Promise Enforcer 2000
Been burned one too many times by that shady avatar you met on Orientation Island? Unsure if you’ll ever get your L$ back from that supposedly reputable in-world bank? If so, the “Promise Enforcer 2000″ ™ may be the device for you! The PE2K is a state-of-the-art avatar annoyance system that stylishly defends your corner of the Second Life grid against those that have wronged you.
The PE2K rezzes as a yellow (green? I can’t tell .. curse you colorblindness!) pole on the ground. It responds to two sets of text commands that can only be issued by its owner. These commands are as follows:
broken promise Avatar Name
(initializes the system and causes it to search out the avatar in question)fulfilled promise
(resets the system back to its normal state)
The Promise Enforcer 2000 in all its glory
Upon being alerted to a promise breaker, the PE2K will seek out the offending avatar and pummel him or her with red sparks while flashing the words “Promise Breaker” over and over again. This treatment can be disabled with a simple command given by the PE2K’s owner. Here’s a quick video that illustrates how the device operates:
And here’s a dramatic reconstruction of an actual broken promise situation:
The actual mechanics of the device work as follows:
- The main fixture (the column) is rezzed into existence.
- The column immediately rezzes the annoyance ball on top of itself
- The main fixture listens for the command “broken promise” being said by its owner
- Upon hearing this command, it parses out the remainder of the command and assumes that the rest of the sentence is the name of another avatar
- Using a secret channel, it communicates the name of the avatar to the red ball and tells it to seek out this individual.
- The ball uses a sensor routine to scan the local area for the avatar in question. When it finds this person it rushes towards them and begins to throw off red sparks and yell out the words “Promise Breaker!” over and over.
- During this time the main fixture is listening for the “fulfilled promise” command. Upon hearing this utterance the fixture communicates with the ball and tells it to return to its perch atop the column. The system resets itself and waits in the state defined in step 3.
The nested object architecture was initially designed to turn the PE2K into a cannon that would continually fire bullets at promise breakers. However, this functionality had a tenancy to miss its intended target and pummel pretty much anything in the local area. Not cool. 