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Terran Trade Authority is to be resurrected

Hello everyone,
My name is Jeff Lilly and I'm one of the writers working on expanding the TTA universe. I've loved the TTA books ever since I was six or so and my Dad and I found Spacecraft: 2000 to 2100 AD at our local mall bookstore. More than anything else, these books influenced my early love of SF- more than Star Wars, more than anything.
All I can say about Adrian's art is that it rocks- he has captured the look and excitement of the originals while freeing the ships from the confines of their original non-contextual presentation. They are now truly ships of the TTA universe, not old book covers pounded, square-peg-into-round-hole-like, into new service. As a rabid fan of the TTA, first and foremost, he has done a stellar job. Just wait until you all see the finished, high-quality renders with all of the bells and whistles! June is going to be a very good month...
 
"Aah, the wonderful Turner Prize, which this year was won by a man who built a shed."

...which was also a boat. Actually, Patrick McGoohan should sue him, since this is the plot of an episode of The Prisoner!
 
I keep looking for the "new" artwork on the Morrigan Press without much success. I was a real big fan of these books without knowing what they were. I think somewhere in my basement I have a compilation of the Best of, because I remember buying it at Marks & Sparks in the 1970s. What surprises how expensive these things are going for on eBay when used bookstores have them for substantially less. But, I guess that is the nature of eBay...
 
Anyway, what in the name of $@*&&! is a Model T Ford doing there?
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Yeah, I always did wonder about that
.

But yeah, that whole scene with the Sentinels rising from the surface on these huge pillars of fire, with the big planet in the background and the lightning crackling everywhere... that was just Darn Cool.
 
Originally posted by TempMal:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Anyway, what in the name of $@*&&! is a Model T Ford doing there?
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Yeah, I always did wonder about that
.

But yeah, that whole scene with the Sentinels rising from the surface on these huge pillars of fire, with the big planet in the background and the lightning crackling everywhere... that was just Darn Cool. </font>[/QUOTE]By popular demand, I shall make it so...
 
Originally posted by Adrian Mann:
... and not try to move them into the flat, grey neo-brutalist universe that most current SF imagery inhabits.
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Adrian,

That's called reality.

Cast your mind back to the mid to late 70's, where Foss and his imitators had just arrived, and suddenly book covers were all 'spaceship and planet' types. Bold stripes, big colours, outlandish designs, brightly lit...
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Blecch. Blecch and Yecch. When it first came out, the TTA stuff looked silly to even my late teenaged eyes. It is the sci-fi equivalent of leisure suits, mood rings, disco shoes, and mounds of blow-dried hair. I'm surprised one of the books wasn't titled KC and the Sunshine Band go to Mars.

TTA isn't my cuppa. Some people love it but I suspect that is because they're remembering it and not seeing it.

Best of luck with the relaunch. Nostalgia usually sells very well, look at Traveller!


Have fun,
Bill
 
^ Yeah but this is sci-fi!
Oddly tight female uniforms, racing stripes on spaceships, cutlasses, big hair. Hey fads come and go and then return. Who knows what the future holds?

groooovy.... ;)
 
For crying out loud! The seventies came back (bell bottoms
, ugly stripes
, plumber's pants (known as hip-huggers)
file_28.gif
) with a vengeance. This nostalgia could be much worse! I will definitely check these out. :D
 
"That's called reality."

Oh no it isn't... what a dreadful idea! The clue is in the name - fiction. Allow me to quote from Jodorowsky on Chris Foss:
"Certainly not the degenerate and cold offspring of present day American automobiles and submarines, the very antithesis of art... Not giant refrigerators, transistorised and riveted hulks; bloated with imperialism, pillage, arrogance and eunochoid science."
"Man will conquer space mounted on Foss' spaceships, never in NASA's concentration camps of the spirit. He brought the colours of the apocalypse to the sad machines of a future without imagination". Nuff said.

Anyway, speaking from a male standpoint, you have to like oddly tight female uniforms, and the boots... it's the law.
 
Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
It is the sci-fi equivalent of leisure suits, mood rings, disco shoes, and mounds of blow-dried hair. I'm surprised one of the books wasn't titled KC and the Sunshine Band go to Mars.
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Hmm. Based on this description, I'd buy it.

And I'd like the Model T to be left in, too.


OK, I'd also buy "Abbott and Costello Go To Mars - The RPG", but that's just me.
 
"Anyway, speaking from a male standpoint, you have to like oddly tight female uniforms, and the boots... it's the law."

The boots, how could I forget the boots!
 
Engineering and phsyics are not the only harsh taskmasters of something as complicated as ship design.

While there may be little reason to not simply bolt a bunch of old railroad box and tanker cars together, and tack on a HePLAR drive, if and when commodity space ships hit the market, overall design will have some impact, particularly as they mature.

One could argue that save for cruise ships, most modern ocean going vessels are pretty much aesthetic free beyond the physics of efficient propulsion and keep cargo containers and petroleum out of the water.

Most of the creativity ends up below the waterline. Other than that, pretty strictly utilitarian.

Certainly designer aesthetics on commercial and military hardware have some input. Compare, say, the M1, Challenger, and Leopard tanks. All designed under similar guidelines (Killing Soviet tanks in Europe), but have distinctive, differing lines.

As another aspect, consider the older uniforms of the Continental Armies, with their bright colors and elaborate decorations. Even the combat uniforms. Simply put, if it doesn't affect the actual mission, then folks are going to inherently make something please to the eye (for assorted definitions of "pleasing").

At the time, Red and Blue uniforms with feathers didn't affect the tactical or strategic capabilities of the armies, so why not have nice looking uniforms?

If my interstellar combat cruiser made from girders, and boxes, and tanks is designed to fling missiles measured in the 1000's of kilometers, it probably won't matter if I paint it lime green and name it "Sally". If I can happen to find a coating system that works in vacuum, expect a ship to be "painted" during down time.

You'd find ships with murals painted on their sides.

Modern military hardware is clearly fairly limited by its intended mission in how far aesthetics play in the overall design goal. Nobody WANTS to paint their navy all gray, it just turns out to be tactically, strategically, and logistically sound to paint them that way.

So, basically, I can actually see starships with sleek, eye pleasing profiles. Why? Because from a practical matter, they probably won't affect the actual performance of the ship. If I took a girder and box design, and encased it in a lightweight "non-functional" fiberglass shell, why not? Cost? Sure, perhaps. But, if such cost is truly incedental to the overall cost, it may well get sneaked in to the budget.
 
That's called reality.
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Sorry, but B.S. The "reality" you cite is the reality of the last fifteen to twenty years, specifically after "cyberpunk" hit the fan and splashed everything with its depressing, soul-sucking guts. There's no reason why the architecture, ship designs, etc. of the future have to be functionalist, Bauhausian, any-color-so-long-as-it's-gray, and there's no reason the theme of the fuure has to be "kill or be killed". Note that the TTA universe, as first realized by Cowley, is anything but "KC and the Sunshine Band". Want a downer? Read Great Space Battles. But that doesn't mean there isn't hope, and it doesn't mean that we have to go down those paths if we can just pull our heads out of where the sun don't shine in time.
And just so I don't get anyone's shorts in a knot- I love the cyberpunk genre, too... on the other hand, I sure as heck don't want to live in that sort of future!
Believe it or not, it's not too late to choose otherwise...
 
There's no reason why the architecture, ship designs, etc. of the future have to be functionalist, Bauhausian, any-color-so-long-as-it's-gray, and there's no reason the theme of the fuure has to be "kill or be killed".
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Welcome aboard Hatrax!
I must say that rarely has so much been placed upon such a delicate point.
 
Originally posted by Adrian Mann:
Tis done - any better? No Model T Ford though...

http://www.bisbos.com/rocketscience/tta/sentinel.html
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Hotdamn. That's brilliant! I think that is certainly a bit more exciting than just the sentinel floating in space.

Only real problem now is that the background seems very 'blocky' (as in pixellated) - you using a high JPG compression for saving the rendered image or something?
 
Some people love it but I suspect that is because they're remembering it and not seeing it.
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Funny, I'm seeing it right now and I'm loving it. Why? Precisely because it DOES have the bright colours, interesting shapes and outlandish designs.

Just for Hatrax and Adrian's benefit: Bill Cameron is the board's resident Grumpy Curmudgeon. I wouldn't take what he says too personally, he's like this with pretty much everyone.

(besides, the TTA future isn't exactly shiny. Earth gets into space, meets a couple of races nearby, and then gets embroiled in a major nuclear interstellar war with them. Yeah, REALLY happy, isn't it ;) ).
 
Originally posted by Adrian Mann:
Oh no it isn't... what a dreadful idea! The clue is in the name - fiction. Allow me to quote from Jodorowsky on Chris Foss:
"Certainly not the degenerate and cold offspring of present day American automobiles and submarines, the very antithesis of art... Not giant refrigerators, transistorised and riveted hulks; bloated with imperialism, pillage, arrogance and eunochoid science."
"Man will conquer space mounted on Foss' spaceships, never in NASA's concentration camps of the spirit. He brought the colours of the apocalypse to the sad machines of a future without imagination". Nuff said.
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Adrian,

Good Sweet Stephenson! Please spare me the Art History major crap! Most art is bupkis and art degrees are just a refuge for those folks who can't handle math. Tennyson thought steam trains ran in grooves, that's 'art' for you.

I simply don't like Foss' work or the work of his imitators, that's all. I'm an engineer and I find functioning, rational, designs far more pleasing than deliberately 'whimsical' eye candy complete with oversized 'lobster claws' and tiger stripes.

Form follows function and not aestethics. Dali's melting clocks may look good from an art major's perspective but you can't tell time with the damn things. Read D'Arcy Thompson's On Growth and Form, you can find quite splendid 'art' at the heart of engineering and mathematics. The clipper ship Cutty Sark and Apollo's LEM are just as much 'art' as anything else. In fact, they're better because they have a basis in reality and actually work.

The TTA release will sell like hotcakes but no one believes spacecraft will look like that goofy Foss crap. Hell, I don't even believe spacecraft will look like Traveller designs either.


Have fun,
Bill
 
Originally posted by TempMal:
Just for Hatrax and Adrian's benefit: Bill Cameron is the board's resident Grumpy Curmudgeon. I wouldn't take what he says too personally, he's like this with pretty much everyone.
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Mal,

Yup, I'm the Grumpy Curmudgeon.

I'm also the fellow saying the TTA release will sell big.

I just don't like Foss' illustrations or the illustrations of his imitators. That's all. I didn't like them when I first saw them and I don't like them 30 years on. They look stupid, they looked 'forced', they looked deliberately weird simply for weird's sake. The ships might as well belong the to Thunderbirds.


Have fun,
Bill
 
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