I Love Sailors

I was reading a post about The Alliance Navy on Second Life Insider and I remembered an amusing, at least to me, anecdote.

A friend of mine and I were wandering around SL looking at the sights. I came upon a nice, secluded hot tub high in the mountains. Looking up, I saw this immense "space platform" for want of a better word. Flying up and looking around, I saw that it had planes, runways, offices, and other boy toys. I didn't know about the "sit teleport" technique, otherwise I would have gone inside to get a better look. Against the rules? Rules have rarely applied to me.

Flying down, we came upon a military base - replete with guards, guns, gantries, and, I later found out, grenades. I went up to talk to the nice soldier on guard to ask her about the base and what it was for. She said it was The Alliance Navy.

Fascinated, I asked more questions.

"What do you do?"

"Stand guard," was the answer this very literal minded soldier gave me.

Sighing, I asked a little more explicitly, "What does your The Alliance Navy do?"

"I'm a new recruit, I don't know much about that yet, they haven't trained me."

I wanted to yell, "Did you read the brochure at least?" at her. I didn't, it wouldn't be polite.

Okay, they gave her a gun, they must have told her something, so, I asked her, "Who are you guarding against? Who is the enemy?"

I think she was surprised at that one, it took a long time for her to answer, "I'm supposed to keep people out."

Evidently, the enemy is 'people'? For all our sakes I hope the gun isn't loaded.

Thinking that there has to be a reason to do this, and the only way someone could get me to stand around like this would be for money, I asked, "How much do they pay you?"

"They don't pay me. I do this for free," came the reply.

Don't know what your group does. Don't know what you are guarding against. No idea who to keep out. Not making any money from it. Not exactly the poster child for attracting new recruits. At least she knows the name of the group. And people think Goreans are weird, at least they know why they are serving. Oh, and the brochures are better.

That thought intrigues me, perhaps I will write an article comparing the military to the Goreans. I've never met any Goreans, but I have read Wikipedia about them. Wikipedia can't be wrong, can it? "Master Sam wants *you*!"

Lost in thought and IMing my friend about how unbelievable that conversation was, the soldier interrupted with, "Would you like an application to join?"

"Sure, that'd be interesting."

I still have it. Just in case I want to join and have my own personal rendition of the "Private Benjamin" movie.

Remember what I said about rules not applying to me? Looking around, I see a few people inside the base that have higher ranking tags than private, so I tell the soldier I'm going to go talk to them. And I walk into the base. Unchallenged. You get what you pay for. I get my friend in my saying, "don't worry, he's alright, he's with me." The I.Q. portion of the application form must be optional.

The same scenario plays out with the sergeant and lieutenant inside the base that I run into. They really don't know who they are fighting against, but they are certain they get to fly "cool planes". Well, after they've been promoted and trained more, but eventually they will be able to fly the cool planes. The poor lieutenant had been in the Alliance Navy for over a month and still hadn't played with the "cool planes" yet.

They obviously couldn't give me a ride in the "cool planes", so I asked who could. The Colonel could. Take me to your leader. A long discussion ensues in which I use my, not inconsiderable, charms to attempt to gain access to the Colonel. The final determination was that they weren't going to give me access to the inner base to see the Colonel and neither of them had the authority to go and ask the Colonel if I could see him, leaving the inner gate unguarded.

Did I mention that one of them was a furry? How did that make it past the "don't ask, don't tell" part of the induction. She was lesbian as well, as the names of all her *other* groups besides the Alliance Navy attested to. At least they are an equal opportunity military. I wonder if the giant cartoon penis avatar would be admitted.

I also forgot to mention both of them had initiated IM conversations with me to arrange assignations. Even "tit for tat", where "tat" was access to the inner base and "tit" was, well "tit" didn't get me access.

"How much are they paying you?" was must natural question.

"Nothing," but they were much more firm in their resolve to keep me out, unlike the private at the front gate.

They were giving up sex now for the possibility of flying a "cool plane" in the future. All I can say is they must be *really* cool planes.

"Do the guns work?" I asked.

"Yes, want me to shoot something," came the answer from one of nature's born soldiers.

"Oh, and we get grenades too," interjected the other one, not wanting to be out-done in the "try to impress the sexy girl with all my cool gadgets" competition.

No planes yet, but they do get ordinance.

"Sure, show me."

Whereupon they shoot and lob grenades at my friend.

Later he asked, "Why didn't they shoot you?"

"Did either of them IM you for sex?" I replied.

P.S. I believe SL Insider is right about their recruiting video, portions of it do look like a dance party.

Virtual calisthenics to get your prims in shape...