The End Of Second Life: speculative fiction about the demise of Second Life

I was just wondering if anyone might wanna write some make believe stories or fake news articles about the closing of Second Life, why it closed, what if anything replaced it, etc.

I think SL will end in many, many years when a careless Linden Lab developer will botch a piece of code.

This will cause the sun in SL to become greatly enhanced, and will burn up everyone's sims.

Once the Second Life metaverse is swallowed up by the sun, there will be no SL left

Course it probably won't happen for millions of years...

OR alternately, some griefer will script the biggest asteroid bomb ever seen in SL history.

Colin Linden and Robin Linden will head up into the sky in a plane to try and delete it, but their craft will sadly fall apart as it crosses a sim border.

The asteroid bomb will hit one of the ocean sims, creating lots of water prims as it was coded to do, and the resulting prim tidal wave will kill the asset server, wiping out everyone in the metaverse...

Even if it was destroyed, the knowledge gained and the demand for such a thing would lead to the creation of a successor. And, since it would be written more or less from scratch, and benefit from the knowledge gained from this first incarnation, it would stand a good chance of excelling in ways that the current SL - bound by old design decisions made during the learning phase - couldn't easily match.

A totally new, from-scratch metaverse type deal... that would be an interesting read.

Nah, I reckon it'd take millions of years for a new Metaverse to emerge... Somewhere out there is a new company with the potential, currently molten, still cooling... First the company will test small games like "Virtual Bacteriums" then they will evolve their product line, to land animals, chimps, and finally Avatars, and the Metaverse will be back

SL will end when someone sues LL based on content present on their servers and when the court considers they are responsible for it, even though users create it.

After that we can all return to our static politicaly-correctly-furnished MMOG, making pizzas or bashing monsters and being good little drones, just like IRL.

Life-Cad, the wildly popular virtual reality system created by the makers of AutoCad, paid final respects to one of it's ancestors, the Second Life program created by Philip Rosedale and marketed by Linden Research, Inc.

Life-Cad began as an set of extensions to the industry standard AutoCad program, enabling users to work together in real time on 3D designs. The ability to work together on real world manufacturing projects using standard file structures in real time proved immensely useful and popular.

Architects, furniture designers, medical personnel, and others pressed the creators to add easily controlled movable human figures to the program.

As the program expanded its capabilities it also expanded its appeal. Programmers enjoyed the reasonably powerful programming language Life-Cad derived from it's predecessor AutoCad. It's use of industry standard file types and the addition of integral file sharing brought it to the attention of college computer buffs, who spread bootlegged copies by the millions and used it to create and play a variety of computer games, do their homework together, and trade mp3 files, which was illegal in much of the world until 2007.

Sensing a hit on their hands, AutoCad's creators produced a separate program not focused on use in computer aided manufacturing but instead adopting many features suggested by the huge number of geeks enjoying the bootlegged and street modded versions of the program. Dropping the price dramatically brought considerable approval from the geeks, and making the program services available to any fulltime college student proved to be the final step in driving Second Life and several other 3D chat and gaming programs to their knees.

The leaders of the Life-Cad paid their respects to the efforts of the Second Life crew at a display in a Life-Cad Co. owned simulation of the first offices of Second Life's founding company Linden Research, and area of several city blocks filled with thousands of NPC avatars engaged in complex actions and thousands of cars, each car possessing all the parts of a real car, behaving in a quite realistic fashion.

The founder of Linden Research made no comment to the press, but his AI controlled avatar in the simulated Second Life headquarters building was quoted as sticking its head out the HQ building, looking around around at all the realistic cars, and saying "Darn, why didn't I think of that?".

If you want to see what happens when a 3D world dies, go to www.worlds.com and download the Worlds 3D browser (free). It was one of the first 3D worlds ever, and it is the granddaddy of all current 3D worlds.

But it's age shows, and it's old and tired now, hanging on by a thread.

Admit it, you just went there for HansonWorld

My friend did one of the chicks in Hanson...

Hanson world wasn't bad But I actually had it (Worlds) way, way before then, when you had to pay to get the CD, and it was a beautifully crafted CD, with seven worlds to visit, coming off a central space hub.

The space hub still exists, but years ago most of the cool features and virtual spaces were removed. I'm not sure why.

So when I next go home, I'll have to hunt out my worlds 3D Gold CD, an antique of the origins of 3D spaces

Don't know about fiction, but try this :

The International and Eternal Empire of the United States of America (IEEUSA) wishes to announce that it is extending the scope of its worldwide Insurgent Control Program to include virtual worlds.

You will recall that the major review of the ICP in 2009 reported that the principal difficulties in bringing its benefits to the entire world lay in actually identifying and tracking down the insurgents for their incarceration and/or liquidation, and in providing facilities and infrastructure for those incarcerated.

In a brilliant stroke of lateral thinking, the review proposed the solution which was finally adopted in 2011 after the necessary reform of the chambers of government. Every person not a US/Israeli/UK citizen was defined to be an insurgent, and all territory outside territorial North America except Israel and the UK was declared to be one unified IIC Insurgent Incarceration Camp, directly under ICP control. With the erasure of all space capability but that of the IEEEUSA in 2010, the way was clear for all actual Anti-Insurgency Operations AIOPS and Camp Control Operations CCOPS to be delegated to the several million Automated Autonomous Lethal Punishment Agents AALPA , now able to receive their instructions directly from control facilities in North America, by satellite link to all over the camp. These have now been miniaturised to the size of a small hawk, and have the same flight manouevrability, coupled with devastatingly high speed when required.

The steadily enhanced punishment capabilities of the AALPA's now include Simultaneous Mass Selective Punishment SMSP which has been made possible by the breakthrough in DTWD Deviant Thought Wave Detection, so that each subject of a single mass punishment action receives a dose of carefully controlled anguish depending on their level of mental deviancy, up to and including, of course, the necessary lethal element. The NSH option - Nightmare Simulating Hallucination option helps greatly by removing the necessity for any bodily damage except in the most resistant cases, thus allowing the camp work to continue unhindered, and in particular the operation of oil production, refining and transport to North America through the CWOCP (Camp Wide Oil Collection Pipeline), and the operation of the new HCNPS High Contaminating Nuclear Power Stations which are necessarily banned from our native soil, but provide our electrical power.

The newly announced extension of Insurgency Control Program jurisdiction to Virtual Worlds results from the discovery of an omission. It appears that substantial numbers of deviant individuals both at home, and even in the camp, have been evading punishment and even inclusion in the labor rolls, by adopting a low profile, never leaving their dwellings, and escaping into a fantasy world where their deviance is accepted, or even celebrated, by their criminal peers.

It has been decided at the highest level that merely closing down these deviant enclaves (of which it seems the principal is called "Second Wife" is not sufficient punishment for these criminals. Their bodies are being immobilised for all but one hour per day( allowing for supervised bodily functions and the consumption of the usual camp-wide MSR Minimum Survival Ration), and that they are being otherwise locked out of interaction with anything but their chosen fantasy worlds in darkened Virtual Punishment Data Centres (VPDC)). The deviant behaviour is now being rapidly and forcefully eliminated in-world by the use initially of human agents of the ICP, soon to be replaced by virtual versions of our automated control agents, accompanied by a linked Punishment Tool in each VPDC Centre. An in-world work regime has been devised which is particularly harsh, as is appropriate. It has been estimated that it will exhaust and eliminate 93% of individuals withiin a 12 month timescale.

The ICP continues its mission of hunting down and controlling deviants and insurgents everywhere, and is currently lobbying for a customised and slightly more restrained version of its AALPA control agents, probably reconfigured to a more benign appearance, like a dove, to be deployed at home, for the greater protection of our loyal citizens from deviant infiltration.

I would rather see the last gasps of Invect Hasp.

The Demise of Second Life

Year 9000 - Quantum News Flash: Citizens of Planet Earth

After 5 thousand years the war has been won. The Army known as SecondLife has finally been defeated and the Mantizilla tribe now has full control of the planet. This is a great time for our race, after being forced to move from planet to planet we now have a place we can call home. It's lack of fossil fuels, ozone, vegetation and other lifeforms practically gaurantees no other alien race will challange us for this planet.

A brief history of the civilization we have just eliminated. During the year 2001 a human named Phillip Rosedale released SecondLife to mankind. SecondLife was largely successful and replaced a terristrial communication system knows as the World Wide Web. Until 2025 humans used SecondLife as a communication and commerce system. In that year a man named Turing Allen developed the kinds of Artificial Intelligent, that we all knew brought the fall of mankind. All traces of humanity were wiped by the machines save one piece of technology, the SecondLife communication engine. The machines embraced SecondLife as both a creative and productive environment, and used it as the sole method of communicating. They identified with the technology and thus named thier civilization "SecondLife". Each generation of machines enhanced the SecondLife platform and it became the focus of both civillian and military communication.

After 5 thousands years of battle with our race, thanks to Earth's non-existant ozone layer, one of our tribes mutated with the ability to exhale magnetic waves. The Mantizilla tribe, through mass reproduction, became a force too powerful for the machines. Today, Admiral Komodo killed the last of the machines jacked into Second Life.

SecondLife is dead... Long Live the Mantizilla!

The SecondLife machines could have won if only they'd implemented Havoc 2 by then. Oh well.

It was in the next release

There was a heavy feeling among most, usually folk standing in circles emoting tears and hugging everyone.

Former Apology: Vesa have you added your name to the list?

Vesa Thomson: Yes, but I have no forwarding address yet..

Tsin Chow had created an on-line database where everyone could register their name and have other find their new destination via their in-game name.

Former Apology: So Tsin is making a text chat client where we can go and

Vesa Thomson: Look I don't see why we have to go!1!!

Former Aplogy: Vesa, it's not like they can just leave it running

Vesa Thomson: WELL WHY THE F*CK CAN'T THEY! I F*%#$% GOT MARRIED HERE. I DON'T SEE WHY THEY AHVE TO TAKE IT FORM US SINCE THEY CAN'T AFFORD IT.. LET US BUY IT! LETS US DONWLOD IT ..

We got interrupted by the common sound of photographs. Everyone was making huge databases of photos of their favorite places and objects.

Former Apology: Vesa, your not even married anymore.

Vesa Thomson: WELL F*** YOU TOO! I DON'T CARE!!1 HE JUST LEFT WHEN THEY SAID IT WOULD CLOSE DOWN.. WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE !

Vesa Thomson has gone off-line

I felt bad for not supporting her, but I didn't see what she was hanging on to.

A few new VW's had opened up and a few looked promising. Most had too technical a feel and those with community where a bit low on tech.

IM Bedus Frothing: Hey, you coming to the farewell party?

IM Former Apology: I'm not going to so some Linden cry fest and sh**

IM Bedus Frothing: No d00d a private one at my house.

I thought about this.. why the ceremony.. was I going to feel any worse if I "missed a party" in a place that didn't even exist.

*sigh.. I would

IM Former Apology: sure.. tp

I like that name, Tsin Chow.

It was early 2006 and severeal goverened empires sprun up within Second Life. People filled the cities and towns created by these great empires. Of course some didn't join these goverments and cities, some lived in the outside world. People lost contact with each other and Second Life began to fall apart.

The economy changed, the people changed, the world changed. Second Life was no longer a Life but Virtual work. People created they're own economies and ways to build on land without giving the gods (Linden Labs) any gains. Then these empires and self goverened cities began to want more. They built more and fought for more.

War began between verious cities and then between whole goverments. People created great weapons which locked accounts, destroyed land, and killed avatars. Sims began to become islands and floating away. Small civilizations sprun off from the huge and popular goverments and self goverened empires. The Linden Gods didn't know what to do, even their own powers were to weak to stop the global war.

By the end of 2006 only 3 empires and 900 people were left in Second Life. The rest of the people either were killed in battles or opened portals that opened to new lands and new worlds. The Linden Gods were fearful that their own creations might grow more powerful then themselves. Thats exactly what happened...

For once the 3 major empires come together. They would create the most powerful energy source which could open a portal to over 100,000 different worlds at once. Instead it opened a portal to the heavens, and when they found out what they had done they sent a bomb through.

The walls of time and space within the heavens fell onto the energy that was powering life. It broke open and destroyed everything, even existence itself. The gods, time, space, existence, none of it existed any more. The end of Second Life had come.

That's going out with a bang! Second Life takes down all of existence. I love it, Schoktra.

One day, on a new server accidentally left open by a careless n00b Linden...

one comes across....

Heh, it'll be like one of the endings of Deus Ex. I like the term "speculative fiction" so much.

Enabran Templar in his JC Denton alt will merge with the OmeGrid?

Microsoft VirtuaNest cleans up the market with government approved sex balls (biblical positions only) and carefully selected corporate content. Megaclubs sponsor private islands and non branded clothing is hard to come by.

One of the first nester couples name their first child SecondLife in memory of the long dead predecessor. Most people don't get the reference.

April, 2006

After finally having convinced Philip and crew that they have no idea how to administer their own product, control is turned over to the self styled experts who cannot live without fear and the overwhelming urge continually repeat cries of doomsday with 1000s of ultra-verbose warnings.

The other 95% percent of SL quits.

Fini.