Ouranos

Ouranos
Ouranos
Survival 3
	A view of Ouranos from above the wheat field across the river.
Settlement
World	Survival 3
Founded	7th January, 2019
Mayor(s)	William278; misterblue28
Contributors	DragonFire441, nossi345, Cookies58_, marbou9, Kingcreeper1, dmgdog
Location	X= 5413; Y= 64; Z= 2089
Transport	SRN Branch Line; NTN Approved Branch
	Map Click for full map ;

"Please come and join us and make Ouranos a great city for everyone!" Ouranos City Guidebook

Ouranos (officially pronounced oo-RAH-nos) was a prominent public city on the Survival 3 world of the Dogcraft Server. It was founded on the 7^th of January 2019 by former Akkara mayor on the previous world, William278 and Survival Railway Network map art creator misterblue28. The two players, following their collaboration on the railway map on Survival 2 joined together with the goal of building a new city on the world, which at that time lacked a number of notable settlement projects unlike its predecessor. The name derived from the primordial Greek god of the sky, which highlighted the original plan for the city being based on floating islands. Eventually, however, the plan ultimately became more focused on building a community around an urban city.

Design

Ouranos had an urban-colonial build style with a diverse palette of blocks and has been described as a "classical city set in the modern era". Builds had to be tall and compact, ideally without spaces between them to create a strong metropolitan aesthetic, reminiscent of the successful style of Havana on Survival 2. A palette building located in the city center contained a sample palette for building of which builds could derive from.

Logo (left) and city banner (right) of Ouranos, with its yellow/green colors.

Layout

The city was centered on a central Lackria Plaza, named after William278's town on Survival 1. Ouranos City Hall and a railway station sat opposite to each other with the plaza in between. From the central plaza, roads branched outwards with a main road diverging westward of the plaza towards the Ouranos Castle and square, with player-built plots lining streets. Builds had different functions, with some serving as attractions for the city, such as a theater and ice boat track. Towards the north side of the city, a large park could be found featuring a mayoral residence.

Transport

Ouranos was well served by transport links. The station connected the city to the Survival Railway Network via a branch line to Cool Cove Station on rail. The NTN East Line also featured an approved branch to the city, located just past the 5000-block marker. Internally, the city was also served via its own Ouranos Metro, connecting the various parts together through a modern network of underground tunnels and stations.

Builds

A town hall in the center of town, built into the side of the nearby mountain with steps leading up to it from the central plaza.
A grand sandstone castle, named Ouranos Castle. The castle housed a Dogcraft Spleef League arena beneath it and made heavy use of brick and granite.
A railway station, featuring a simple raised platform design with yellow and green mosaic flooring.

Downtown Ouranos, taken above the station showing the central Lackria Plaza and town hall

A central plaza with additional palette building providing building information and acting as the origin for roads in the city.
A theater, featuring an underground studio setup for the game-show "The Chase", of which a number of episodes have been recorded.
A post office for sending and receiving items between players, similar to the one in Havana on Survival 2.
A banner gallery where many popular banners from across the server's history were housed.
A boat-on-ice race track; the Ouranos Raceway for racing boats on ice was located to the north-east of the city. The track was inspired by the Sahara Speedy Pines Raceway on ReNDoG's Hermitcraft season 6 series.
The Ouranos Metro connected the various places and attractions via underground railway tunnels spanning across the city, serving five stations across the city.

History

Ouranos began after player William278 left the Deliverance project as a leader after internal disputes in November 2018. Following the exit, discussion between himself and misterblue28, who was a long-time helper of the Survival Railway Network East Line and co-creator of the network map began. The initial idea for the city was to create a grand kingdom in the sky, with contemporary houses floating on large grassy islands. The city would be laid out in a circular shape, with islands surrounding a central stairway to the ground level. Each island would have a "theme", such as being an island for commercial stores or being an island for player homes. Ultimately, however, this idea fell through as it was deemed too much work for the two players. One remnant of this planning era, however, was the name Ouranos; the Greek primordial god of the skies.

Construction Begins

It would not be until late December of that year until the city would find its feet. A solid plan was drafted for how the city would be laid out based on three pillars of developing a community; Leadership, Style and Collaboration. The city would be a simple plot-based city centered on a square. When planning, a "havana-mindset" was used to make decisions. This led to the city planning being based around allowing it to grow organically over time. The city hall, station and square between them were all designed in creative as well as the palette building on the square. The two mayors thought that by starting out by building these three buildings first, the rest of the city could develop from that in line with their three pillars.

The city would open to plot sales on the 7^th of January, 2019. Growth was quick as many plots were sold initially and following rapid development plans were made to celebrate the cities' growth in a formal Ouranos Day event.

Ouranos Day

A view of the city at night.

Ouranos Day was held on the 13^th of April, 2019 and featured multiple events throughout the day. In preparation, stalls selling merchandise were constructed and the city castle was built, housing the spleef arena. Cookies58_ constructed a map art of the Ouranos logo. Events on the day included a statue building competition (of which the winner would later be put in Ouranos Park), production of another episode of The Chase, a treasure hunt, hide n' seek and a Dogcraft Spleef League game. The event was live streamed by various dogcraft streamers and the entrance ribbon was cut by the two mayors, thereby "officially" opening the city. Many plots were sold throughout the day giving the city a boost as players flocked to the city for festivities.

Later developments

A view of Ouranos Park, with the mayoral residence behind.

After the events of Ouranos Day, hype slowly cooled down as players began to fill out their plots. In this time, a number of projects were built. One of the largest of which being the transformation of the northern desert into a giant wheat-field, which was carried out primarily by marbou9. The idea was to provide better views of the surroundings for the city and provide a more impressive entrance for railway riders coming in, as inspired by the "biome enhancement" project YouTuber and hermit Etho carried out on his singleplayer series.

In late 2019, the ice boat track was built facilitating Dogcraft Ice Boat League races. It was built further out from the city due to its size and was inspired by ReNDoG's raceway on Hermitcraft. In order to provide access to the track from the downtown, the Ouranos Metro was finally built after months of planning and a rollback caused by the update to Minecraft 1.14: Village and Pillage. Upon opening, the metro served four stations; the Ouranos Raceway, the east gate of the city, the Theatre and the Central Plaza, with a later expansion to the castle bringing the station count up to 5.

An overhead view of the city.

Towards the end of the Survival 3 world, Ouranos Park was developed. The park was based on a design used in Lackria, featuring sandy pathways winding between bushes and foliage. The park was overlooked by walkways around it with stair access down. Sitting at the end of the park was the Mayoral residence, homes of the city mayors. The home was designed by William278 and nossi345 who received assistance from a variety of players to build it in-game.

Other Events

Anti-Bean Prank

The Anti-Bean headquarters, located by the Lackria Plaza.

The Anti-Bean Headquarters was constructed by marbou9 following a dispute over mayor William's usage of the phrase "Cool Beans" that led to the construction of two "Pro-Bean" and an "Anti-Bean" map art. Traces of the prank war could be found for months after throughout the city and the Anti Bean headquarters stood as a center for information on the "dangers" of saying the phrase.

Domino_1 vs Marbou9 Prank War & Ouranos Nuclear Disaster

An ongoing prank war between Marbou9 and Domino_1 had found a home in Ouranos as the two frequently pranked each other's houses; the Anti-Bean HQ and Domi's book shop. These pranks typically ranged from filling their respective houses with unusual blocks, such as cakes and enchanting tables. On one such occurrence, Marbou9 filled Domino_1's house with TNT and a misunderstanding with the cities' claim-explosion status led to Domi accidentally enabling TNT explosions in the city. When mayor William sought to remove TNT from the house he did so by lighting the TNT with a redstone torch, thinking only one block of TNT would disappear due to claim-explosions being off.

Unfortunately, claim-explosions were in fact enabled, causing all of the TNT blew up, flattening an entire city block and killing nine bystanders. Though the damage would be rolled back, the event would become to be known as the Ouranos Nuclear Disaster.