Lighthouse

White Point Light, commonly known as simply The Lighthouse, is a coastal lighthouse erected at Club Penguin's Beach. Many ships have been saved by the flashing gleam of the Lighthouse's beacon, which points the safest way into the Port and Dock. A cultural icon, the Lighthouse attracts many visitors, especially due to its association with island music and band concerts.

History
The Lighthouse has had a long history of renovations, beginning in the '90s, during Colonial Antarctica.

Colonial Antarctica
The earliest documented lighthouse established at the Beach was a primitive stone tower, 20 feet high, with a blazing fire at the top. Historians generally agree that this lighthouse was built by ninjas to mark the island.

When the Club settled Club Penguin, they painstakingly improved upon the ninjas' handiwork and took the tower to a new height of 80 feet. (Simultaneous construction on White Point Dock slowed down the process.) By the time Penguin Chat was established, a brighter, oil-based lamp and a few lenses and mirrors made the newly-named the Lighthouse a sight to behold. It was then that the lighthouse made a name for itself, as supply ship crews soon discovered that the shoals and reefs surrounding Penguin Chat were particularly treacherous.

Penguin Chat
In 2004, the economy boomed, and up went the SABER. Penguin Chat, on its way to becoming a bustling port city, was under large amounts of pressure to modernize and replace its puny dock with a heftier port. The Lighthouse was the beginning of the switch-over. With the new nautical traffic came an increased need to steer sailors away from danger. Once more the sound of jackhammers and construction crews was heard at White Point.

The new Lighthouse was nothing less than a masterpiece. Completed in ten months, the Lighthouse now loomed over the island at a staggering 350 feet (that's over thirty stories high!). The new Beacon was powered by a newfangled, 2500-watt incandescent lamp, and could be seen 30 miles out to sea, rain or shine. A telescope had been installed for finding wayward ships. Diagonal red and white stripes ran down the sides of the cylindrical building, the lighthouse's signature through color, its daymark. The Club (the presiding government at the time) was absolutely sure this new structure would light Penguin Chat's way into the new future.

But all those dreams were swiftly crushed. Just a week after the Lighthouse was completed, a devastating storm surprised the island with battering downpours (rain that was not to be seen again until 2010) and colossal waves. Against the construction workers' advice, the Club neglected to stabilize the Lighthouse in any fashion, and it came back to bite them in the leg.

Wave after pounding wave smashed the walls of the Lighthouse. The paint began to wear off, and the residents looked on solemnly as the glass windows shattered, one by one. Water and sea spray began to flood the interior. There were pumps, but the keeper had fled the building hours before. The great tower began to flood. In twenty minutes, the water level had swollen to waist-deep, and the Beacon was flickering. In an hour, the underground power cables malfunctioned, and the light was gone from the Lighthouse.

At last, the storm subsided. What was left was a ruined wreck. The tower still stood, but the lamp did not shine, the paint was worn, the windows were shattered, and the stairs were rusted. White Point Light was abandoned, and government spending went elsewhere.

Club Penguin
The Lighthouse remained forgotten for two years, until late 2006. By this time, Club Penguin now had its current name, the servers were up, and EBUL and the membership plan was slowly, but steadily, gaining power. The moderators decided that it was high time to rebuild the Lighthouse. A substitute lighthouse had already been set up at Deacon Peak on the B servers, but the moderators wanted the Lighthouse to be open to the public on all servers, to serve as another community center.

EBUL, however, did not consent to the usage of government funding for the project. While the Moderators had the power (at the time) to force EBUL into compliance, they chose to avoid conflict and turn to the Masses. A donation fund was set up, allowing penguins from all walks of life to help fund the renovation of White Point Light. As a reward, participants were given red-and-white striped shirts, similar to the Lighthouse's former daymark.

Construction began immediately. The communities of Club Penguin pitched in to rebuild the once glorious Lighthouse. New paint was applied. Windows were repaired. Stairs and cables were ripped out and replaced. Finally, a month or two later, the newly appointed keeper ascended the stairs and threw the switch. The Lighthouse cast a warm yellow glow, its beam (now powered with solar energy) shining outwards to sea. The lighthouse had been restored.

Involvement
Today, the Lighthouse is one of Club Penguin's most valuable assets. As a functional lighthouse, it is an essential marker that ships use to find the safest path into port. As a community center, it is a gathering place for many penguins to have fun with each other.

BCP
In the B servers, the Lighthouse is an essential marker of Club Penguin and a signal warning sailors of dangerous waters ahead. Pairing up with Deacon Peak Light, built on the Ski Hill, the two form a pair of leading lights that help guide sailors to the shore safely.

Just off the coast of the island, around the area Aqua Grabber pilots call Soda Seas, is a battery of battered coral reefs. The area is known as Ruby Reef, due to the pink stain left swirling in the waters by a recent (and massive) Cream Soda spill. Around the area Aqua Grabber pilots call Clam Waters is a dangerous maze of shifting sandbars, known as Sapphire Shoals, due to the deceivingly dark blue waters. Uncountable shipwrecks have occurred around Ruby Reef and Sapphire Shoals combined, and mariners call the coast of Club Penguin "The South Sea Cemetery".

Only one path winds safely through the gap between Ruby Reef and Sapphire Shoals, and the Lighthouse and Deacon Peak Light point this path out. The two lighthouses form a line that runs straight through the gap, and sailors use the flashing lights of each lighthouse's beacon to avoid straying off the path.

Deacon Peak Light was formerly a substitute for the Lighthouse while it was out of service (2004-2006). It has a completely red paint job and a red light, to distinguish it from the Lighthouse. Deacon Peak Light is placed on the Ski Hill to elevate it above the Lighthouse, and the two are lined up such that if a ship strays to the left of their line, Deacon Peak Light appears to be to the left of the Lighthouse (and vice versa). This allows sailors to correct their courses and head straight on towards Club Penguin.

TCP
In the T servers, the Lighthouse is a major tourist attraction, along with the Beach.

The interior is filled with pictures of island events, nautical equipment and supplies, and a stage. The Lighthouse is well known for being Club Penguin's unofficial concert center. Small community bands come here to perform on various servers, garnering audiences as large as hundreds of penguins. A small instrument stand operated by EBUL sells instruments of all varieties to aspiring musicians.

At the Beacon, an observatory deck hosts the minigame Jet Pack Adventure and a telescope, often used to spot Rockhopper's ship, the Migrator. Migrator is one of the few ships that do not use the Lighthouse-Deacon-Peak Range to guide their course into Club Penguin waters. Rockhopper is too familiar with Sapphire Shoals and Ruby Reef to need additional guidance.

BCP
In the B servers, the centerpiece of the Lighthouse is a large electric motor that rotates the Beacon lamp. Other than that, there is little else inside, besides the large array of cables that sneak their way to the Beacon to power the lamp. Crates filled with Port equipment are sometimes found stacked around the walls.

TCP
The Lighthouse in the T servers are very different from the ones in the B servers. Unlike the lighthouse in the B servers, the area is untidy with stacks of chairs about to fall and Cream Soda barrels frequently exploding (due to the way they are stacked). A stage for band concerts is placed in one corner. Fishing equipment (buoys, nets, boats, etc.) and instruments are scattered around the walls. Pictures hang above the stairway to the Beacon.

Gizmos and Gimmicks
The Lighthouse is powered by a solar farm located somewhere in the Northern Mountains. Cables run underground to the lighthouse, up through the walls, and end at the Beacon, where they power the lamp, flare launcher, fog horn, and additional automated systems. During winter, storms and solar eclipses, batteries (that are charged by the solar panels) power the Lighthouse. The exact inner workings of the Lighthouse vary between servers.

BCP
The Lighthouse's interior in BCP is dominated by a large electrical motor, which rotates the Beacon's lamp (rotational velocity: 60 RPM) so that its concentrated beam sweeps across the horizon. The Beacon's lamp itself contains mirrors and a sixth-order Fresnel lens to focus the light (which, in BCP, is generated by a heavily protected xenon arc lamp) into a beam. The beam can be seen by ships for nearly 30 miles out to sea, well enough for mariners to correct their courses before grounding on a reef or sandbar.

In addition to the souped-up lamp, the Lighthouse boasts a computerized flare launcher (used when the weather may blot out the lamplight), a super-loud fog horn (designed by G himself), a radio transceiver, an elevator to the top, and an underground bunker, used as living quarters for the Lighthouse Keeper.

TCP
The Lighthouse lacks any fancy schmancy thingamadoodles in TCP. There is a fourth-order Fresnel lens installed, but the lamp is not rotated. All the Lighthouse has is the radio transceiver, the elevator, and the underground bunker. This is done to maximize the space in the lighthouse that can be used for community events.

The Keeper
The position of Keeper of the Lighthouse is a highly valued one in the island. The Lighthouse is revered as a life-saving landmark by mariners, and thus the mandate to uphold the operation of the lighthouse is never taken lightly.



The office of Keeper has life tenure, and as part of the agreements, EBUL is forced to give the holder tax benefits for as long as they hold the position. In turn, the Keeper must be a member and be found worthy of the job by all the Moderators.

Keepers of the Lighthouse exist on all servers and are given more duties than the mechanical consoles. Always sticklers for tradition, especially nautical traditions, Club Penguin has put its lighthouse(s) in the hands of flesh-and-blood puffles more than it has in computers. In fact, the Lighthouse could function manually if all high tech systems, even the electricity, failed- and this has been done several times. If the Keeper died on the job, though, ships would be in serious trouble, because the computers and machines are expected to be constantly monitored by the Keeper.

Trivia

 * The Lighthouse's fog horn is designed to attract attention. It has been compared to all the keys (and pedals) on an organ being pressed simultaneously, while a crazed lunatic is warping and bending the pipes with his bare hands and shrieking loudly in the midst of a terrible thunderstorm.
 * Sometimes, the Lighthouse transforms into a hospital for both penguins and puffles.
 * ADD MORE!