Like with absolutely zero irony I think the meta-narrative of Minecraft and its updates is actually really cool.
Early minecraft is… lonely. Frankly all solo versions of the game are, even many updates later, but early on far more so. There’s an emptiness to this world that the soundtrack speaks to perfectly, and much as this frees you to build and structure the world as much as you want it also creates a sense of profound isolation. I really think that’s where the creepypasta of Herobrine came from, in part- the reflex to look for other people the same way an eye in total darkness begins to imagine shapes and movement purely of the sense there has to be something there.
But this pliant, forsaken world of the early updates grows and changes. And as it grows, it becomes less and less unwise to our intrusion. To evoke the gripping language of Kitty Horrorshow’s Anatomy, there is a distinction between dissection and vivisection, and as the world of Minecraft is developed further we pitch deeper and deeper into the latter.
There was a time you could walk into the blank oceans of this world and be untroubled by anything- swim or boat for miles or even just lurk shy of shore and no monster could reach you. No longer.
There was a time when the Nether was a blasted, vacant wasteland of a single biome occupied with a handful of strange creatures but most of all the mindless husks of a people we had no sign of survivors from. No longer.
There was a time the villagers were helpless but for their golem guardians and every living person you encountered was no threat at all; no longer.
And now, with the deep dark update, the ultimate takeaway is that even the bleakest part of the world, the fine line of bedrock between world and true void- is becoming hungry, becoming awake.
These things are not entirely good news for us; it means more adversity, if more opportunity as well. But can we truly call that evil? Life is returning- or maybe even moving into where it never was.
I have heard there is a new form of developing fungus that teaches itself how to eat radiation; perhaps, too, the reign of microplastics will only last so long as the world finds out how to sharpen a tooth against it.
No true silence in this world is permanent. All things grow veins in time.
