The ZAON CD

Today I found a surprise. In the months following Leif's death, I searched his computers in vain for all the ZAON files I knew he must have. I remembered how hard he had worked on things like weapons, landscapes, and species of alien peoples. I remembered his showing me how he was creating landscapes with a computer program and some of the planetscapes he had created. I remembered things he had showed me on his computer back in Kansas. I searched in vain.

Today I was looking through a small box of his things that was in a closet, a box I hadn't looked at in all this time. They were things someone (perhaps me) had stuck in there when we cleaned out his apartment, little stuff like a couple of pocket knives, refrigerator magnets, a big plastic drinking jug from Alltel, a company he once worked for, and the like. And among the insignificant clutter was a CD with no label. When I looked at it closely, I could see "ZAON" written on it lightly.

To my surprise and delight, it appeared that many, if not all, of his ZAON files were on the CD, at least those he had backed up when he made the CD years ago. I not only found some landscapes he had worked on, but discovered what the program was that he used to make them.

Leif was an avid player of Planetside. I've written about that here before. I didn't know (or didn't remember) that the program to generate landscapes was from Planetside and was called Terragen. There are a lot more interesting planetscapes on the CD but I can't verify that he created them. These three, I believe I can because he named them with his "thegqpirate" handle, which was his email and online name in those days. (He changed it to Graeloch when he moved to Florida to begin a new life.) They were probably created in 2003.

I am sure there are others he created, but whether they are on this CD I don't know and probably never will. Still, I am glad to have these, something of his creativity to save and savor.

The CD had a lot of photos he had downloaded from the internet to use in creating unusual looking extraterrestrial human races, but unfortunately none of those he created from the mix. Those files must either have been on another CD or lost.

I spent a lot of time online recently trying to find out what had happened to ZAON. There are old discussions on some of the science fiction gaming boards asking the same question, but there are never any answers. The domain names are still registered, but there's nothing posted and the links I once had on the blog leading to ZAON are defunct. Sadly, I had to remove all of them.

All of the posts he put on the ZAON forums are lost to me now, and having read many of them in the months following his death and hoping to go back later and save them, I find it sad that so much of what he contributed is lost. All that seems to be left now is a PDF of the ZAON test playbook, an early version of what was someday to be published. Leif is listed as the "reality tester." in the credits. That title certainly did fit. He talked to me endlessly about whether the weapons that were being designed could really work, based on his knowledge as a military armorer, whether living species could actually function, whether space ships were workable designs. Leif really cared not only about the playability of the game, but the workability of the science fiction involved. For him, those were critical questions.

I wish that game had come to fruition and been published. I know he wanted that badly, wanted to see it out there for the gamers to enjoy, and to see his name as being one of the creators, in is way. Leif had the intelligence and talent to have been a designer. He had artistic ability and the capability to learn to use complex software. However, what he didn't have was the "fire in the belly" to go that route. He did not design the ships, the weapons, the planets, the races, but he helped to shape those designs with countless hours of both research and online conversation. It was such a part of him, and the participants in the design and testing of ZAON, and the players in Planetside, truly saved his life when he came back to Kansas from the army, medically retired, an emotionally broken man. I will always be grateful for that.

And now, I am grateful to have found these designs and remember him showing me how he worked on Terragen. Good memories. We need those.

ZAON.com - Garretson Scoutship: Artist's Interview

Leif was so heavily involved in helping to develop the ZAON role playing game and I was touched when Justin came out with a space ship named for him as a memorial. I hadn't discovered this video about the ship before, an interview with the designer. How I wish Leif could have known about the ship.

Leif posted so many things on the ZAON message boards, and I had hoped to go back and find some of those posts and save them, but I apparently waited too long. I've now read online that there was a database crash, and I did see that the forums had changed and I could no longer find Leif's old postings. Now, however, even the newer ones and the information about the game seem to be gone. I'm sad to see that. There was so much creativity and camaraderie involved for years in working on that game, and the message boards and the guys on them helped Leif through some very hard times in his life. He really wanted to see that game published and was proud of his association with the organization. I hope that somehow it will someday make it.

Leif's CyberPunk Gun & Bullet Drawings -1998

Here are three pages of gun and bullet drawings Leif made, probably in 1998, for his CyberPunk games. They are thoroughly labeled.

The top, single gun is a "Mark V."

The page of smaller drawings includes from top to bottom, the "Hand of God" rifle, the "Sledge Hammer .410x4" handgun, the "Annihilator .500 Ultra" handgun, the "Buzz Saw .22 mag caseless," the "Meat Grinder 10mm caseless," and the "Shredder 10mm caseless."

The page of bullets includes caliber designations for each bullet and some have additional names.

Leif was deeply interested in weaponry and weapon design just about all of his life, particularly beginning in the second half of elementary school. Like any subject that interested him, he went about making himself an expert on it and could discourse for hours about it. That interest translated later into his training as an armorer for the army infantry, to working on weapons design for gaming (as in CyberPunk and ZAON), owning guns, and in the case of ZAON, constructing wooden models of the guns he was designing. He must have drawn them before he cut them out and shaped them, but I never found those drawings.

It is a terribly sad irony that in the end, he turned his prized new handgun on himself. He was the only person he ever shot.

Leif's CyberPunk Space Ship Drawings - Group Two

Here are three more of Leif's CyberPunk space ships. The top one has three decks and features top, side and rear views. It is labeled with functions and crews quarters.

The middle one is called the "Stiletto" corvette blockade runner.

The bottom one is the "Painkiller" MedEvac ship.

Leif was meticulous about details and scale. He wanted his ships to be "playable" in the scenarios he created as gamemaster, and he carried those kinds of specifications over into his later association with ZAON and his desires for the development of that game.

Leif's Memorial Service at St. Petersburg Unitarian Universalist Church - April 29, 2008 - "Who Was My Brother? (First Half of video & entire text)

Peter Anthony did a lot of research about his brother, Leif, on the internet, from posts that Leif made on the ZAON forums to posts about him both during his life and after he died, to comments on this blog and on Leif's MySpace and Faceabook pages. He tried to formulate a picture of Leif as others saw him and integrate it with his own. Peter Anthony was six years older than Leif and left home to go the the Air Force Academy when Leif was still a twelve-year-old junior high school student. From that day on, he only saw Leif during his visits home, as he never lived under the same roof again. Leif went through his teen and adult years from from his older brother. Though they were family, though they were a part of each other's identity, and though they had been close as children, they had too little contact after Peter Anthony left home to keep the relationship close. In the year before Leif died, it seemed to me that they were contacting each other a bit more, that maybe there would be a closer relationship developing as they headed into middle age, but it was not to be. It was prematurely ended with Leif's death.

We found Peter Anthony's detailed analysis fair and penetrating, interesting and challenging, revealing and thought-provoking, touching and well-delivered, and we were very glad and grateful that he was willing to share it with us and with those at the memorial service.

The first half of the video of his speech is in this post. The second half will be posted tomorrow. The entire text is below.
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Who Was My Brother? by Peter A. Garretson, April 2008

Who was my brother?
People describe my brother as brash, unabashed, unappologetic, uncompromising, inconsiderate, incautious, arrogant, selfish, lazy (unless a project caught his interest), creative, talented, tolerant, accepting, enthusiastic, crass, deeply caring, forgiving, committed to his friends, practical.

He went by many names: Leif, Ashley, Lance, Alexander, first moving away from his given names (when unusual names weren’t cool) and then moving back to his given names.

He was a patriot, a man who loved and served his country, endured hardships for, and put his life on the line for his country, and he cared deeply about its future.

I think he would have been surprised at the breadth and depth of the lives he touched, and the positive effect he had on them. He had a kind of charisma, rawness and authenticity, inclusiveness, tolerance, and welcomingness that made people instantly like him. He was not the kind of guy who was going to get offended by anything you were likely to say or do (unless you were repealing constitutional liberties or mis-spending the lives of citizen soldiers).

A friend captured him perfectly, saying “He challenged us, provoked us, and never ever held back his opinion. This forum will never again be the same to me without him.” Another said: “He challenged me to be better and to think. He will be missed.”
Enthusiastic about the things that mattered to him, passionate about his chosen endeavors, unapologetic about his opinions and desires, Leif called people to look at the bigger picture and take life with a sense of humor.

Those who knew him said things like “He was an incredible man. A bright spot. The most interesting person in the store to talk to and work with. A rambunctious person... full of ideas and interesting facts, philosophies. He was an overwhelming presence that was almost bigger than the tiny alcove the store was tucked into. Words truly can not describe him. So full of infinite knowledge, a compassionate heart, and internal drive that will live on in the hearts of those he touched. Seemingly brash, once you got to know him you quickly realized just how caring and good a person he really was…He was definitely a good guy inside.”

On any subject, whether life itself, psychology, philosophy, politics, religion, or the latest videogames, Leif was never without some valuable perspective to contribute to the rest of us. And from my perspective, he was just now getting more sublime and interesting.

His associates saw him as a support, a champion of their cause, a loyal and committed teammate and ally, as someone who gave good advice, was encouraging, who helped them to see the big picture, and who challenged, pushed and encouraged them to be better and to think more deeply. Through that encouragement, those he touched grew, and tried things that otherwise they never would have. His friendship was transformative.

Leif was not one to hide his opinion, and so I will honor him, and a favorite book of his, “Speaker for the Dead” by telling the truth about my brother as best I knew him.

None of us knows or probably can ever know whether Leif departed us through design or accident, but if he thought he was not needed by his friends and family, he was deeply mistaken. While no explanation is satisfying to have lost one so young, full of potential, and such a contribution to our lives, it is my hope that his final moments were not of concealed quiet desparation and despair, but rather incautious enjoyment, and so I am personally happy that his last few hours were spent in joy with friends.

I loved my brother, and had always wanted the best for him. Leif very much needed a partner, a complement. I had hoped he would get marreid, have kids, find his calling, moderate his excesses with age. But it was not to be. He had hard luck, both in love and work. He had many, many breaks, but not the ones that matter to a man’s soul.

As a kid, he wanted to be a fighter pilot, and would have been an excellent one (particularly in the era of Boyd and Yaeger when pushing a machine to its limit was a virtue), had poor eyesight not closed that door to him. Denied his first calling, never found another. Denied his first love, he never found his way to a safe harbor. He had great affection for children, and would forever be a child at heart, but never had his own.

While his rational morality understood Earthly virtues and had a place for wisdom, fortitude, justice, truth (and to a lesser extent temperance), he never had access to faith, hope, and charity which see so many through despairing times, and might have aided him as well. Leif cared deeply about truth and morality, but never found God, never found a faith in which he could trust, and so was denied the nurturing discipline, community, and security which it provides. He never found that higher purpose, and without it rejected protective constraints on his liberty.

When no path will get us to where we need to go, we tend to be more haphazard about our next steps since none of them matter to the goal. Perhaps that explains why, for one of the smartest people I knew, his life seemed to me an almost unbroken string of poor decisions and poor judgment.

Starved of higher purpose, he was a fountain of unchanneled energies, forever driving him to excess, whether it be drinking, guns, gadgets, cars, alchohol, and a lifestyle far beyond his means.

In one sense he knew how to enjoy himself, and drank more fully of life than most of us do. But in another sense he was unfortunate, for having drunk so deeply, he was still unsatisfied, and ever thirsty.

He seemed afflicted with that pathology that afflicts males with no children: No one to whom to devote resources but on one's self. No compelling reason NOT to take chances. A constant dissipation of frustrated libido, and a fascination with this thing called violence, not yet understanding what it is for.

My first memories of my brother go back to dramatic goofing around on the back terrace of a wonderful house on a hill in Germany, and later to our time in Japan watching Japanese robot anime, Ultra-man, and Kamen Rider, and endless hours of watching, and re-watching the first generation of real sci-fi movies: Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, the Black Hole.

Later, I remember coming home and finding my little brother transformed. He had gone from a mop-haired, cute little kid, to this incredibly tall, long-haired guitar hero dude with his own fashion sense, with a room decorated with a gigantic stereo (when that was cool), a shrine to Cyndi Crawford, guitars, and having transformed my parents old station wagon into something that was not quite boring, but not quite cool yet either…but on its way. My brother, was a “cool dude.”

His death came at an unfortunate time in our relationship, when we were talking and connecting more. I was re-discovering a love of anime and video games, having just seen Final Fantasy, Macross Zero and Appleseed, and when he was developing not just his Bacchan side but had just taken philosophy, and I was looking forward to exploring his Apollonian side. I was looking forward to getting together this summer.

In the oddest and most perverse way, I can’t help but think he would have had interesting insights and observations on his own death and our reactions and its meaning to us. I find that more than anyone else, I’d like to get his take, his detached perspective on things. I’m greatly annoyed that he isn’t around to represent himself. No doubt he would have had a good bit of dark humor about his own death, and he certainly would council us to take nothing as sacred, and enjoy this opportunity to get together. He would certainly not encourage us to follow his last example.

In one of his favorite games, when things clearly aren’t going your way, when you know you aren’t going to win, you can just blow yourself up and re-spawn to try again. Perhaps, if the Hindus and Buddhists are right about reincarnation, that is exactly what he did.

He was fond of saying that there is no problem that a proper application of explosives cannot solve. And perhaps it solved the problem for him…but not for us. Leif jealously guarded of the liberty of human decisions, and had it been one of us, he would likely have rejected any notion of impaired decisionmaking, and would likey have been both accepting and disparaging if it had been our choice. If he were here, he’d probably say something shocking and callous, pretending to great selfishness like: “Why are you so upset over me? I woundn’t be so upset over you.” But I wonder how well he knew himself or how much he cared for others.

My brother had a deep reservoir of talent, creativity, and virtue. I suspect he was like many of the world’s greatest citizens that were ne'r-do-wells until fate placed them in places of responsibility in a time of need. I say this because those who were touched by him found him to be full of wisdom, insight, encouragement, and his pride had a meaningful effect. They looked to him as a confidant, mentor, teacher. They felt improved, enobled, an uplifted by their association with him.

As far as I could tell, his highest values were liberty, coolness, and loyalty to friends.

My brother valued coolness very highly. He sought it in all things, and wished to surround, accessorize himself, and project it. Whether it was computers, phones, guns, guitars, he seemed to have done a tremendous amount of research, knew exactly what the best and worst features were (and would gladly tell you), and of course, whether he could afford it or not, he most likely had the best and latest gadget. But he was not a materialist. He did not acquire them because he valued the things themselves, but rather the experiences they conveyed.

And the experiences he sought were not the quiet experiences of the soul. He was not one to sequester himself at a mediation retreat, or the solitude of a Walden Pond. Rather, he sought loud, stimulating experiences that would challenge his “coolness” and turn him on—and he had a much higher excitement threshold than most. He loved games, and spent tremendous amounts of time on games like Cyberpunk, Planetside, Mass Effect, and pouring his creative juices into ZAON, and he organized his social life around them.

He enjoyed many a pleasure to excess, took full advantage of the pleasures of this world, and was willing to risk life and limb to experience them. Nothing was muted.

And among the coolest and most compelling experiences for my brother was speed. He valued this very highly and was willing to take tremendous risks to experience it. I remember him taking me on a ride in his RX-7, and being utterly scared for my life. Never, in all my life had I been in a vehicle where the wheels did not turn at the same speed as the road, or where the experience was closer to a roller coaster than to a car ride. And he claimed that no car could compare to a motorcycle. He had numerous accidents, and continued to feed his thirst for speed. He seemed to me to be always cheating death, riding without a helmet, taking turns at the edge of performance, and living on borrowed time, and like some of you, I thought he would most likely die on a motorcycle, chasing the experience he valued so highly. Like one of his online friends, I too thought: “Never would have I thought something like this would ever happen to him. Perhaps out in a blaze of glory at mach 10 with his ass on fire on one of his toys, but not like this.“

As I said, he jealously valued human liberty, and rejected all claims of others to moderate his joys for their own benefit, safety or security. He took life lightly with a wry and often dark sense of humor, and he was quick with penetrating, humorous, and darkly humorous insights.

His “coolness” even permeated his person. He seemd to cultivate a Zen-like inperturbability, and gravitas. That gravity of personality seemed to attract, and he seemed to welcome, people who were much more volatile, emotive, and expressive and needed that kind of gravity to stabilize and hold the space for them.

And as far as I could tell, despite his outer coolness and brashness, he seems to have been a caring, reliable, forgiving individual who always sought the best for those close to him. Even through rocky circumstances and separations, I’m not sure anyone, once entering Leif’s circle, was ever outside it.

Certainly I had relied upon him to be there for my family should I be in trouble, or should something happen to me. I had relied upon him to be close to my parents and take care of them. And I had relied upon him to hold a certain position in life as a measuring stick for my own decisions and accomplishments. That rug has been pulled out from beneath me. His passing has made each meal simultaneously more flavorful and tasteless. In every bite, in every experience, I taste my own mortality, for we were made of the same basic cloth--both thrilled that I am still alive, and saddened that he is not.

Brothers are also competitive and run a good race to bring home to each other and their parents the fruits of their labors. Now I find every successful accomplishment is bittersweet, sweet because death causes us to appreciate life, and bitter because his passing deprives me of a meaningful victory because it is like winning not by virtue but by forfeit. In this life, at least, he should have stayed in the race. With his talents, frankly, he should have won it.

Had things worked out just slightly differently for Leif, he might have become a pilot and married that high school sweetheart, and perhaps he’d have a couple of lovely daughters. Doing something he loved and was good at, he might have been promoted below the zone, perhaps he’d even been selected as initial cadre on the F-22 Raptor and applying for this year’s astronaut class. I’d like to think that he’d have been motivated to continue his Judo, to stay in shape, and might be playing guitar or bass in a band. I’d like to think he’d have reason to come through DC where I’d take him to train with my local jujitsu group and amidst a likely argument about Col. John Boyd’s philosophy of winning and losing, I’d try to talk him into requesting an assignment to Air Force Future concepts where he could put his wargamer design skills to use for his country. Later, perhaps we’d be getting together, letting our kids play and our spouses talk as we enjoyed a good bottle of wine and and made plans for a family trip to Palau where we could dive and ride, two things we both enjoyed.

As one of his friends wrote, “I wanted so much for him to find the love and happiness, he deserved it more than anyone I knew.” Regrettably, the bright future or past we would author of Leif is not to come in this incarnation, and I hope Leif’s best guess about our Creator was not on target, and his spirit will persist, and he will get a second chance to realize the destiny he was meant for.

I would like to end with a something that one of his online creative collaborators, Rush Wingate wrote about Leif that both captures him and his dreams, and our best intentions for him:

"Leif was a free spirit in life. He loved speed, he loved adventure. Like us, he held on tightly to the child's dream and fantasy of rocketing among the stars. Well, through tragedy, Leif will the first among us realize that dream. In the summers to come, I will lie along rivers and beaches, or in fine pastures on my many camping trips, and I shall look at the stars. In winters I will continue to haul myself out into frosty fields with my thermos of coffee and many telescopes to gaze at the cosmos. When I do, I shall think of that "brawlin' SOB". I'll think of how that spirit is now free to roam and explore those very stars we all fantasized about. I know that our resident Speed Demon will have strapped himself to a blazing comet, rocketing in the cosmos, a permanent smile on his face."

Garretson Class Tellan Reconnaissance Scout Ship

I've written before about Leif's deep involvement in the development of the ZAON game and his participation in the ZAON forums. It was a major interest of his, an outlet for his creative ideas and opinions, a source of friendship and respect, and a great help to him in overcoming his depression after a failed romance in 2004.

When Leif died, the ZAON forum participants held a vigil in Leif's honor on the day we had his memorial service, and Justin Winters, the ZAON Creative Director, designed a space ship for the game as a tribute to Leif and a way to keep him in the game, offering the blueprints, and sending a copy to us. We were very touched and glad Leif had friends who cared about him that much.

Three weeks ago, Brian Stearns, ZAON Contributing 3D Artist, did two rendered model views of the ship and posted them on the ZAON forum. Justin and Brian gave me permission to post images of the ship here on Leif's blog. I appreciate that.

I wish I could see Leif's reaction to this ship. The ZAON players think it's awesome and say it incorporates all the "demands" Leif kept making for smaller player oriented ships.

I hope Leif is somehow traveling among the stars he dreamed of.

Leif Back in Civilian Life - The Cyberpunk Novel - Summer 2001

When Leif came back to Manhattan from Fort Drum, New York, at that time temporarily retired from the army for medical reasons and a 30% disability rating due to his asthma, and also from shin splints that developed from carrying such heavy loads, he was a very depressed man, given to dark moods and apathy. That summer, he lived with us again, in the back bedroom of the old stone house. He didn't have many belongings there, just what he had brought in his car. He couldn't get his household goods delivered until he got his own place and had room for them, and they hadn't arrived in Kansas yet.

He had a fancy black backpack that carried his laptop, important paperwork, and some other things. Mail was coming to our house, mostly bills that he left on the table unopened. He wasn't making any effort to find a job, pay his bills, or anything else but seemed to be in a black hole of depression. I finally asked him whether I could open his mail. I was shocked at the bills that needed to be paid, the same sort of situation we had saved him from before he went into the army. I asked him whether he wanted my help to straighten out his life, and told him that if he did, the condition was that I had to have a power of attorney to make it legal for me to open his mail and help him deal with his affairs, and that he had to cooperate with me in doing what needed to be done, and that he should apply for unemployment, for which he was eligible, but hadn't done. He agreed.

He was surprised that unemployment actually paid him a reasonable amount. While he was staying with us, he could have saved a good bit of that money, but he didn't. Meanwhile, I told him that rather than just paying his bills off as we had before, this time he was going to have to do it himself, using a bill consolidation service. I went with him to Consumer Credit Counseling and had him make up a budget. They helped get his bills consolidated into one payment a month, with reduced interest. Leif was to give me a lump sum each month and I would see to it that the official check was sent in on time. Leif did this faithfully, and he did manage to pay off those bills and repair his credit rating, and keep it reasonably good until the year before he died, even thought he was often scraping the barrel to pay his bills or even eat or put gas in his car because he didn't do well at curbing his spending on electronic "toys," guns, and alcohol.

He was going to go back to school at Kansas State University in August, to finish the degree he had started before going into the army when he couldn't keep working and going to school, and couldn't pay his bills. I told him that we would keep our bargain to pay for his education, but this time, rather than paying for it up front, he would have to get educational loans on his own, and that we would pay them off if and when he graduated, but that if he didn't, he would be stuck with them himself. We thought this would provide him with more incentive to stay with it and graduate.

Meanwhile, I was very worried about his mental and emotional state and it was clear he needed some outlet for his feelings. He didn't want to show his inner feelings to us and there wasn't anyone else for him at that point.

Leif had loved playing Cyberpunk role playing games before he went into the army. I don't know whether he played with people at Fort Drum or not, but I do know that this had absorbed a great deal of his time when he was in college before. He also loved science fiction movies and television shows. He started telling me about some story ideas he had, and it was clear to me that they had some possibilities, not only as Cyberpunk game scenarios, but as a possible novel. Leif had excellent storytelling abilities, but he had never been interested in doing sustained writing. Even so, I suggested that he write a novel.

To my surprise, with a bit of coaxing, Leif decided to try it. He spent a lot of time on it, and he did allow me to read it. The story wasn't polished, more like the first draft, but it definitely had some good possibilities and I wanted him to finish it. I could also tell that a lot of his pain and heartache, as well as things he loved and experienced, were going into the story. I not only insisted he should finish it, but begged him to be sure it was backed up so it wouldn't be lost. I should have insisted that he give me a copy to keep on my computer, but unfortunately, I didn't.

When Leif died and his brother, cousin and a friend and I went over his computers carefully, and I did repeatedly, we never found the Cyberpunk novel. The only conclusion I could come to was that it must have been on the laptop that was stolen in July 2006. That wasn't the one he originally wrote it on, but if he kept it, he may have transferred it to that one. I feared it was completely lost forever.

However, in looking all over the ZAON forums for things Leif had posted, again looking for insights into his life and death, I discovered that in December 2002, he had posted the beginning parts of his novel there. It wasn't all he had written, but at least it was a part. I copied them and corrected things like capitalization and punctuation he had done hastily and not checked, but otherwise, I am going to post what he wrote just as he wrote it the summer of 2001.

I looked for a photo taken at that time and found I had hardly any. I think that was because he wasn't around for photo taking opportunities much that summer, preferring to stay up late into the night, sleep late during the day, and go out as much as possible. The photo posted here was taken August 19, 2001, and was actually part of a family portrait I insisted we have taken. He is actually smiling his "Mona Lisa" smile here, the result of some cajoling. Leif was 26 in this photo.

I will post what he wrote in four parts beginning tomorrow.

ZAON - Tellan Garretson Recon Scout Ship

For 6 years, Leif was deeply involved in and committed to working with the ZAON team on the development of the game. ZAON offered Leif the mental challenge he needed and a great deal of emotional outlet and support from the ZAON forum members. He was interested in every aspect of the game, and at one point, was so deeply involved in weapons design that he drew designs for a series of weapons, cut the out of wood, and experimented with their usability in size, weight and design. These photos show one he took of himself with one of those wooden guns and another of one of the handguns he made.

When he died, ZAON forum members discussed his death and their feelings about it, and because they could not come to the memorial services, held their own vigil online.

Justin Winters, ZAON Creative Director, memorialized Leif in a space ship design incorporating Leif's ideas, the Tellan Garretson Recon Scout Ship. Leif would have loved this ship and knowing it was named for him. How I wish he could see it! It's a beautiful design, and I thank Justin for providing such a fitting remembrance of our son. He sent us the complete deck plans, and we will treasure them.

You can see the plans online, and there are both a free download and a large, high resolution version for purchase. I hope you'll take a look at it, because Justin has done such a terrific design, and because it incorporates so much of what Leif loved and worked on.

For some reason, I don't seem to be able to get live links to show up within posts, so I will also place links in the Links column.

Link to the ZAON store
https://www.zaon.com/store/

Discussion Forum about the Tellan Garretson Recon Scout Ship
https://www.zaon.org/showthread.php?t=3042