by Phoenix, HSM team writer

If you’re a fan of Lockwood’s Sodium Universe, as I am, then you are already familiar with the blimps in the Sodium space. They have always flown overhead in this parallel universe in their leisurely majestic pace, pulling the grounded onlooker into a world of imagination. Sodium’s blimps are an iconic, identifying symbol of Lockwood’s Sodium Universe.

From the moment I dropped into Home two years ago and entered the Sodium Hub space, I was in love with the salt flats and the barren yet lively landscape. I looked up, saw the dirigibles and found myself chasing after them. Who hasn’t looked at a flying blimp and wondered where it came from or where it was going? At the end of my mindless run I was zapped back to Scorpio’s with a message reminding me that the salt flats can be a dangerous place. But even here, in the safety of the bar, the blimps were visible.

I wondered what it was like inside the blimp. Was it even possible to go inside one? When I found it wasn’t, I was disappointed. But I returned daily to Sodium to discover all there was to found — the scorpions, the mystery bunker, the bus, Vickie. The list continued to grow. When Sodium 2 arrived, I was there trying my hand at racing. But my first love was still the blimps in the original space. I was so much a Sodium fan that my first machinima was a Sodium piece I dreamed up to express the mystery there.

Recently I stepped through the portal in my space and into the parallel universe on the salt flats, where the nano-technology and scientific wonders roam free. While in the Sodium space I was chasing after a blimp, as I still do on occasion. I pursued the shiny exoskeleton sparkling in the Sodium sky to the boarding docks at the back, wishing I could actually board one. As I imagined what the inside would be like, I could see myself high above the salt flats floating out over the desert. Below me were Scorpio’s bar, the tents, Vickie’s station and of course the bunker.

To my excited surprise my dreams were nothing compared to the imaginations at Lockwood. The blimp is now a reality in Home. Sodium’s blimps of the past are now the personal spaces of its future. Sodium fans can now fly around the skies of the salt flats.

The Blimp space is a large interactive, three-tiered structure that flies above the salt flats. It is open and airy, with a captain’s deck, crew area, and a lower deck with an observation platform. Every detail was rendered in the creation of this space. Lockwood took care to recreate the surface structures and other details visible from their Sodium public spaces. Inside a hangar on the side of the blimp, for instance there are folded red pilot seats along the walls — every fan remembers these. Above the top level of the blimp and just below the balloon itself, hangs a sodium flyer.

Elements of the salt flat dwellings are present in the canopies that drape about the dirigible and sway in the breeze giving protection against the hot sun. These same strips of cloth blow in the breeze in the landscape, attached to the structures there. There is a transporter and gate portal on one of the levels as well, for travel from the blimp to Sodium and the desert floor. From the air, the tops of the windmills are visible through the cloud cover. Once on the ground, if you wander out too far you will be sent back to the blimp with a message about the salt flats’ possible dangers.

Included in this apartment is a treasure game. The owner can search and find items (minerals) and rewards from the floor of the salt flats. There is no gift reward for guests however. The minerals found in the game can be traded for Sodium credits.

Sodium’s blimp space can be found in the commerce point at Sodium, Lockwood’s store tab on the navigator once it is released. The Sodium Blimp Personal Space will have a bundle pack, the Sodium Blimp Resource Pack, which will contain the personal space, the Sodium Chrome Catsuit clothing pack (female), the Sodium Chrome Catsiut clothing pack (male), the Sodium Robo beetle, and the Sodium Robo Pangolin Fason, for 11.99. The personal space alone costs 8.99.

If you’re a fan of Sodium or even the steampunk genre, I’m betting you will enjoy this personal space. The official release date is August 27. If that’s too far away, pick it up now at X7 during the sneak peak.

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