This week's Safari was something of a time-travel trip of the mind as we visited two very different imaginings. First on Kitely, at the International Spaceflight Museum where we saw the optimistic imagined future of colonizing Mars, and secondly, an imaginative past of empires and honor, on the grid CounterEarth. HG Addresses, as always, are at the end of the post.
I love ISM on Kitely, there is a stateliness and grandeur about the region. A veritable forest of rockets dominate the Museum Ring part of the build, with ships, satellites and rockets from all over the world.
Alan Scot takes a closer view |
Misty Falls: and crackers
Thirza Ember: omg now I'm hungry
Nara Nook: me too
Rosa Alekseev: in a few we'll arrive to plantations - so many strawberries pineapple
Thirza Ember: if it's a mars bar plantation, I'm ready to leave right now.
Mike Lorrey: here is the nuclear reactor. It's absolutely safe.
Alan Scot: marrooned
And then just like that we had been there an hour and it was time to wind it up. A fascinating place everyone should visit, and Mike's enthusiasm and dedication are infectious, so if you're lucky enough to have him give you the tour, jump at the chance!
More flight on our second destination, on CounterEarth, a grid that brings alive a series of John Norman books that explore in vivid and complex detail a planet that is exactly opposite earth, on the other side of the sun, so that we here can never see it, yet its civilizations mirror and mimic ours.
We went there to fly Tarns, huge, domesticated birds. The Counterearth Tarn Stadium is a bullet sim, allowing you to fly at speed, and the idea of the competition is to complete a series of circles and fly through numbered rings, the one with the fastest time wins.
The birds take two passengers, which is just as well because my tarn killing track record is pretty impressive. This time I was lucky enough to ride with Nara,
Tarn traffic jam at the Tarn Stadium |
Havoc Rau: Started in SL, didn't much like it so went to OSGRID. When OSGRID crashed, and stayed down, for like 7 months, we created our own grid, but only for one city. Then, shortly after, we decided to open it up to other gorean cities. That was 7 and half years ago now we are about 25 cities and villages
Thirza Ember: l think Sardar Fair was the first freebie store I found on the hypergrid
Havoc Rau: yes we are an old one ;), and constant as well, unlike many who come and go, especially as a themed grid
Havoc Rau: aye with 36 books we have a lot to work with
Nara Nook: all by one author? I just thought the books were written across a long time span, like 3 decades but not certain, I wondered if they had taken new authors in
Havoc Rau: yes though some argue it is by more then one, but they are published as one author
kaela bella: I admit I have only read about 8 or so...but also plenty to find online in order to keep things authentic
kindra Turian: the most recent one highlights the Pani people which are like the Asian people of the world - Our sims here really role play it well here so if you are interested - Nara, it is a great community. We have a dance troupe here and girls dance before events and we have our Holiday Dance Show - everyone can attend that no matter where they are here is a link if you are interested in watching some of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xraeiQleKkU&t=898s
kaela bella: when i first started doing rp on sl, i sort of gravitated to gor since it helped me since i could find the context for it, instead of it being random
kindra Turian: We have a Gorean University in our city of Turia, if you are interested in learning more about Gor please visit there and go to the library
Havoc Rau: Sl did a lot of that, the bad name part here we take gor more as written, and that is a large part of why we left sl actually
RSVP Turian: Thirza, some people will never give you a chance. They hear something negative second or third hand and decide it is fact. I think people should decide for themselves, and if people will take a little time to come and speak to us about it, while they may not have an interest in Gor, I think most realize that we are not the deviants that some who could not cut it claim
There is much more to see on the grid, and they welcome visitors, so don't feel like you'll be chased out of the place if Gor is not your thing, though the usual standards of guest behavior are expected.
Havoc and angelssabre kajira, who is actually a slave girl in the rp, took a few of us around Havoc's city of Tarnburg, named after the famous birds. High in the Volatai Mountains, it's a very interesting and lively place, from the market with its merchants, to the Infirmary, run by the Physician Caste. It shows that Counterearth has a far more sophisticated side than Medieval or Dark Age Earth.
Havoc Rau: though Gor is a primitive society in many ways, in some it is highly advanced, medicine is one of them, far more advanced then earth medicine. Gor technology is strictly controlled by the "priest kings" which is actually an alien race who created the planet.
angelssabre and Havoc outside the Tarnburg library of Gor knowledge |
Finally we wound up outside the library in Tarnburg, where you can learn much more about the mores and history of Gor. Serious play for dedicated inhabitants.
What incredible flights of fancy Opensim offers. I hope you agree.
HG Addresses
International Spaceflight museum grid.kitely.com:8002:ISMuseum
Tarn Stadium, Counterearth jand.dyndns.biz:7002:Tarn Stadium
Thanks Thirza! Had a great time leading the tour. Training facilities like ours will eventually train millions of people, either those merely interested in the subject to those who want to prepare for real world astronaut/colonist training. There is a ton to see and learn here, beyond what we could cover in the tour. I welcome all to come and spend more time here, and if you are a creator interested in helping to develop our project, we would be happen to hear from you!
ReplyDeleteDo love your writting Thriza and thanks so much to all who visited the Counter Earth Grid. We had a great time and hope you all come back soon. If anyone wants more info they can stop by at WWW.Counterearthgrid.com for information of even signing up for the gird and joining us.
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