Designer’s Notes - Some funny
Ideas you can get from head canon
WARNING Big big dollops of
Space Fantasy Heartbreaker on this one. With Sprinkles.
If you are looking for
insightful analysis or useful materials this post may likely not be for you. Imma just going to blather. I hope it’s faint shades of entertaining.
I was trying to describe a
particular NPC’s appearance – she’s a humanoid alien (one of the Myricor
in Galaxy Black terms) and came ultimately to describe her “species”
(after repeated questions) as “functionally
a human ethno-type that we just have not seen yet on Earth.”
Which say, rather like all
the aliens in original Star Trek.
Which brings me to the
head canon.
When I was first super
into Traveller (this was original LBB Traveller c. 1984) a major difference I found between my friends
who played it and my own conception was that in my head the age of Earth’s
First Contact, which see, the First Imperium, looked an awful lot like TOS Star
Trek (and I mean…an AWFUL LOT). The
whole idea of humans making first contact with…..other humans is basically on
brand for how the aliens (most of them) appeared and acted – central casting
and exiting stock characters & costumes is a good way to save money on an
expensive drekking sci fi show in the mid- 660s after all.
Fun fact, this tiny piece
of ancient head canon (not terribly contradicted by GURPS Interstellar Wars,
which I thought was a fine book and VERY on brand for OUT Trav) was plucked
like a delicate cherry for ingredients when I was figuring out the history and
rationale for the sample/default universe as depicted in Galaxy Black. In the Empress Imperium the “first Empire” is
thought of in quasi-Arthurian terms, but someone from our 2021 Earth would
notice mostly how everyone has these colour coded uniforms……
Lots of little things like
that accumulate when you are weird kid who absorbs and internalizes and dissects
all media she encounters as a juve. After a certain point it becomes accurate
to say that the setting in Galaxy Black, most especially as it’s depicted
in the Judge’s guide and it’s companion the Space Girl’s guide could pretty
accurately be described as
Gwen’s
Great Big Head Canon Universe of Things
(which of course you know
better as – in marketing terms – THE COLLAPSING UNIVERSE)
DAMN Count Baltar was a
sexy Klingon
When I watch the
Mandalorian, especially the fist season, I often get the sense that much of the
initial concept of he show came from John Favreau’s head canon of what all of
Boba Fett’s doodads did when he was a kid.
I don’t know that this is true but regardless I feel a strangely deep
kinship with this guy I’m never likely to meet on this basis – the ability to
realize important symbols and images we played with as a child as an adult in
one’s work is joyful and powerful and you can do some amazing things with
it.
Or putting it another way….I
have the SRD up against the wall and we’re making out and oo….. (I’ll
stop) Like I said, great big dollops of
Space Fantasy Heartbreaker on this one. With Sprinkles, chocolate and peanut
butter chips, little mints, a banana and a whole mess of cherries.
