Science & Sci-Fi in Second Life!

[cljohnston]

Downloaded Second Life about a month ago, and I'm having a total blast!
I'd been hearing about it for years, but always thought it'd probably be something lame — not worth the HD space.

Well, the first thing I did in-world was visit the International Spaceflight Museum...

Then I started searching out all things Sci-Fi!
Let me tell you — there's lots of neat stuff in here!

The Babylon 5 Experience is creating the entire station (in about 1/8 scale), and they were about halfway done when I toured the sim.
They've already got the Zocalo, a working Core Shuttle (the view is amazing!) and Cobra Bays where you can launch in a Starfury or Thunderbolt!
JMS was given a tour in August, and he was most impressed. Reading the chat transcript of his visit was cool: He made one comment I'll always remember, while he was riding the elevator between levels: "You know, the one on the set didn't actually move — so technically this is my first ride." He gave his full blessing for them to continue. How cool is that!

There are a couple of Stargate sims which have the Gate room and control area modeled, but Stargate Central Command has the entire Cheyenne Mountain Complex — with 28 levels! They also have Atlantis.

There are several areas devoted to Firefly, like Firefly's Bar, Hale's Moon, and Washtown. Several versions of Firefly-class transports exist, in a wild variety of detail.

For Star Wars & Star Trek, there's Little Mos Eisley & United Federation Starfleet, to name just a couple.

There are several cool builds with a Blade Runner-esque feel to them, like Devil's Moon, S.I.C. #49, and Hangars Liquides, but my favorite (in ALL of Second Life) is InSilico.

Here's a great video tour!

I'm putting together a Flickr photostream with all the cool Sci-Fi I'm finding, but right now it's all InSilico images.

SF in SL - a set on Flickr

And there's a whole lot more than this!
I tell you, SL is the best free download since Orbiter!

 

[JamesG]

careful you can burn days and days wandering around in SL...

 

[C3PO]

I'd been hearing about it for years, but always thought it'd probably be something lame — not worth the HD space.

.... and you were absolutely correct.:lol:

SL is a 3D version of the internet, but with a much higher BS-ratio.

 

[cljohnston]

.... and you were absolutely correct.:lol:

Apparently I wasn't.

 

[pete.dakota]

I never really got SL. I mean, it's not an MMO. What do you actually do? I imagine it to be like the 3D VR internet in Futurama.

 

[Ghostrider]

SL is a kind of sandbox virtual environment with social network characteristics. It's not actually a "game".

 

[cljohnston]

SL is a kind of sandbox virtual environment with social network characteristics. It's not actually a "game".

Actually, there's a great deal of RPG going on, and various combat systems that allow you to give and take damage.

 

[Ghostrider]

Actually, there's a great deal of RPG going on, and various combat systems that allow you to give and take damage.

Then they must have got their act together recently. Last time I checked it was mostly one enormous ad space.

 

[cljohnston]

Then they must have got their act together recently. Last time I checked it was mostly one enormous ad space.

Oh, people are figuring out all manner of nifty things to do! (You guys did read past the first couple sentences of my OP, right?)
You can build a car and race it on a track, for one thing.
They even have their own version of NASCAR... SLASCAR!

Check out that Int'l Spaceflight Museum I told about at the top, I think you'll be impressed.
It's got full-scale replicas of every rocket flown, including the Saturn V on its crawler, and the VAB, etc.

There's also a lot of aviation in SL, with Aeronautica having the nicest quality.

One guy even used SL to demonstrate how a jet engine works (although his modeling skills leave a little to be desired)

Aviatrix :: Zoe Connolly

 

[JamesG]

Its a user created environment. Linden Labs created (is creating) the basic virtual environment and tools to allow users to create objects AND the scripted programming to control their operation and behaviors.

So the "Game" of SL is to think of something to build and then creating it. Then selling it to other users. So you can do pretty much anything you can think of in SL, or find someone who has already done it. Some of it is pretty wierd (and freaky), and just like in RL or the wider Internet you have criminals and jerks who have to ruin whatever they can, but alot of it is extremely impressive.

Oh, but one limitation is that the SL "grid", the virtual environment, is "ground focused". You can fly above the ground and even build titanic spacecraft, but if you get to high or to fast the simulation breaks down, the geometric shapes begin to lose cohesion and you get serious lag from jumping from region to region (which are all run on separate servers). In other words, you can't go into orbit around the SL "world".

 

[cljohnston]

Thanks for the help, brother James!

 

[Ghostrider]

There are also PIs in SL. Wonder if my license is valid there too.