HISTORY OF THE IMPERIUM WORKING GROUP
- --Clay Bush, 30-April-1994
This a general post for all Traveller afficionados out there. It's an
insider's view of a Traveller fan organization.
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
What is HIWG?
=============
HIWG is a multi-national organization of Traveller fans. That's as specific a
definition as I've come up with.
It started in 1987 when MegaTraveller came out, and was to develop Imperial
history. It did a lot of this, and many ideas went into Rebellion Sourcebook
and other products. It outgrew this focus, though, as people exchanged
programs, wrote up sectors, and developed races.
A good portion of MEMBERS' work has seen print. HIWG itself has several
newsletters (AAB Proceedings is the general newsletter, STARBURST is the
Australia-New Zealand newsletter, and WHITE NOISE is the current United
Kingdom newsletter), but it does not and will not publish any supplements
itself. No collection of 100+ scattered people can imitate a company
successfully.
Instead, there is a list of people who joined HIWG, wrote some documents, and
developed their ideas enough that GDW (or others) chose to publish them.
We see our function as a meeting place for fans, and we expect good things to
happen from people interacting. It's hard to predict what will develop in
advance, as we've discovered.
The discussion has been muted as everyone waited to see TNE when it came out.
It is picking up steam, however, now that all the core pieces of TNE are out.
LAND GRANTS
To encourage ownership and friendly competition, we allocated sectors and
areas to "analysts." Some of this material has seen print as library data,
some published sectors have had their worlds named by HIWgers, and others are
very sketchy. HIWG got credits, but Fugate did end MTJ4 with a note that HIWG
material was too much "why" and not enough start-adventure-here.
Nevertheless, much of HIWG's material is about detailing sectors and their
inhabitants. GDW selected specific a HIWG member to collapse the rest of Old
Expanses, and other "collapse the sector" projects are underway. The results
will be in the HIWG library, along with the collected official sector UWP
files.
To prevent overloading one person, HIWG divided the Imperial universe into
four "quadrants." The four met at Reference/Core. With the Virus leveling
Imperial space, HIWG may develop some new organization to better fit the new
realities. It's being kicked around by members.
OTHER PROJECTS
There were also a number of equipment and ship designs that HIWGers
exchanged.
Witha new system (Fire, Fusion, and Steel) to absorb, this has died down. It
will pick up after members finish revising their worksheets and programs. We
are looking at starting a design special interest group to handle exchanging
this information.
(Bryan Borich's "Starships, Starports, and Vehicles" distributed MT craft
designs. People contributed their own, and Bryan verified, compiled, and
distributed them. Bryan's been busy with work in that "real world" where we
get paychecks, and FF&S is still new, but I expect a restart before the 1994
is out.)
There is also some interest in a Classic Traveller working group and an
Alternate Technologies working group. Neither is yet a working entity, but
HIWG's results have always depended on what members decided to put in.
HIWG LIBRARY
Most work is exchanged in numbered documents. (The numbering system is being
revised to separate New Era from Rebellion era work.) The library also
contains a few programs, sector UWP files, and other collected data.
HIWG documents are available on disk or as hardcopy. I think most people
reading this post will prefer the disk versions. If I pulled together all the
documents and files that have been done, I would fill eight 1.44MB disks.
(If a HIWGer writes an adventure, it goes off to someone as a submission. And
quite a few get published. The adventures just aren't in the HIWG library.)
MEMBERSHIP
Membership gets you copies of AAB Proceedings, a membership directory, and a
list of documents. Programs we exchange between people who have the same
machines (Mac, IBM, Atari), and interest groups with their own newsletter
form
around interesting areas.
Membership is available at US$2.00 per issue of AABP from the membership
secretary. Usual membership payment is US$12. Send to:
HIWG-North America:
[address removed]
[email removed]
HIWG-Australia:
David Schneider; 5 East Avene; Allenby Gardens; SA 5009; Australia
[email removed]
HIWG-UK:
[address removed]
No email