The Alphaville Herald

Ageplay or Pageplay? War Vet Camps New Virtual Capitol Hill

by prokofy on 04/01/07 at 10:05 pm

“We demand the People’s right to rez!” says demonstrator Rosenthal, complaining about all scripts turned off on the new Capitol Hill sim, preventing creation or operation of objects by non-group members.

By Prokofy Neva, Dept. of Virtual Governments

Sunmicrosystems and their chosen metaversal sherpa Clear Ink opened up an instance of the U.S. House of Representatives in Second Life today, prompting some critics to wonder if the California net-neutrality gang had now pwned Congress. The project was conceived by Sun Microsystem’s John Gage, who established the avatar family name Sunmicrosystems.

Now avatars will get a chance to see if they can make the U.S. Congress, already pretty much a virtuality for many voters even with the Dems back, any more real.

Opened to huge buzz on the Slogosphere the computer and gaming sites, and even that famous Right-Coast blog updating at midnight EST daily, Capitol 1 and Capitol II were forced to turn off the People’s right to create, edit, and run scripts, because well, nobody wanted a Member to get whacked with a member.

Undeterred, Banned Forums War Veteran Abe Rosenthal was on hand to camp with a library rug rezzed around his frail body, his right arm paralyzed from repetitive stress syndrome battling Jeska Linden and the FIC on the Lindowned official forums and the Blob. A groundskeeper quickly materialized to quell a possible griefing incident, but then, sporting a lovely handbag, stepped away to let free speech of sorts flourish, Abe told the Herald. “I then told the dude at Clear Ink, Kiwini Oe, that he should free himself from oppressive avatar typing anims, and he gave me a $1.”

Asked if the virtual House would lead to inworld scandals like members of Congress being caught up in controversial sexual lifestyles like furry ageplay, Kiwini quipped, “Is it age play or page play? I’ve been waiting to use that all day,” Abe quoted Oe as saying to the Herald. Low-lag, spacious and empty hypervent sims have become the venue of choice for the homeless open-air cybering masses.

Oe was offline at press time but has already sent a response to at least one critic, Meridian Maginot of the Society for Virtual Architecture, who was wishing to debate his use of public space for private agendas. While Andrew Linden has speculated about the ability to buy congressmen, and Sunmicrosystems probably has more effective ways to get the ear of RL representatives, this job was done pro bono (the sherpas did get paid, however).

Sporting Deimos sneakers made by Barnesworth Anubis no doubt to burnish his immersionist worlder street cred (does anybody actually *wear* Reeboks?!), Oe said that already he’s been approached by an enterprising virtual business wanting the T-shirt concession, and told Abe he is contemplating “Congressional Slingo” to cover mounting tier bills.

The build is an awesome RL replication constructed within 10 days by RL and SL architect Keystone Bouchard with important SL variations. The Jefferson Memorial for example, is rendered semi-transparent and phantom, possibly to prevent flying avatar crashes and doesn’t overwhelm the view. The mall is foreshortened to fit on an island, and topic discussion areas are put outside with little rotundas. Inside, the seating is square rather than rounded to prevent those long, frustrating attempts to get avatars seated comfortably. The top has been taken off to make for excellent camera angles — one of the chief bugabears of realistic RL builds in SL, making avatars sit in dark caves if not attended to. Flowers by Julia Hathor dot the serene landscape.

Not to be outdone by ugly Americans, one of the factional parties of the international prim government Neufreistat today announced their launch in the German-owned Reuters building, co-opting that big monument to Western bourgeois media structures for their journey into faction-fighting virtual politics. Le Pen already beat all these wannabees to be the first to open up a virtual party office in Second Life; failed presidential candidate Mark Warner at least will go down in history as the first to launch a national ampaign in SL.

It will be interesting to see in the next 90 days whether Capitol I and II get any more attention from busy Congress people, or any interaction at all from Second Lifers outside the magic circle of the 50 of 70 or so who can be TP’d in from the insiders’ friendship cards.

The Clear Island group which owns the island and the buildings includes Jesse Linden of Linden Lab — the real power behind any virtual island able to seize land or terminate accounts “for any reason or no reason”.