On a particularly boring day last week I decided to simply fire up the ol' Stargate and see where a series of "/d Random" commands would take me. As the Stargate is pretty old technology on the grid, I figured the only places I would end up at would be older-than-dirt abandoned areas long forgotten by the pixels of time and barely worth a mention.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
/d Random
First stop took me to the Grayling Army Airfield (Grayling Airfield sim; 13, 128, 29). It's a nice little military base sim, with planes, bombers, and things of that nature. As I prefer the medieval past instead of that which is technologic, I only stayed for a short time and did a once over at the maximum range of my camera. The effort shows in the building of the sim, and appeared to be anything -but- an "abandoned place forgotten by the pixels."
/d Random
Stop #2 on my list of ten took me to Trinity Products and Defcon 1 (Amella sim; 34, 29, 128). After emerging on the floor above where the stargate was (not even the stargates are safe when you route teleporting to a set point), I had a look around to find that it was full of transformers and Star Trek things... mostly starships (some of which appear to be flyable versions).
The building also had a lot of barren land around it, making me wonder just how often it was visited. The sim itself looks barren on the world map, quite a bit off the nearest major road. Makes me wonder if they couldn't move it closer to the road so it could be seen by people who have the $L to spend, because they're -not- going to see it from the main road unless they're looking right at it.
/d Random
Off next to "Earth" (Dreamworld Gem sim; 83, 84, 22). It looked to be an office with a pretty neat teleporter effect they set up. But I ran into a dead end as the only way out seemed to be blocked by a large prim, so it was back to the gate after a very brief stay.
/d Random
Chronotis Sec at New Gallifrey (New Gallifrey sim; 161, 71, 3273) was by far the most impressive place I found on my travels. It looked like a bit of a Dr. Who museum, with a couple of doors off to one side of the landing point declaring "Beware of BOB." Naturally, I went straight for the doors.
Bob's a dinosaur. A Triceratops, to be exact. Unfortunately, I encountered him in a bit of a spot --- he'd ended up with his nose to the door I emerged from, and one of his hind legs had gotten caught in the rocks behind him... such is the fate of objects left "physical" in SL, I suppose.
I was VERY VERY impressed by the amount of work done on the area I did explore. The textures were amazing, and I smiled to myself as I found I'm not the only one to retexture both the outside -and- the inside of the "anywhere doors" used to get from one place to another.
5 Stars, hoards, or whatever. I would suggest going to see this build.
Dr. Who isn't my thing, so after about 20 minutes of looking around...
/d Random
My next stop was Fisher Island (Fisher Island sim; 192, 118, 3002). As it was 3000 meters in the sky I figured it was going to be some sort of hidden base or something just as interesting.
It wasn't. It was a flat featureless megaprim with a stargate. NEXT!
/d Random
I didn't stay very long at Vico (Vico sim; 200, 78, 701). I ended up on someone's build in the sky that was currently in progress, and they'd set a stargate out to accept random wanderers on the network. A quick hello, a quicker goodbye, and it was off again on my trips through the stargate network (double-checking my co-ords for these locations, I went back a few days later to find only empty air, resulting in a 700-meter skydive). Whee!
/d Random
It was off to the Rizzo sim (Rizzo sim; 48, 40, 501), which ended up a tiny shop in the sky, appropriately named the "Little Shop". This one had TWO stargates in close proximity to each other, so when I next triggered one, I'd trigger them both. The shop itself had a couple of vendors, but as they seemed to be Dr. Who vendors... yeah, time for me to "choose a gate". Triggering the stargates, one of them was about three times as slow on the rotations. I don't know why that is.
I tried triggering my home gate before hitting a random one --- only one succeeded, the other one shut down as "gate not found".
/d Random
I wound up at the campsite of the "civil barbarian" Aaron Kukulcan (Adeo sim; 20, 84, 38). This DID seem like an old spot to me and just had that "empty" vibe going. On the world map the area looks mostly undeveloped. It's on a small set of three private islands though, and who am I to judge... perhaps they wanted it mostly undeveloped wilderness as a nice and peaceful place to relax in.
Another two stargates, but the first choice lead directly into a packed sim (as in, 20 people near the landing point) with a sim name that sounded like it was a den of vampires. Not wanting to end up fed to the undead, I picked the second of the two gates.
/d Random
The result was the Destiny Isles, a solitary wilderness sim (Destiny Isles sim; 69, 153, 22). I laughed when I did a search a week later to find there is not only a Destiny Isle sim, but a Destiny Isles sim (with an s) as well.
It carried the "old" vibe, as if it hadn't been used in a while. Nothing spectacular to see here, unless you count the terraformed box canyon as part of "not being spectacular". It was the most creative use of terraforming I'd seen in a while and for a brief time considered doing it to my dragon cave and layering a megaprim over it as its roof. But since I have changed the appearance of my home four times in the last 5 weeks, I thought... nah.
Still, a very good job to the sim owner. The effort shows.
/d Random
My final stop ended up being a private residence, so I'm withholding the location.
Let me just say two words. Murphy's Law.
After that, I knew it was time to stop warping myself through space, time, and the grid, so I did a quick "/d wyv" and headed home.
So it does seem that not only is the stargate network not an abandoned piece of technology as I originally thought, but it is in fact thriving. You can get a free modifiable stargate at OS Labs over in Eternal Calm (210, 49, 22). It's about 125 prims though, so you'd better have room for it.
Xymbers Slade
Here in the Land of Giants at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Random/130/148/4018 you could fulfill that wish as the sim is created as if it was populated by giants. As you enter the sim you’ll see a large set of stairs and green arrows to lead you inside. To the right there’s a horse and carriage to ride around in. There’s a living room a little farther ahead where unless you have a giant avatar already you’re just the size of a squirrel or mouse compared to the massive pieces of furniture.
I sneaked through a tiny door filled with furniture made for small avatars like myself and there’s a huge pool table. Up above is a shiny ball of lights and glow dust that must be a small dance area. Also bumping into the pool balls moves them around like you’re kicking or pushing them forward with all your might. There’s also a TV screen which isn’t on a TV channel but instead it’s tuned into a NES game or Nintendo entertainment system. The game on the screen is super Mario bros. To add even more realism there’s a NES console sitting right there with a couple NES games. It’s just inviting you to play mega man or any other classic game.
