The Orientation Islands, originally named "Prelude", did not always exist, having been added sometime in closed Beta. Jessie, now a combat sim, was originally a copy of Prelude that Linden Lab put on the grid so people could see what it was like. This "forbidden fruit" was, in the early days, a tantalizing challenge for the more technically-minded residents--James Miller, in particular, became a living legend among Linden employees for coming up with interesting new ways of getting into them.