The Battle of Britain in SL -- a "grass roots" commemoration

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The Avro Lancaster at Biggin Hill

Seventy years ago this month, Germany's air campaign over England, popularly known as the “Battle of Britain,” took a major turn. The Germans, suffering significant losses, changed their strategy and it became clear that Hitler was abandoning any ideas he had of invading the United Kingdom with his ground forces.

With that in mind, I was pleased to discover in one of my periodic searches of SL places--using key words such as “history” and “authentic”--that there is “The Battle of Britain Airfield” in Second Life at Gurla (53, 239, 64). So I put on my Betty Page hair and a vintage-inspired outfit from Ingenue, and headed over to take a look.

This is an interesting concept: it has been assembled as a “living museum” that incorporates your usual SL vendor area with an immersion environment based upon the actual historic RAF airfield at Biggin Hill, displays of recreated aircraft and vehicles by a number of different builders, and a role-playing group that seeks to honor the men and women of the RAF by recreating a British “unit” from the RAF, much in the same way that military reenactors recreate various organizations from various time periods in real life. It’s just that this living history unit is operating in virtual space.

Inside the control tower--nice detail!

Let’s talk first about the environment: it includes are some great structures that are based upon actual buildings (many of which are still standing) at the Biggin Hill field. These were crafted by a number of different content makers, including Synge Michalak, Punky Pugilist, and sim owner Gaius Luminos, among others. There are quonset huts, shanty-like barracks, hangars of multiple types, and blast bays for the aircraft, as well as a control tower and the dispersal hut (complete with details like the “scramble bell” by the door, and a mish-mash of furniture out front) where the pilots waited for their orders to take off. There are some “off-the-shelf” hangars as well, mostly containing the vendors, but the plan seems to be to eventually replace these with custom historical builds.

There are also a few historical compromises--but the only one that really made me cringe was that the field’s anti-aircraft gun emplacements have German 88 flak guns instead of Allied models such as the British 3.7 inch AA gun or the ubiquitous 40MM Bofors. The 88’s are extremely well-made examples by Rael Ellison, but they are German, after all. But hey, I’m probably one of only a very small number of people who gets her knickers in a twist over such things.

Yeah. It's an 88. It shouldn't have been there. Did that stop me from being a good little Flakhilferin and getting on it to take a few test shots? No, of course not. Don't be silly. And the thing is very well made. Shoots beautifully too.

The only other issue I had was that in a few certain areas the build felt just a smidge crowded. They really need more space to do the environment justice, but then I fully understand that people have financial realities to deal with. One really good decision that the builders made was to place the larger part of the non-period signage, displays and historical interpretation elements inside closed hangars, so they would not detract from the environment. I think they could actually take this a bit further and get almost all of the non-1940s bits and bobs out of the primary historical immersion environment. For example, there is a lovely memorial with pictures and a ring of candles, but it is outside next to the Lancaster bomber. Some of the recreated buildings are actually empty--perhaps the memorial could be moved inside one of them? Just a thought.

The memorial at the Biggin Hill build.

Oh speaking of that Lanc--by god it is perhaps the most spectacular recreation of an historic airplane I have ever set eyes on in SL. Built by Bancos Milestone, it is complete inside and out. There is even ordnance in the bomb bay. There are other fine looking aircraft as well, including flyable Spitfires and a Mosquito by Shana Carpool, and a beautiful static model of a MK I Spit by Julianna Holmer.

To learn more about the build, I contacted the owner and manager of the sim, Gaius Luminos, who very kindly agreed to answer my questions:

Diogenes Kuhr: Your Biggin Hill project is very nice build...plus I like the theme...what made you decide to do it?

Gaius Luminos: Thank you very much-it’s 85% historically accurate build of the RL Biggin Hill RAF Station in 1940. I built it as a 'Living Museum' to commemorate the participants of The Battle of Britain...both those in The Royal Air Force, and the Citizens of London who were there during The Blitz, from June thru September 1940, which would include my own family.

Diogenes Kuhr: So members of your family went through the Blitz?

Gaius Luminos: Yes, my Grandparents had the roof of their house blown off, and my Mum was attacked by a Luftwaffe fighter pilot on the ground, whilst she and a group of kids were playing in a Children’s Playground in Vauxhall....it was a very intense time...and a very historically significant time.

Diogenes Kuhr: You call your build 85% accurate--it looks like a lot of the structures are based on buildings that are still there or pictures--am I correct that a lot of research went into this?

Gaius Luminos: Yes definitely, we were lucky in that we had a staff member of Biggin Hil RL as a design consultant, he is a recently retired Aircraft Mechanic, so was present on the station for years, and obviously has it all memorized..so he was a big help. And yes, although Biggin Hill is now a commercial airfield, most of the original site is unchanged from its RAF period. The RAF's nickname for Biggin is 'The Strongest Link'..being close to London, it was pivotal during the battle, and was in fact attacked 16 times during 1940.

Diogenes Kuhr: Ah, very cool! So most of the structures in your build are custom, with just a few off-the-shelf bits and pieces?

Gaius Luminos: Yes, everything is custom, with the exception of the aircraft and gear vendor hangers...which we will also shortly be replacing with period custom built ones. There is a historical expo installation on the Sim, which visitors can view, basically a 5 to 8 minute tour of the Battle of Britain..it includes an aerial photo recon map of Biggin in 1940, so visitors can compare for themselves.

Historicial interpretive exhibit situated inside one of the hangars so as to not distract from the immersion environment.


Diogenes Kuhr: I think it's helpful that you have historical information like that but you don't beat people over the head with it

Gaius Luminos: I totally agree...and that was a big part of the decision to recreate Biggin Hill- yes its an archival source, but it also has a completely active Squadron, that flies Operations in the combat theatre, and functions according to the ethos, protocols and command structure of The Royal Air Force RL....so it is history, yes, but history 'come to life' in a sense, rather than being presented like the dry pages of a textbook in a class.

Diogenes Kuhr: I noticed the planes are from a number of different builders...that Lanc that Bancos Milestone did is downright extraordinary--do you have a favorite?

The interior of Bancos Milesotne's amazing Lancaster heavy bomber, looking aft from the cockpit.


Gaius Luminos: I love Milestone’s Lanc...as in RL, it is the centerpiece, which it will also be when we do our in-world memorial fly-bys for the 70th anniversary....but, as far as having a favourite, I can't say that I do. They are all excellent builds, and in fact have many of the in-flight characteristics of their RL counterparts. The Spitfire is an iconic plane of course, and I am as enamoured by that as anyone else, but they're all symbolic of machines that helped prevent Europe, and by default The United States, from becoming an extension of The Nazi Empire, in the Summer of 1940.

Diogenes Kuhr: Are you the owner of the sim as well as the project leader? And when did you open up the build to visitors?

Gaius Luminos: Yes I own the Sim also. It opened approximately 5 months ago. To be honest, i started it as personal project more or less, but we started getting inundated with visitors and group-joins, so it 'took off' (no pun intended) in a way that I hadn't originally envisioned. It seems that there are a lot of people in SL, for whom this subject is close to their hearts....Which has been very gratifying, if unexpected.

Diogenes Kuhr: I think it is interesting that the sim feels alive, not just in the sense that you have the group flying from here, but that also you seem to be continually improving it--adding things, fixing things and making them more accurate over time...what kinds of things do you hope to do in the near future to make it better beside replacing the off-the-shelf buildings?

Gaius Luminos: Well, that's a pretty big laundry list....besides continuing to dial in the build toward a 100% accuracy figure, our mission is to also continue to sync procedures of our in-world group RP to be as close as is possible to those of The RAF in RL, which would include as I mentioned, also conducting the same schedule of Commemorative and other events in SL, that The RAF is doing currently in RL....That and to continue as best we are able, to keep the memory of what was accomplished, and the gift of freedom, that 'The Few' gave to us at their own sacrifice, in 1940.

Diogenes Kuhr: And you are doing this on your own, just as interested individuals--there is no connection with any museum or historical organization, right?

Gaius Luminos: Not at present...it’s all happened quite fast as I mentioned. However, yes, the idea has been broached, and its an excellent idea, to reach out to such organizations in RL, notably The Battle of Britain Society, and some others.

Diogenes Kuhr: do you feel like you learned a lot doing this?

Gaius Luminos: Absolutely...it has been and is an amazing learning experience for me personally, both in terms of how to effectively lead in context of a Military Hierarchy, both day to day and Combat Operations, both of which are responsibilities i take very seriously, and externally, from the great font of knowledge we are privileged to have here, from RL Air Force Veterans, Combat Pilots from different Conflicts, who generously give their time and considerable expertise to keeping the Biggin Hill Project as faithful a representation of what it is here to honor, as we possibly can.

Diogenes Kuhr: One last question...is one of the things you're going to have done replacing the 88's with british 3.7 inch AA guns and/or 40MM Bofors?

Gaius Luminos: Yes..we are having some built...when we first started, there was a JG (Luftwaffe Base next door to us, so there was an immediate need for an effective defense here: which the 88's definitely provided. However now that Base is defunct, so yes, are now in position to have them replaced with period Allied builds, which we are having made.

Diogenes Kuhr: Cool--yeah they're well made, and I assumed it was just no one was making the 3.7 inch when you started...

Gaius Luminos: No there aren’t as far as I know....so we're having customs made.

Diogenes Kuhr: 88’s do kind of look like a 3.7 in. gun...sort of...

Gaius Luminos: “Sort of” doesn't cut it around here lol...but yes they worked in a situation where we needed something with throw, right away

Diogenes Kuhr: heheh...So...I'm not the only person who has mentioned it, am I?

Gaius Luminos: you are the second!

Gaius Luminos: Also of course, Biggin obviously didn't have a Pub..but we do. However, inside, it has been redecorated as a photo tribute to the aircrew who were in Biggin in 1939..their pictures are all on the walls. I figured that since they no longer have a home to go to in RL (Biggin is no longer an RAF-owned property), that they could feel at home in SL, in the Village Pub...


I encourage you to go see what these folks have put together, for a couple of reasons. The big one, of course, is that whole thing about doing our best to remember and take inspiration from the folks--our parents and grandparents--who fucking saved civilization.

But I think you might also want to go see this build for what it represents in terms of an experiment involving a combination of living history ideas and the work of people who are embracing the sheer joy of building cool shit, mixed into an immersion-style “museum” exhibit...but done by interested individuals rather than meatspace institutions. You don’t have to be the Imperial War Museum or the University of East Dogfart to create an innovative museum experience in a virtual world. Anyone who cares passionately about something can run with it, and often times, have a livelier and more interesting and effective outcome than the institutions seem to.

Holy crap, there are people making gorgeous stuff in SL these days! Look at the texturing on this static model of a MkI Spit by Julianna Holmer.

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Goodbye Deadwood 1.0 -- a Second Life experiment enters a new stage

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Everything has a life span. The virtual town that I called home for over two years is coming to the end of its existence. Our sim owners Caed/Percy, Deac and Estwee decided that this weekend would be the weekend that we will "burn down the town." Then we will temporarily close the sim while they install the new build that will take us back to the spring of 1876.

Here's how Caed explained it on our Deadwood community forum:

"The Deadwood Fire begins on Saturday the 27th of 1879 sometime in the mid afternoon so as to allow as many as possible to show up. The day before (Friday) can be the run-up to the events on Saturday. After all the destruction, Sunday the 28th will be the closing party in the late afternoon/evening.

Timeline;

Fri the 27th, events leading up to the fire.
Sat the 28th, Deadwood Fire.
Sun the 29th, Closing OOC Party & final day to pick up prims.
Mon 30th thru Friday 2nd, Deadwood Rebuild
Friday 2nd 1876, Deadwood Grand Re-Opening at 5pm SLT


Rentals for merchants and players will operate much the same way as before with only a few 'minor' changes, and as always, rentals will be first come first to be served.

There will be plenty of space, tons of new buildings, more special 'named' buildings (Cricket, Senate, Progressive Hall, Shingle's, the Custer House Hotel, Bella Union, Iowa Restaurant, California Chop House Restaurant, Grand Central Hotel) and more, many un-named saloons, shops and residences will also be available to choose from."

The idea, if you missed the previous discussions of this, is to turn back the clock and recreate what Deadwood looked like when it was newly established, an illegal gold mining camp located on land that had been promised in perpetuity to the Sioux under the Ft. Laramie treaty of 1868.
You may recall that our first version of Deadwood was a remarkable experiment in historical roleplay as time moved forward in the sim: we started as mid-1876, and experienced the passing of the days, the turning of the seasons--and the progression of events as our own roleplay storylines mingled with historic events such as the murder of Wild Bill Hickok. We also witnessed the town developed, becoming more "civilized" and developing a more sophisticated social and architectural fabric.

It is now early 1879 in the Deadwood sim, and we are about to include one last historic event--a recreation of the great fire of 1879 that destroyed much of the early town. When the sim reopens, many of us will have new characters (I'm going to be splitting my time between Malachi--an older Black miner--and a Sergeant Major OHanlon, up at the fort). The environment will be very very different as well. We have done a great deal of research on what early Deadwood looked like, and Caed has been working for months on new structures and new terraforming that he will install during the brief hiatus. I think people are going to be surprised and impressed. The Deadwood build--even in it's first iteration--never looked like the other western builds in SL. This new build will look even less so: it will be a mixture of tents and cabins, some with canvas roofs, and a few others looking a bit fancier with plank false fronts dressing up their facades. It certainly is not going to be just another standard mish-mash of "old West" buildings.

Other folks have been working on new accessories and equipment as well--from mining gear, to new weapons, to more accurate clothing and furnishings. Everyone has learned a lot in the last two or so years and we're putting that knowledge to work.

Sadly, I am going to miss the end of the old build--real life work has me on the road for the rest of this week and into early next week. So this evening I went in and pulled up all my stuff (I didn't want to have it all returned as one big mass into Lost and Found over the weekend). So I started at the laundry--the first place I had in Deadwood.


From there, I went to the Blacksmith shop that I had set up for someone who suddenly decided to leave the sim, but I liked how it looked, so I kept it. Clay and I had a great time trying to make a forge for this shop because we wanted something that looked more realistic than what you usually see in SL blacksmith shops. I have always enjoyed collaborating with Clay. We give each other ideas, we share information and our different skills, and it's...well, it's just been a whole lot of fun.

Next, I went and cleaned out the wholesale liquor and tobacco shop I had set up with Blackjack--part of our "silent partner" storyline. Blackjack/JF has been a co-conspirator in some of the best rp I ever was a part of. I have had fun with a lot of folks--so many that I can't name them all. But there were always a few very special friends like Blackjack who--along with Elizabeth and Carrie Anne/Rachel, Roku and Sal, Clay and all his goddamn alts, Mahaila and Meri, and Lefty/Hawk and Brook--often had me moved to tears or laughing so hard I thought I was gonna puke....

Finally, I headed over to the hotel and cleaned that out. Sharing that with Cookie/Coodnank was a truly fascinating experience. I really loved working on fixing that place up and furnishing it as the town evolved, and places like the Grand Central became less primitive.

Then I went up into the hills and collected my shooting targets. I was thinking about the fun we had with the Deadwood shooting society--and the many happy hours spent talking about guns with Lock and Ernst and some of the other boys.

There's a few odds and ends left, but I guess it's ok if Caed just returns them during or after the fire. Street signs; a couple outhouses...oh hell's britches, there's probably something else I have forgotten. But I know one thing that won't be forgotten...all the friends and all the good times...learning and building, laughing and crying, shooting the same stupid griefers on different alts over and over...and creating some great characters and some wonderful stories.

I walked over the bridge one last time...

I think what everyone is doing here is very brave. In SL it's tempting to leave stuff up even after the life has gone out of it. To be honest, it really was time to do something different with the Deadwood concept. Even so, it's often hard to let go...to take all the hard work that has been done and dump it for something new. But the platform is a dynamic and continually evolving place, and to truly embrace it, you need to embrace the fluidity of it.

So I will let you know how the next stage of this experiment turns out.

~~~

"Life is a (run-down, unromanticized) cabaret, old chum" -- The 1920's Berlin Project in SL

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1920's Berlin--a crowded working-class neighborhood

Recently, I heard about a relatively new historical build that opened back in July 2009, but which is drawing a good bit of increased attention, so I decided to go see it for myself. "The 1920's Berlin Project" was definitely worth the trip--unequivocally, a great example of Something in SL That Does Not Suck.

A few nights ago, I went there when no one was around. I spent maybe an hour or so kitting myself out in period garb and hair and then sniffing about into all the corners and crevices of this complex build. I was so impressed, I made a point of coming back the next day for the 2 PM "Happy Hour" at the neighborhood bar when more of the residents, including the founder, Jo Yardley, would be around. It was an interesting and enjoyable experience, and I intend to make other excursions into this recreated representation of working-class Weimar Germany.

And as I said, I'm not the only one who is paying attention to Ms. Yardley's experiment. After I announced on Twitter that I planned to blog about my visit to 1920s Berlin, Rhianon Jameson tweeted back that she was planning on doing the same thing, and on the same day (and she in fact has done so with a very nice piece and images of some places I completely missed in my visits to the build). Great minds thinking alike and all that? Maybe. Mostly it's just that this is a very creative, and engaging build for people like us who want to see what can be done with historical immersion environments in SL, and I think this one may be gathering some momentum.

Standing just off the main square in the Berlin Build. That's me in a quick outfit I put together using Ingenue hair and the top part of an Ingenue outfit, with a skirt I made and basic pumps from Tesla. The scarf and jacket came from some other sources that escape me at the moment.

This build is the brainchild of Jo Yardley, who in real life is an historical consultant and living history enthusiast from the Netherlands. She tells me she hasn't been in SL all that long, but clearly she saw the potential that the platform has as a means to recreate environments from the past for recreational and didactic purposes.

The build itself is unique. The buildings and textures are her own, and look pretty much like nothing else you are going to find in-world. And that's not just because there isn't anyone else who has built a working class Berlin neighborhood of the 1920s, it's because Jo has drawn upon ideas and textures from images and materials in her own personal collection in order to pull this off.

And damn, it really freakin' works.

You wander around in this kind of grimy, gritty, verismo streetscape of small-to-medium size houses, shops, tenements and miscellaneous urban detritus and street furniture. There are faded and peeling signs and posters, street lamps and vehicles, and bot-avatars representing street characters such as beggars, an organ grinder, urchin and a drunk. Detail is spot on. I was agreeably pleased to notice that one beggar, representing a shell-shocked and possibly crippled ex-soldier from the war, is still wearing his M1910 "waffenrock" tunic.

The ex-soldier in his waffenrock

I am not going go into a whole lot of explanation about the background on the build, being as you can find that at a Wikipedia page regarding the project. But I will tell you that it has some stringent rules. You are expected to put on 1920s clothing and guys need to wear short hair (there is a very decent looking freebie period "haircut" along with some basic working-class outftis for both men and women available in the entry area). Weapons are prohibited and you are not allowed to come in as a Nazi Brownshirt or advocate Nazi principles--this is, of course, not only to prevent appearance of the inevitable wave of worthless, basement-dwelling, middle-class, white boy grieftards who take some kind of peculiar pseudo-sexual delight in being as "politically incorrect" as possible, it also heads off any conflict with the LL TOS. It is also completely and absolutely historically authentic for the context because, as they will tell you during happy hour at the cabaret, this neighborhood is way too "red" for any National Socialist crap to be tolerated. Wear a swastika, or open your mouth and spew any nutzi guff, or do the stupid salute, and you would have had the living shit beat out of you by the neighborhood labor unionists, communists, and anarchists.

A kiosk with various peeling posters including some that I am pretty sure indicate how "red" this neighborhood is.

The rules , however, are very relaxed in other ways. compared to what you will find in many rp sims. You do not have to stay in character all the time in open chat. The roleplaying I encountered in the cabaret was what is called in the parlance, "RP Lite." The sizable group of very friendly people who I met there had definite ideas about who their 1920s characters are, and what the lives and backstories of their characters are like. But they were also very comfortable with slipping back and forth between 1920s conversations and discussion of current SL conditions and troubles, commentary on LL, and sharing some really interesting information about the history of the period. It was in a lot of ways like the conversations you have at living history events. I found it engaging and fun, if a little bit disconcerting as I endeavored to stay in character as a Kriegswitwe (war widow) who was trying to convince bartender Jo to become an anarcho-syndicalist.

Mind you I don't mean to bring this up to be critical--I just want you to understand where they are coming from right now. The people I met were very welcoming, smart, and interesting to talk to--they simply have chosen to not do a hard-core style of rp here. In discussing things with Jo in IM while all this mixed series of conversations was going on, she told me that the project is very much an on-going experiment, not only in terms of the build being gradually refined and expanded, but also in terms of how its residents and regulars are deciding how they will interact with one another and visitors. This is important to understand: the project is very dynamic in an organic sort of way. It is still evolving.

At the cabaret "happy hour," 1920s Berlin founder Jo Yardley is tending bar. To my right was a very nice English expatriate, who knew a great deal about steam engines.

One of the astonishing things about this build is that it is not a complete sim. It is only a partial, but with all the twists and turns and the clever ways that the builder used her spaces, it feels a whole hell of a lot bigger. Yeah, it's like a fucking tardis. Jo reinforced this perception of a larger space by putting up photo murals of early 20th century German city street scenes (I presume Berlin) to close off the ends of the streetscapes with a trompe l'oeil effect.

The community that is starting to develop here is raising money to continue expanding the project. In fact if I have a criticism about the build itself, it is only that the immersion effect is slightly diminished here and there by the presence of the big donation "thermometers." But hey, you do what you gotta do, right? And I assume that at some point these things will go away or be restricted to the entry area.

All in all, this is one of the better things I have seen in SL in a long while. It's up there with the WWI poets sim--and in some ways superior to that project. For one thing, although there is a didactic element to the Berlin build (you can go in the school and see streamed video about the history of the era), but it is a far more realistic environment. And unlike builds such as the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum--which present three-D models of historic structures that are beautiful and highly accurate, but also empty, sterile, lifeless and without real human context--this Berlin build has a great deal of humanity to it, both in terms of the bot-avatars (which I think are far superior to the "Pepper's ghost" dummies and see-through flats of the WWI poets sim), and the friendly, talkative residents you can meet at happy hour and other events.

It also feels like a place people live, with litter on the streets, broken windows, useful stuff in the stores, diverse elements that include a laundry, a seedy tattoo parlor, a claustrophobic police station, a shabby tenement block, and a homey little restaurant. And FURTHERMORE, Jo went out of her way to build it to a realistic scale. Unlike most of SL, in 1920s Berlin the doorknobs are not at the height of your nipples; ceilings do not tower 20 feet over your head. I love that.


But you know what is really remarkable? This build came into being because of the efforts and vision of individuals--primarily Jo Yardley, but with the support and participation of other everyday SL residents and vendors. It didn't happen through the efforts of some organization or university with a professional project team and expensive gold solution provider-type builders, or with the cossetting and cuddling that LL applies to the projects it favors. Nope. Very much like projects such as the Deadwood sim, this is a real grass-roots kind of experiment. Remember that old "you world, your imagination" tag line that used to be splashed all over the SL web site? Well, goddamit, this is a great example of what our fellow residents' imaginations can produce, given the chance.

If you want to visit the 1920s Berlin build it can be found at http://slurl.com/secondlife/dudintsev/92/77/500/

To learn more about the proejct, you can look at the previously mentioned Wikipedia entry or visit the 1920s Berlin Project forum.

In the tattoo parlor. Delightfully seedy, ja?
~~~