Rita Mariner and the Sawyer Squad

By Bixyl Shuftan

Many residents in Second Life have at least one alt, short for "alternate account" for those outside the virtual world. It's on the record yours truly has two. Some have a few to several. But few can boast of having the number that Rita Mariner, the chieftess of the Sunweaver community, does. She has over a hundred, most in what she calls the "Sawyer Squad." Her alts are no real secret as she often has a few around Club Cutlass, and will occasionally have one by her. Recently, I had a few words with her about these accounts.

"Maybe 120 plus Sawyers" Rita answered when I asked how many she had. Asking her how did the Sawyer Squad start, she answered, "It started just after I got started in Tiny Empires and Tiny Empires 3000 myself, we were finding it hard to find enough players to become subjects or subordinates.  Also many players would start in one, the other or both, get bored and quit. So I started the Sawyers to fill the gap and try to give active players ... at least one person in their downline, that was active."

How soon and how fast did the alts grow in number? "That happened over a period of years," she answered, "only as I needed them and also due to the investment each one represented.  I figure between the avatars, HUDS, clothes, etc, each alt has, they cost me approximately 20,000L each. ... I have close to $14,000US invested in them over the years."

So what did they have besides HUDs and basic clothes? The chieftess replied, "Well, right from the beginning I decided that all Sawyers would be black, my Babes in Black, as I call them.  Most have aat least two avatars, an Uchi Kani and then a second one of a different critter and most also have a EP pony. Then you toss in several changes of clothes, 7 Seas Fishing game, Crowley Corp ships, AO's.  The costs add up."

Why the name Sawyer and why black? Rita answered, "Sawyer is from the female cat, Sawyer, from Cats Don't Dance. I liked her.  I picked black, 'cause a black Kani is very sexy looking."

"The fun part is several of my alts have their own fans now," the Sunweaver leader revealed. I asked how that came about and why, and was told, "Sawyer021 and Brandi Tungsten both have mice avatars, so they play cousins. Momma Gil, has both Sawyer017 and MissMystique. She wants them on all the time, I don't have the computer power for that. ... MissMystique I created just for MommaGil. She is a cream colored Chinchilla, very pretty. Sawyer017 also has a black Uchi Chinchilla."

Besides the Sawyer Squad, Rita stated she had a few other alts, "I also have a bunch more named ones I created just for fun, The Chipettes have been used in a music video, by Nydia Tungsten. I have the chipmunks too, still looking for the proper hair and outfits for them. Once I actually found a nice chipmunk avatar I created set of named avatars with that, for fun, the female ones are cute, the male ones, not so much."



I brought up Valkyrie Ice, whom was the one non-Sawyer in the "Babes in Black" group. Rita told me, "They are not a separate grroup, Babes in Black, is part of my Sunweavers group. If you have a black avatar, you can be in it. I put the Sawyers in all the regular groups and treat them like a regular player. If someone tlaks to them, I try to get them to respond back. They are not there just as eye candy. I do try to have some fun with them too. That's why they are NOT disposable to me. I come to Second Life for only a couple reasons, be with my friends and play Tiny Empires and Tiny Empires 3000. I don't build much and don't script, (but) I have a massive investment here already in my ten sims. I do participate in the Relay For Life with my Sunbeamer Team, and I am happy to raise what money we can for the American Cancer Society."

Rita stated the response others have had to her alts has been positive as far as she's seen, "They like them, Queen Ranchan titled me 'Sawyer Swarm Queen' in Tiny Empires. In TE3K, I am Space Booty Hunter. (Also) in TE3K, I was able to move some of my Sawyers under a new player who moved to our guild and bump him back up to Director. ... That's what the Sawyers are for."

Rita then mentioned a problem that had recently come up, "I want to get my alts off Singularity and onto a better viewer, I can't do it without help. All my pass codes were written a ledger book and months ago, (and) it got accidentally tossed out in the trash and I mean ALL my pass codes, not just for Second Life. So that is why I am trying to get Linden Lab to understand the situation. I can't go through the normal procedure to recover pass codes, the e-mails tied to the various accounts have long since disappeared or been changed into something else." And when she tried contacting Linden Lab, their response was bureaucratic, "I put in a ticket to try and get this issue with my alt avatars fixed and have run into a roadblock they NEVER had out in the open, but buried in their wiki site. Who goes to the wiki site? They say, on their wiki site you limited to five alts! They will help me with five. And even they screwed that up. They are stuck on Singularity, I want to move them to Firestorm/Phoenix, can't do it without the passcodes."

"I don't want to throw them away," Rita spoke about Linden Lab's five alt limit, "I have close to $14,000US invested in them over the years." She did have a possible compromise for the Lab, "I suggest to Linden Lab, that they put a third option on the signup page for alts. If they want $9.95 fee for each alt, then ask at creation, I would have gladly paid it, then.  but in exchange I want no hassles if I need help."

Some days later, Rita had an update on the situation of her alts, "Linden Lab actually took my suggestion and I got my five accounts back." I asked if she was going to get help with the rest, and the Sunweaver leader answered, "It's all done. I told them to just put a simple code on each one for now, e-mail me the code, I would use that to access their AL account page and reset the passcode myself. So they did it, I accessed eacch one and they are all reset."

And so all is well once again with one of the largest groups of alts in Second Life. If you want to see some of them, come on over to Club Cutlass, or message Rita Mariner.

Bixyl Shuftan