PINASTRI HEADQUARTERS, by Oola Quan
FCapt Jorden Allen and VAdm Kermie Mistwallow say there are quite a few areas to explore on the surface of Pinastri Prime. The Colony (located in Second Life) sports a Welcome Center that features a wealth of information on United Federation Starfleet for members and visitors alike.
HQ has a multitude of functions and offers a variety of activities. On the ground floor of the UFS HQ building, you can find the Quartermaster, Personnel and Promotions and Awards offices, transporter, UFS trophy cabinet, event schedule board, Relay for Life (RFL) Area and the Joint Chief contact boards. The first floor features Branch info boards, Ship-of-the-Line info area, Recruitment & Retention office, and the Chief of UFS Staff office. The second floor hosts the Cafe and Lounge area, and offices for the Branch Commanders and the Chief of UFS Operations. Located in this area too, is a Conference Room, free for anyone to use.
The Academy building hosts a few classrooms and the ability to hold in-world classes. It is easily accessible via shuttle and transporter. On the ground floor, you will find a study area and chillout space, holodeck, and the classrooms, as well as a lecture hall (where you can watch youtube and movies). On the top floor you will find Colony Operations, a small landing pad with rezzer, a basketball hoop, and a meeting room. There is a Turbolift located here which can also take you to the newly added Commander-in-Chief and Deputy Commander offices. Anyone can stop by and chat with them.
Condos are available in the corner of the sim, with affordable rentals. This helps support the sim itself. A gym is located here for anyone to use. Up on the cliff opposite the condos you will find Club Latinum, featuring a dance floor and zip line. Down below, on the ground, there are a multitude of areas for people to explore. Check out the new beach. There is a Vulcan meditation area, a Memorial Wall and a place for zen or yoga practice.
There is a facility installed on one of the rock pillars for the Joint Chief of Communications and staff to continue to work hard for UFS. The Comms building offers visitors a variety of things to do such as: bowling, board games, chillout space, as well as Delta Communicator Showcase, the Comms team meeting space and the Subspace Relay Studio.
And then there’s all the nature to explore. Make sure to visit the caves! There are many areas still being constructed and improvements are always being made from suggestions received.
Pinastri Headquarters, located in the virtual world of Second Life, is open to the public day and night. There is much to see. Besides the above, there are two civilian roleplay areas. Trek-inspired roleplay takes place on SS Tranquility, located skyward. For more on this, check out our profile here – https://www.ufstarfleet.org/spiders-klingons-kazons-oh-my/
ASTRAIOS COLONY, by Ellemir Maven
Astraios is an outpost of United Federation Starfleet. Located on Astraios Prime in the Gamma Quadrant (3rd Rock Grid), it has been in operation since stardate 110111, recording nearly six hundred missions in its eleven-year history.
The colony, its station and its ships, are stunning mesh builds created by master builder Cmdr Alia Soulstar with the assistance of LTCmdr Astro Balut and civilian engineer Hans BoShi. On the ground you will find a multitude of buildings with different purposes, including a xenolingquistics lab, science labs, art gallery, quartermaster, welcome centre, open air amphitheater, a presentation area, an archive, a museum, and the Shooting Star club as well as the starbase known as the Denkiri Centre for Creativity. The colony also has a full training simulator where good and bad roleplay can be demonstrated for training purposes using a full crew of “server side” NPCs.
Skyward you will find the SS Astraios, and several NPC ships used by the Astraios crew, including the Galaxy class USS Neil Armstrong – a go-to ship for road trips, and the USS Argonaut, an Intrepid class ‘Phaser Cruiser,’ both designed for interactive roleplay.
Besides roleplay, there are events – the weekly Starfleet Boogie every Tuesday; bi-weekly “Mind Melds” where UFS members, grid residents and hypergrid vistors exchange and discuss ideas; and regular presentations on all things science and science fiction at the Astrotheater. The Denkiri Center also has an art gallery. Make sure to take the time to visit the NUNA Gallery, a world class facility featuring a permanent collection of ethnic, Eastern and Western Classicism, medievalism, and romantic revivals, leading to cutting edge contemporary art.
For those who are not familiar with virtual worlds, 3rd Rock Grid (3RG) is one of the many Open Simulator grids using free, open source software. Nearly 350 of these grids are connected to each other by something known as ‘the hypergrid.’ Being a resident of any one of these grids generally means you can visit and participate in any of the others using the same avatar. It’s sort of like a Schengen Zone for avatars.
Residents of 3rd Rock Grid or any of the other opensim grids may join UF Starfleet by beaming over to the Astraios Colony Welcome Centre. For more information on how to get there, see this forum post: https://forums.ufstarfleet.org/viewtopic.php?f=889&t=33571 >
SS NIMBUS & DISCORD
For those Star Trek fans who wish to remain based in ‘real life’ and not create an account for a virtual world, UF Starfleet offers friendship and interaction via Discord on a ‘virtual space station’ called SS Nimbus. More information here – https://lcars.ufstarfleet.org/index.php?title=SS_Nimbus or connect with us on Discord at: discord.io/ufstarfleet
[Photos by Selina Otsuka & Poison Toocool]