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So, You Wanna Be a Contributor? |
1. Contributing members
are expected to subscribe to the fanzine. If a contributor is
unable to subscribe, he or she may make other arrangements with
the Treasurer and the Publisher.
2. Only contributing members
may own a persona character in the Tai-Pan universe.
3. Only one persona character
per contributing member is allowed aboard the Tai-Pan, and only
if a crew opening is available. Multiple characters are allowed
aboard the Quantum Lady, Iktome, and Ramanujan as long as space
is available.
4. All persona characters
must be original to the Tai-Pan universe; no cross-overs with
other universes without prior approval, and no characters which
are substantially similar to a character copyrighted by another
person.
5. Contributing members
are required to complete a Character Information Sheet (CIS),
Character Development Questionnaire (CDQ), and if requested, a
Racial Development Questionnaire and Planetary Development Questionnaire
for any persona character they submit. All character CISs, CDQs,
RDQs, and PDQs must be approved. Contributing members are requested
to only make as many characters as they are willing to support
as a guideline, one character for every story you plan on writing
or illustrating a year. If you can not support additional characters,
they may not be accepted.
6. If a Contributing Member leaves the project, he or she must make clear the fate of their persona character; any character which is abandoned becomes the property of the fanzine and may be put up for adoption by new contributors, or given a literary funeral.
7. All contributing members must be willing to accept critiques; all stories will be edited, and multiple rewrites may be requested.
8. Submissions from non-contributing
members are welcome; however, all such submissions should deal
with the Tai-Pan universe.
9. Plagiarism is unacceptable;
plagiarists will be severely dealt with.
10. Submitting a story, artwork, article, character information sheet, or other piece to the Tai-Pan fanzine implies permission to publish the piece unless otherwise stated. Copyright belongs to the original creator. This includes:
11. All contributors must sign a statement that they have read and understood the Rules and Regulations of the Tai-Pan fanzine.
The Tai-Pan universe is an anthropomorphic science fiction
universe, though it tends more toward the space opera end of the
genre than to hard science. Stories in the fanzine focus on the
four project ships:
The four project ships ply the Gold Road, a sector on the far reaches of Known Space, approximately 300 light-years from Earth. Most of the worlds in the Gold Road and neighboring sectors (Silk Road, Crossroads, Spice Road, Spectre Loop, and Devil Dark) are former colonies of the Terran Confederation. The region is balkanized; many of the worlds are completely independent, others are members of small alliances of three to twelve star systems. There is no single interstellar government. Interstellar law is governed by sometimes contradictory trade agreements and mutual protection treaties with no single interstellar police force or military to enforce them. (Sorry, no Galactic Patrol or Starfleet.)
Some of the planets in the sector are backwater worlds with pre-industrial societies. Others are medium-tech worlds with enough resources and manufacturing capacity to purchase higher tech goods from other worlds in vast quantities. And, of course, many are high-tech worlds with multiple space stations, and interstellar navy, and mining and manufacturing colonies throughout their star system.
The governments on the various worlds range from republics, to constitutional monarchies, to dictatorships. They include theocracies, autocracies, and democracies. The societies themselves range from oppressive to permissive. In short, all of human culture is represented somewhere among the worlds of the Gold Road.
There are several extra-terrestrial species in the region of the Gold Road, but most of the worlds are inhabited by the descendants of terran colonists. Most of those are gene-teched: humans modified with animal DNA.
Starships travel between the star systems through "jump points," taking a month to get from one system to the next nearest star. This means that it takes between 10 years and 15 years to get from Earth to the Gold Road, and over a year to get from one end of the Gold Road to the other.
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The fastest means of communication is to send messages on starships (Sorry, no subspace radio). Many governments maintain systems of unmanned "infopedoes" small unmanned vessels that zip from system to system, beaming messages to outer stations, receiving messages, then zipping to the next system. This high-tech pony express service can get messages across civilized space about ten times faster than people, who can't be "beamed" to the next torpedo. That means it's barely possible to get a message from Earth to the Gold Road in a year. (Sorry, no Galactic News Service) |
Almost all ships are equipped with artificial gravity. They use reactionless drive to travel from planetary surfaces and within star systems. They use repulsar fields to deflect tiny asteroids and micro-meteors. The most common inter-ship weapon is missiles. The starships are powered by fusion reactors.
Computers are ubiquitous. Most people own small pocket or wrist terminals, which function as watches, cellular phones, electronic books, information retrieval systems, note pads and personal organizers. Most computers can accept at least some verbal commands. Computers are seldom equipped with physical keyboards, but rather have a single touch-sensitive surface on which a virtual keyboard can be projected, allowing for the wide variety of hand sizes and shapes in Known Space. The smallest terminals, such as those the size of a wristwatch, would instead project a series of menus.
We assume, in this discussion, that the reader is a lay-person as far as physics is concerned.
High temperature superconductors
A superconductor is a material that will conduct electricity with zero resistance. If you imagine electricity as water going through a pipe, the larger diameter pipe will have less resistance and more water can get through with the same amount of pressure.
In electronic circuits, resistance will cause a loss of energy available for doing work. This energy is not lost, it manifests as heat and/or light. In fact, that is how electric heating elements and incandescent light bulbs work they have a high resistance element that converts the electricity into heat and light. A superconductor, on the other hand, has no resistance so electricity can move through it perfectly with no losses. An electric current put into a loop of superconducting material will circle round indefinitely. In fact, in several advanced physics labs around the country, there are super-conductor rings that have had currents circulating in them for a number of years.
Superconductors also have some weird magnetic properties. A superconductor placed above a magnet will float and a magnetic flied cannot penetrate a superconductor. Another very strange property of superconductors is that they will remain the same temperature along their entire length. If one heats a normal copper wire at one end, the temperature will continually drop off toward the other end. A super-conductor, on the other hand, will stay the same temperature over its entire length instantaneously.
The first superconductor discovered was a mixture of tin and lead but was only superconductive at very low temperatures, near absolute zero (about -273 degrees Celsius or -459 Fahrenheit).
By the time of the Tai-Pan, high temperature superconductors have been developed. These materials will remain superconductive at temperatures exceeding the boiling point of water. One thing we can do with these superconductors is make very efficient electro-magnets, something that is necessary for our fusion power plant. Another thing that this makes possible is the production of extremely powerful computer circuitry, something like eight to ten of today's most powerful supercomputers in something like the size of a boot locker.
Fusion
Fusion is a type of nuclear power which takes light atoms, such as hydrogen, and fuses them together to make a heavier atom, like helium. The mass of the heavier atom is slightly less than the mass of the sum of the lighter atoms. This missing mass is converted into energy (according to Einstein's well known formula, E=mcý). Nuclear fusion is the type of reactions that is going on in the sun.
This reaction produces incredible amounts of heat (the temperature is approximately 6000 degrees Celsius or over 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit). The main problem with fusion power is that no material can withstand such temperatures.
The Tai-Pan's fusion reactor uses magnetic fields created by huge coils of high-temperature superconductors to contain the fusion reaction. The reactor itself is the size of a small house and provides enough electricity to power a small town. In order to start the reactor, secondary generators must charge up the capacitors with electricity which is then dumped into the coil. This operation takes a couple of hours.
Cold Fusion
Cold fusion is an electro-chemical-nuclear process that is used to provide smaller energy cells. A cold fusion energy cell consists of a superconductive "sponge" of a particular geometry with electrodes inserted into it. Hydrogen is injected into the sponge and an electrical current of a certain frequency is applied. What results is nuclear fusion at room temperature.
These power cells range from about the size of a portable cassette player (to power laser weapons) to the size of a passenger van (to power some of the ship's craft); anything bigger is impractical and not cost effective.
Biotechnology & Cybernetics
Biotechnology in the universe of the Tai-Pan is extremely sophisticated. Most of the crew members are presumed to be from species that were "uplifted" (raised to sapience through selective breeding and a minimum of bioengineering) or "geneteched" (brought to sapience by splicing animal genes material to a base of human genetic material). This, of course, is the most obvious use of biotech in our universe.
Another way that people in Known Space uses biotech is for its food supply. They use a number of engineered bacteria to take a simple hydrocarbon nutrient sludge and water and convert it into protein, carbohydrates, and sugars. This synthesized food comes out as a grayish-white, nearly tasteless mass somewhat like a cross between cream of wheat and tofu in texture.
As a point of interest, in real world, 1990 America, a Navy scientist has succeeded in genetically engineering a bacteria, using the genes of a spider, to produce silk. The silk has five to ten times the tensile strength of steel, can stretch up to eighteen percent of its length, and is extremely light. Since it is manufactured by bacteria, which can be cultured at will, it will be extremely cheap to produce. Synsilk clothing will be the standard for any spacer.
Cybernetics in the Tai-Pan universe is obviously much more advanced than in our own. Specialists can replace just about any humanoid limb or sensory organ with a cybernetic part. Progress in electro-neurology has been made to the point that cybernetic devices can interface directly with the control and sensory nerves. Thus a cybernetic replacement would move and even feel like a normal limb.
Standard Propulsion
The basic form of propulsion in space is the reaction drive. This drive uses Newton's Third Law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction drive simply throws mass one direction to propel the ship in the opposite direction. Primitive rockets burn some sort of fuel, creating hot gases, the gas molecules expand and are vented out the back an very high speeds, propelling the rocket forward. (Note: The rocket is not "pushing against the earth" or such to move, it is pushing against the molecules of its own exhaust.)
This form of propulsion works for everything from a "bottle rocket" to a fighter jet, to the space shuttle Colombia (and more). There are lots of ways to power a reaction drive. The simplest rocket burns an explosive fuel. Much higher technologies allow you to do such things as accelerate ions with a powerful magnetic field and shoot them out the "exhaust," use a nuclear fission power plant to super heat molecules and shoot them out, or even use a huge laser on the surface to super-heat molecules in the ship and accelerate it into orbit.
Even in an extremely high-tech fictional universe, many devices will use some sort of reaction drive for maneuvering purposes (for example, spacesuits), because they can be built extremely compactly and simply.
Anti-Gravity or Repulsar Drive
The term "anti-gravity' is a misnomer for a repulsar drive system that, instead of applying energy to accelerate reaction mass and throw it away (as in a rocket), applies energy to produce a warp field that accelerates the objects in a desired direction. Both of these methods use the same amount of energy, in one way or another, to gain the desired amount of kinetic energy, but with the repulsar drive, one doesn't have to carry around the reaction mass.
On a planet repulsar drives seem to be anti-gravity, causing objects to float in the air. Actually it is a warp field accelerating the object in the opposite direction of gravity. Spacers usually call an anti-gravity drive system a repulsar or propulsor field drive.
The repulsar drive, when installed in floor plates, can also be set to accelerate objects toward it. This, in effect, creates artificial gravity.
Ships in the Tai Pan universe use a variation of the reactionless drive to create a "shield" or "screen" around the ship to deflect small objects from colliding with the ship. For a number of reasons, such a field is not extremely effective against large objects (say boulder sized or more) particularly when the ship is moving really fast. When a pebble-sized object is pushed aside by the field, the kinetic energy of the object is distributed evenly over the entire mass of the ship, causing no damage. Without the deflector screen, the object would hit the ship, concentrating all the kinetic energy on a pebble-sized spot on the hull, possibly puncturing it. When the object in question is quite a bit larger, particularly when the starship is moving at something like 10% of lightspeed, the energy is still distributed evenly over the whole mass of the ship destroying the ship anyway.
Such deflector screens are therefore not terribly effective against massive missiles and similar weapons, either.
Interstellar Travel
Starships are equipped either with Static Warp, or the higher tech, more expensive Stutter Warp, engines. Warp drives take advantage of lines of force that run through hyperspace between the hearts of stars. A starship must travel under ordinary drive out to the far edge of a star system to reach the "jump zone" before the Static Warp engine can be engaged, or before the Stutter Warp engine can be powered on at full.
A journey through hyperspace is sort of like going through a tunnel. The tunnel is created by the stars, so your exit and entry points have to be near stars. Fly your ship out far enough from a star, in the general direction of your destination star, punch a hole into hyperspace, and pop out on the other side, light years away. Most of the journey time is spent at sublight speeds, traveling far enough from a star to initiate a jump, or traveling into a system after jump. The areas of space relatively near stars is well known, while the vast interstellar voids between stars are not.
Other technologies
There are many other drive systems which may be used in some of the lower tech systems, such as solar sails, fission rockets, fusion rockets, ramjets, and so on.
Magic and Psionics
There is no magic in the Tai-Pan universe, or at least no scientifically proven magic. There are rumors of primitive shamans with voodoo spells, or of lost worlds were the natives use magic like the common man or woman uses technology, but these are simply rumors.
Psionics is another unproved yet rumored power, a thing found commonly in the entertainment world of holoflicks, but scoffed at by the common man or woman. (For all intents and purposes, we'd like to avoid the use of both magic and psionics in the Tai-Pan universe. However, if you've got a good enough story...)
The Tai-Pan universe includes a diverse assortment of races, species and cultures which are at varying levels of technological development. Though most starships use the "stutter warp" technology for interstellar travel, there are other means employed.
Some basic terms should be defined first. Starships are ships which are intended to travel from one star system to another. Usually that means using some form of warp drive. The term Spaceship is usually used to refer to other space craft which are not intended to travel between the stars but are capable of traveling between planets. The term shuttle is usually used to refer to a craft capable of entering space but used primarily to haul cargoes and people from the surface to orbit and back again, without the capacity to travel to other planets. Boat refers to any space vehicle carried on a starship or spaceship.
The most important thing to remember about travel and communication in the Tai-Pan universe is that it takes time. A trip from a planet in one star system to a planet in the next nearest system will take between two and four weeks for a ship with stutter warp. The same trip will takes months with a lower-tech static warp ship. Most of this travel time is spent covering a few billion miles of space at sub-light speeds to reach the jump zone where the warp drive can punch a hole through hyper-space to the jump zone of the next system. Then the ship must travel at sub-light speed from the jump zone of the second star to the inner planets.
The trip through hyper-space itself is nearly instantaneous, measured in the billionths of a second. Intelligent creatures experience it as a momentary blackout occasionally filled with bizarre dreams. Some species react worse to jump than others. None find it terribly pleasant, but for most its mainly an inconvenience.
A jump zone goes from one star to the next star in that direction, only. There isn't anything like a "transfer point" unless you are talking about a jump zone from one star with a habitable planet to some old red giant that has swallowed up all its planets, then around the star at sublight speed for days or weeks to the jumpzone to the world beyond it.
Jump drive can take you no further than 20 light-years, and that is for the big, military vessels. Ordinary cargo ships can go 10 light years and only that far if the next star is 10 light years away. If the next star is only four, you can not skip over it to another star on the other side of it (unless the stars aren't in a nearly direct line, a separation of a few degrees of arc from the point of view of the beginning system is enough, but the jump zones would be millions of miles apart in that case, anyway).
The fastest way to send messages is to use a starship. There is no "sub-space radio." Most of the worlds in the Gold Road and neighboring sectors maintain a network of unmanned ships commonly called "infopedoes." These pony-express-type ships receive thousands of messages (personal communications, news, government communiquÆ's, business correspondence) on a modulate laser beam. At the appointed time, the infopedo warps to the next system and transmits its data to the nearest receiving station. It will then receive data until it is time to return. After several such trips, the infopedo must be refueled and serviced.
A warp drive is expensive to run, so only the highest tech and richest systems send infopedoes more than once a week. Because of how far the jump zone is from the habitable planets in a star system, it takes around 20 hours for the data, traveling at light speed, to reach the infopedo.
Some of the practical implications of this are explained below.
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Mail from Home Sorry, but your character can not receive weekly boxes of cookies from mom. Such a shipment will take weeks just to get from mom's home planet to the next star system. A shipment intended for the crew member of a ship must try to intercept the ship. Families of spacers, when they insist on sending packages, will have the package shipped to one of the really busy ports (for example, Wilson's Rings, Jodhpur, Azerbaijan) and have it stored there in hopes that the ship will come through there. Depending on what sort of cargo a ship picks up, it may not pass through a particular port for years. And this is after the package spent perhaps months getting to the drop-off point. E-mail-type letters are another story. Such messages can be simple text files like 20th century e-mail, or they may be graphic files, essentially a picture of a hand-written letter. Messages can include sound and video. However, such messages take up a lot more storage space (thousands of time as much) in the memory banks of infopedoes, and are correspondingly more expensive. |
A digitized message is precisely what the infopedo network was designed for. Aunt Tilly can write a note, have it beamed to the nearest infopedo, and be fairly confident that it will eventually reach your character. It can be beamed across the next star system to an infopedo on the other side, and carried to the next system. Because these messages can travel slightly faster than a ship which will land on a planet and exchange cargo, the message, when it gets to a port your ship has been in recently, can be sent, via infopedo, to the star system your ship went to next. If your character's ship has left, that planet's "flight controllers" will know where you went next, and so on.
Even so, it still takes time for messages to catch up to a ship. A letter from Cousin George, back on earth, will take nearly a year just to reach the Gold Road via infopedo. Then it begins the chasing game.
This also means that news of major events won't be known to everyone in a short time. If a war breaks out on Jodhpur, it could take weeks for the first reports to reach the far end of the Gold Road. If the earth is destroyed, it will be at least eight months before the first report makes it to the Gold Road.
The goal of the Tai-Pan universe is to be a shared universe for collaborating writers and artists to play in. The production of the fanzine is a by-product of our playpen antics. While the universe is a still-growing canvas of exotic docks, galactic politics, pirate dens, smoky bars, crews' commons, and other such environments, the means by which we define it is through the characters which we create.
Your persona character is the lens through which the perimeters of this universe is viewed; every scratch on the lens adds its own shadow to the view. As such, your persona character is both a private and public creation.
Many of the contributing members are not "furry" fans; the characters are seen as personalities first, and anthropomorphics second. The contributors want a "serious" universe; they want characters of substance, not cheesecake bunnies. Furry fandom offers lots of cheesecake elsewhere; we want to offer the world of anthropomorphics fans a diet that is heavy on the meat and potatoes. If you are a "furry" fan looking for bimbo bunnies in bondage, the Tai-Pan universe isn't an appropriate venue for you.
So, how do you go about making a persona character for the Tai-Pan universe?
Simple. First, read this entire booklet, with particular attention to Overview of the Universe, Character Guidelines, and Physical Guidelines below. Begin filling out a Character Information Sheet. Refer to the Samples provided in this booklet.
Please do not create a home planet on the draft CIS. The universe has over a hundred worlds already defined, and one will probably work for whatever you have in mind. Please do not create, even as a passing reference, new alien species without first getting approval from the Editor. Limit your creation to the character himself/herself to begin with.
When you have completed the Character Information Sheet, please read the guidelines below again, and check that you haven't violated any of them. Send the proposed Character Information Sheet to the Publisher at the Tai-Pan address. If the character is accepted, you will be asked to go ahead with the other documents for the character.
Keep in mind that the Publisher may ask for some changes in the character before he or she is approved. Also remember that some ships have more open crew positions than others. Be prepared to modify the character accordingly. For example, if you have created an altruistic, heroic pilot, but the only ship that has pilot positions available is the pirate ship, you're going to need to either change the character's personality, or change her skill set to fit a position that is open on one of the other ships.
Unfortunately, the crew rosters of the ship are subject to change, as new members join the project, and current members leave the project, or write stories where they retire or kill their own characters. We can't keep an accurate list of open positions in this booklet.
You may submit revisions to your character whenever you wish, however, such revisions will be subject to approval. You can't revise a character to violate the guidelines after the fact. Also, if you want to make a radical change to an approved character, I'm going to ask you to write a story that explains how the character was changed before the new CIS will be accepted.
1) Make your persona character an individual. Avoid stereotypes and stock personalities. This is the most important factor make a realist character, and everyone will be interested in your creation!
2) "Interesting" doesn't equate with incredible abilities. Neither does it mean "more tragic than anyone else." Remember this: a character is interesting not because of what he or she can do, but for who she or he is. Sure, a black-belt martial artist who is also a senior navigator, grammy-winning rock musician, baseball hero, multi-billionaire, neurosurgeon, race car driver, and Cajun cook who sometimes spends his off-duty hours teaching braille to deaf children is a busy, lively guy but who'd want to ask him out for a drink? (And why is such a wildly gifted individual wasting his time aboard a pirate ship, or [in the case of the Tai-Pan] an interstellar UPS truck?) Characters like this are no fun. Whenever possible, avoid the Superhero archetype! Remember to balance out the good and bad in your persona; often a character's weaknesses are more interesting than his or her strengths or skills. And always remember to integrate the character's past history and personality in the development of his or her skills!
3) If your character comes from Terran racial stock, study the animal type and use it as a framework. Every animal has its unique physical and psychological characteristics. Normally, you won't find a svelte Kodiak bear woman they haven't the natural frame for it. And a three-toed sloth, even after geneteching, isn't likely to be a competition black belt martial artist; he wouldn't be physically as fast as, say, a mongoose.
4) Your character should be someone the readers will enjoy meeting again and again. Even if they're supposed to be a schmuck.
5) Leave empty spaces in the character's past to fill in later.
6) Think about the people in his or her life, past and present. Relationships over time are both complex and changing.
7) Let your character be moved by events in each story. He or she doesn't always have to be improved by them, simply let him or her grow and change. She or he can become more arrogant and foolish, or wiser and cautious your choice.
8) Beware of having a specific ending in mind for your character when you start you may reach it before you are ready!
9) Finally, be able to explain why your character has been hired aboard the ship she/he is going to serve aboard. Stowaways can happen only so often and often aren't viewed kindly enough by captain and crew to merit a hire-on. Neither Captain Rasputin nor General Manager Pandango is likely to hire a heroin-addicted, schizophrenic, convicted rapist for anything, let alone a sensitive bridge job aboard the Tai-Pan or Quantum Lady. Captain Roberts may not have any qualms about hiring someone with a criminal record, but he's not going to take on a crew member who has been known to fly into a psychopathic rage at any person who makes a sexual pass in his/her presence.
Physical Guidelines
1) The persona character must be an oxygen breather. Sorry, no methane or chlorine-breathing species, since none of the project ships are equipped with compatible life support systems. The persona character must be physically compatible in many other ways, for example, diet (if the character is violently allergic to normal Terran proteins, forget it).
2) The persona character must be capable of living with other individuals who might be of a racial type your character may once have considered dinner.
3) There are physical size restraints on all project ships. Most corridors in the Tai-Pan, Iktome, and Quantum Lady are 8' high or less (some work areas of the ships are a good deal smaller). Extremely tall, long, or broad species may have problems getting through doorways or standing upright. Most corridors in the Ramanujan are 12' high or lower (a significant fraction of the crew are anthropomorphic elephants).
4) The persona character must be capable of speaking and writing Galactic Standard.
5) The persona character must be able to provide the ship's doctor(s) with a personal medical history.
6) If the character is of Terran stock, the character must be a mammal or avian. No cross-species hybrids such as dog-mouse or rabbit-cat. If the character is an extra-terrestrial, be prepared to justify all racial characteristics from a biological and evolutionary angle.
7) Psychic and magical aptitude are not allowed.
8) The Publisher reserves the right to refuse any character.
9) The Publisher may choose to bend the rules for an exceptionally good reason. However, just because the Publisher or the previous editor bent the rules for someone else, that does not mean the same rule will be bent for you.
Many races already exist in the Tai-Pan universe. Most are genetically-engineered terran animals, "furries" or "anthromorphs." If there is a specific animal you are interested in using from the lists below, you may want to ask for the existing information.
| Aardvark Arabian Horse Armadillo Cape Hunting Dog Capybara Cougar Coyote Doberman |
Elephant
Ermine Feline Ferret Gorilla Hare Husky Leopard |
Mongoose Mouse Opposum Panda Polar Bear Racoon Rat Red Fox |
Red Panda Sea Otter Serval Snow Leopard Tiger Water Buffalo Wolverine Zebra |
Beta Starans: Superficially resemble feathered duck-billed dinosaurs (less than two meters tall). Beta Starans are culturally conditioned to be cautious and respectful of their society's expectations. Focus is on the good of the clan and the race.
Cobb: The Cobb look like giant spiders, complete with eight eyes and venomous fangs. Cobb are found on many worlds, their worker and merchant castes being very active. Their biology forces a eusocial culture upon them, superficially resembling hive-insects.
Corvids: an avian race which bears a strong resemblance to terrestrial hawks. Most are very xenophobic, and the government only reluctantly opened trade with other Gold Road worlds within the last few decades. Most of the world is low-tech.
Eliothian: biologically, a sub-race of the Zylithians. The Eliothians are the descendants of a military task force stranded on a terran colony world several centuries ago. The marooned aliens' culture have deviated significantly, now resembling terran society more than Zylithian. Elioth is a moderate-tech world.
Ikchiln: a reptilian race. They are slightly xenophobic and limit inter-stellar trade to their system.
Kilinji: An equine race, Kilinji have single-hoof feet, five-fingered hands, and a double horn sprouting from the forehead. Their society is very rigid and formal by terran standards.
Rhianians: a space-faring race which bears a superficial resemblance to badgers.
Virai Lirysians: physically similar to Beta Starans, it is believed they may be descendants of an ancient Beta Staran colony. The race is decided into classes determined by genetics, with a strict hierarchical system, though there is a twist. A member of an upper caste's social and political power is determined by the number of Lirysians in the lower castes who have pledged their loyalty. Very xenophobic, the Lirysians only allow off-worlders to dock at restricted stations. No off-worlder has ever set foot on the Lirysian homeworld.
Zenian Constrictors: snake-like race created by dolphin colonists by geneteching a pre-sapient creature native to one of the colony worlds, the Zenians are 9 to 12 meters long and usually fitted with cybernetic implants to control mechanical arms or other devices. The Zenians won rebelled, winning their independence, two centuries ago.
Zylithians: a warm-blooded race which superficially resembles terran reptiles. They are a space-faring race whose culture has encompassed an unknown amount of space. Theirs is a very communal society in which individuality is not only forbidden, it has nearly been bred out of the race. The Zylithians and Terran colonies waged war centuries ago, and some hostilities still exist on the border areas.
1. Submissions from non-members
are welcome; however, all such submissions should deal with the
Tai-Pan universe.
2. Plagiarism is unacceptable;
plagiarists will be severely dealt with.
3. Submitting a drawing, portrait, cartoon, or other piece to the Tai-Pan fanzine implies permission to publish the piece unless otherwise stated. Copyright belongs to the original creator. This includes:
4. Artwork should be in
black upon white paper. The artist's signature should be visible.
Owners of any characters appearing in the picture may be acknowledged
with a copyright notice.
5. Do not send originals.
High quality photocopies are fine. Mail submissions flat.
6. Artwork may be resized
upon publication. The Editor will publish artwork at full size
whenever possible; if not possible, the piece will be published
as close to full size as is practical.
7. The Tai-Pan fanzine aims
for a "PG-13" standard. Violence and sex are facts of
life, but we ask contributors to treat these topics responsibly.
Our choice to use anthropomorphics as vehicles for creative exploration
does not mean we are interested in bondage bunnies; "furvert"
work should be submitted elsewhere. Occasional supplementary publications
may go beyond the "PG-13" realm.
8. When working on assigned
story illustrations, please send copies of the pencil drawings
to the editor before final inking. Artists are also encouraged
to show sketches or final drawings to the owner(s) of any copyright
characters for comment.
9. The Publisher has final say on what drawings and elements are published in the Tai-Pan fanzine.
1. Submissions from non-members
are welcome; however, all submissions must deal with the Tai-Pan
universe.
2. Plagiarism is unacceptable;
plagiarists will be severely dealt with.
3. Submitting a story, vignette, poem, or other piece to the Tai-Pan fanzine implies permission to publish the piece unless otherwise stated. Copyright belongs to the original creator. This includes:
4. Text should be in black
upon white paper, typed or computer-printed, double-spaced, with
author's name and page numbers appearing clearly on each page.
5. Do not send originals
or the only copy of a piece.
6. All stories will be edited
(see The Editing Process, below).
7. The Tai-Pan fanzine aims for
a "PG-13" standard. Violence and sex are facts of life,
but we ask contributors to treat these topics responsibly. Our
choice to use anthropomorphics as vehicles for creative exploration
does not mean we are interested in bondage bunnies; "furvert"
work should be submitted elsewhere. Occasional supplementary publications
may go beyond the "PG-13" realm.
8. Character appearances
in stories must be approved by the owner of the character (see
The Editing Process, below).
9. The Publisher has final say on what drawings and elements are published in the Tai-Pan fanzine.
One of the main activities of the fanzine is the publication of stories. Before you create a story, you should know how editing and story approval works.
Let's begin.
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I assume that your goals as a writer in this collective are: a) to create the best stories you can; b) to see your work in print; and c) to receive wild acclaim for your ideas and hours of effort. |
As the editor, my goals are: a) to help you create the best stories you can; b) to ensure that the Tai-Pan fanzine publishes the best anthropomorphic fiction around; and c) to help you receive that wild acclaim which you deserve! |
1) First step: you write the story.
2) Once you've finished your first draft, send a copy to the Tai-Pan main address for editing. For ease in editing, please send your manuscripts double-spaced, typed, and single-sided.
Also, at this point copies of all scenes in which characters other than your own perform actions and/or speak dialogue should be sent to those members holding creative control on those characters. You must get approval of all actions and/or dialogue attributed to characters other than your own!
If you wrote to another member asking them to approve their characters' appearance(s), and they have failed to respond, you must notify me. This communication between writer and other members of the project is extremely important, so I'll try to get a response for you.
3) The editing process begins
as soon as we receive your story! The process for that is as follows:
Draft One: original draft,
send to Tai-Pan for initial edit. I'll assign an editor to go
over the story. The story may be edited by me or any of the Associate
Editors. Edits will be made in colored ink upon your manuscript,
then returned to you for a rewrite. Copies of both the manuscript
and editing notes will be made for our records.
Draft Two: first rewrite. Send back to the main Tai-Pan address. The story will be assigned again. If possible, the same person who edited your first draft will be assigned. Edits will be made in colored ink on the manuscript again, and returned to you.
Draft Three: second rewrite. Same as above. And so on for as many rewrites as necessary until the story is accepted.
Final Draft: The story may be judged to be the final draft as early as draft one, but an average of two to three rewrites are normally requested. The final edit will always be made by me, as I have the responsibility to approve everything before going into the fanzine.
4) Once a draft has been deemed a final draft, it's time for you to sit back and rest -- or better yet, start that next story!
Once your story has been finalized, I assign an artist to illustrate your work. You are welcome to give me a list of the three artists who you'd most like to see illustrate your work, but due to a number of factors, we cannot make any promises as to who will be given the final assignment.
Once illustrations are completed, your story will be printed in the next available issue! Bravo!
Let's face it. Few of us really likes to have their work critiqued. What every writer wants to hear is: "Wow! This is an incredible story! We'll run it exactly as is--and hey! Let's submit it for the Hugo! It's sure to win!" What we hear instead is, well... not always so ego boosting.
Points to remember when receiving an edit:
You are free to discuss any critiques with the editor.
If you think a critique is wrong, say so! Remember, you can negotiate
and/or request a second opinion at any time in the editing process.
However, it is my decision whether a story is ready to publish;
it is not put up for a vote. Don't let that scare you off, I'm
here to work with you. Here's a trick to try when you strongly
disagree with a critique:
The Elements of Style, by Strunk & White
The Transitive Vampire, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
The Well-Tempered Sentence, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Gardner Dozois,
Tina Lee, Stanley Schmidt, Ian Randall Strock, and Sheila Williams.
The Writer's Handbook (any edition), published by The Writer,
Inc.