The Collectors are probably the oldest and longest running faction on Miner Apocalypse. The group formed at the start of the second era (Late February 2012) when Hazmus and his brother Magic_MrFoursome, SkepticalJ and his brother Urbeminvictum had stumbled upon each other in the wasteland, soon after, Stanislouse spawned nearby and asked to join them. These are the 'Founding Five' and it was while constructing a communal home for themselves, that the group decided upon the name "The Collectors".
The communal home ended up being named "Pit 1" and was the first in the long Collector tradition of constructing underground "Pits".
The Collectors began taking in travellers and sending out rangers to build 'wayhouses' to help others on the road. The name began to take on new meaning as a few of these wandering travellers became full members of the group, as if they were 'collecting' the wanderers. Magic_MrFoursome suggested the Tolkien quote "Not all those who wander are lost" for The groups motto and it stuck. Signs posted near the groups bases and wayhouses proclaiming this message were soon picked up by others on the server and the group started to become known among the community and other factions.
To help preserve their way of life and to avoid malicious players, the faction decided to remain secret. Members were encouraged not to share any information about their faction outside of the game and posting to the server subreddit was forbidden. The subreddit then was not as friendly as it is today.
By the time Pit #2 was under construction the group had grown into an 18 member faction and was still growing.
Pits[]
Pit 1[]
Pit 1 was the first pit and as far as is known, all photo evidence of said pit has been lost.
Pit 2[]
Many of the recent Pits have had underground nature conservatories, including this one, found in Pit Euler
Pit 2 is often considered the greatest pit, constructed when there was a large spike of membership and more manpower to dig, and renovate the pit. Pit 2 is also the basis for which Pit2 was designed upon.
Pit Euler[]
A look at the cavern of Pit Euler
With the start of the 12th Era came Pit Euler, named after Euler's Number the pit was technically Pit 2.7182818284590452353602874713527 but the name Euler was more colloquial and did not actually refer a chronological order.
Pit Euler thrived in the underground cavern it had struck during mining and as such allowed space for several farms and its connection to a large underground network created both a security concern and exploration opportunity.
On October 16/17th 2014 while moving livestock into the base with several other Collectors a randerer had found the base, entered and continued to walk around and search chests for several minutes. The wanderer was questtion as to his motives and asked to leave Pit Euler but when prompted to do so returned to the issuing member "Well I guess you're the dick of the group." After the personal offense the wanderer was given a final warning before being forcefully removed from the base.
Pit Euler featured some member created art installations, including this piece by Reptile_man
Two days later on October 18th 2014 the member who had killed the wanderer logged on to find that our base had been destroyed, chests broken and raided, crops trampled and rooms destroyed. The member continued to explore the base and found a pile of items, suggesting that the griefer had fallen to his death and dropped his loot. Unfortunately most of The Collector's loot had been lost during the raid. About 30 diamonds were found on the griefer's body.
It was decided among the group that the base's security was compromised, all remaining supplies were loaded, the steed pit opened and the immediate response group took off in search of a new area to call home.
Other members throughout the next 3 days would move to the new base, Pit Squared.
Pit2[]
A photo of Pit2 under construction, since then there has been the addition of stairs and bridges, however the Pit's massive size remains.
Pit Squared (stylized in game and on steam/mumble as Pit^2) is the current Era XII Pit which the collectors reside in. Its location is a closely guarded secret after the events of Pit Euler.
Due to the security breach, all current interns (new members of The Collectors) were let go until a later date where the base's security could be assured. The current pit is the largest yet, measuring 25x25x45 with a volume of 28,1253 blocks.
Pit2 is meant to take many design aspects from the prior Pit 2.
Operation Re-plant The Nether[]
In approximately Era III one of the members, J0elin8r, suggested that an effort be made to create a nature reserve inside the nether, near The Collectors' portals. Joel began to adventure into the Nether with dirt blocks, saplings of various types, bonemeal and flowers. Soon other members joined in and a large portion of the area surrounding the portal was converted into the nature reserve.
Operation Re-plant The Nether still continues in small numbers to this day however it is not an active concern of the group since the nerfing of bonemeal and it's purely aesthetic purpose.