Beaming into the 2017 Second Life Sci-Fi Convention

The 2017 Second Life Science Fiction Convention touched-down safely on the main grid on Friday, March 24th, ready to embark Second Life residents on flights of intergalactic adventure and fancy which will continue through until April 2nd, 2017.

Active across six elemental themed regions, the convention this year celebrates its 10th anniversary. Once again, it presents the best in Second Life science-fiction related role-play, with some of the top sci-fi role-play groups, content creators and designers represented  within the regions, all bound together in the aim of raising funds for Relay for Life of Second Life and the American Cancer Society.

As well as the role-play group, designers, visiting folk, and intriguing region layouts, the event features a range of entertainment and presentations. So much is going on through the week in fact, that the best way of staying up-to-date on things is to check the convention’s event calendar. This can also be found at strategic points scattered throughout all of the convention’s regions on browsable display boards, so keeping up-to-speed on where to go and what to see is pretty easy.

A full list of exhibitors for the event is also available, tidily broken down by region, with each of the main landing points for the six regions also listed. For ease of reference in general hopping around, these are:

• Life (Forty Two) – the centre-most region, and possibly the best landing point for explorations on foot.
• Equilibrium (Akasharon)
• Earth (Halcyon)
• Fire (Blaze Inferna)
• Water (Ebb N Flow)
• Air (Zephyrus)

Note that all of the regions are rated Moderate. For intra-region getting around, there is a monorail systems and a network of stargates – although these didn’t appear to be working on my visit (possibly one of the Energy Lifeforms of M4C-862 was getting up to mischief…). Also, when visiting the landing points, keep an eye out for the free Sci-Fi Con 2017 outfits by Design’s Designs, which can be obtained for the exceptionally most fee of L$2, and which comes in both Fitmesh and standard mesh sizes.

I confess, I didn’t fully get the elemental theme with the convention; I’d have expected “Air” to be – well, in the air, rather than on a hill, and “Water” to perhaps be more aquatic. But this is a minor quibble in the scheme of things, as there is a lot to see, and I did particularly enjoy poking around the cityscape of “Water”. To escape the worst of the inevitable lag, you might want to disable shadows if you usually run with them enabled and drop your draw distance down if you normally have it set to a couple of hundred metres or more, other than for when taking photos.

So, as I’m prone to say when previewing this event: whatever your interest in science fiction, be sure to set your phaser on fun and head back to the future with a visit to the SL Sci-Fi convention. So say we all!

Related Links

• 2017 Second Life Science Fiction Convention website