Bertil wrote that an old Traveller player thought that the Aslan were based
on Samuri era Japanese. Actually he is very close. The original Aslan were
based on 1905 era Japanese. I know this because Aslan predate Traveller by
several years and were first seen in a homebrewed RPG about a colony called
Elizabethia (this RPG was probably the inspiration (almost first playtest) for
Traveller and pioneered much of the rules ). Frank Chadwick who was GM had
a drawing of an Aslan in a Japanese 1905 era uniform charging with the bayonet.
Since the tech level of the colony where the player characters lived was
just post musket and pike era these guys were pretty scary. Unfortunately
the game (probably the best I ever played in) devolved into Chaos before we
met the Aslan.
I don't know as much about the exact origins of Vargyr, Zhondai, and Hivers as
they were created to flesh out Traveller.
Non Cuniculus Est,
Tom Harris