atlas' Burden. This build expanded through the sky. Many Cooperators were able to build and maintain homes. There was even an arena planned and in progress before the settlement fell to repeated greifing and lessening interest.
Between Cities, JakeBeast22 and EnderChaos built a detailed underground bunker nicknamed WonderBread. It's main feature was a massive, man-made tree that connected the base's many levels.
Hades' Gate was the next city to attempt to gather us together, This city was housed in a manmade volcano. It was the site of the first mentee graduation ceremonies of the new constitution. It boasted a fighting pit, spacious market and temple.
We also enjoyed a town by the lake and a willow village, both could have flourished with a bit more time.
Eleventh Era (MinerAp)
The faction takes off quickly, and has a base and swamp city up in mere days. Coop buildings this era are marked by consistent and high quality architecture. However, the city, Cthulu's Rest, goes down as quick as it rose in the primal chaos of griefers and hackers that a new era brings. An attack by the Spiderbees is lessened in severity due to Saihoushi building a bee hive to keep them happy. They demand a larger hive within days though, but do not get to return before the largely wooden city is turned to ashes by petty assailants.
The Cooperative found renewed vigor in the collaborative city of Morningwood. Building up their district the fastest with a distinctive tower, Morningwood is often mistaken for a Cooperative city. The Cooperative occupied one of 5 districts, originally planned for SF, Whorezone, The Great Library, Frankenberries and The Cooperative. Whoreos and Frank were unable to commit to the build, leaving two sizable plots up for grabs.
Twelfth Era (MinerAp)[]
The Cooperative immediately notices that the world's void edges would be advantageous for a well guarded city. A group of cooperators assembled on the edge of the map to assemble the largest dong the server has ever seen. Small houses and shops were build around the monument, and the city was named Priapus's Dong! The city was overran by flying hackers and griefers, and many of the cooperators grew frustrated. Yet, Spackle_Box and SnappletheApple came up with a brilliant idea that was sure to rid the Cooperative of its griefing problems. Build into the void!
Construction began on what was to be the largest of any city in Cooperative history in the middle of the void. The only access was through a nether portal buried deep within the nether. Immediately in front of the nether portal, the city showed homage to Atlas's Burden's Roseway. It led into a massive barracks that would home the cities defenses. Behind the barracks was JakeBeast22 and Spackle_Box built Diamond Park and the initial one of four districts. The first district contained The Leaky Tavern and Hotel, A Gay Bath House, a Beast Law, School of Socialist Thought, A Steakhouse, and watch towers. Construction began on a large, circular town hall in the center of the city. A residential district was created specifically for houses; Legi, Hobo, Jake, Seaqlo, and Shammu built houses. A factory district was built; The Emma Stone Factory, Tree Farm, and Storage Plus were built.
Then, in a time of great joy and peace, came the worst drama yet. A former member, no longer named, who had joined the faction during era 10 revealed PS's coordinates on the server's subreddit. Greifers, known as "the swag police" began to flood the town. They caused light griefing, but mainly spawn camped all members of the cooperative who had beds in the town. The server moderators showed no support for The Cooperative since technically it was inside the rules. This commotion caused everyone in the faction to go inactive, vowing to never return to Minerap, few going as far as quitting minecraft.
The Era of Reformation and Enlightenment[]
The Faction did not die after everyone left the server. The group of friends lived on by communicating in their faction skype chat. Many of them turned to League of Legends, or Dungeons and Dragons. Others went of to college to begin a new part of their lives. Yet, everyone realized that they didn't need MinerAp to stay together. The conversations continued for almost ten months until a new dawn appeared at the end of 2015. Geraf_ became an official member of the faction, despite the faction not having any minecraft presence.
The Era of a New Beginning (Fallen-Era 1)[]
A few former moderators of Miner Apocalypse became fed up with the servers direction and formed their own, Fallen. This new server gave The Cooperative new hope. Cooperators: Legi, Spackle_Box, Geraf_ and JakeBeast22 (who took the new server as an opportunity to rename himself TheBeastlyBuddy), began to build... Legi began work on a goliath city surrounded by high walls and peaked with a monolithic Gothic Cathedral. Spackle_Box and an old friend, d20ctor, began work on the Mushroom Kingdom. Geraf_ began work on a Nordic village atop Mt. Tentacles. Lastly, TheBeastlyBuddy began work on converting an NPC village into a town named Khonsu's Rest.
With hopes for a spike in the server's population, the Cooperative is awaiting a new beginning with new members, friends, and enemies.
People and Culture
As you can see, we are an strong democracy with no one leader, instead all the power is in the members who get to vote or not vote on anything they want So please message me we need people! I want to believe!
- - theSwami, proudly showing the Cooperative constitution
The Cooperative's members (sometimes called Cooperators) can be found in this public document . The faction averages at around 12 active members.
The Cooperative has been welcoming new players ever since its foundation , and has less veteran players than other major factions such as team BLU or Red Army . As an advantage, this openness has led to rapid growth and an increase of organised peaceful players. On the other hand, the Cooperative occasionally has to deal with rotten apples.
What is very apparent and sets the faction apart from others is the extent of its democratic culture and equality amongst members, who organise monthly elections in their subreddit . Also typical for the Cooperative, especially in its early months, is the eclectic worship of ancient gods and naming cities after them, although the faction is not associated with a specific religion.
Notable cooperators[]
This list is by no means conclusive.
theSwami
Formerly known as ConvolutedLogic (or Logic) and known on reddit as anonmanman, theSwami has been a popular ambassador of the Cooperative. Although he is often seen as a leader, theSwami has stressed the importance of equality amongst the faction.
OptimisticSpoon
Founder of the Cooperative Library, which collects books and encourages members of the Cooperative to enhance the cultural capital of the server by supplying them with writing tools.
Sturminator
A name that incites controversy, Mastersturm is the original founder of the Cooperative. Despite his devotion to building beautiful structures of grand proportions, he is most known for his betrayal. He stepped down from power to become a terrorist, griefing structures to demand the fall of the faction, citing different reasons each time. While he was in exile, three moles from within the faction aided him, later naming boredom as a reason. After this dramatic period the faction kept a low profile for a while, with exiled members and existing temporarily as a subfaction of team BLU named the Green Hand.
CaptainWeasle
Writer of the first version of the Cooperative Constitution, and mayor of Gaia's Light, the first city. Wrote several books, including 'Cooperative History Illustrated' which was the first book to include pictures of historical events using ASCII art. Included in this list because he wrote it.
KinArt
A graphic designer, known for making excellent posters. One of the older yet most active members of the Cooperative, together with her companion Czarevich, a cunning linguist mastermind. To insiders, sometimes goes by her nickname 'mama Kin', as her ideas tend to benefit the entire faction and she is respected for this. A similar respect is enjoyed in the wider minerap community, as she was likely the person to be promoted from mod to senior mod in the shortest timespan. She is now retired to spend more time with her faction
Foreveramoan and ThatWhiteGuy
After joining the faction in the sixth era, this lovely couple quickly became very active members. Foreveramoan is one of the two Goddesses the Cooperative has lifted to the heavens. Her soothing beauty is the perfect compliment to ThatWhiteGuy's fiery humor. Their commitment to the faction's love of butts is commendable.
Hobo11297
Can be silent as an iron golem, but brings a good sense of diplomacy to the faction, encouraging cooperation between the Cooperative and the Iron Order, Anti-Villian League, as well as the Fluffy Kitties (in their new, peaceful incarnation). Also a minerap moderator.
P.S. He likes to hang his dads' with leads from fence posts.
Enderchaos
Apart from being a good builder, Enderchaos brings life to the Coop skype chat with a constant stream of high school soap episodes taken straight out of his own life. He has an unfortunate habit of becoming paranoid and worried over small details, and is known for sharing more than enough personal information with his fellow Cooperators. His dashing good looks are only outweighed by his excessive charisma and charm.
ORIGAMIDOMO
ORIGAMIDOMO's inability to PvP is only trumped by his abilities to turn daily life into a rap battle and befriend people with a snap of his fingers. His snarky attitude has been known to occasionally get him into trouble.
SnappleTheApple
This guy. Let me tell you a little something about this guy. He's super cool. I mean, look at his name. Snapple The Frickin Apple. That's a real cool name. A strong name. The name of the kind of guy you want your daughter to marry.
"I would vote for Snapple to be my president"
-Everyone
Spackle_Box
Everypony's dreamboat.
Seaqlo
When your towns getting griefed, and you don't know what to do, Who do you call?
SEAQLO!
If you're in a mess, with a mean griefing crew, Who do you call?
SEAQLO!
Seaqlo is a veteran PVPer, who can always be counted on to help defend the Co-op. However, as of recent, he has taken some time off to build, soul search, and find who he really is.
Cirtapk
When Cirtapk was young, he spent his days next to the pond by his house. This pond housed numerous types of plant and animal life on its shores and crystalline waters. One day, Cirtapk was playing and fell into the pond. He could not swim. When he awoke, he found himself staring at the water. But, this was not the waters of his pond, but a very different sort of water. In addition, although he was afloat, he was not swimming, but lying across the back of an elderly turtle. Cirtapk was confused, but asked no questions, as turtles could not speak. The turtle took him to a jungle island, and guided him along a long forgotten path. Cirtapk slid off the shell once the turtle had stopped. They had arrived at a strange temple. A strange looking man emerged. "Is this him?" the man asked. The turtle nodded, and backed away into the brush.
"What's going on?" Cirtapk asked. The man smiled, and Cirtapk realized that this was no man, but simply a very anthropomorphous turtle. "You are the chosen one, Cirtapk, and you will lead the turtles into a new era of glory." And to this day, Cirtapk continues to better the lives of the Co-op and turtles everywhere.
Saihoushi
Sai is nothing less than an artist when it comes to building houses. Fast and efficient in her work, she aids in builds and rebuilds for old and new settlements alike. You can count on her to be positive and creative!
Leginar
One of the oldest (you can actually take that literally) still active members. Leginar entertains the faction weekly with a Thursday Theme Questions in the Cooperative subreddit. An architect at heart, he has led several large infrastructure projects in Thor's Hammer and Hera's Orchard. Has the rare ability to speak with force and reason at the same time. Also, no one knows what he looks like in real life.
Tuckerace
Joined in the Seventh era and became a member of a raiding faction known as the Hunting Nomads. It was there plan for Tucker to join Coop and destroy it, but that was not his plan. Tucker sold the Cords to The Huntig Nomads base our allies in Iron Order took action and killed and raided them. Tucker lived in peace for a while and while maintaining a relationship with the people in the group. Tucker forged the bond between Coop and a Town in Avas province called MapleBurg and was deemed The Ambassador of Coop as a nickname. Later he left leaving only good-byes and left.... Until the Tenth Era where he returned in hearing that The Hunting Nomads came back.
TheBeastlyBuddy (formerly JakeBeast22)
Joining during the Skylands map, Jake was one of the few consistent citizens of Chapa's Den. His contributions to the cities of Atlas's Burden, Hade's Gate, and, most notably, Pasithea's Solitude. A sure and level-headed leader, he has served many terms as Councillor under the new Constitution. As a student as MSU, he is known to contribute to the lively conversations that take part on the faction's skype chat.
Kieran_Jones
An oldie and ex-moderator of the server, joined the Cooperative in the 10th Era under the mentorship of KinArt. A voice of builders. He built the long-lasting New Sheepington in Era 10. It lasted almost the entire map, all the way to EOTW.
You
People interested in joining can check /r/isthecooprecruiting to see if the faction is currently looking for new members.
Constitution[]
The Constitution lays out the values, goals and rules for the Cooperative. More bindingly, it determines the framework in which Cooperators organise their democracy. A recent version (as of october 2013) is available in this post . It includes some details about provinces which are not relevant anymore, but it is still a binding document.