Mom always told me that Nova Albion was originally way larger than just what makes up Mirimare, Grignano, Sistiana and Barcola today. Interesting that the Lindens are calling the forthcoming areas "Bay City." From the sounds of it, building style of the American 50's and 60's, it may look like what Nova Albion would have looked like if the Erase had not happened. The world had only just begun a sort of industrial age before the tragedy hit.
 

M-B-S-Grig are MUCH more beauteous in their outlines than Bay City (presumably a borough of our fair city).
 

Will you be undertaking any surveys and digs in the planned areas, Salazar?
 

I would love to! Unfortunately, the Lindens have not allowed digging in Nova Albion so that hasn't been possible to date. Interestingly, Caroline Apollo pointed out that a city parcel next to her's in the Miramare neighborhood had been terraformed a bit. I don't know how the land owner was able to manage that. For some reason, the Lindens have been extremely protective of certain regions and not allowed any manipulation of urtahra in Nova Albion, DeHaro and a few other places. Although some of the old continent can be manipulated to quite an extent... up to +-40 meters in some places... most of the world is only allowed to raise or lower their terrain +-4 meters. Champie Jack and I originally thought they started that restriction with the area around Kahruvel as that area has some deep volcanic deposits and, although we have managed to uncover a few ruins at the surface, there seems to be much more buried beneath. The Lindens have prevented us from digging any deeper for reasons I can only imagine. I don't buy the idea that they are only trying to preserve the landscapes. When Osprey, Ilia, Huns, Loki and I were on our expedition to the Southern Continent a few years ago we encountered a region we were unable to crossover into. But, strangely, we were able to teleport in one by one. We though they had been trying to hide something there as well.

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=80326

As far as the new area of "Bay City" is concerned, if they don't allow terraforming, we'll never know what might be buried there. We know that the city is very old and predates the Erase many hundreds off years.

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=31858

If the trolley schedule scrap that Magellan Linden found could survive the Erase, along with the building remains in the Barcola section of the Nova Albion Infohub, I'm sure there are other items that may have as well.

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=11098

I sure hope so.
 

p.s. Some regular thorough gini scans will have to suffice for now. S.J.
 

Hiya Sal – it’s a great pity that Linden Labs look unlikely to allow any explorations of the new regions as they come online. Perhaps you could petition them to at least inform their Mole Army to leave any finds or anomalies on display. That way at least you’d be able to glean some useful information – as you say, if building fragments and parts of an old tram can survive the Great Erase, then who knows what else lurks in the void just waiting to be, for want of a better phrase, unearthed? Indeed, look at how much survived the choking, scalding ash and rocks in Pompeii!

With regards to the Great Erase, has any work been done to determine an origin point of the disaster? Was it an explosion? A wave? From which direction did it strike? Also, has there been any speculation as to why some objects survived? With Pompeii, some objects proved relatively impervious to the calamity, whilst others were preserved by the very actions of the ash and heat. Could a similar series of oddities be theorised here – could some items of the old world have been immune, to a less or greater degree, to the deleting force of the Great Erase? Could not others have somehow been cocooned from the worst by the very nature of the catastrophe itself?

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on these questions – and delighted if Linden Labs allowed you some level of freedom in examining the new areas.

Regards,
HBA