A journey to the source of prims in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Prim Rig, ANWR Channel
The Prim Rig, The ANWR Channel

“Pey!”

The familiar bellow had me on my feet and in the Editor’s office before it had finished reverberating across the office.

“Chief?” I enquired from the doorway of his inner sanctum. He tossed a folder across his desk at me. I crossed the room to look at the cover, then at him, puzzled. “The new prim allowances? I’ve covered them, Chief…”

“Yeah? Well it seems some are concerned about the supply, given those changes. I want 500 words on my desk about prim production before the end of the day!”

I opened the folder and saw a ticket for one to Heterocera and details of a charter helicopter which would get me to the ANWR Channel. I looked up at the Editor, “You want me to visit the Prim Rig?” The look I got in reply told me all I needed to know. Pausing only to grab my camera and notepad from my desk, I headed for the elevator…

"I flew out to the rig via helicopter...."
“After circling the Prim Rig to afford me a good view, the pilot brought us in to a safe landing”

ANWR – named in respect of the to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – forms part of the body of water connecting the continents of Heterocera (Cercopia region) and Sansara (Cyclops and Purple regions) to the south. It is the home of the Prim Rig, a massive drilling rig sitting in the midst of the water which – as legend has it – is where all the prims in Second Life come from.

"You'll need this," the rig Foreman said, handing me a yellow hard hat as I stepped off the helipad. "We run a safe operation here!"
“You’ll need this,” the rig Foreman said, handing me a yellow hard hat as I stepped off the helipad. “We run a safe operation here!”

The idea for the rig is actually a part of an initiative to add some “back story” to Second Life through the character of Magellan Linden. However, it has gained a life of its own as the place where “primoleum” is drilled, pressed into the prims we need, and then funnelled to dry land via a pipeline.

I opted to take a trip out to the rig and blog about it when Patch brought it to mind in discussing the new region prim allocations, joking that he had been out to the rig to ensure production had been increased to meet the demand brought about by the new allocations.

Easily reached via water – and hard to miss when boating / sailing – the rig can also be reached via hot air balloon, SLGI tour trains (which fly out to the rig when they come to the end of their ground lines) or the regular sailings of the resupply vessels to / from the rig. Those wishing to fly to it via helicopter can do so from any of the airfields near the coasts of the two continents (as I did from the , travelling from the Calleta City Airport, Cecropia, where the prim pipeline comes ashore. When flying to the rig, do be aware that the helipad can be used by other vehicles as well and that auto return is set to 10 minutes, with no rezzing on the rig.

"We toured the rig, the Foreman showing me how raw Primoleum is brought up from deep under the sea bed, the raw cubes quickly smoothed or rounded into cylinders before passing on for pipeline delivery. It's all a highly automated affair..."
“We toured the rig, the Foreman showing me how raw Primoleum is brought up from deep under the sea bed, the raw cubes quickly smoothed or rounded into cylinders before passing on for pipeline delivery. It’s all a highly automated affair…”

It’s a very industrial place, as you might expect: the tall central drilling derrick rises into the sky like a latter-day spire, the square bulk of the rig surrounding it, waste stacks angling outwards over the water, burning off unwanted gases safely away from the massive structure. Cranes, containers and the Helipad occupy the upper deck, but it’s the deck below that offers the main attraction; that’s where the prims first appear, ready for onward transfer for use by residents!

There’s a lot of history bound up with the ANWR drilling rig – the fable of the prim, the legend of Magellan Linden, his discovery of Heterocera – all of it so much a staple part of Second Life’s history and back story mythology. All of which makes it a “must see” stopover for any SL explorer serious about discovering the grid 🙂 . Should you choose to do so, you might also want to check-out the Valda Experimental Wave Energy Hub to the south and west of the rig; but for me, that’s the subject of a future blog post – maybe!

"As we lifted off from the helipad, I took a last snap of the rig, knowing that as long as it was standing, prim needs in Second Life would always be met..."
“As we lifted off from the helipad, I took a last snap of the Prim Rig through the helicopter’s open door, knowing that as long as it was standing, prim needs in Second Life would always be met…”

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Published by Inara Pey

Eclectic virtual world blogger with a focus on Second Life, VR, virtual environments and technology.

9 thoughts on “A journey to the source of prims in Second Life”

  1. I have always wanted the build at the other end of the prim cycle. The place (I picture a volcano like cauldron) into which deleted objects fall, the links fall apart, textures burn off and the primoleum returns to the core of the grid. 🙂

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  2. Reblogged this on Thar She Blows! and commented:
    Exciting follow up article to Inara’s breaking news about new prim (LI) allocations. This time it’s about the supply of said prims to quench our thirst for new ones on our parcels.
    LCC cruisers and pilots obviously know the ANWR drilling rig as one of SL’s most famous landmarks but “normal people” may still live in blissfull ignorance, so Inara to the rescue:

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  4. You missed out on a Linden Bear. This platform is step two on the quest to get the Simon Linden bear. You take start at the SE corner of Denby on top of his house. After solving the clues there, you go the the prim platform. Walk down two flights of stairs, and cross the platform. You’ll notice a pile of pipes on the ground. Click on the pipe at the far bottom close to the railing and you’ll get the next clue.

    But you’ll need a magic word, which you can only get if you start at Simon’s house.

    There are many more bears to find, too. I have a list at http://www.outworldz.com/secondlife/posts/Linden-bears/

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    1. Good point!

      I actually have info on Simon’s Bear quest, as I attend the weekly meetings at his house in Denby and clicked on the bear there (I generally sit in one of the seats in the corner next to it, in fact!). However, I’ve never set out on the quest as I’m not really a bear collector (eeps! 🙂 ). Thanks for pointing that out!

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  5. There have been occasional slip ups when the Jewel filter has been switched off and a large number of jewels made their way to Hetercetera Atoll and had to be crushed to make micro-prims for the Linden roadways and for ballast for the Linden railways on Hetercetera. The good news is that when the filter is on, only good solid plywood-faced prims are sent to the mainland for distribution and no jewels get through at all.
    Thank you for the story and I hope you had the chance to ride on the Sansara / Heterocetera ferry boat that connects the two continents by water, and I am told that the concerns of subsidence due to the increased prim-pumping are inflated and that there will always be prims available to those wiling to drill for them.

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  6. This is great! I confess, I don’t know the history or back story to anything in SL, my bad! I need to do some searching because I feel, based on this, it will make for some interesting reading.

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  7. When I saw the object inspector for the first time, I was surprised: 2005. At fist glance the rig looked more modern, Eric Linded did a spectacular job by using just regular prims and textures, and it’s funny humorous to see the prim cubes being extracted and processed. If you wait a bit there, you can see it is served by a tug, Yavascript balloons stops on the helipad, and there is a strange green tour vehicle from GSLR / SLGI too, that takes you to other amazing “ancient” creative places.

    It was fun to read your article, with the story around the prim rig, to talk about the increased prim allowance news. You are talented 🙂

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