The Box
| The Box |
|---|
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| Start Date |
| 2015-02-16 |
| End Date |
| 2015-04-17 |
At the beginning of the 5th universe, the playable area was reduced in an attempt to save server resources. The playable area was restricted to a cube the size of 9x9x9 sectors or 90x90x90 parsec. It was given the name "The Box" because of its cubic shape.
The Box saw some of the highest player counts the MMO had ever seen, spiking as high as 200. This was likely due to a mixture of excitement from the game returning after the thought-to-be permanent shutdown, and the limited play area. This led to many wars and events in a very short period of time. This also led to many new players discovering the game.
While the box's size was plenty big for most players, some felt it was too restrictive, as it did not give much space to get away from other empires.
During the early period of the box, Stellar Syndicate claimed the immediate 3x3x3 sector (supersector) space around their capital as their territory. Empires would be given resources and help to move away into unclaimed territory. This caused some early conflict, such as between Per Ardua Ad Astrum and Stellar Syndicate.
A controversial claim also started to spread around this time that some players had decided to quit the game as a result of Syndicate's actions, either out of fear or unwillingness to deal with the issue. In addition, it was claimed that some empires simply weren't aware of the claims.
Events
Stellar Syndicate were one of the first empires to achieve warp-capable starships, which allowed them to travel from one side of The Box to the other in around an hour. Being pretty much unrivalled, Syndicate quickly grew bored and decided to play the bad guys.
The Syndicate empire set a goal to reach one million loyal citizens on the Empire Standings. Rather than just colonize every planet they saw, they decided to also give people a reason to rebel and fight them by demanding that everyone submit to them. They also expanded their territorial claim to the entire box.
The demands were controversial; vassal with 30% daily tribute or be subjugated. Some empires decided to rebel and fight back against Syndicate, while others misunderstood or felt threatened by these terms and immediately abandoned their empires.
One of the rebellion alliances that was formed against Syndicate was called Legion. This consisted of empires such as Tesco Empire, Moonlit Aristocracy, and more. Some strategies that the alliance used included exploiting the protection offered by the vassal status to sneak into Syndicate's capital, Glory Control, and conduct black ops. This only resulted in a single Syndicate ship being stolen and the capital's station being downed. As a result of this operation, Moonlit Aristocracy was exterminated. There were a few other skirmishes with Syndicate, but the alliance couldn't compare to Syndicate's superior organization and numbers, resulting in easy Syndicate victories.
Around this time, other large empires such as GET OUT and French Empire went to war with Syndicate. These also resulted in swift Syndicate victories, with GET OUT vowing to return when the game was "less lopsided".
With the rebellion constantly slapped away and other large empires having surrendered, Syndicate quickly achieved their goal of one million citizens around a month after the universe started.
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End
Two months in, Haxus agreed to increase the size of The Box. Although, unbeknownst to everyone at the time, The Box limitation was actually removed all together, opening access to the whole universe.
By this point, most of the large conflicts had already fizzled out and the remaining active empires started spreading around the universe.
The reveal after the box was removed was a little cryptic at first.
See: (Dead link) The "Box"
Later, Weltreich would claim some solar systems from the box period, and would remain uncontested until the end of the universe.
The remainder of universe 5 was very low activity. See that page for more information.