Nova (SLAJ)

Nova's logo.

Nova, codenamed SLAJ (for the developers: Seth, Lane, Arian, and Jod), was a Miiverse clone that began development in mid-2018, and was the competitor site to Indigo. It was written in Golang.

History

A beta of Nova was publicly released, with live posting, gif profile pictures, and barely anything else working, like user pages and settings.

Nova's development experienced difficulties due to conflicts between the developers. Arian left the team, and Seth believed that Eric was not doing enough work. In addition, Seth felt that Eric's reputation would repel users from the site. As Indigo looked more promising, Seth messaged Ben offering to join the Indigo team if Indigo was rewritten in Golang, the language Nova was using.

Eventually, the developers for both sites decided to merge the clones together under Indigo's name and userbase. The Indigo logo was changed to look more space themed, and the i in the logo was changed to look more like a planet to pay homage to Nova.

Nova Deluxe

Nova Deluxe's logo.

Screenshot of the Nova rehost.

On June 15, 2021, a rehost of Nova was released by SMF9 under nova-the.great-site.net. The next day, a Twitter account (@Nova_MVC) was created, and the currently unknown owner of the account tweeted a trailer for the clone. On June 17, nova-the.great-site.net shut down, with a message revealing that it was a beta, and that it would be coming back on June 20. The Twitter account would post multiple images advertising the Miiverse clone, and would also follow over 100 different accounts, mostly made up of former Miiverse clone users.

On June 20, Nova was brought back under the same link at 9:00 AM PST. However, at around 12:00 PM PST, the domain for the site was suspended, which was met with mockery among former Miiverse clone users. The Twitter account stated that the clone would be brought back "as soon as possible", with a "new name, new look, and some new information [users would] like".

On June 21, at around 12:00 PM PST, Nova was brought back under the same link, though the site would display a 500 error message. The site was given a new name, "Nova Deluxe", along with a new logo. In addition, Pip became an administrator for the site. On Twitter, the Nova account began to argue with the users mocking the site. The site would be raided by multiple users, including the user MegaTheVile, who was banned by Pip for spamming the infamous goatse image. By June 22, Nova was suspended again. That day, the Twitter account stated that a "big reveal is in the works", with a "new logo" and a "new upgrade". It also stated that "important information" would be revealed exclusively on the site, which will be messaged to users upon joining. The account also stated that it would be shut down afterwards. During that day, many former clone users spoke negatively about the clone, with another account (@windmilllands, now deactivated) made specifically to bring the site down.

On June 23, Nova was brought back once again. The "important information" teased the day before turned out to be Adrian's name and address, messaged to all users by SMF9. On July 14, Nova was suspended once again after Term reported the domain for alleged porn spam.