SciFi Con 16 Continues

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL Events
A panorama of a forested scene. On the left, a tall tan rock cliff stands. It has a water fall pouring down its face, vanishing into the bottom of the frame. A gray stone viaduct runs along the background from the right edge nearly to the cliff. At its left end there is a huge dragon skull. At the right, a woman with long white hair wearing a black bikini, a clear plastic raincoat with white cuffs, and heavy black knee boots looks to the left taking in the view.

I finished wandering through all nine regions of SciFi Con 16 yesterday. Usually, when I finish exploring an event, it has already gone past its scheduled end date and is living on borrowed time. For once, I’ve finished going through all the regions, shops, and exhibits, and there are still days to go! The con is scheduled to run through Tuesday the 4th of June. So, if you haven’t been yet, there is still plenty of time. Get out there!

Shockwave

A nighttime cityscape of several blocks seen from 30 meters or so above street level. The buildings have a late 20th century look to them. Some are brightly lit, others dark. The top of a tall, black building in the distant center has a large yellow orange and smaller, Mars like planet orbiting around it. The sky, fading from black above to purple at the horizon, is filled with a dense canopy of stars.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Shockwave/128/192/64
Sponsor: UFW
Creator: Kippy Numbers

Shops & Organizations

  • Unified Furry Wrestling
  • I.C.U. Photography
  • KC Fashion
  • Lazy Cats KittyCat Market
  • Jazabelle Boutique
  • Urban Boy
  • Red Rocket
  • Eclipse Ridge
  • Fawkes Landing
  • A Fine Grind
  • Second Life Exelsior
  • The Iceberg Lounge
  • Wrestlecorner
  • Decibel
  • Furry Wrestling Federation
  • The Astro Star
  • The Moonstone Studio
  • CODEZ
  • Supernation Comics
  • Savoy Ballroom
  • Whymsical Marketplace
  • The Library at the End of the Universe
  • Hall of Justice
  • SomeOne Stole My Sign
  • The Creatorverse
  • Wayne Enterprises
  • Pendragon Designs
  • Phoenix Ascending
  • Justice

At first glance, Shockwave is a perfectly ordinary late 20th century city getting through another night. Except, the night sky is filled with more stars than I’ve ever seen above Manhattan and some of the buildings are strangely… dynamic. They pulse and throb, swelling out laterally in sudden bursts and then contracting back to normal.

If that wasn’t odd enough, above one can see a pair of co-orbiting orange planets. But, they’re not some distant prospect up in the heavens. They are orbiting around the top of one of the buildings. Not everything is going normally here.

The theme of the region is announced at the entrances as “Heroes vs. Villains”. If that sounds superhero-ish, it is. There are quite a number of superhero themed shops and organizations to be found here. If Marvel or DC are your thing, this is the place for you.

Relicta Naufragium

A view of a futuristic city, or colony, built of numerous clashing futuristic styles. In the foreground, a three story mostly glass pyramid stands. Behind it is a domed structure with many wide windows. At the right edge of the view is a very angular construction with vertical lines of brightly lit windows. The overhead, otherwise black, is filled with what looks like streams of gas, glowing purple to white, then blue, streaming into a galactic black hole. Clumps of debris can be seen in silhouette, apparently orbiting the black hole along with whatever planet, moon, or asteroid the viewer is looking from

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Relicta%20Naufragium/128/203/62
Sponsor: Solaris Base Station
Creators: Samuel Saito, Onyx Core

Shops & Organizations

  • New Frontiers
  • Sanna – Science and Art
  • Radio Spiral
  • TATU – New Triscalia
  • Multifarious
  • Solaris Base Station
  • Starfleet Academy Experience
  • CODEZ
  • Urantia
  • Dark Angel Rebels
  • USS Advent
  • Flashpoint
  • Task Force 6
  • Space Colonies: Utopia or Dystopia?
  • Haunt
  • Go-Sci
  • Boai Honglian Companion’s Guild
  • Scavenger Bin
  • USS Durant: New Life
  • National Space Society
  • Warehouse 13
  • Grimly Fiendish
  • Rose Your Life
  • International Spaceflight Museum

‘Relicta Naufragium’ translates to ‘abandoned shipwreck’. An appropriate name. This region is dotted with what appear to be the ruins of several colonies and many wrecked ships of a wide variety of designs. Overhead, the sky is mostly black but a large portion is filled with what look like streams of gas spiraling into a galactic black hole.

Are we in a sort of Sargasso sea of the distant future? [Apologies to Andrew North/Andre Norton] Is this the last planet or asteroid still going as the galaxy drains away into its central black hole? Either way, the region has a winding down/time is running out sort of feel to it.

The other theme here is Star Trek. There are several Trek role play groups that have exhibits in this region. Good to see these groups still going strong. The sponsor, Solaris Base Station has been at it for some six years now. Good work!

One spot I particularly liked is National Space Society’s place toward the south-west corner of the region. They put together a nice comfortable looking place to hang out.

MonsterVerse

A landscape of high rocks surrounds a grassy space with occasional trees. An earth path forms a square, one corner of which can be seen in the foreground. Buildings in many styles fill most of the bottomland. A green and white monorail snakes through the area from right to bottom-left. In the upper-center, a creature of some sort is hang gliding, moving away from the viewer. In the distant center, a rock platform appears to float in the sky, connected to the ground by a slender pinnacle on the left. There is a wrecked sailing ship on the platform. Below and to the right of this platform is a spiral of purple cloud in front of which a large creature resembling Godzilla stands clutching a wrecked helicopter.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/MonstereVerse/49/130/62
Sponsor: USS Nautilus
Creators: Jingie and SF Lluminos

Shops & Organizations

  • The Mustard Seed
  • Boai Honglian Companions
  • Dantooine
  • Swamp Monster DJ
  • Starbase London
  • Dragon Forge
  • USS Nautilus
  • Hivid
  • Section 31
  • Firelight
  • Coghaven
  • CODEZ
  • Belgroth Emporium
  • Atlanta Spacecraft
  • Yavin IV
  • Stone Johnson’s Abduction and Robotics Warehouse
  • Cupcake Contraband
  • Zen Meshworks
  • Starfleet Infinity
  • Sweet Hearts

The final region in my traverse of the SciFi Con 16 lands is MonsterVerse. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge, stylistically as well as in the themes of the shops and organizations.

The basic build is a grassy enclave surrounded by high rocks. Occasional waterfalls spill from the rocks into quiet bucolic corners where primitive, feline?, natives live. The main path is a deeply rutted earthen way that winds between a wide variety of styles of building.

For shops, you’ll find everything from plants at The Mustard Seed to AI bots at Stone Johnson’s or movie rentals at Hivid. Organizations run from role play groups like USS Nautilus to Boai Honglian Companions (a very non-Starfleet type of role play).

A vertical swirl of purple clouds stands some tens of meters high. At its center, a view to a different city can be seen. The swirl is bounded left and right by high rocks. In the center stands a creature resembling Godzilla. It holds a crushed helicopter in its right hand. It is looking off to the viewer's right and roaring. A second helicopter is approaching its head from behind.

But, MonsterVerse did not forget to bring the monster! Off the south there appears to be a sort of dimension gate in front of which stands a kaiju strongly resembling a popular giant lizard, famed of many films in its storied career.

Nearby, the adventurous traveler may climb an almost endless series of steps (or just fly up) to a floating stone platform that contains, incongruously, a wrecked sailing vessel.

With MonsterVerse, that’s about it for SciFi Con 16 for me. Hair Fair and Pride Month are already underway and SL21B will be here before we know it! And besides all that, I’m supposed to be working on my next product!

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