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TF01 3,How To Contribute 4, THE FINAL FRONTIER - CONTRIBUTIONS (Revision 5.30) As with any magazine, be it on paper, disk or whatever, we need your contributions to make it work. We need articles (for our regular series or just one-off items) either on paper or on disk, artwork, music (original tunes only - we can't accept conversions of tunes from the films, original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine or Voyager because of the current situation with Paramount - just to be on the safe side!), animations (preferably as ANIM files - we can crunch these), demos, utilities and anything else as long as it is STAR TREK, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE or STAR TREK: VOYAGER oriented. If you send software, we would prefer it to be uncrunched (unless it is a multi-load) as we can crunch them ourselves with PowerPacker Professional. We would also prefer software in a CLI-runnable form. We can't accept software that needs entire disks or uses special disk formats. This only causes us problems when compiling the disks. However, we may consider such titles for stand-alone release. ART --- All art must be ORIGINAL - we will not accept any digitised images from episodes or the films, whether they are touched up or not except in RARE circumstances. Please send the art to us as standard IFF files (do NOT crunch these). We would prefer that you do not send art in any formats that require additional hardware such as DCTV, HAM-E or 24-Bit (including any format used by the new AGA chipset). Primarily because I can't view these yet and secondly because they take up too much damn disk space!!! However, we may consider the occasional piece of AGA based artwork as our new menu system is now fully AGA compatible, and we are also considering releasing the odd AGA slideshow or two! For ray-traced images, we would prefer it if you could send the images to us either as 24-bit files or as compressed JPEG files - this way, we can choose how we convert them so as many people as possible can see them. One thing we would prefer is that you don't send art to us using overscan mode. Occasionally, these can cause problems and we then have to use The Art Department to scale the pictures to "normal" Amiga screen modes. We will accept any art, but non-overscan will get a higher priority. If you want to send art on paper, we now have access to a couple of 24-bit flatbed scanners, so we can handle anything up to A4 in size, although we would prefer art on disk as this would get priority for the mag. However, we are interested in A4 artwork (black and white only) for our new paper zines which we hope to have available later this year. Contact us for more specific details if you are interested. PHOTOS ------ If you send in photos for the convention reports or to accompany any reviews/articles that you have written, please make sure that your name and address and the name of the article (where appropriate) is written on the back of each photo so we can make sure that all the photos are returned to their correct owners and are used to accompany the right articles!! If you want any specific captions to go with the photos, write those on the back as well. ALL photos will be returned unless otherwise specified. ANIMATIONS ---------- If you send in animations, please make sure that, again, they are NOT digitised and that they need no more than 1MB of ram to run. Also, leave them in an uncrunched format and make sure that the animation (with all it's player and sound files if any) takes up a MAXIMUM of 750K. Any larger than this and we can't use it in The Final Frontier. However, if the animation is really good, we may be interested as long as it is a silent animation using the Anim #5 format as these can be crunched with Powerpacker. However, they must be exceptionally good, as large anims will need more than 1 MEG to decrunch! Either that or we will have to store the anims on disk in an archived format! Animations that are exceptionally good (or just too large!) will probably be used on our TFF Special series instead and released as stand-alone anims! MUSIC ----- As far as music is concerned we would rather you send the tunes to us as modules (please specify what version of what utility you use, although we would prefer songs composed using Protracker or MED) along with the appropriate source code if possible (so they can be incorporated into demos if necessary). We would rather have the tunes as modules as we can pass them on to programmers or artists to join up with other work. Because most of the music we use is for background tunes while reading the text, we would prefer longer songs wherever possible. If it's good, we'll use it no matter how long it is, but longer pieces stand a better chance of being accepted. Finally could you leave 3 or 4 seconds free at the end of the tune before starting it again - it just sounds better than a continuously looping song. Also note that pieces that are 150K or less stand a better chance of being used. As I said earlier, we only want original tunes. We can't use conversions of tunes from the films/episodes because of the restrictions Paramount are placing on PD software. GAMES ----- Although we'd love to see them, we can't use any TREK-related games that are sent to us at the moment because of the current situation with Paramount. If this changes in the near future, we'll let you know. There's no point in sending non-Trek based games as there's no real point in us using up disk space on these! However, we may consider original games for release in the TFF special range! ARTICLES -------- The type of article is entirely up to you - we'll use almost anything! However we'd love to see reviews, fiction, character studies and anything else! We'd also like to hear from you for our Reader's Letters - we want your comments on this mag and on anything to do with any aspect of TREK - CLASSIC, TNG, DEEP SPACE NINE or VOYAGER. However, please try to ensure that there are no comments in your articles that criticise any show without reason. I have seen that some writers tend to criticise TNG at every opportunity, even when there is NO reference to TNG in the article. If you do this, you will be contacted and will be asked to remove the offending comment/ re-write the article as appropriate. There is also a general ban on swearing and/or offensive language in THE FINAL FRONTIER. The ONLY times we will even CONSIDER material with swearing is when the swearing is NECESSARY to the article (such as quoting Kirk's comment to Krugge in Star Trek III - "You Klingon... ...you killed my son.". Get the idea? Also if there is anyone out there with a modem, we're after as many Trek-related files downloaded from Bulletin Boards, whether they are pictures, articles or fiction. When you send in this material, please tell us the name of the board that you downloaded the files from so we can protect ourselves in case of any copyright difficulties. However, because of the nature of BBS systems, as far as we are aware it is safe for us to re-distribute any items that were posted to them. The whole idea of Bulletin Boards is the system of freely distributable software. If authors don't want their work spread, why place it on a BBS in the first place?? However, in the case of BBS material, we CAN'T use anything that doesn't have the authors name on it somewhere. If there is no credit, how can we be sure that it was uploaded to a BBS or whether it was just lifted from somewhere else? We've already refused to use a large number of high-quality stories because of this. We now have a limited amount of cash reserved to re-imburse modem users who download files for the BBS Collection. Please call me (Simon) or write to the usual TFF editorial address if you are interested. Preference however, will be given to members of INFINITE FRONTIERS. If you want to send in your articles on disk, we can also accept Atari ST and PC formatted 3.5-inch disks as well as Amiga disks (both normal AND high density), as long as the files are either ASCII or Protext files. Please note that if you use Atari or PC disks then remember that we can accept both double AND high density disks! Also, no matter what format you save the file in, please DON'T justify any of the paragraphs! It really makes life difficult for us when we have to spend most of our time altering the layout on submissions instead of writing our own items! As well as this, if you use a word processor, please try to save the files out in a format that is compatible with ProText or if not, as ASCII. As well as this, please try to keep your layout in a similar format to ours - ONE space after punctuations, use ' and not ` as an apostrophe and try not to make extensive use of ampersands (&) instead of writing "and". Plus, when mentioning numbers in your articles, please write them as numbers and NOT words e.g. 20 instead of "twenty" - it's just easier to read! Again, as with all other files, we don't want articles crunched - this will only cause problems if we decided to link two or more articles together. Also, please limit the width of your articles to 69 columns. If you want special features such as underlined text, italics or bold text, please don't add these to your text file. Instead, send us a print-out of your article and indicated on it what effects you want us to add. If this isn't possible, just write it in your article as notes on a new line. FICTION ------- We will consider any type of fiction, catering for all aspects of Trek - Classic, TNG, Movies, DS9, Voyager etc. and please try to follow the general comments for articles above. However, we do NOT want any K/S material (if you know what that means, we don't want it, if you don't know what it means, don't even consider trying to find out!!), and cross-over stories (unless the cross-over is ESSENTIAL to the plot) or ANY parodies that see more than one Trek crew teamed up. We have found that writers who often create cross-over parodies do so to ridicule one particular show, i.e. TNG fans would write such a parody to criticise Classic Trek. Also, we don't want any fiction - parodies or serious - that feature cross-overs between Trek and any other sci-fi film/TV series etc. If you really want to write something like this, we may consider it for publication in our forthcoming sci-fi/fantasy disk mag, but there is no place in TFF for material like this. If your story won't stand up on it's own without referring to other shows, it's probably not worth publishing anyway! Finally, although there is a general ban on swearing etc. in TFF, it WILL be acceptable in fiction as long as it is "in character" and is necessary to the story. Please don't submit any TNG fiction with the cast swearing as none of them have been heard doing so (although Picard has sworn in French and Klingon!). As a general rule, the swearing that will be accepted is that which has been heard in any of the episodes/movies and NOTHING else. REVIEWS ------- As far as reviews are concerned, all the restrictions that apply to articles are also relevant here. One additional point I would like to make clear is that we only want COMPLETE reviews. In other words, if you sent a video review, the review must cover ALL of the episodes on the cassette and give an overall comment. The same applies to PD/ software reviews. One point regarding reviews in general - we have a standard review policy of accepting reviews of anything, whether it was released 20 minutes ago or 20 years ago, as long as it hasn't been reviewed in TFF before. Occasionally, we will accept reviews of items that we have already covered, but the general rule is that anything goes as long as WE haven't featured it already. DEMOS ----- If you send in demos then we ask that you include your REAL name in any text (or at least tell US!) and that there is NO swearing in the scrollers. If you do use foul language, we will format the disk IMMEDIATELY. All the graphics, sound and fonts must be brand new and exclusive to the particular demo. Finally, we would be grateful if you could make sure that the demo will run on a standard A500 and that there are NO compatibility problems for Kickstart 1.2, 1.3, 2.0 or 3.0 or for owners of 1 Meg machines, 1MB Chip Ram, faster processors, different graphic chips (e.g. the new AGA chipset) etc. Again, we would prefer the demos uncrunched. If there are any coders out there who want to create a demo, but you don't know a musician, then let us know. We are currently building up a library of "spare" tunes ready to send out to coders etc. or to use on the disk. We have permission to use almost any tune written by Bjorn Lynne and we have almost about 30 modules of his waiting to be used along with a large selection from Paul Draaisma. However, if you do want to create a demo, we'd prefer it if you would discuss the idea with us so we can make sure it is suitable for us to use and we can ensure that it develops to a standard we feel we can make use of! This will also allow us to contribute ideas to it and to assist in writing any scroll texts etc. OTHER CODERS ------------ We are also looking for a couple of coders to join our regular team to work on each issue, creating intros, custom bootblocks and generally helping out in all areas of coding. As with everything else, we can't pay for your work, but we will be extremely grateful! If nothing else, you'll get to see your work reviewed in all the top Amiga magazines! DESK TOP PUBLISHING ------------------- Yes, we now have a need for somebody with GOOD DTP software/skills who can help us in producing all the paper versions of TFF, along with any advertising leaflets we may need. Ideally, we need somebody who is using good software, a fairly powerful Amiga, plus a good printer, preferably bubble-jet or laser. If you're interested, send us an example of what YOU can do, and who knows, maybe you'll end up as a member of INFINITE FRONTIERS! UNUSED MATERIAL --------------- Unfortunately, we can't return disks or articles as this is a non- profit making mag and we can't afford it, and even if you included an SAE we couldn't as we need to hold on to the material until it is used - we still have several items that we couldn't fit into this edition. Sorry! However, if we DON'T use you work then your disks/articles WILL be returned as soon as possible. So if you don't get your work back within 8 weeks then it is safe to assume that we're going to use it. Obviously, for overseas readers, allow up to 10 weeks for your unused contributions to be returned. When you send in contributions of any kind, please take note of the following points:- 1. We will not accept anything that has been submitted to any magazine for use on their cover-disks. 2. All software sent becomes the joint copyright of INFINITE FRONTIERS and the respective authors. We do this to try to protect our contributors from being ripped off by P.D. libraries etc. By keeping the copyright, we can act on behalf of ALL of our authors, having the edge over an individual trying to stop libraries using their work without their permission. We have already had to take steps to stop one PD library from selling THE FINAL FRONTIER and we expect that we'll have to do the same in the future. As well as this, we found that two other disk magazines, Hailing Frequencies and Outpost 23, had stolen a number of our articles, along with (in the case of "Hailing Frequencies") music from Bjorn Lynne and art from Tobias Richter and by acting on behalf of Infinite Frontiers AND Bjorn Lynne, the magazine has now been removed from sale. 3. All contributions must be your own work - we can't accept P.D. titles for copyright reasons. 4. We can't pay ANYONE for their work on TFF - the mag is supposed to be non-profit making and if we start paying people, we feel that it would lose the "fan" element and be nothing short of a glorified "professional" publication. The only circumstances where people will be paid for their work will be when we have a desperate NEED for something on the mag that no-one in the team can provide us with (e.g. if we have run out of music from Bjorn Lynne and we need another piece for the mag, we would hire an outside musician). 5. All those whose contributions are used will receive a free copy of the issue that their program/article etc. appears in. Please note that we can't send out free issues to those who send in letters or contributions to our Trivia/Q&A sections - Sorry! Note that if you would like a personal response to reader's letters you must include a SAE. We will publish as many of the letters we receive as possible each issue. However, we will reply to ALL that include a SAE (outside U.K. send a blank, formatted, checked disk). 6. When sending in letters for our letters section, please specify whether you want us to withhold your name and/or address, otherwise we will publish them in full. We give you this warning so that: a) You can be held responsible for what you are saying! b) Other TREK fans can get in touch with you (and probably will!) 7. When contributing, please tell us your FULL name so we can credit you properly - this also covers ourselves incase anyone sends in copyrighted material. Please specify if you don't want us to use your real name, but for legal reasons we need to know it. 8. The material must be EXCLUSIVE to THE FINAL FRONTIER. We will accept non-exclusive material in some cases, as we have with the music we have used, but we would rather have NEW material created for THE FINAL FRONTIER. This is basically to make sure that the quality of the magazine is as high as possible and that we don't fill the disks with old articles, art and music. 9. In any articles etc. please make sure that there is NO swearing in your text. THE FINAL FRONTIER is a "family" fanzine and is aimed at a general audience, so the text content should try and reflect that. 10. Any written material (articles, fiction, reviews etc.) that is submitted MAY be re-printed in our forthcoming paper zine, THE FINAL FRONTIER - PHASE II. If you do NOT wish to have your articles re-used, please let us know. Unfortunately, because of the high production costs, we can't afford to send free copies of TFF - PHASE II to any of the contributors, although we may try to arrange some form of discount scheme. Sorry about all those, but it's better to find out now than later! Send all contributions to:- THE FINAL FRONTIER - Submissions P.O. Box 8966 Great Barr Birmingham B43 5ST ENGLAND Note - Please make sure that all contributions arrive by mid-May 1995 for inclusion in Issue 9. All items received after this date will be considered for inclusion in Issue 10 unless the release of the mag is delayed and then we may use them in our ninth issue.