Eclipse Worldbuilding Info

[Adelene]

People could visit; there's no reason that it would only work on recently eclipsed kids; but one psion can only handle so much and "so much" isn't "everybody's parents come by every weekend" so they discourage it unless there's some kind of genuinely special occasion.

Various definitions of 'visit' - if it's sometimes literally SL, they could in theory interact with members of the general public who're connecting via computer rather than being in virtuality itself. I doubt that's allowed - maybe in a minors-only setting with substantial oversight - but if they can let the general public do it they should be able to let just family members do it, too; thoughts?

Further thought: In order to do that the virtuality might need to itself be hooked up to the internet. This introduces vulnerabilities that they probably aren't going to be too keen on; you really don't want someone hacking your eclipsees. This works as an excuse not to allow computer-mediated visitation, if you want one. (The kids having direct access to the internet under these conditions may be a little iffy, since that could be a vector too, but it seems like at least a much more manageable risk. Probably they only have access to the web and, like, IRC and some sort of IM, and not generally e.g. online games that'd need to be individually vetted, and there'd also be download restrictions.)

[DanielH]

That probably varies from site to site, like filters at different schools or homes.I bet in some places they let you have virtual computers with full Internet access behind just a basic firewall and NAT.

[Alicorn]

At least some virtualites have psion-mediated anti-hacking protocols.

It's not literally SL in the sense that it's, like, running on their servers interacting with regular SL. The virtuality has to run on psionic servers and be interacted with via psionic interface to work, so visitors have to go sit in a magnet thing. I mean they might have gotten a license to fork the software or something.

Kids' internet access is definitely filtered but less as an anti-hacking measure (I think trying to hack a virtuality through FTP or something would be sort of like trying to draw a Langford basilisk) and more as a preventing kids from viewing porn or pirating music measure.

[Unbitwise]

So, in general, psionic computers cannot exchange information in real time with regular computers?

[Bluelantern]

...could a psionic uncontrolled magic outburst manifest itself as something purely technology affecting?

[DanielH]

They can, or the kids couldn’t have internet access at all. I imagine that having a traditional-computer avatar in virtuality would be at least two of computationally difficult, psionically difficult, or in the uncanny valley.

[Adelene]

It should also be the case if the kids can use regular online games they can similarly connect to regular Second Life. Possibly they have a bandwidth limitation that interferes with that?

[DanielH]

But they can’t be in regular SL any more than you can.

[Adelene]

No, but SL still makes for much richer socializing than IM, especially for someone like Denice who isn't great with words.

[DanielH]

Then I imagine Denice could use it, or the virtuality has over-restrictive filtering, depending on when in her timeline this is (I’m not currently reading that thread).

Would both be plausible?

Also why do eclipsed like food so much again? I thought it was because nothing had much flavor in virtuality but then I don’t know how a cooking class would work.