Data Stream Input- From Abeus: Just a brief notice so everyone is up to
speed:
The closure of the INSILICO and INSILICO SOUTH regions has been
generously pushed back until November 15th. While this is good news, it is still
bittersweet. Currently this will allow us to close all 4 regions at the same
time.
FADE
IN:
EXT. INSILICO METRO – DUSK
We
are hurtling toward Gemini Cybernetics over a neon labyrinth of steel towers,
fog, and scattered flames; steam billowing from smokestacks of unsustainable
production. The urban city in the sky trembles and tilts all along the blood
grey horizon. You slow toward the steel landing platform, your feet hovering
slowly then touching the ground. Gravitational stability falters… the twisting
groans of metal above you. And you see dozens of small craft jettisoning the
area like rats from a sinking ship. It won’t be long now. InSilico Metro; the most celebrated Cyberpunk
sim in all of Second Life- my own place of solace since 2008- is about to die.
Stumble
walk down the platform corridor to large plate-glass window, wobbling from the
gyration of opposing forces beneath them. You put your hand to the glass to
feel the vibration, and you see an android man entering the room inside,
sitting down at a pod. He looks like he
means business, paying little attention to either you are his disintegrating
surroundings… This is ABEUS. He breathes deep. Exhales. Types on his
holographic console which streams on all the neon marquee’s of the city:
ABEUS
This is a
This
is a very hard choice for us, and not one that we’ve come to lightly. Even
though it might be possible to survive—
A
nearby tower groans louder and shattering glass makes its long rain down onto
the surface. ABEUS continues typing.
ABEUS
We’ve
had some good times, even some great times, 9 years’ worth of stories that will
continue to transcend the sims on which they were told… I couldn’t ask for
anything more than that as a legacy.
ABEUS THEN bolsters
himself… looks up sadly then makes to exit in the opposite direction as you,
disappearing around the corner. had some good times,
even some great times. 9 years’ worth of stories that will
Many of us are saying
goodbye to this home that- for many of us- was our digital country… Nearly eight years ago, my favorite character
was born and I feel like he was christened in Club Atonement. That upper
sanguine sanctuary was my favorite place in all the grid for reflection and
consolation…. I have been gone a long,long time… a prodigal in new avatar form,
only to see my sanctuary from long ago slowly fading to black. It almost feels
like the death of a nation.
So what happens now? What walls will be built? What bridges? What new worlds await us? For now, we mourn, but mostly we remember. Re- Member… the connotation that remembering
what we love about this place will somehow and somewhere put it back together
again.
As we at InSilico diminish
into the darkness, I think of those like Abeus.
And those who have been there from InSilico’s conception. I like to think that they would fare well,
but more than that: I like to think that those like Abeus will make their grand
escape toward a new and more fruitful territory… and perhaps one day, we may be
able to follow them. But for now…. We
have until November 15th to say good bye.
In that time, I
prefer to think that I can see ABEUS’S ship rocketing through the collapsing
corridors of the city unscathed, as the music rises to something that would
swell our hearts… and make us breathe faster. Where neon towers blur past us,
as we rise and caterwaul in our craft then burst downward toward the planet’s
surface below… as we watch and listen in awe… as gravity once again gives way
to the rise the howl of that escape craft as the disintegrating world we love
shrinks below us and we finally rise away into the uncharted distance.
THE
CREDITS ARE ROLLING, God help us all!
FADE OUT.
MORE INFO: Introduction and conclusion inspired by the opening
and closing scene descriptions of BLADE RUNNER: Screenplay by HAMPTON
FANCHER and DAVID PEOPLES February, 1981
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