Project History

(From an open letter to project participants, circa 1999.)

I'd like to welcome back everyone who has been away from this shared-world project for so long, as well as to welcome any new players who may have found our site in recent months. I'm happy to see there's still so much interest! However, I think a few things about the project need to be clarified. Now, there's a lot to explain, so bear with me...

The official Starshield Web Project is not re-starting. However, the fans are still out there and going strong. That's the short version.

Here's the long.

Almost nine months ago, I and three other long-time Ss participants (Tom Schruefer, Frank Torkel, and Falcon) formed a company called ImEG. We did this at Tracy's request because our efforts to get Starshield moving again had hit a few legal walls and Tracy wanted an official corporate entity to do business with. Unfortunately, after 7 months of effort, Tracy had to cancel our negotiations.

Not wanting to abandon the dreams of the Starshield project, even if we had to abandon the Starshield Universe, we at ImEG decided to strike out on our own. (Minus Frank, who decided to leave the company to pursue freelance work.) We now have a website, the first draft of a rules-light RPG, and two settings in development.

All Worldz: A Game of Interdimensional Civilization

Recently, for reasons we need not go into, Tracy decided to leave the listserve. This event touched off a new wave of player activism that has resulted in a fan site and a new unofficial leadership: Omnet Online.

At the same time, a number of Ssers began talking about moving their empires over to ImEG's new project. The problem was that the copyrights to those empires that had been submitted to the old, official Starshield website were now held by Tracy. So, we emailed him to ask if he would consider releasing the participants from that agreement. To our relief, Tracy agreed. If you ever had an empire posted to the Starshield website, the copyrights have been officially transferred back to you. (We can send Tracy's email to anyone who wants to see it.)

In addition, ImEG offered to construct a "Ss Memorial" website commemorating the work and creativity of all the people who had been in and out of the project since 1996. Tracy accepted the offer, allowed us to post the RPG and Galactipedia to the Memorial, and even offered to redirect the "www.starshield.com" domain name to it.

The end result is that the Starshield all you old-timers knew has split into three legacies. The first is the fan-created website and the new egroups listserve: the unofficial continuation of the Starshield Web Project. The second is the Starshield Memorial website. The third is ImEG and its projects.

Things have changed, but not necessarily for the worse. Starshield will continue on in the hands of the fans, and ImEG will continue to develop the shared-world concepts Starshield inspired.

Thanks for you interest; we hope to see more of you all!

--Dan Pond, Co-Director of ImEG