Well, only sort of. I’ve recently revisited the idea of Banishment, also known as being a “Bane” in SecondLife. It’s an amazing experience of total or near total isolation and restriction. Learning how not to earn extensions to your sentence, especially if you start off not knowing what the possible violations are, is a significant part of the experience.
There are several Banishment Programs in SecondLife that work hard to recreate the experience described in the classic Bane story Eudaemon. There are also at least two makers who sell hoods designed to replicate a significant portion of the Bane experience, “MoDesign” from Mo Noel and “Kinky Things By Krystall” from Krystall Klaar. Their products form the core of the experience provided by the Banishment Programs and both make fine products.
What if you want to put your sub through the experience and would rather not enroll her in one of the Banishment Programs? What if you find there are more restrictions/rules you would like the Bane Hood to enforce than just those that are provided? Is there a way to add on to the experience?
Very soon there will be indeed! I am feverishly working on a system that will provide the ability to add-on to the Banishment experience. This will come in the form of a Custodian Chip which is implanted in the Bane prior to full encapsulation. There will be a line of plugins that can be installed in the chip to extend the capabilities of the Bane hood, while not compromising the security or punishment system. Plugins will be able to trigger Bane violations which will be treated by the Bane Hood the same as the violations it already handles, but will not be able to override any of the restrictions or punishments that the hood is already configured for.
Let’s look at an example to see what that means. In the Eudaemon story, Banes are required to report to Maintenance Stations periodically for suit maintenance, feeding, waste elimination, etc. If they do not report in time, or if they report too early then they earn a violation. I believe the AlterTech program has this implemented, but if you aren’t a member of the program then there’s no way to utilise it. HybridZ sells a very nice, simple maintenance station, but a fully restricted bane (especially if they are touch restricted) has no way to use it since they need to sit and touch the station twice.
Enter the Custodian Chip. With the Custodian, the Bane can be punished if they don’t report in time, can be punished if they report back too early, and can trigger the processing of the HybridZ station itself.
I have a prototype already running with Krystall Klaar’s Iso-Helmet, I have successfully demonstrated triggering a violation remotely (one small script needs to be installed in the helmet to enable this capability) and I am in discussions with Mo Noel requesting the same capability with her Bane Hoods.
I’m planning on having the following new products for sale as soon as I can get the scripting done: Custodian Implant (with any necessary scripts that need to be installed to enable the Custodian); Operator Remote, a simple remote control that will allow Operators to access their Bane’s Custodian from anywhere on the grid and the first pair of plugins. Included with the Custodian will be a “Just because I can” plugin that an Operator can use to trigger a violation just because they can. The first add-on plugin will be the Maintenance Station plugin which will allow Operators to define the parameters for a Bane’s maintenance needs; finally, I’ll be providing landmarks to shops selling equipment that would be useful for setting up an environment for Banishment along with instruction cards for ways to set up and use the equipment to roleplay much of the implantation and encapsulation described in the Eudaemon story. Essentially, a Banishment Program in-a-box.
I will also be working on plugins that provide some feature parity between the different makers. For example, the Iso-Helmet has a really nice ability to trigger a violation if you attempt to touch anything other than what is on your HUD. I’m hoping to be able to bring this capability to the MoBane hoods. MoBane on the other hand can punish for moving when not in mouselook. It’s not quite the same as forced mouselook, you’re allowed to be out of mouselook when you aren’t moving, but if you move, you must be in mouselook. The Iso-Helmet has nothing like this, but that is easily added through a plugin. If I do this right, then the choice of which bane hood to choose becomes a bit more of an esthetic one. I really love the look of the MoBane hoods, but miss some of the features of the Iso-Helmet. The Iso-Helmet has some features I really like, but it also lacks some of my favorite MoBane features. With the Custodian and plugins, perhaps we can get the best of both worlds.
Both hoods have their own ownership system and the systems are dramatically different. I’m not going to even attempt to interfere with or supplant those systems. Custodian Plugins will not interfere with the security features of the Bane hood being used. That’s crucial. I’m not going to create a bypass system like SpikeyVox either. My goal is to add to the restrictions, not violate them. This goes for ownership as well. The Custodian will have its own ownership system distinct from the Bane hoods. The registered owners will be allowed to do things with the Custodian, but if they are not registered as an owner on the Bane hood then they will not have any special privileges. One thing this will enable is to distinguish roles to a certain degree. A sub’s owner can be the sole owner on her Bane hood, but allow other people to act as Operators on her Custodian.
I’ll be sending out notices on the Hippo Group as the release nears completion, and announcing new plugins as they come available. If you have ideas, please send me a notecard! I’d love to hear ideas that I can implement and as always, if I adopt your idea then you get it free!
