The Paragon

The Paragon was a 2b2t base that existed for approximately 1 year and 7 months before it was griefed in January 2018, and was notable for its extensive area coverage and association with the hyper-secret group base Valinor, as well as its association with Team Infrared and Emperium after it was abandoned by its original builders.

History of the Paragon
The Paragon was a large base on 2b2t that existed as a merger of two bases: Paragon and Cobbletown. Located under 100 kilometers south from spawn in the overworld, Cobbletown was originally founded by AlienAgent124 and Scully__ on May 28th, 2016, just four days before TheCampingRusher joined 2b2t and caused an influx of new players. The Paragon co-founders rpb7191 and Sage_Mathias, both members of Valinor, settled on a location for a smaller new base in July 2017, 12 months after rpb's previous base with sirms was griefed. After rpb had come up with the name Paragon, Sage's alt Max_Caruso and rpb underwent the construction of a basic shelter (in the form of a cottage) complete with mines and farms, but rpb took a break from 2b2t, eventually leaving the server altogether after pre-Rusher priority queue was removed. The base originally started with a large, double-lane road through the middle of the base. While undergoing construction of the road, Cobbletown was reached (no screenshots of Cobbletown still exist) and the two bases merged. Construction began to happen in larger increments, and buildings such as the +1 Extra Life Storage facility, and stables, which housed Sage_Mathias' mule Shifter's son and AlienAgent's horse Shifter, were built. Next, some other roads were built around the area and landscaped with petunias and oak leaves. A gatehouse was then built, along with additional roads running perpendicular to the main road. The roads were then expanded and the walls were built higher up for the entire length of the systems.

At this point, the Paragon banner was created, an orange cross on a white background. This was to symbolize the colors of the sandstone and acacia wood Sage_Mathias used to build everything that he created at the Paragon. Extensive tree farms were then created near the base, which were used to construct the Paragon Longhouse and library, which were then connected to the rest of what was becoming a large town. An immense amount of terrain was leveled close to the base, and the roads were built out as well as Orthanc Tower, a monument built close to the Paragon village. At this point, Sage_Mathias decided to end construction at the base, as all of the other members no longer played 2b2t. He went to the top of Orthanc tower and set flight with his elytra, flew over the south canal all the way to Sniper's Peaceful Island (a nearby base). There, he met Auchzezt, who gave him a replacement elytra. However, the next time Sage was online, he had to set out on foot, as Hausemaster had disabled elytra due to exploits. After returning to the Valinor megabase, ELVeng and Myne1001, two of Sage_Mathias' friends, visited Paragon. Weeks later, a player named Mr_Butterman was invited to Paragon, and built a large horse stable before eventually leaving.

At this point, Paragon was an empty base, and had no residents besides Drewbot9000 for a short period of time. At this time Team Infrared discovered the base and decided to inhabit it and redesign the Desert Temple, which inspired the theme of the base's sandstone and orange acacia wood architecture. Retronaux, the leader of Team Inferno, would invite members of his faction to base there and they began to migrate and build simple things. Sage_Mathias, the only active original Paragon builder, was back at Valinor at the time around December 2017. A few more Infrared/Inferno-associated visitors came and went, and then, unfortunately, things started to go badly for the base. A powerful group known as the Emperium had been secretly infiltrating the Team Infrared leadership, and when they saw Paragon as a base on their factions list they decided to target it. They came and blew up the Paragon not knowing it was founded by a completely seperate group of players, thinking it was a Team Infrared Base. This happened the week of January 5th, 2018. Sage decided to set a pearl at Valinor and head to spawn January 15th and after visiting the Beta Isles, built by kyle_rayner_ion, 0xymoron and itsyoungdaddy, he visited Paragon to see if it was still in mint condition. On the journey through the greater Spawn area, multiple connections with other 2b2t players were made, and Patrick_Sherlock of Goodwill Bazaar and Sage visited a sanctuary named Pumpkin King Farm, giving them a few items. When Sage finally got to Paragon on January 18, 2018, the previously large base was reduced to ashes by the Emperium leadership (jared2013 has taken credit for the grief). As of 2020, none of the original builders (Sage, rpb, AlienAgent and Scully) are still active on 2b2t.

Description
The Paragon was actually two bases: Paragon itself, a town made primarily from sandstone and acacia wood, situated between a desert and swamp, and Cobbletown, an older base made mostly from cobblestone and oak wood, which was in a plains biome to the south. The two bases were built in close proximity by accident and merged once they discovered each other.

Paragon was a collection of detailed, medium-sized buildings connected by cobblestone and dirt path roadways, each with a slightly different design scheme. A large sandstone roadway ran north to south through the middle of it. Cobbletown consisted of a few small buildings connected by dirt paths, plus a few large buildings, including an arena and a tower to the height limit. An underground hall and a large hole were located to the south.

Trivia

 * Contrary to popular belief, Paragon/Cobbletown was not built by Infrared, but rather a group of independent players that preceded them. The base was later discovered and occupied by team Infrared (called Inferno at the time) as they were given the impression by one of their members that he had built it himself, and it was later griefed by The Emperium, who thought the base had been founded by Inferno/infrared.
 * The first structure built at Cobbletown was created on May 28th of 2016, just four days before TheCampingRusher first joined.
 * Then, Sage_Mathias and rpb7191 came and developed the Paragon. The Paragon was indeed a beautiful base of its scale, especially with much of the construction being done solely by Sage_Mathias.