What is a Word Worth?
Nova.
It's an average December day; the year is 2013. Snow is busy accumulating outside; my mother is out shopping; I'm snacking on Christmas cookies and watching YouTube. Amid my subscriptions is one channel in particular: ExplodingTNT. It's Saturday, so there should be a new video from him today. Sure enough, upon loading his channel, a new video is displayed in the top row. The Nova - Minecraft Server (1.7.2). I click the video without any hesitation--it's a new server! I've never played on a Minecraft multiplayer server before, so this looks awfully appealing. A strange rush of adrenaline overcomes me, and I join the server. Funny, isn't it? How a seemingly-insignificant action can change your entire future. Ah, the butterfly effect.
The word "nova" is typically attributed to astronomy; namely, a "star which suddenly increases in brightness before fading." In 1572, astronomer Tycho Brahe observes a constellation now known as Cassiopeia. He details his observations in his book, De nova stella, which is Latin for concerning the new star. This induces widespread usage of the term "nova" in relation to space.
July 2014. I've immersed myself in Nova's community; in fact, I'm currently #2 on the forum likes leaderboards! A couple of my friends, RoastMeats and Kidred (online usernames) were recently promoted to the staff rank. We've been having a lot of fun messing around on the Prison sub-server and I've been getting very invested in PvP (player vs. player). Another friend has introduced me to a server called Kohi, which is a potion PvP server. Today, though, I'm not home. I'm actually in Wisconsin for the weekend with my family, so I haven't been able to play for the last few days. I'm keeping up on Skype and the forums, so at least I know what's going on--but I still feel this strong sense of deprivation from my "online family". The new game mode was released a few days ago; I can't wait to play it nonstop when I return home! Roast tells me that it's a lot of fun. Anyway, I've gotta sleep. We're checking out of the hotel pretty early tomorrow. See ya.
"Nova" makes me think of "supernova", which is a strong stellar explosion. These things--novas--are events, really. They're beautifully disastrous ones, at that. We can usually observe these stellar (heh) phenomena from afar, but should one happen within a close enough proximity to Earth, scientists estimate that at least half of our ozone layer would be destroyed. Space is a pretty entropic place (yes, that was another pun).
April 20, 2019. Nova is closing today, five-and-a-half years after its debut. I'm experiencing the full color palette of emotion. I'm currently on call with Roast and Kidred--the tears are threatening to make way down my cheeks. Man, it's been a while. Everyone's on the server right now; we're all swapping memories of the golden era of the server. Good times. Heh. I remember when Kidred was promoted to server admin--essentially the most powerful position--and we ran the "event" server. That was fun. I remember when Roast and I got promoted as staff, and we spent the following summer goofing around in Skype calls. I remember being in Duluth the weekend I was promoted--I communicated my excitement through my MacBook Pro from my hotel room. I haven't even mentioned the infamous rants that were ignited by me and my friends. It's funny, both Kidred and I had major "rants" posted on our birthdays. Then there was 2016, when I was a full-throttle Kohi player. I'm pretty good at PvP now, y'know. At my peak, I'm probably top 100 skill-wise, but I haven't actively PvP'd in years, so that's kind of moot anyway. Roast, or Tom as I now know him, is my best friend. It blows my mind how someone on the internet is my best friend, and more or less has been for six years. And to think: none of this would've happened if I never joined a Minecraft server called Nova.
It's an average December day; the year is 2013. Snow is busy accumulating outside; my mother is out shopping; I'm snacking on Christmas cookies and watching YouTube. Amid my subscriptions is one channel in particular: ExplodingTNT. It's Saturday, so there should be a new video from him today. Sure enough, upon loading his channel, a new video is displayed in the top row. The Nova - Minecraft Server (1.7.2). I click the video without any hesitation--it's a new server! I've never played on a Minecraft multiplayer server before, so this looks awfully appealing. A strange rush of adrenaline overcomes me, and I join the server. Funny, isn't it? How a seemingly-insignificant action can change your entire future. Ah, the butterfly effect.
The word "nova" is typically attributed to astronomy; namely, a "star which suddenly increases in brightness before fading." In 1572, astronomer Tycho Brahe observes a constellation now known as Cassiopeia. He details his observations in his book, De nova stella, which is Latin for concerning the new star. This induces widespread usage of the term "nova" in relation to space.
July 2014. I've immersed myself in Nova's community; in fact, I'm currently #2 on the forum likes leaderboards! A couple of my friends, RoastMeats and Kidred (online usernames) were recently promoted to the staff rank. We've been having a lot of fun messing around on the Prison sub-server and I've been getting very invested in PvP (player vs. player). Another friend has introduced me to a server called Kohi, which is a potion PvP server. Today, though, I'm not home. I'm actually in Wisconsin for the weekend with my family, so I haven't been able to play for the last few days. I'm keeping up on Skype and the forums, so at least I know what's going on--but I still feel this strong sense of deprivation from my "online family". The new game mode was released a few days ago; I can't wait to play it nonstop when I return home! Roast tells me that it's a lot of fun. Anyway, I've gotta sleep. We're checking out of the hotel pretty early tomorrow. See ya.
"Nova" makes me think of "supernova", which is a strong stellar explosion. These things--novas--are events, really. They're beautifully disastrous ones, at that. We can usually observe these stellar (heh) phenomena from afar, but should one happen within a close enough proximity to Earth, scientists estimate that at least half of our ozone layer would be destroyed. Space is a pretty entropic place (yes, that was another pun).
April 20, 2019. Nova is closing today, five-and-a-half years after its debut. I'm experiencing the full color palette of emotion. I'm currently on call with Roast and Kidred--the tears are threatening to make way down my cheeks. Man, it's been a while. Everyone's on the server right now; we're all swapping memories of the golden era of the server. Good times. Heh. I remember when Kidred was promoted to server admin--essentially the most powerful position--and we ran the "event" server. That was fun. I remember when Roast and I got promoted as staff, and we spent the following summer goofing around in Skype calls. I remember being in Duluth the weekend I was promoted--I communicated my excitement through my MacBook Pro from my hotel room. I haven't even mentioned the infamous rants that were ignited by me and my friends. It's funny, both Kidred and I had major "rants" posted on our birthdays. Then there was 2016, when I was a full-throttle Kohi player. I'm pretty good at PvP now, y'know. At my peak, I'm probably top 100 skill-wise, but I haven't actively PvP'd in years, so that's kind of moot anyway. Roast, or Tom as I now know him, is my best friend. It blows my mind how someone on the internet is my best friend, and more or less has been for six years. And to think: none of this would've happened if I never joined a Minecraft server called Nova.
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