Alien Conspiracy Continues

Sunrise at a mysterious monument in Luna Point, SL.

Luna Point, SL (SLurl) - Another wreck of an alien space craft was discovered today in Luna Point, SL near a mysterious monument and local sea life has been affected. Reporter Uccie Poultry used a submarine from The Report's fleet to investigate.

Regular readers of this blog should be familiar with The Poultry Report's pointless obsession on-going investigation of aliens from other (virtual?) worlds visiting Second Life and the conspiracy of the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) to co-opt alien technology for unknown and possibly nefarious purposes. If you aren't aware of this extensive coverage, click here to catch up with the rest of us.

The downed spacecraft, pictured above through the front port of the submarine, bears a striking resemblance to the spacecraft at a no-longer-secret LDPW space launch facility in Mare Secundus (SLurl) and another wreck in Gaigano (SLurl).

As seen in the following images, the presence of the alien technology is affecting the local wildlife (as mentioned earlier, if you had really been paying attention).

Cubes are sprouting tentacles and losing their natural plywoody coloration

Octopi and other creatures are taking on un-natural hues and behaviors. 

Beware the cave. Approach only when the inhabitants are asleep (you can tell by the eyes).

Continuing efforts to elicit comments from Governor Linden and Michael Linden (King Mole at the LDPW) will ... er ... continue.

Why Have Just One?

Jo Yardley started a meme on her blog.

See? I have four lives (at least). From top left and moving clockwise: Uccie (Uccello Poultry) Galway, my "adult" character; Xandah Resident, my world explorer; Zyx Resident, the quiet and enigmatic pixy; Zyx Flux, a child avatar and gardener pixy.

But wait! There's more!! Each character is also a polymorph. Uccie is often a dragon, a bird, a furry cat, or any of a couple hundred other avatars or skins. Xandah has a cute furry cow avatar and sometimes romps about as a tiny elephant. Zyx Resident seldom changes except for her skin. She has a lovely deep, deep blue skin that appears nearly black but also has a "human" option. Zyx Flux sometimes sports a tiny form such as a bunny or a kitten and is also a very colorful petite-sized pixy.

So why have just one life when you can lead another, and another, and (dare I say it?) another? It wasn't a lack of a Real Life that brought me to Second Life. Rather, Our World lets me have many lives filled with adventure, travel, creativity, and more that I just can't manage to have in Real Life at the moment.

Topless Tuesday Gallery

Crap Mariner has long been a supporter of Topless Tuesday in Second Life and he's gone so far as to create a gallery of his works. So not only can you catch TTiSL on the SL Profile feed (check the Trending tab on Tuesdays) and on Flickr, but now you can visit an honest-to-goodness art exhibition (SLurl).

The Hue & Cry of Color

This week's blog meme challenge from Strawberry Singh, "Color Meme," seemed easy at first.  How hard could it be to follow do as she requests?

Meme instructions: Blog a picture of your favorite color or a variety of colors that you like. Don’t forget to leave a link to your post in the comments and share your picture in the Blog Memes Flickr Group.

But when you like rainbows, how do you pick a color or a variety of them? My first thought was to take a picture of me in my rainbow bikini. Too obvious. Or in one of my other rainbow outfits. Still obvious. Then I remembered a dream from last night that was so real. I was my dusky blue pixy Zyx but the setting was Real Life. O M Goodness that was fun! Flying while looking pretty fly, turning heads but holding off inappropriate advances with a deathly stare, and generally reveling in my blue pixiness.

So into Second Life I bounded as soon as I could to take a picture. Out came my favorite silks, touched up my ear shading, and stopped cold when it came to a background. Discarding Zyx's usually haunts I took her to The Faerie Court at the Fantasy Faire (Slurl) where I could get some color in the background. Working with my Animation Override for live poses, fighting the lag that Advanced Lighting gives, and timing it all to work with the shifting colors of Elico Ember's marvelous build, my shooting ratio hit 10:1 so I gave up and picked the one above.

Yes, blue is a favorite right now, but give me a few minutes. That will change.

Why Are You Human in Second Life?

Weighing on my mind of late is the question of how we represent ourselves in Second Life, particularly as I re-read Greg Bear's novel Eon for the umpteenth time. A central thread drawn through out that story almost asks "What is a human?" but not quite. Except for a few assumptions by select characters, the novel takes as given that humans are not necessarily what we might consider them. In other words, one need not look "human" to be human.

Key to this concept is that humans have evolved in our future. Neomorphs (humans without human form; "The neomorph— vaguely fish-shaped, limbless—regarded Olmy with a crystalline fox face and picted casual greetings, but no ID."¹) and homorophs (essentially human much like your Real Life appearance or mine; "She was a homorph with elaborations designed to heighten both sexual and leadership traits."²) are introduced with as little explanation as necessary and then treated no differently than the more pure, primitive ancestral forms. Being non-human in appearance is as natural as being human in appearance and Bear makes it clear that such is a choice in the book's future society.

What's on the inside is what counts?

The choice is yours in Second Life, too. So why do you appear to be human? Assuming that you are, of course. That many of us have a variety of avatars from animal to cartoon character to golly-knows-what is obvious. But most residents seem to stay with the current concept of a human form for most of their virtual existence despite changes for special occasions or such. With the difficulty of creating virtual clones of ourselves or the desire to make ourselves how we would like to appear in Real Life, most everyone is human.

Why? Why stick with your Real Life gender? Why are most people in Second Life caucasian?

Why, why, why? I'm not being very productive here. Probably because I don't have answers, at least not for anyone but me and that is rather iffy. Being human is what we are comfortable with, I suppose. Being caucasian or blonde or female is familiar to us. But I really doubt that these conventions make us who we are inside. Uccie is a blonde in Second Life after years of being a redhead in both worlds. She is female, like me iRL, as are most of my alts probably because that is what I know best. But she's the only one consistently caucasian for some reason.

Among my other characters, Zyx Flux is now black (sometimes reverting to her original blue) and she's a pre-teen child avatar. Oh, and she's not exactly human. As a pixy she's humanoid. Her big "sister" Zyx Resident is still blue, albeit a darker shade than with which she was created. And when she's black she's obsidian, not a Real Life human shade. My pixies are part of me – a child-like, nature-loving explorer and a confident, aloof loner that lurks and watches – that is often hard to express as Uccello.

Xandah is from India as you may have read elsewhere on this blog. Not really. I was born in Ireland and raised in America, but Xandah the character in Second Life is from India. Through her I've learned a fair bit about the culture of the world's most populous democracy.

My brother and I share log-ins for a few characters: a furry female, a robot, and an all-male caucasian Average Joe. Using these "secret" alts and my known characters I am often reminded of the quote I keep in Uccello's Profile:

"Perhaps it is impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be." O.S. Card

When I'm not being Uccie, I don't feel much like Uccie, though I'm still me ... sort of.

Sometimes when my wife spends time with one of my non-Uccello characters she remarks that she still loves the typist regardless of the virtual form. She sees that I retain my nature and my humanity because when I'm with her I am Uccie regardless of form. With other forms that is not so clear. If you see me when I'm a German Shepherd wearing a hat and bunny slippers my I am different. No, that word is not good enough, but it will do for now.

If I could could make such changes iRL as I do iSL, would the same be true? I'd trade my current physical form to look like the elder Zyx in a heartbeat. Of course, that would simply bring up the debate about becoming the person that others see us being.³ It never ends, does it?



¹ Bear, Greg (2014-04-01). Eon (Eon, 2) (Kindle Locations 4952-4953). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

² Bear, Greg (2014-04-01). Eon (Eon, 2) (Kindle Locations 5072-5073). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

³ Conger, Cristen. "How accurate is our mental image of ourselves?" 05 November 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. 04 May 2014.