By Gregg Giles

This is it! Our first ever issue of a Traveller® fanzine, and it is definitely not our last. We hope that it meets your expectations of a true fanzine, and we hope to get rid of its flaws as time goes by.

I sat and wondered what I could put in as my first letter to you and nothing really came to mind. So why not just tell you how we came to be, and how we put it all together?

Over one year ago, I acquired a Traveller fanzine from a group on the east coast. This fanzine was the premiere edition from this group, and as first issues go, it was terrible in format, but excellent in content. After reviewing the fanzine several times over, I thought to myself, "Hey! I could do this!" Thus began the first stage of the new fanzine.

What would I call it? All good magazines have a name that is different, but is also fairly catchy. Being a big espionage buff, I brainstormed for ideas that had a relationship with the exciting cloak and dagger profession. My mind raced through all of the Mack Bolan and Phoenix Force books I'd read, looking for the right name. I don't know how I thought of The Security Leak (and I don't know if I ever will), but it was there, and I liked it! Well, that solved the first problem.

The next obstacle was content. What was I going to put into this? How could I get ideas for stories? Once again, I went back through all of the old fanzines and the copies of the Journal which I possessed. Slowly but surely, ideas came to me. Some of these ideas did not last for more than a few days, and many not more than one hour. However, as a few of those ideas that did survive are in this very issue.

But the troubles were not over yet! Not by a long-shot! Although I now had ideas galore, I was still the only writer! It is almost impossible to write half-a-dozen articles by yourself, edit them, type them, layout the entire fanzine, print it, advertise it, and then distribute it all by yourself. Ergo, the search for writers began. Jason Mogensen and Ken Baldwin immediately came into mind. After all, it is hard to forget friends! In the summer of 1985, I moved from Springfield, Oregon to Bedford, Texas, leaving all of my known Traveller companions behind. I was faced with a distance crisis! Egad! Who else came to the rescue but AT&T and the reliable United States Postal Service! Slowly, I gained a better feeling; things might work out after all. I discovered new players nearby such as Mike Rogers and Shawn Reed, and even began to write to other players across the United States. But at the same time, I discovered that there were a fist-full of fanzines already in existence. Regardless of the competition, our fanzine was going to be finished.

Eventually, the problems began to vanish; we were getting a peek at the light at the end of the tunnel. Not until Christmas, 1986 was the fanzine really able to get some steam into its engine. During this time, I "met" Ed Edwards. I now believe that if it were not for Ed, you would not even know that we existed. (Thanks, Ed!)

The new year came. 1987! Publication was slowly coming up. Quickly I put together everything I had, and began to get article ideas from Mike and Shawn. February. Oh, gads! It comes out this month! Quickly getting it all together, it started to look something like a fanzine. Then it came! Publication day! I'd been waiting since 1985 to publish under a name I conjured up in 1984. Viola! Traveller fanzine!

You are now holding the result of a lot of hard work, brainstorming, and a whole ton of determination. It isn't easy to put a fanzine together! Not at all! But it is worth it when all is done. As all the old problems slowly fade, new ones always appear, but we are determined to get them behind us so that we can give you the best fanzine available.

Special thanks to Marc Miller, Ed Edwards, the SL staff, and to you who took the chance of subscribing to a product you'd never seen before. Don't worry, we won't vanish or fade away! Until the second issue in May, 1987, best wishes and God bless!