From David Lai, Chief of the United Kingdom (UK)'s HIWG division: -
WHAT IS HIWG? The History of the Imperium Working Group (HIWG)
is dedicated to the development of material for the Universe of the Third
Imperium during the Rebellion Era, featured in GDW's MEGATRAVELLER game. It
was originally founded by Ed Edwards and Mike Mikesh in the United States in
1987, and since then the membership has grown steadily to over seventy members
in the USA, Canada, and the UK. Because of some of the "professional"
contacts it has, some of the work of HIWG has already made print in the pages
of GDW's REBELLION SOURCEBOOK.
Primarily, HIWG is a postal discussion group. Much of what is discussed
revolves around the politics of the Rebellion and events, rather than
adventures and equipment for characters to buy.
Like many things in life, you get as much out of HIWG as you put into it,
so if you are interested in a certain aspect of MEGATRAVELLER or the
Rebellion, chances are that there's someone in HIWG who's either currently
conducting a discussion on it, or is willing to start! To help with
discussions, members can volunteer to take on a post as a correspondent or
analyst for a particular region (Domain or Sector) or a faction of the
Rebellion (e.g. Lucan's Imperium, ani confederation, etc), that interests them
and attempt to furnish the region with further dtail. These posts are
assigned on the basis of "first come, first served", and so it's best for new
members to inquire what vacancies exist first before applying for a post.
There also exist other special interest groups that consider certain aspects
of the Rebellion, such as the Science and Technology Special Interest Group,
which considers the implications of the technology of the TRAVELLER Universe,
and the Espionage Secial Interest Group which considers the activities of the
various intelligence agencies active during the Rebellion. Other interest
groups seek to promote the use of computers in TRAVELLER and to exchange
magnetic data. Three groups already formed are for the Atari-ST, Amegia, the
IBM PC.
The main means of expression outside letter writing is a HIWG
Publication.
Sometimes in a letter, one can find that you can waffle on for several pages
on one particular topic, which with a little tidying up could constitute a
small article. Sometimes one might wish to discuss a certain problem, such as
"Who is the 'real' Strephon?", in the form of an open ended article inviting
comment. In each case, they could be turned into a HIWG Pub and made
available (for a small photocopying fee) to anyone who was interested.
HOW TO JOIN HIWG
The new member package for HIWG contains:
1) the latest TIFFANY STAR
2) the official 1125 map of the Imperia by Marc Miller
3) a really spiffy certificate of membership in HIWG in your name
4) example HIWG Pub (this varies from new member to new member -
depends on what I have extra copies of - of course. I send out copies
of the $0.30 items, not the $3.00 items).
5) HIWG Pub List (HPL) - denotes the organization of HIWG
and the HIWG Pubs available for ten cents a page.
The normal membership in HIWG costs $12 per year. This includes six issues of
the fanzine: TIFFANY STAR (TS).
-Mega Good TRAVELLERing!!!
-Ed