Overview

History: 1987-1992

On 132-1116, Emperor Strephon of the Third Imperium was assassinated (maybe), and MegaTraveller (1987) was born. Moving the scope of the Traveller RPG from the local conflicts of the Spinward Marches and the Solomani Rim to the interstellar conflict of the Rebellion was a challenging transition, and two super-fans of the game immediately recognized this. As a result, Ed Edwards (formerly of Working Passage and a strong supporter of The Third Imperium) and Mike Mikesh decided to found HIWG, the History of the Imperium Working Group. Its goal: to help GDW to fill in the details of MegaTraveller's vast metaplot event.

The initial expectation was that a few dozen interested fans would join HIWG and that they would exchange ideas about the future of the Shattered Imperium through a 12-page-or-so bimonthly fanzine that members would receive as part of their HIWG dues. That fanzine was Tiffany Star, which debuted through a free flier in 1987 and then began proper publication with issue #1 in January/February 1988. Ed Edwards was the "chairsophant" of HIWG and Mike Mikesh was the editor of Tiffany Star.

HIWG was successful beyond its founders' wildest dreams, and Tiffany Star soon became inadequate for the vast numbers of articles being produced on Rebellion history. This was especially true as HIWG's remit began to expand, to cover not just the major historical events of the future Imperium, but also its effects on every sector. To resolve this problem, most pieces written by HIWG members were shifted over to "HIWG Documents", which were articles made available for distribution through the mail for copying and mailing fees; thanks to Bryan Borich, some of these files were also computerized and made available for download through GEnie or distribution by floppy disk. Tiffany Star reflected this changing relaity in issue #10 (July 1989), which shifted to a 4-page monthly format, largely focused on news and listings of new HIWG Documents. The second era of Tiffany Star had begun!

Meanwhile, some HIWG members were beginning HIWG fanzines of their own. Kevin Parry's STarport (1989-1991), founded in January 1989, may or may not meet the definition of a fanzine as it was a newsletter distributed over the internet. Clay Bush's AAB Proceedings (1989-1999), founded in April 1989, was more obviously a 'zine: it initially focused on the Vland Domain and then "Quadrant 1", which contained the spinward-coreward corner of the Third Imperium and nearby sectors.

MegaTraveller was in a somewhat precarious position across its short run from 1987-1992, in part because of changing visions for the line, which shifted from Marc Miller to Joe Fugate Sr. at DGP to Chuck Gannon freelancing for GDW and ultimately to Dave Nilsen. Though Miller had been very positive and encouraging of HIWG in its initial stages, Fugate found himself overwhelmed by the vast quantity of material that HIWG was producing and indicated that he was interested in seeing finished products not preliminary documents.

This precipitated the third era of Tiffany Star, where it changed from being a clearing house for HIWG Documents into a forum where writers could discuss their upcoming works, offering other writers advanced notice so that they could better coordinate their own pieces. Tiffany Star began drifting upward in size again to accomodate these new objectives with #21 (June 1990), though a new column on "Who's Doing What" only appeared with #25 (1991) and the changeover was only fully acknowledged in #26 (1991), along with an official change back to a bimonthly schedule.

Meanwhile, a third member had come aboard to support Tiffany Star: graphic designer John Meyers. Beginning with issue #24 (1990) he offered more professional layout and design for the magazine. As Mike Mikesh wrote in #25: "No floor scraps. No gooey fingers." Previously, the newsletter had been laid out by hand!

Both HIWG and its publication arm were seeing some of their greatest success at this time. Yet more new HIWG 'zines were taking off all over the world including Signal-GK (1989-1997) from HIWG-UK (which was more than a typical HIWG newsletter) and Starburst (1991-1999) from HIWG Down Under. Then the staff of Tiffany Star was tapped to produce a new newsletter for GDW themselves: Imperial Lines (1991-1993) was overseen by Mike Mikesh and John Meyers, alongside Mark "Geo" Gelinas, whose long-lived local newsletter, Terra Traveller Times (1987-1995), had become another member of the HIWG family.

Unfortunately, the work of the Tiffany Star principals for Imperial Lines was a major factor in bringing HIWG's original 'zine to an end. With Tiffany Star #29 (1991), John Meyers' graphic design disappeared from the magazine. After that, it went on hiatus for half-a-year, with AAB Proceedings becoming the flagship of HIWG starting with #17 (March 1992).

Tiffany Star appeared for three final issues in 1992, from #30 (May 1992) through #32 (October 1992). In this fourth and final era, it was a newsletter for the latest goings on in the world of Traveller, as MegaTraveller faded and Traveller: The New Era (1993) rose. The last issue revealed that Ed Edwards had stepped down as Chairsophant to be replaced by Geo Gelinas, as had already been announced in AAB Proceedings #19 (September 1992). Afterward, Tiffany Star ended and the torch of HIWG was thereafter carried by AAB Proceedings, Starburst, The Meshan Cycle (1995-1999), and others.

Obtaining the Magazines

About the Contents

Tiffany Star was the first of the HIWG Newsletters, and thus it had content that was very different from any Traveller periodical that had come before it. Like the non-HIWG newsletters dating back to Dark Star, they were less polished and more oriented toward discussion. However, the HIWG Newsletters were unique beyond that. When they published content about Charted Space, it tended to be speculative (even contradictory), it often delved deep into that secondary world, and it were largely system-independent. HIWG was more about exploring the width and depth of Charted Space than about making it gameable (which was one of its problems in the latter days of MegaTraveller, when editors were looking high and low for publishable material).

All of these characteristics make Tiffany Star content somewhat hard to classify, because it was weird compared to everything before it. This index does its best job at figuring things out! (And make no mistake, much of the content was amazing as well, especially in the first ten issues, before most of HIWG's articles were offloaded.)

This index is © Copyright 2022-2023 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution.

Main Index

🧰 Accessories

💡 Advice

🛸 Aliens: Humaniti

🛸 Aliens: Major Races

🛸 Aliens: Minor Races

📚 Background: Misc

🌌 Background: Geographic, Charted Space

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Antares¹

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Deneb¹

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Gateway¹

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Ielish¹

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Sol¹

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Sylea¹

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Vland¹

1. This is from page 1 of AAB PROCEEDINGS #6 (1989), which was reprinted in TIFFANY STAR #14 (1989). In turn, AAB PROCEEDINGS reprinted it from THE TRAVELLERS' DIGEST #3 (DGP, 1985) because it hadn't fit in the reprint in THE EARLY ADVENTURES (DGP, 1988). Whew!

🌌 Background: Geographic, Julian Protectorate

🌌 Background: Geographic, Vargr Extents

⌛ Background: Historic¹

1. Everything in HIWG publications was speculative, with the idea being that it would become canon if adopted into official publications. That was even more true for the Historic Background in TIFFANY STAR, where different authors might offer contradictory ideas over time.
2. Used in the REBELLION SOURCEBOOK (GDW, 1988)
3. The first iteration of the "Ripples in the Imperium" map that appears in the REBELLION SOURCEBOOK (GDW, 1988).
4. Though it's uncredited, this map was probably part of the announcement packet sent out by GDW on April 15, 1987. Another map produced in the same manner can be found in THE IMPERIUM STAPLE #12 (Hinton, 1987).
5. The ideas about the Second Solomani War were probably the most contradictotry content in TIFFANY STAR, with the first article appearing before anything was laid down, in TIFFANY STAR #1 (1988), and then considerable more material appearing before Mike Jackson became the Sol Domain analyst in TIFFANY STAR #7 (1989).

🖊️ Campaign Design

🚀 Equipment: Transport

⬆️ Meta

1. The first page of AAB PROCEEDINGS #6 (1989) appeared in TIFFANY STAR #14 (1989) as page 3.
2. The "What in the Stars" column tended to be part ediitorial (saying what was in the issue) and part news (saying what was going on for Traveller generally), with the news component quickly growing until it took the column.
3. The last few issues of TIFFANY STAR were just a stream-of-consciousness newsletter.
4. An intro to the short-lived COREWARD HIWG fanzine (1990-1991).

🗣️ NPCs

📜 Rules

1. Drawn from KNIGHTFALL (GDW, 1990).

🔎 Previews

Covers