Benjamese Empire
 Benjamese Empire
| |
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| About | |
|---|---|
| Leadership |  BenjaminBsuper
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| Headquarters | Shatlantis |
| Founded | 19th March, 2017 |
| Public? | No |
The Benjamese Empire (or BenEm for short)is the collective name for all the areas BenjaminBsuper and his crew use to build their cities on, in order to prevent bad area planning, grief builds and inactive player houses. Much of the BenEm has fallen into inactivity, and if needed, BenEm can continue to operate with the USF.
What's in the Benjamese Empire?
In short: cool stuff. The Benjamese Empire is a thriving community with good city planning, innovative builds and very little grief. In 2018, the Empire grew to be one of the biggest communities in Freedonia, housing hundreds of players.
What do we call the cool stuff in the Empire?
The Empire has a naming system for settlements and territories ( (Almost) Full list at Category:BenEm Ranking System):
- BenEm Hamlet
- Any settlement that is too small to count as one of the sections below.
- Examples: LittoilLand, Boat
- BenEm Village
- A settlement with few houses, simple infrastructure, with barely any shops.
- Examples: Merchilles, Isfiskholt
- BenEm Town
- A settlement that houses several players, with a centralized government facility, shops and advanced infrastructure.
- Examples: Pallet Town, Numington Town
- BenEm City
- A large settlement, big enough to have a self-sustaining population, with a centralized government facility, with historical importance, advanced infrastructure and some form of high rise.
- Examples: Tussenstad, Snaketown
It is important to note that this naming system is not necessarily represented in the name of given town. Snaketown, for example, is definitely a city, although it's called SnakeTOWN. New Snak City is called a city, but it is clearly a town. Those names can be deceiving!
Areas
Areas that are the part of the Benjamese Empire:
Batavia
Batavia is the name for the BenEm mainland. It is the place where the most BenEm activity happens:
BenjaminStad (Capital City) - The historical and biggest centre of BenEm. Highly urbanised.
KSCity - Once, it was a competitor of BenjaminStad, but, after 
KS_Life became inactive and sold the town to BenjaminBsuper, the activity of town halted. Now, the town is being repurposed, since it has a lot of useful space.
Tussenstad - One of the most important parts of BenEm. It left the BenEm during the late summer of 2018, but eventually returned.
TwanStad - A territory without any residential buildings
Merchilles - Despite it's size, this town lives with a status of Batavia's architecture centre. Located in the desert outback of Batavia.
Oldville - A town that declared itself independent of Tussenstad.
Isfiskholt - A small town that has rejoined after having been independent for a short while.
Winterstad - A small village that lies under the jurisdiction of Tussenstad.
BearTown - A town with large houses and a rustic style that is very close to Batavia
Exclaves
Those enclaves started to appear, when more and more people joined BenEm:
Grifftopia - This major architecture centre is having a unique system of "poor" and "rich" districts.
Greenhaven Village - Despite being a separate town, this town with sad history is a part of Grifftopia's area.
Berghpas - A town, which stayed on paper.
Barendrecht - This town is having a strange case of BenjaminBsuper getting town ownership from a banned player through another person.
Snaketown - Another BenEm centre on Forrrest, despite being very far from Batavia. Most active town of the Forrrest agglomeration.
Pallet Town - This town is having a very messy layout, but attracted an attention, thanks to being mostly residential.
Numington Town - Earlier centre of Forrrest activity, which is inactive for now.
Silver Lake - This town is very unique, because it successfully attracted people during player invasions.
New Snak City - 
snakyman's new city, which is situated on corrupted chunks.
The UnderLands - A settlement founded by 
tyhdefu that's almost entirely underground.
Boat - A town on a boat.
Territories
Berghpas - A town, which stayed on paper.
Gelderburg - A plan, which is being done by 
Appelsaus_
Santa Luca - A town founded by 
LucaTheHispanic.
Finni's Village - A town founded by 
Finnimations, currently lacking a name.
Urbanism
The Empire, as an extremely active community, houses a lot of impressive builds. A lot of these builds are very tall: 23 of them are taller than 50 meters, and 7 of those are higher than 100 meters.
The Batavian area of BenEm is highly urbanised, with many high structures. BenjaminStad alone has 9 towers over 50 meters high, of which 3 are taller than 100 meters. This amount of high rise builds is not matched in any other town with a population (we state 'with a population' because Xenotopia has more high rise; however, Xenotopia is more of an artwork, and has never housed a community, whereas builds in the Empire are built by many different members of the community). Batavia alone has 15 towers above 50 meters, of which 5 are taller than 100 meters:
Highest Batavian buildings
Over 100m high:
- Turn_Off Tower (BenjaminStad) -
Turn_Off - Brandarix Tower (Tussenstad) -
hprick - New Friends Housing Hotel Park (BenjaminStad) -
ADHD_Autism - Tokaido Tower (BenjaminStad) -
Avanlance - KSCity Government Building (KSCity) - BenjaminBsuper,
mk59apr and 
Edelstadt (WIP)
50-100m high:
- BenjaminStad Hotel (BenjaminStad) - Turn_Off
- BenjaminBsuper's pride (BenjaminStad) - BenjaminBsuper
- TwanStad Cobble Tower (TwanStad) -
TwanVanDijk - Kaasa de Hotel (BenjaminStad) - ADHD_Autism
- Kaasa Brown (BenjaminStad) - unknown builder
- Icky's Castle (BenjaminStad) -
ickyacky - B.U.T.T. Tower (Tussenstad) - several builders
- Fleetgate Tower (BenjaminStad) - hprick
- Balcony Building (KSCity) - mk59apr
- Edelweiss Corp HQ (KSCity) - Edelstadt
Most exclaves are less urbanised, with less high, but still impressive structures:
Highest buildings in Exclaves
Over 100m high:
- Diamond Salami (Snaketown) -
ScarClaw72 (formerly) 
TECHNOFIZZ1406's Deluxe Plot (Snaketown) - TECHNOFIZZ1406
50-100m high:
- Snakyman Holding A Giant Salami (Snaketown) - snakyman
- Madison Square Garden (New Snak City) - snakyman
- Freedonia Road Co. HQ (New Snak City) - snakyman
- "SNAKE SEA STOP" (Snaketown) -
Ultoris - Tower of
6stooges (Pallet Town) - 6stooges - Chest Tower (Silver Lake) -
Freeman77 - The Zirconium Observatory (Snaketown)-
MCTogs - BenEm Meeting Center (Snaketown) (from lowest point of complex to highest point)
Infrastructure
The Benjamese Empire is well known for its underground and aquatic infrastructure; The BenEm leaders, especially 
IvanLeshev, BenjaminBsuper, and hprick, put a lot of work in to improve public transportation throughout the BenEm area.
Tunnels
- Ginza Tunnel
- A tunnel to cut time off the Boat Route from Enjoku Route to the BenEm junction: this tunnel, built by IvanLeshev and hprick, cuts right through a hill to prevent issues with the nearby private property. The tunnel is 5 meters wide. It's decorated with the colors of the BenjaminStad flag and lighted with redstone torches.
- Trans-Vesitäysi Tunnel
- A tunnel that goes under Lake Vesitäysi to connect North and South Tussenstad
- Tavernia Tunnel
- Another tunnel to cut time off the boat route. It's a lot shorter than Ginza Tunnel, and unlike Ginza, it's built on an askew line. It's directly followed by a canal between two hills. Decorated with spruce wood and lighted by redstone torches. Also built by hprick and IvanLeshev.
- BenjaminStad Tunnel System
- A pedestrian subway system to make different parts of BenjaminStad accessible. This tunnel system is still being expanded, BenjaminBsuper being the main person working on it.
- Gotthard Tunnel
- Another project by hprick and IvanLeshev, made to connect two large waters, finishing off the BenEm Boat Route.
- Holland Tunnel
- A small tunnel that cuts through a hill at the most northern part of the BenEm boat route.
Canals
An important part of the boat route are ice canals; Without these, boat travel to the BenEm junction would be impossible.
- Northern Canal
- This is the biggest canal of the BenEm boat route. It cuts right through a giant ice lake. Mainly built by BenjaminBsuper.
- Southern Canal
- Made by hprick and BenjaminBsuper, this is the second biggest canal, which also cuts through ice. This canal cuts through a giant ice lake to go straight to the BenjaminStad harbour, to connect to the next canal system:
- BenjaminStad Harbour Canal
- This canal, built by BenjaminBsuper, connects the harbour to the inner lake of North Tussenstad and the Sugarcane Shores park, directly to connect to the Fraffyard tunnel.
Bridges and boardwalks
Crossing water is important. When it's not done with a tunnel, like the Trans-Vesitäysi Tunnel, it's done with a bridge.
- Banshee Boardwalk
- An experimental build by hprick: an elevated walkway parallel to the wall of an ancient castle. This walkway is a part of the road from Tussenstad to the nearby Nexus hub. Named after a Mario Kart track.
- Great Northwestern Highway
- Although it is not officially part of BenEm, it connects many BenEm Towns in the Northwest to the main road system in central Freedonia.
History
Beginning
May 19th - September 7th, 2017
The history of Benjamese Empire starts with the founding of KSCity and giant growth of BenjaminStad in winter and early spring of 2017. These 2 cities created the Benjamese Empire after they allied on the 19th of May, 2017. One of the earliest Benjamese Empire newcomers was hprick, who founded Isfiskholt shortly after.
Ivan and Hprick Join
September 2017
After quitting Clifftonville and time of simple existence, one of most important members of Benjamese Empire, IvanLeshev, with help of BenjaminBsuper, decided to urbanise the north wilderness of the Benjamese Empire with founding of Tussenstad, the second most powerful city in the Empire. Despite being bored, Ivan invited hprick and Appelsaus_ into his town. Thanks to this powerful new friendship, they did many projects for the Benjamese Empire. In addition to that, Appelsaus_ became part of the Benjamese Empire staff.
Many Connected Territories
September 2017
At some point not long after, 
KevinGriffioen and 
Ladebbie joined the Benjamese Empire's side. With this, Greenhaven Village and Grifftopia became part of the Benjamese Empire. Benjamin's friendship with 
NHC_THK also added some land when NHC_THK sold Barendrecht to Benjamin. This outward expansions marked the start of BenEm's great foreign influence.
The Outer Expansion
October 2017
The empty lands, near the desert and over the icy plains, were good places to expand. When 
Mer28 and 
Andrey_orex started their towns there, the BenEm expanded again, this time adding Merchilles and Berghpas. To this day, after the Outer Expansion, Batavian BenEm has not expanded outwards any further, only expanding within the borders of the Empire.
BenEm as popular tourist attraction
Late 2017
With the Benjamese Empire thriving and becoming more and more popular, people started to visit the cities. The BenEm cities became well-known on the server, no longer being viewed as some noob town. With the new Nexus connection to North-West (Purple) 3, visitors could enter the BenEm much faster than before via BenjaminStad. Over time, many tourist attractions have been built in BenEm. A few examples are:
- BenjaminStad: The many enormous builds like the Turn-Off Tower and the creation site of the future Government Seat.
- KSCity: Stone Hotel and the underground farms as well as a huge open area for ice skating.
- Isfiskholt: The idyllic houses on poles.
- Tussenstad: Zen Park, The Cave of a Thousand Spooks, Mobville and other fascinating sites, which are accessible by the Intracity Train Network, which connects to the Intercity Railways for rails to other towns.
- Grifftopia: A beautiful medieval village with an abundance of top notch architecture.
- TwanStad: A fast growing town with huge towers and detailed builds.
- Merchilles: Another prime example of stunning architecture.
- Greenhaven Village: Interesting transformation from former ghost-town to active city.
- Berghpas: This town isn't finished yet.
- Barendrecht: A water pyramid.
- Snaketown: One of the biggest player statues ever, Snaketown Arena, BenEm HQ2, and Covenant.
- Pallet Town: Giant residential builds.
- Gelderburg: This town isn't finished yet.
- Numington Town: A very diverse town, with a futuristic and ambitious highway project.
- Lemonaid Town: A bootleg Snaketown that is now part of Snaketown by order of admins.
Stagnant Growth
January - March 2018
After slightly less than a year of constant growth in the Empire, concentrated in Tussenstad and new small towns in the Batavian area, the growth of the Empire stagnated in January of 2018. This was mostly caused by hprick moving out of Tussenstad to live at his new project at the time, Port Lochrainn. With hprick and his EBB IvanLeshev helping him in his new project, the two most active builders of the Empire were gone. Nonetheless, a lot of improvements were made in the Batavian area here and there, such as pixel art in South Tussenstad and the refurbishment of KSCity, but no real expansions were made and this situation continued in the following times of diplomatic distress and international conflicts. This situation left a lot of people of the Empire with the question: Has the Empire reached its limit?
Diplomatic Distress
April 2018
KS_Life was last seen on the 14th of December, 2017. His town KSCity was the biggest internal competition for BenjaminStad after Tussenstad, but it used to be even bigger competition in comparison to BenjaminStad. However, with KS_Life gone, BenjaminBsuper bought the town from him. At the time of writing (april 2018), BenEm Leaders BenjaminBsuper, IvanLeshev, hprick, and Appelsaus_ are still heavily discussing what to do with the blank territory. BenjaminBsuper sees a future for high-end housing for important BenEm residents, while hprick sees a future in it as a military practice ground or PvP stadium.
On the 15th of April, 2018, hprick proposed to administratively divide Tussenstad, since the north and south part of the town, divided by Lake Vesitäysi, were very different in architecture, economy, infrastructure, purpose, and so on (for example: South TS is less focused on hospitality). However, he quickly decided to stop the process because of the administrative hardship it would bring; the two parts of Tussenstad would have to be split between the three mayors IvanLeshev, hprick and Appelsaus_. Also, the wiki would have to be split up, which would be a lot of work, since Tussenstad has one of the largest wiki pages of any city in Freedonia.
International Conflicts
May 2018
Slowly starting in February to May 2018, a small town named Lemonaid Town appeared next to Snaketown. Lemonaid actively blocked off Snaketown, acted aggressively to Snaketown leaders, and with the leader of Lemonaid Town leader refusing talk to snakyman, Snaketown saw this as an act of aggression. Only when the conflict started involving grief raids did the BenEm leaders started to get involved. Forceful diplomatic actions were taken against the residents of Lemonaid Town, which resulted in many bans of members of the New American Empire.
1posa1 founded the New American Empire on the 17th of May, 2018 as an opponent to BenEm. In the Lemonaid Town Incursion, members of the NAE griefed Snaketown multiple times. After a long conflict, with snakyman going back and forth repairing grief in his town, the conflict was settled by the staff, giving the territory to Snaketown and the BenEm. This marked the downfall of Lemonaid Town and the New American Empire. Lemonaid Town is now a monument that was later given to 
witchy1000. Despite this, to this day, Snaketown is still one of the most frequently griefed settlements.
Marinian Era
May 18th - July 22nd, 2018
On the 18th of May, 2018, one day before BenEm's one-year anniversary, hprick joined 
kittyfreak500 to help build Sandmore. Sandmore was in its earliest stages, being founded only the day before, thus hprick joining skyrocheted Sandmore's growth, (and started BenEm involvement in the area). Therefore, the 18th of May marks the beginning of the Marinian Era. Over the next few weeks Sandmore expanded heavily as the centre of the Kingdom Of Marinia, with several new towns such as Watermore and Conquest Island. Since Sandmore was part of the Benjamese Empire at the time, this era marks great growth for the Empire again, after a period of stagnation and complicated conflicts. The Kingdom Of Marinia functioned as a remote outpost of BenEm, keeping itself out of BenEm's political control.
hprick eventually moved back to Benjaminstad in late June, due to the rapid development of high rise buildings there. More information about the subject is on the BenjaminStad wiki page.
The Kingdom of Marinia officially left BenEm on the 22nd of July, 2018, due to a dispute between a few BenEm leaders, marking the end of Marinian Era.
Shrinking of the Empire
July 23rd - September 30th, 2018
On the 23rd of July, 2018, Tussenstad and Isfiskholt and their respective governments decided to split themselves from the centralized BenEm government, effectively leaving the Empire, just like the Kingdom Of Marinia had done the day before. The leaving of Tussenstad can be attributed to other internal disputes. The independence of Tussenstad and Isfiskholt took away 2 of the Empire's key contributors, ( hprick and IvanLeshev) and a very active and innovative town. With this loss, another city started just to the east of Tussenstad; Oldville was born. Oldville functioned as a BenEm outpost on the lake to the east of Tussenstad and as a strategic place to keep an eye on Tussenstad. However Oldville declared independence of the Empire on the 30th of July, 2018, only to join back on the 31st of July.
Revival of Connections
September 30th, 2018
On the 30th of September, the leaders of Tussenstad, prompted by 
Johngi, held a meeting with the (former) BenEm leaders to talk about international relations. Based on this meeting, IvanLeshev and Appelsaus_ decided to rejoin BenEm and Tussenstad. Later this day, hprick agreed to rejoin Isfiskholt as well, completing the reunification of the Empire.
Forrrestian Era
October 1st 2018 - April 2019
After the reunification, the central Empire did not see any major growth. In this time, Oldville saw the most substantial Batavian expansion, but even Oldville eventually stagnated. Some progress was made on downtown KSCity every now and then, but no new turf was added to the Batavian territory. In these times, most of BenEm's contributors had been working abroad or simply not working at all. Also, for the first time in a long time, the population of the Central Empire saw a steep decline.
Much of the activity of the active BenEm members slowly shifted to the Forrrest area, since Snaketown was growing a lot at the time. This influx of the central forces of the Empire propelled Snaketown into a period of growth. This growth of the Snaketown area steadily continued for months, making 
Snakyman the main driving force in the Empire.
This shift of activity also made infrastructure construction the main export product of the Empire, mostly thanks to the Freedonia Road Co.. This company also turned New Snak City into a major city in the Empire. This was seen in activity of BenEm workers like hprick shifting to New Snak City.
Times of Politics
April 9th - May 2019
On the 9th of April, hprick and BenjaminBsuper proposed the infamous 15%-bill. It gave the Empire's nobles power to collectively shift the outcome of a vote by 15%. The idea was to give the nobles more power, since they are and have been more influential and important for the Batavian heart of the Empire than the other members of the Senate. This sparked an enormous discussion about how the system of voting in the Empire should work. We have yet to see what change this will result in.
Expansion of the centre
May 2019
In late April and early May of 2019, the idea of a general Benjamese Harbor north of BenjaminStad was created by hprick. The plan was approved and IvanLeshev and hprick started working on it rapidly. After a week the general structure was finished. The progress on the harbor sparked a lot of innovation in the entire area and soon 
johngi and hprick started working out plans to construct an open square in downtown BenjaminStad with connections to the new harbour to make the centre less chaotic. The harbor area is meant to be the new expansion centre of the Empire.
After the expansion to the harbor, more infrastructure projects were started, improving Benjaminstad roads, bridges and tunnels. (Of course, infrastructure has been one of the key export products of the Empire for a long time: institutions like the MIA and Tussenstad Enterprises predate Freedonia Road Co. by a long time, but none of them have ever been as neatly organised and effective as Freedonia Road Co.)
Some builds that stem from this area are:
- Freedonia General Assembly (Snaketown)
- Isle of Snak (Snaketown area)
- Freedonia Road Co. HQ (New Snak City)
- Great Northwestern Highway (from the mainland via New Snak City to Snaketown
- Cliffside Box Hotel (New Snak City)
Death
May 2019 - May 2020
The Empire had no growth during this time. BenjaminBsuper appears to have left, along many of the leaders. snakyman was banned. BenEm seemed to be dead. However, at the end of this era, snakyman was unbanned....
New Order - United States of Freedonia
May 2020 - Present
BenEm showed no signs of revival until snakyman, recently unbanned, decided to renovate the old BenEm Meeting Center. It was built as an embassy for the empire, and it turned into the temporary headquarters. The temporary headquarters seems to have become the permanent headquarters after the main headquarters was never completed. The Freedonian Imperial Federation was founded to be a United Nations-like organization, based loosely on the Star Wars Empire. Using his noble rank, snakyman annexed all of the BenEm territories into the Freedonian Imperial Federation, and from its ashes, rose a new empire. It later merged with the Bedrocco Empire to make the United States of Freedonia.
Rules
- All towns that are in the Benjamese Empire will be become allies of each other.
- All the treaties that are entered by BenjaminStad apply to the members and citizens of towns of the Benjamese Empire (except UFBP; see United Flarentian Powers )
- All players that are banned from BenjaminStad are banned from the Benjamese Empire
BenEm Leaders
Mayor of BenjaminStad - Founder and the head (aka Emperor) of BenEm.
Mayor of Tussenstad - Key contributor of Tussenstad.
Mayor of Tussenstad - Universal helper and important contributor of several BenEm cities. Infrastructure professional.
Mayor of Tussenstad and Isfiskholt - Innovator of the Empire, designing and creating many new buildings. Infrastructure professional.
Mayor of KSCity - Former active member of BenEm, the founder of KSCity.
Mayor of Grifftopia - One of BenEm's best builders, the founder of Grifftopia
Mayor of TwanStad - Non-active member, the founder of TwanStad.
Mayor of Merchilles - One of BenEm's best builders, the founder of Merchilles
Mayor of Greenhaven Village - Non-active member, the founder of Greenhaven Village
Non-active member.
Mayor and founderof Snaketown and New Snak City - Another very active member, the Chairman of the BenEm Senate.
Mayor of Pallet Town - One of Ivan's friend's, founder of Pallet Town
Mayor of Numington Town - One of Ivan's friends, founder of Numington Town.
Mayor of Silver Lake - Another Ivan's friend, founder of Silver Lake.
Representative of New Kanal Town
Exulted High Lord Dictator of Lemonaid Town (a territory of Snaketown. Ranks low in BenEm)
Original Ambassador of the Empire, City Planner and founder/owner of Winterstad
Slime_tiger - Founded Boat to get a chair in BenEm Meeting Center’s Waluigi Meeting Room
RPS_DA_BEAR - Founder of BearTown
Shatlantis
The BenEm Meeting Center, AKA Shatlantis, is a facility in Snaketown that had a room for every BenEm staff member as of 1/15/18. It now is the home of the Freedonian Imperial Federation. It functions as a meeting centre, embassy and general place for leaders to hang out. There is a large dome above the common room, and a meeting room. It is nicknamed Shatlantis because it is governed by BenjaminBsuper who has IBS (also because when making the dome it looked like there was poop all over it - see image below). The meeting centre is being expanded with a massive meeting hall that could fit more people than the server could handle.
Expansion
The BenEm Meeting Center was expanded upon hugely in late 2018. The Waluigi Meeting Room was finally completed, giving the complex a use. The main expansion was the Freedonia General Assembly, which is the meeting place for development board meetings and Senate meetings.
Another Expansion
During the New Order, the complex was fitted to have imperial architecture. All of the staff rooms were repurposed, except for hprick because he is the only one who built something nice in his room.
Shatlantis being built
Shatlantis dome when completed
