Issue date: 3/23/04 Section: Aggielife

Graphic by Ivan Flores/The Battalion

Midnight Yell. Elephant Walk. Twelfth man. These are all traditions that Aggies know by heart, which have been taught and reinforced since freshman year. Kelly Sullivan, a senior chemical engineering major, would like to remind Aggies of another tradition - to go boldly where many Aggies have gone before - AggieCon.

Aggiecon, the largest student-run science fiction convention, is an annual event hosted by Cepheid Variable, the on-campus science-fiction/fantasy/horror programming committee. On March 26 to the 28, the second floor of the MSC will see all manners of men and women mingling alongside with Klingons, Stormtroopers and other creatures of fantasy as the 35th annual AggieCon gets underway.

"We started in 1969, when a large group of kids who were really interested in Star Trek decided they wanted to make a hobby - a group - out of their interest," Sullivan said.

Since the beginning, Cepheid Variable's yearly schedule has orbited around AggieCon.

"It actually didn't start out as a convention. It started off as a dinner panel. It was co-sponsored by the English department," Sullivan said.

In the beginning, AggieCon was primarily used to show old science-fiction movies, but with the advent of VCRs, it now focuses more on literary guests.

"As times change, AggieCon has also evolved with the coming crowd. Reflecting that, this year we have a much larger gaming section. We have a really large computer gaming room. We've seen a much larger demand for anime. Aggiecon has gone from a really small literary discussion to something that's really big," Sullivan said.

With a yearly attendance of approximately 12 to 15,000 people, AggieCon has grown into a carnival-like display of genres.

"It's moving much more - guest-wise - toward a literary convention. Our guests of honor this year are Todd McCaffrey and Jacqueline Carey," said Alexis Tucker, a junior chemical engineering major and AggieCon director.

Todd McCaffrey's mother, Anne McCaffrey, is the creator of the Pern series, a collection of books that deals with a world where dragons and humans live together. The younger McCaffrey recently co-authored a book in the series, "Dragon's Kin," with his mother and will continue writing stories in the series.

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