PRK’s superpower is the ability to survive the reign of fire, death, destruction and groans which usually follows one of his truly awful puns. When not at SpecFic Conventions, he masquerades as a technical manager for a respectable Internet company, pays his taxes, and helps his wife by carrying out the garbage.

His favourite aspect of Swancons is “the synthesis which happens when you get a group of slightly sleep deprived people together to obsess about a particular topic. The ideas bouncing back and forwards, theories being proposed, argued and developed. That feeling of waking up the next morning wondering if you'd really did believe, just for a moment, the impossible. Oh, and the awesome costumes at the masquerade.”

His ultimate ambition (if we strike off the ones which can't be published without heavy censoring) would be to experience as many different things in life as possible. He also tends to fantasize about making contact with Miss Scarlet, in the library, with the rope.

Ju’s superpower is being the perfect height to hug anyone. By day a public servant doing project support in Info-Tech, she is secretly a benevolent dictator.

Asked what she most likes about Swancons, she replied “It's a little bit of everything.  A little bit of everyone.  There is that escape from the real world for a few days, amazing people some of whom are friends and others whom are guests.  There is art and music, conversation, silliness and games, discussions, seriousness and fun.  When I am at a Swancon, I feel like anything, and perhaps everything is possible.”

If anything truly were possible, she would like to help make the world a better place by connecting people to ideas, and wants to run events and other spectacular things as a vehicle to do this. She would also like to make contact with Daemon Sadi.

Elaine’s superpower is wrangling the Spreadsheet of Doom. In the real world, she writes a lot, studies, and works in a science fiction bookshop. She has a secret identity, but it's a secret.

She regards Swancon as “a four day slumber party with two hundred and fifty of my best friends, a program, several guests of honour, an academic stream, and a masquerade.” Her ambition is to keep on meeting deadlines and balancing spreadsheets, though the deadline bit may well be a fantasy as well. She would love to make contact with Henry David Thoreau, the keeper of truths and hoer of bean fields, even though he probably wouldn't say anything.

Jess’s ability to keep meetings on track should be underestimated at your peril. She spends her working days as an Archives Assistant, fighting an unending battle against rusty staples and the Local Government general disposal authority. Swancons are a chance for her to catch up with fantastic people, engage with mind-bending ideas and – now that she’s taken up the habit -- to knit, usually all at once.

The fictional character she’d most like to have Contact with is the Doctor, any Doctor, because when you’re given an opportunity like that, it probably pays not to be picky! And her secret ambition is to take over the world, after all: “Power corrupts, absolute power is kind of neat” (John Lehman).

Maia has the ability to spin crap out of thin air explain things to people until they give up and stop bothering her. In the real world, she’s a Business Systems Analyst: “What I do is talk to people a lot and use my knowledge to try and work out ways of doing things that users want, software developers will agree to implement and govt will agree to pay for.”

Maia thinks the best thing about Swancon is the people. Her ultimate ambition is to surf the rings of Saturn in her own spaceship, and to make contact – loudly – with Hugh Hefner.

Few remember that this mild-mannered university tutor, writer and bookpimp was once known as the Caped Madman. Stephen’s mutant powers are a closely-guarded secret, but they obviously don’t include the ability to be somewhere else when the Swancon committee is searching for an academic programmer, nor the super-strength needed to resist their imploring expressions. He loves Swancon mostly for the chance to catch up with friends and other intelligent life-forms.

Stephen’s ultimate ambition is to own a TARDIS with a functioning autopilot, and the first person he’d try to contact is Shakespeare’s Dark Lady.

When not researching water quality at Curtin University, Kathryn supplies art, logos and publication layout for the committee. Swancon gives her the chance to hang out with friends she otherwise doesn't see.

Kathryn would love to make contact with Jane Austen, and her ultimate ambition is a three-day working week.

Stephanie works as a Technical and Business Writer/Analyst/Cat Wrangler (watch out for those Business Cats, they're very shifty).

What she most likes about Swancon is “the annual escape from real life. The plunge into other worlds. The opportunity to explore ideas in depth to the wee small hours. The chance to dress up, down and sideways.”

Stephanie is curious as to whether Dr Brendan Nelson is a fictional character or merely dead. Her ultimate ambition and/or fantasy is not fit for publication.

A co-owner of Fantastic Planet who spends his days slaving away on a IT service desk, Alistair has the super power of persuading people to help the greater good. He would someday like to demonstrate this on a large crowd of George A. Romero style zombies, preferably with the assistance of a small group of survivors and a large store of weapons and ammo.

Alistair likes Swancon because it enables him to spend a couple of days catching up with everyone and talking to 4 am in the morning, and his ultimate ambition and/or fantasy is to be able to do everything he does now in half the time, at half the cost, with more sleep.

Linda attends Swancon to connect with some of her closest friends and enjoy the proximity of fantastic people. Her feelings about the Department of Health, where she works as an administrative assistant, are somewhat different.

Linda would like to make contact with Princess Meredith NicEssus to discover the secret of her allure, and to run her own floristry/events business. Her superpower is coming along and having the committee be gratuitously grateful for picking up these tasks, and basking in their adoration.

Christopher is an artist and game developer. His superpower is dancing in heels. What he most likes about Swancon is “Spending a weekend on a planet where everyone's a fan of something, people can dress as they feel, and staying up with interesting people until the wee hours.  The aggregation of creative energy is truly inspiring.”

The fictional character he would most like to have contact with is Tom Baker's Doctor Who, and his ultimate ambition is to be known as the person that made that astonishing game that was oddly different to anything ever done before.