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So, here we are. 2020. A new decade, and a promising first step into the future of Chaotic United. For those of you who might be knew, you probably aren't familiar with all the rich history that this community has under its belt. There's a LOT more that went on besides what I'll detail here, but this post will mainly focus on a specific period of time in the community, from February 4, 2014 (technically Feb. 7 in terms of public launching), all the way through August 2016. During that time, a community called Nuclear District was hanging around. Some of you may or may not have heard mention of ND during your time here. Whether this is your first time hearing of them or not - that community plays a large part in why we are here today. Before we can dive deeper into ND, we have to talk about the old Chaotic United. The Old Chaotic United The term "Old CU" refers to the community as it was between April 26, 2011 and early 2014. The exact dates aren't entirely locked down in terms of when the closure of old CU happened due to the way it shut down. But, in essence, what happened is that the owner at the time (named Killerteddy) was found to be abusing donation money. He left it to Nuke (Atomicbeast101) to pay the server bills while he did... something. He essentially vanished for several months without a trace. Upon his return, Nuke was denied a refund for the money he spent from his own wallet to keep CU afloat in Teddy's absence - followed by Teddy threatening to shut down the MC server entirely. After that, Nuke and the other staff of CU left - to create Nuclear District. Nuclear District - And Beyond ND kept the legacy of CU alive all the way through to mid-2016, where they finally shut their doors. After many long years, those honorable folk were simply tired. They were done with the community management stuff and wished to move on with their lives. After all - nobody could do this forever. Had we not been around at that time, that would've been it. The end of the Chaotic United story. A simple footnote in time, gone out with a whimper. But of course - we're still here. The "New CU" (which is from September 2014 onward) was around at that point, and in mid-2015 we merged with ND. Because of that, we were able to have the torch formally passed down to us. Originally, the relationship between the new CU and ND was not a friendly one. But as time passed, they came to understand our goals - and in some cases, even respect the sheer willpower and determination to press forward after all these years. Part of our mission has been to always ensure that the work done by those people back then doesn't go unappreciated. To ensure that future generations of CU players at least have some knowledge of who the "founding fathers" were, so to speak. And for us, our commitment to honoring the legacy of Nuclear District in particular has always been one of the ways we do that. But you may recall - the past few years we've kind of shown all the history. We've shown all the old server files, created an archive of past websites, polished old topics, and preserved an incredibly large portion of ND. There isn't much more to really showcase or talk about. That being said, we did have one idea this year - an idea that's a bit different. The general premise was: "what would the ND forums look like today had they not closed down?". Now of course, it's merely an interpretation of what it could've looked like. I didn't design the websites and stuff for ND - Nuke did. I could've gotten him to work on it perhaps, but he's got enough on his plate - and I wanted to try and tackle this myself. So, without further adieu - feast your eyes upon the newest addition to the forums theme list: Nuclear District - 2020! You can access this theme right now by checking the Theme menu in the forums footer. If you're on the default 2019 theme, it'll be towards the bottom left above the footer links. Oh, you need to be convinced to check it out? Well, have a glance at a few screenshots: The design was influenced heavily by the style of the unreleased 2016 homepage design, with a handful of liberties taken. As you'll notice, it's built off the current CU 2019 theme and shares a virtually unchanged layout from that theme. After all - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. On top of that, for some of you this theme may appeal for a different reason - this is currently the first dark theme based on the new forums design. For those who want a proper CU dark theme, don't sweat it. It's on the way. I can't give exact dates since I am somewhat occupied with both a job and Elaztek Studios, but it will come. I don't know if we'll have much to do next year, though. We've kind of run out of things we can do. Don't be too surprised if this is the last "major" ND event for a bit - potentially for the foreseeable future. There's only so much history you can pull back up before you run out. And I'd say that's a good problem to have. The vast majority of ND's legacy has been preserved to what I consider to be a fairly sufficient degree. All forum posts can still be found, all website designs can be seen still, and most of the Minecraft stuff is still safe and sound as well. Unlike the old CU, a lot more care was taken to retain archives for ND. Either way, for now - enjoy this theme! This theme was a little bit rushed - so there may be a few bugs here or there. If you spot any, please report them! Otherwise, enjoy this little glimpse into what could've been.