From the Wyverns nest

The Babylon 5 Experience

February 12th, 2009 Posted in Places

Babylon 5 was one of the major Science Fiction TV series of the 1990’s. The show was set on a 5 mile long space station populated by 250,000 humans and aliens. It featured a five-year-story covering the events leading up to and immediately after a major galactic war.  For the time the show featured groundbreaking CGI technology.  However, it isn’t possible do a fair and just description of the station and the plotline, so I would recommended watching the series on DVD instead!

The Babylon 5 Experience is a partial reconstruction of the station and is a roleplaying area (although they do make non-roleplayers welcome).   It shares a full sim with another roleplaying build – the Wheel of Time.  With the Experience being located above 2000m in the sim.

The build features 11 levels to explore, including residential areas, shopping areas and clubs.

When you first teleport into the entry point, you are initially onboard an Azimov class Liner.  The liner presents the opportunity to pick up some good freebie themed clothing before you drop down and catch the shuttle to the station.  As you go down to the shuttle there is a warning that it is a roleplay area and a request to wear an avatar that suits the environment (basically tinies, horses and dragons are out, but anything remotely humanoid is ok).

Once you get to the station via a fun shuttle ride, it’s time to explore.  In the customs area, there is a useful 3D display that shows what each level in the build contains.  This also displays the availability and cost of the various rentals.  This also shows the lifts and stairways that are used to access the different levels.  It should be noted that there are some areas that can only be accessed via certain lifts.

The Zocalo!

The Zocalo is the first main area you walk into and is the shopping area.  This features a wide range of primarily Science-Fiction related items for sale including the expected Babylon 5 themed clothing and vehicles. But there are also items from Stargate, Dr Who and Star Trek, plus some non-theme general items.

The Babylon 5 vehicles for sale include fighters from the Minbari, Centuri, Narn, Vorlon and Shadows.  There are also the Starfury (including a Black Omega version) and the Thunderbolt.  These are of good quality and vary from L$250 to L$500, the proceeds of which go to the upkeep of the station.  These all use mouse-look for control, which can be slightly tricky to control, but allows for more consistent space maneuvering.  The only finicky issue is that on some, the instruction note-card is inside the vehicle, rather than being inside the packing box.

The Babylon 5 clothing is also of good quality, the entry point had free basic Centuri, Drazi and B5 worker clothing.  In the Zocolo shop you can find Minbari, Narn, Ranger and B5 officer clothing and some Alien avatars.  I favour the Ranger clothing, which cost a total of L$400 for the basic clothing and the overcoat.  I noticed that the prices seemed to increase for higher ratings.  A basic soldiers outfit was L$250, but a command level officer seemed to be about L$600.

The Zocalo is a general gathering area, and there is also a bar, an “evil ducks from space game” and a couple of good locations for general people watching.

Brown Sector

Using either the lifts or the stairs, lets walk to the very top of the station – Brown 1.   In the show this was the home to “Downbelow” which is essentially the slums of the station.  In the experience, this is also the case with the brown sector being a dark grimy area that is a maze to navigate.  A notable landmark here is McBari’s, a vendor of numerous culinary delights!

Red Sector

Dropping down a level, in Red 1, I found a museum and an art gallery under construction.  It looks like this will in time be an interesting installation, but otherwise there is not much else to see here except for numerous rentable rooms.

Command & Control

Blue 1 and Blue 2 contain the station administration areas. There are various areas to explore here, as well as CnC itself, there is a Medlab, various official offices and the council chamber.  Blue 1 is also the only place where you can catch a lift down to the Starfury pilots area.

Clubs

Down another level and you come to the Core area.  This is where you can catch the core shuttle which takes you to the lift down to the Fresh Air Restaurant (more on that later).  Also at this level you can find two clubs, the Darkstar and Rising Star clubs.  Although neither were in action whilst I was visiting, the Rising Star looks to be a fairly conventional SL club, but the Darkstar is set up to handle music events and pole dancing!

Green Sector

The Green sector is the diplomatic area, this has the rentals for aliens – I saw rooms themed for Centuri, Minbari and Vorlons whilst walking around.  Also in this sector are the gardens and the Fresh Air restaurant.  Fresh Air was the stations premier restaurant, the place to take your partner for that romantic meal!  In SL, it is not so much an eating place, but a place to chill and relax.   From here you can also take a lift down to the observation room for a view to the front of the station past the cobra bays (this would be a good place to be when they do combat practice).

So… Why Visit?

For the Babylon 5 enthusiast, the reasons to visit are obvious.  However, for the non-roleplayer and non-enthusiast what is there for you?

Well, this is a really fun build to explore with a lot of nice touches to see.   It took me about 3 hours to explore the station from top to bottom, and that was with using my camera to scan ahead so I didn’t go down dead ends.  Brown sector is a particularly confusing maze.

Socialising aspects seem to be currently centered around the North American market, most events seem to be held in the afternoon/evening period PST although the Darkstar does open from 11am till 2pm PST.  But there do seem to be events going on most weeks at the time of writing this post.

The shopping area is pretty good if you are into Sci-Fi, although pretty limited otherwise.

Want to visit?

Just follow this SLURL to find the entry point inworld!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Roleplay%20Collective/231/17/2597