Reality is Relative

Steampunk, Caledon and Second Life History

I should focus on more relevant and perhaps interesting events like Second Life hitting G3 Phones, concepts of cross reality synchronization, the new viewer but I find myself drawn back to Steampunk- think Victorian fantasy hybrids? (For no good reason I want to think China Mieville however he is not Steampunk, but rather “New Weird”.)

I became more aware of Caledon while visiting with the Duchess of Carntaigh…(The knight Chev still humbly apologizes for not attending the New Year’s Ball- as he was off on a quest and all that.)

The Caledonian builds (there are many sims both low and high prim density) tied in directly with some of the experiments I had conducted at Monolith Eight and DarkWood…e.g. How do we “preserve” virtual worlds? Should we even bother?

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Twitter and Polite Librarians

Thanks to Patricia Anderson (University of Michigan) who got back to the mad knight Chev via twitter as he has been spending some time studying the history of Caledon after his dance ticket. His interest piqued after reading the Covenant. In Second Life a Covenant usually spells out the tier (tax or rent), rules, ratings, etc.

Taken to heart- it is a serious bilateral promise to do or not do something specified in an agreement- a promise. Rather than the typical covenant read he got an entire history lesson on Caledon instead. Later he wondered out loud in Twitter- “Caledon amazes me- what amazes me more is the history of Caledon. Must talk to librarians.”

They came to him with help. If you know anything of Caledon you understand that politeness and courtesy are the cornerstones of behavior. Ironically Chev had just been muted, ejected and banned in the span of five minutes by Prok, but that that is another tale.

Patricia informed me, in typical polite Caledon fashion, that Master JJ Drinkwater, Head of all the Caledonian Libraries was presenting to their group on Friday of this week. There is actually a group email for the Caledon Librarians! I am now wondering if Master JJ Drinkwater is the same person who curates The Hermenautic Circle?

The Hermenautic Circle is a select and secretive web enclave of 100 thinkers, writers, editors, journalists, bloggers, artists, designers, musicians, multimedia producers, activists, grad school refugees, and other friends. Hosted by Joshua Glenn. The group is not accepting new members.

I sort of hope so, because secretive enclaves are the kind of things that attract a Chev. Closed or not…

Patricia also, rather sagely, pointed out to me in an e-mail that I have truncated for maximum “sageness”:

For my own two cents, I am a fan of preserving widely and broadly…. however
there are other ways to preserve bits of the flavor of the time and culture
of a place — chatlogs, snapshots, machinma and such.

We are still getting fragments of history, but I suppose that is what history really is. Reconstructed fragments.

Preserving Pixels

I too am a fan of preservation, but preservering the virtual is far trickier than it looks.

I became very interested in the preservation of virtual worlds after Chev bought “land” at Darkwood. Darkwood, I believe, was one of the first fantasy RPG sims in Second Life and I’ll have Chev put the history up somewhere. It seemed a shame for a land baron to be holding a large parcel at an outrageous price to only let the community become littered with Darleks and the like.

I say community because there is a definite, and in Second Life terms, elder community at Darkwood…it was one of the first places a neighbor actually came out to greet Chev- thank you lady Rhiannon Chatnoir for doing that. As the tale goes Chev, out of sheer stubbornness, went ahead and paid the outrageous rate and declared Darkwood free.

He had wanted to curate the previous build, for sake of history, but that is another story entirely. In the end, it was wiped and some talented builders worked it back to a shop for wizards and the like, and an underground cavern full of monsters. Angus Mesmer being one the developers. I believe, if the words of royalty be true, he is a Caledonian well known and highly regarded for his talent and passion. He is one of few people that I know that uses a quill pen and ink and believes it is more efficient- he is also a habitual “prim trimmer”, his work is magnificient no less and if rumors are true- his latest creations are taking shape in “Dancing” located here.

From this thought and experience Chev formed a group, oviously poking fun at himself and Harry Potter a little because the thought of Corwin sitting still in a university or college setting is rather laughable. The group essentially focuses on asking the right questions- are we even doing so? One was surprised by the number of people who joined and some of the questions they brought up…should we preserve these worlds? If so- how? Authentication, DNA, genetics, etc…and we keep questioning.

Caledon and Keys

At any rate Caledon holds a lot of the keys to questions I have so I asked Patricia to send these to Master Drinkwater if she would be so kind. I have many more, but three was a good start, and I was really tired. I think I know the answers, but better to get it from experts.

Questions for the Caledonian Librarians

1) Does the Caledonian citizen’s interests in literature influence how well curated the history of the build seems to be?

2) Are there any specialized tools or processes that a community can use to “keep its identity”. Regain its identity?

3) How has having a “history” helped the overall community at Caledon?

Community and Beyond

If you think about about Caledon, about its citizens, their DNA, and covenant it isn’t that surprising we see a lush history- although it seems a bit scattered about the Web. Moreover, it doesn’t matter if Second Life were to go down tomorrow- the community, the fan base, the people are there and united. They are quite solid and capable of a journey to any virtual destination needed, to erect a new Caledon should disaster strike.

I think Caledon is a big deal if you think about what it really means. Brands, agencies, marketers, pundits and new media evangelists should pay attention to steampunk on the grid.

Caledon is a community, a community with a history and therefore a community with an identity, and if you have spent any time in the deep digital jungles of Second Life or other worlds you will know that idenity is everything…or nothing?

Addendum:

Mr. Edward Pearse, Earl of Primbroke, kindly directed my attention,via the comment thread, to the following websites. I feel they may be of interest to readers:

The Caledon Wiki

as well as a “*mostly* Caledon collection of blogs:” Caledon Blog Collection

I would enjoy hearing from any other Caledonians on their state and I do thank the Earl for the information.

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