In this post you'll be introduced to the Minecraft Civilizations class of 2016-2017.
Let's start with a list of all the civilizations and their leaders:
Fairy Tale - Democratic Communism - no official political leaders or ambassadors.
The most peaceful and silent group in the class. Operated off of pure consensus from the populous, with no particular student acting as organizer or leader. Surprisingly, the consensus agreement that nobody can truly own personal property wasn't a problem for this group, even as time passed. They shared absolutely everything without issue, and did not feel a sense of personal gain was necessary for the betterment of their group. Rather than seeking power of any kind, they simply wanted to co-exist peacefully and send explorers out into the world for adventure and minor riches. Good on them, am I right? It's like Star Trek TNG level of maturity.
Ender Warriors - Autocracy - Unofficial Dictator: Zack - Ambassador: Zack.
This was a very small group. Not super developed technologically or architecturally, but they had significant aspirations of grandeur. They originally formed as an anarchy group and evolved into a non-representative democracy. They thought they continued to be a democracy until the year's end, but I observed that Zack's behaviour actually turned the group into an Autocracy during the events of the following story, since his voice became the voice of the group, and his decisions somehow began to turn into law. This group fell into shambles by the end of the year.
Bone Archers - Democratic Republic - President: Alex - Vice President: Jake - Ambassador: Kai.
This was the largest group I have ever had in a Minecraft class, making up more than half the population of the classroom by the end of the year. Their form of government stayed the same throughout the entire school year, which is very rare. After the group formed their constitution via consensus, they elected Alex as president. Alex held an additional election for a vice president, to act in his stead in the event he was absent from class. At Alex's prerogative, he elected Kai as ambassador, since Kai was loud and was always the first to jump up from his seat. Jake, the vice president, was in charge of technological development. With Alex making developmental decisions for the group, and acting as mediator for lawmaking, this group became the most powerful and prosperous civilization in the class. Citizens from other groups emigrated to the Bone Archers, causing it to grow until it spanned over more land than all the other civilizations combined. Alex held a vote for every new citizen, to allow the majority to determine who was let into the country. Too bad we can't do that in the real world, am I right? With all the power and prosperity, though, came envy, jealousy, and hatred from the other groups, even though the Bone Archers did nothing wrong.
Wheat World - Democracy - President: Isiah - Vice President: Cameron - Ambassador: Cameron.
Operating as a straight-up democracy with no constitution, Wheat World was ruled entirely by the majority. They held an election to determine the president, but after that point, their organization seemed to dissipate. Unfortunately, nobody could seem to get onto the same page. The group was founded under the idea that they would quickly gain a monopoly on the food market, particularly wheat. That gained them some good trading opportunities early on, but unfortunately that wasn't the greatest long-term goal, since the other groups eventually became self-sustaining. This group eventually lost citizens to emigration, disbanded, and became a small band of mercenaries for hire.
Jace - Nomad
This was a lone nomadic student who decided to be a neutral travelling merchant. Throughout the school year he was working on developing nuclear technology, to gain a one-up over the other groups by producing surplus power that he could sell. He was also interested in the power he would have over people by owning a nuclear bomb. His actions throughout the year actually did a lot to stimulate the economy in all the other civilizations, and in situations of diplomatic tension, he managed to remain neutral by cutting off supplies to everybody in the class until the situation was over.
Okay! So now that you've been introduced to the civilizations, you have some context for a great deal of the biggest stories I have to tell.
This class had the most intense political struggle of any of my classes yet. In the beginning, things were going pretty well. The students were a bit loud and impatient on day one, largely from an issue with the game not working properly, but ultimately things were going okay.
But then, about a month after the groups were set up, I think one particular situation set the tone for the strife we would face the rest of the year.
One of the students dumped a bucket of lava on top of Zack's house, on the Ender Warrior property.
Luckily Cameron, the Wheat World vice president and ambassador, saw the flames and went to check it out. It was he who screamed "Fire!!", which caused me to rush over to the house with a supply of water. Cameron immediately started dousing the fire with dirt from nearby, and by the time I got there nearly half the fire was already put out. But the damage to the house was done, and more than half of the house was destroyed. Zack was crushed, since he had spent months of class time building that house, and the house contained a majority of the Ender Warrior's wealth in resources.
I spent a great deal of time after class gathering clues, determining suspects, sending emails to some parents, and fixing the fire damage. I recovered all of Zack's resource storage, and rebuilt his house. Eventually I discovered who did it. It was a citizen from Fairy Tale, of all places. I arranged a formal face-to-face apology between the two students after class the next week. It went quite well. Zack fully forgave him. But Fairy Tale lost trust in him, and a couple weeks later he dropped the class.
This, I feel, was the beginning of the chaos.
I believe that, even though he forgave the kid, Zack had then planted in his head the idea of how much fun it would be to go to war and feel a sense of revenge, or a sense of power, to make up for the feeling he had when he was attacked. The act of terrorism caused tension within the Ender Warriors, whether it went officially forgiven or not.
About a month or so later...
Zack was talking a lot about the new armor and weaponry he was developing, and how if anyone attacked his group, he would be able to absolutely destroy them. Nobody else in the class was actually talking about attacking anyone, however, and there were no considerably shaky grounds between any groups at the time.
The only thing creating any drama was the fact that the Bone Archers had grown so much.
They had developed such advanced technology in the fields of ore processing, automatic chicken farming, electricity, and mining. After having grown as much as they had, they naturally felt a need to protect what they built. As Zack talked about these weapons he had developed, president Alex of the Bone Archers felt it necessary to commission a wall to be built around their capital city, just in case something happens.
President Alex, heeding the concerns of his citizens, also passed a "no trespassing" law, stating that any unauthorized people caught trespassing on Bone Archer land would be subject to a fine before being asked to leave. In the event the fine is refused payment, the trespasser may challenge a Bone Archer representative in armed combat. So basically, ask permission to enter and you'll be fine.
After the passing of this law, I realized it was time to lecture the class on how visitors within civilizations may be subject to those civilizations' laws, regardless of what laws their own civilization may have. Unless, of course, the two civilizations create a law to protect ambassadors from other civilizations.
During the construction of the Bone Archer wall and the passing of the "no trespassing" law, Zack must have seen the defensive action as a sign of weakness, fear, guilt, or something otherwise provocative.
Zack saw the Bone Archers as a force that had to be destroyed. And because of his new weapons technology, he felt powerful. He wanted to use that power.
Zack's energy and feeling of self empowerment seemed to cause him to become the spokesperson for the Ender Warriors, speaking on their behalf, despite the fact they didn't actually have an official leader. The Ender Warriors citizens stayed pretty quiet and just kind of rolled along with Zack's ideas, not stirring the pot. This caused Zack to, basically, become a dictator, turning the Ender Warriors into an autocratic dictatorship.
During his rise to power, Zack began talking about declaring war on the Bone Archers.
The Bone Archer ambassador overheard this and spread the word back to the president. In response, Alex ordered that the back and top of the Bone Archer wall be lined with punji sticks, and vice president Jake began researching advanced armor and weapon designs for defense of their citadel.
Zack, realizing that the Bone Archers had exactly twice the population of the Ender Warriors, started seeking out alliances to help guarantee victory.
Zack reached out to Wheat World, and in the midst of Wheat World's unorganized chaos, ambassador Cameron was given a bizarre amount of negotiating power by president Isiah.
The combined forces of the Ender Warriors and Wheat World added up to the population of the Bone Archers, and Zack and Cameron began plotting some strategies for how to take the Bone Archer's citadel. However, Cameron wasn't reporting this information back to president Isiah, and nothing was actually brought up for vote. So the Wheat World citizens involved weren't actually aware they might be sent off to a war they never even got a say in fighting.
Seeing that trouble is brewing and might get out of hand within my classroom, I interjected, stating that I will not turn PVP* on unless a clear outline of this potential war is written out on the whiteboard.
This outline would show clearly what the goals on either side would be, what the spoils would be for victory, and when, exactly, the war would be considered resolved. Basically, it was a call out to get them to ask themselves what they were fighting for, but I didn't want to spell that out for them. I wanted them to figure this out for themselves, but it was clear they needed a nudge in the right direction.
So Zack and Alex met up at the whiteboard for a bit while I asked them what the catalyst would be in order to end the war. At what point would one side be declared victorious?
Zack said that it was obvious that president Alex would have to die in order to declare the Bone Archers defeated.
But then Alex pointed out that the Ender Warriors have no official leader, so under what circumstances would the Ender Warriors have to declare themselves defeated? And for that matter, what is either side even getting out of this? Zack blurted out that the primary goal for them was the glory of having defeated the Bone Archers. This did not go over well with Wheat World or the Ender Warrior citizens, and one of the Ender Warrior citizens emigrated over to the Bone Archers while Zack wasn't paying attention. Needless to say, the Bone Archers welcomed the new citizen.
Zack became restless and went back to his seat to discuss things with his citizens, and Cameron came over to speak with Zack.
At this point, Cameron began asking questions regarding what his civilization would actually get from the alliance with the Ender Warriors, stating:
"I'm not going to risk the lives of my people just so you can have a moment of glory."
At this point Zack began stating specifics about what they would plunder from the Bone Archers, but it was clear that Zack wanted all the plunder for the Ender Warriors, and wasn't truly considering his allies in this situation. Once again, president Alex raised the question of what the Bone Archers would get to plunder if they won, and from whose supply caches. Considering Wheat World appeared to be allying with the Ender Warriors, they should have repercussions as well, so the Bone Archers should get to plunder them as well as the Ender Warriors.
It was after this statement that Cameron met with Alex privately, and Alex told him just how much advanced weaponry and defensive technology Jake had been building during these debates. Shortly after this meeting, Wheat World officially allied themselves with the Bone Archers, stating:
"If we're going into this war, we may as well side with the team that's more likely to win."
Zack, freaking out that he no longer stood a chance against the Bone Archers, ran over to meet with the citizens of Fairy Tale, to beg them to join his side. Ambassador Kai of the Bone Archers had the same idea. Cameron also made an appearance. So the citizens of Fairy Tale were hearing pleas left and right for an alliance, but they turned everyone away saying:
"[We want] no part of the silly drama that is developing around us."
While Zack was talking to Fairy Tale, nearly his entire population emigrated to the Bone Archers and were voted in as full citizen status.
While all the ambassadors were in Fairy Tale, Jace, the neutral merchant, was also there trading resources at the time. As the ambassadors were leaving, Jace requested that I personally deliver a message to the class. In a voice that clearly stated that he was sick of everyone's behaviour, he said:
"Tell everybody that if this war passes anywhere near my personal property, I will detonate a nuclear warhead directly on top of them."
After delivering this message to the class, I received many questions regarding Jace having nuclear technology. I said that the last I heard he was developing a nuclear reactor, but I didn't actually know if it was completed yet. I've been too focused on the political struggles. I did know for a fact, however, that he was refining uranium, which is a primary rare resource needed to produce a nuclear explosive.
Everybody returned to their own civilizations, and there was quiet contemplation within their groups. The Bone Archers felt no threat from Jace's statement, but the Ender Warriors and Wheat World were visibly shaken.
After some time passed, Zack announced to the class that he was officially retracting his declaration of war, because this whole situation wasn't worth it.
Despite the fact the war never really happened, the Bone Archers ended up with a great deal more population, and the Ender Warriors ended up in shambles, with barely a handful of citizens, and a lot of empty abandoned buildings on their land from when everybody left. The Wheat World president, by the end of all of this, began to consider resigning from office. But that's a story for another time...
So now that this whole situation had come to a close, I went to the front of the class to talk to give a speech:
"So what we just went through for the past month in this class, all that political struggle, the potential for a war, all of it... It got resolved in the end without any bloodshed after everyone truly thought out what it meant to go to war.
Can you imagine what this might have been like if I enabled PVP without asking questions first? You would all likely be in a war situation right now, still. Complete chaos with no end in sight, and no real goals or benefits - just death and frustration. In real life when people die they don't come back, but in this game, your war could have gone on forever.
This is not always how this ends in real life. In real life, political leaders don't have a teacher around to tell them to outline the goals of their war on a whiteboard before they're allowed to kill each other. Oftentimes in real life people declare war before actually thinking things all the way through. People like to react first and ask questions later, and that is a great way to make those situations get out of control. History is covered in examples of people who slaughtered millions because they couldn't stop and come up with another solution.
You have all accomplished today what many throughout history have been unable to accomplish. Congratulations! Give yourselves a round of applause."
*Player vs Player. It's what makes it possible for players to kill each other on the classroom server.
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