With The Aslan Hierate about to be released, author Randy Dorman ruminates on writing about this ancient empire.
‘I was quit when I come in here, Bryant, I'm twice as quit now’.
I suppose every good publisher – much like a good Traveller patron – has a knack for getting you to take the jobs you really don’t think you want to take, because they’re too dangerous, too risky, or too darned difficult.
You end up taking them just the same.
When the time came to choose a sector for The Aslan Hierate, I pitched Ealiyasiyw. It touches several developed sectors: the Riftspan Reaches, Verge, Ilelish, Reaver’s Deep, Dark Nebula. It’s mostly within the core Hierate but close enough to Imperial space to support human Travellers. The sector didn’t seem easy, exactly, but did feel like a safe and familiar pick.
Matt urged me to look for a sector deeper inside Aslan space.
I really needed some time to give it a think. The Hierate is huge and very little has been written about any of the deeper sectors. We have high level sketches, some random world descriptions, but scant else. It seemed like all too much.
Yet as I thought, Matt’s idea grew on me. If you’re doing a book on the Hierate, why not go full immersion? Hlakhoi seemed particularly promising. Not a human polity to be found for nearly 30 parsecs in any direction. Maybe only a hundred words had ever been written about it, but they are certainly interesting words: Hlakhoi is a known conflict region and was at the heart of the great Yerlyaruiwo-Tralyeaeawi War. Plus, as Matt pointed out, it’s got a relatively easy name to pronounce.
So I started with the sector data for Hlakhoi. Developing a sector is pretty much like developing a subsector, just more so. You look for the high population, high TL worlds – those are probably your economic and political forces. You look for the Amber and Red Zones. What’s going on there? You look for the weird combos – Why is there a low population on this garden world? Why is a high population on this tiny, waterless, vacuum world?
At the same time, I was using the clan generation system from Clans of the Aslan to create several new clans for The Aslan Hierate. The resulting clan profiles gave me raw data to be interpreted into a narrative, just as with a Universal World Profile. Why does this very old clan have only one world? Why does this very young clan hold six worlds? I’m pleased to report that clan generation held up very well over the course of an entire sector.
Working on a blank-ish slate sector is a little like assembling a jigsaw puzzle: in the beginning it just looks like a big pile of chaos. But as you go a region gradually emerges. Clans begin to take on distinct identities and histories. You start to see the political alliances and rivalries, and the individual Aslan who lead and sometimes challenge those associations.
I didn’t want to take the job, but I’m certainly glad I did. I discovered a place in Charted Space I didn’t know before, a sector I’d really like to spend more time in. And I hope you will also.
Randy Dorman
