Crossover with other franchises?

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by FreddyE, Jul 4, 2012.

  1. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    That's what Alan Moore said...

    ("Imaginary story" was the term used by DC Comics in the '50s through the '70s for out-of-continuity stories about situations that weren't intended to be "real" within the series' main continuity, like Superman dying or getting married -- the same sort of thing Marvel did in What If...? The greatest "imaginary story" was "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" by Alan Moore, which came out at the time that DC's whole continuity was being rebooted and was basically the final adventure of the Bronze Age or "pre-Crisis" Superman. Moore's narration contained the classic line, "This is an imaginary story... but aren't they all?")


    Star Trek was meant to be science fiction in the vein of the prose works of the '50s and '60s. Star Wars was meant to be "space fantasy" in the vein of Flash Gordon and John Carter of Mars. ST hasn't always lived up to its aspirations of credibility, but SW has never had any to begin with, being essentially a sword-and-sorcery epic dressed up with space-opera trappings.


    Well, as long as you're treating the Hercules/Xena universe as the "home" universe, you can accommodate just about anything, since those shows embraced their origins in mythology and folklore and often basically admitted that they were pure fiction, playing fast and loose with reality and blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

    Although you could borrow the conceit from the Sliders episode "The Guardian" that time flows at different rates on some worlds, so that even though it's technically the present, events on that world might be very far behind where they are on "our" Earth.

    Conversely, you could play off the Xena clip shows that had clones or reincarnations of the main characters existing in the present day (in fact, in a present day where Xena is a TV show).


    Yeah, it helps gloss over the historical differences if you go the alternate-universes route, although it's harder to use that to justify the whole geography and alien population of the galaxy being completely different (I don't remember there being any Vulcans or Klingons in the universe of Arrakis), let alone the laws of physics being different. Ideally I'd prefer a case where you can just do an honest crossover and treat shows as part of the same reality and timeline. But that's very hard to find in science fiction.
     
  2. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

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    I'll have to take your word for all of this, since I've never read any of that. In the '60s I read Archie and Disney and Casper comics, and in the '70s I was into Westerns (ie. Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt).

    I could, but that's too easy. Granted, that one particular Sliders episode was rather good, but ultimately it's just a gimmick like the Earth where time flowed backward.

    I don't really like clip shows in general, and I LOATHED the cutesy-pie modern-day reincarnation episodes.

    Nope, I'm using a really implausible, but not impossible twist on history, and I'm in good company in that. At least two SF authors have written stories where the Roman Empire never fell, just because Drusus became Emperor instead of Tiberius. If Robert Silverberg can do wacky history, why can't I? :p

    Of course there aren't any Klingons or Vulcans in the Dune universe. Frank Herbert never had any sentient aliens in that series. Even the Tleilaxu are considered a form of humanity, and Guild Navigators start their lives as humans before they mutate. The difficulty with crossing Dune with anything is partly because it happens over 20,000 years in the future, and the whole anti-computer thing is a religious taboo that only the Bene Gesserit dare break - and not until after Leto II is safely dead, if I recall correctly. But the fanfic I read tackled these issues head-on, which was good. Nothing was swept aside with a bunch of technobabble.
     
  3. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

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    Oddly enough, since somebody mentioned Highlander and Xena, the one crossover I *really* would have loved to see on screen is Highlander/Buffy...
     
  4. FreddyE

    FreddyE Captain Captain

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    Another way would probably be to have one of both universes be fiction inside the other..and then something happens. For example: There is nothing to say that at least the old Dr. Who series did not exist in Trek universe (the new show would not have existed since its creation would fall right into WWIII if I´m not mistaken). Since Paris is already fascinated with old scifi shows he could come across Dr. Who and make a holo novel. "Something" happens to make that holonovel "real". Of course you would have to find a new and innovative way to do that....something other then the usual "trapped on the holodeck". Maybe thery finally find a way to convert holomatter into regular matter. An experiment with the conversion technology goes out of control and converts the entire running holodeck programm.
     
  5. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Last edited: Jul 5, 2012
  6. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    No, Trek's WWIII is still several decades in our future.

    We do know that Star Trek exists as fiction in the canonical Doctor Who universe. "The Empty Child" had Rose referring to the Doctor as "Spock," and there have been various other Trek allusions in the following seasons of DW and The Sarah Jane Adventures. (Which makes the current IDW Trek/Who crossover miniseries problematical with respect to DW continuity -- but then, DW has never had much continuity or logic anyway.)

    There's never been a canonical reference to DW as fiction within the Trek universe, but the novel My Enemy, My Ally featured Uhura and Lt. Freeman converting Tom Baker episodes to holographic format (although the clip "shown" in the book is not a scene that actually occurs in any real DW episode).
     
  7. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Actually, Otherworld got there first. ;)
     
  8. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^Err, I was referring specifically to the other poster's attempt to write a Sliders/Xena crossover, hence I was suggesting justifications that came from within those two specific continuities.
     
  9. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    There can be only one . . . Slayer.
     
  10. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

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    Say what? You must never have seen one of the classic Doctor Who episodes: "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" - the First Doctor, with companions Susan, Ian, and Barbara. It states that in 2164, the Daleks had taken over Earth, and the humans still alive were either slaves to the Daleks, or rebels trying to overthrow them. I don't recall 22nd-century Earth in the Star Trek universe being under the control of cybernetic aliens from the planet Skaro. And some of the Jon Pertwee-era UNIT material was set later in the 20th century than the 1970s, since there were time-traveling Daleks involved.
     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^No, he's saying that he thinks Doctor Who could've existed as a television show within the Trek universe. He proposed having "one [or] both universes be fiction inside the other."
     
  12. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    To be fair, between Genesis of the Daleks and the Time War, it's unclear if the timeline in which the Daleks conquered 22nd Century Earth still exists or was overwritten.
     
  13. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

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    By Jove Magpie - I do believe you've found one I could live with !

    :)
     
  14. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

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    It just seems logical that the Immortal could so easily be assumed by the Scoobies to be a vampire....

    And we saw how well vampire-killing techniques work on Immortals in the series (i.e. not very - Immortal pulls stake out of chest, and exclaims "that bloody *hurt*!")
     
  15. David F. Weisma

    David F. Weisma Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Anyone ever read an old Trek short story, Visit To a Strange Planet Revisited? Sort of the ultimate crossover.
     
  16. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

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    In a dodgy Cockney accent if it's the Scoobieverse !
     
  17. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

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    In the relevant Highlander episode it was an RP accent...
     
  18. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    It's actually "Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited" (reprinted in Star Trek: The New Voyages from Bantam) and as the title suggests, it's a followup to an earlier fanfiction story (by a different author, IIRC) called "Visit to a Weird Planet." The original story has Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beaming down to the Star Trek set, and "Revisited" shows what happened to Shatner, Nimoy, and Kelley aboard the Enterprise during the same incident.
     
  19. ClayinCA

    ClayinCA Commodore Commodore

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    And it's brilliant. The part where Nimoy tries to do a typically Spock bit to Shatner-as-Kirk while on the bridge and then has to leave his post because he's about to crack up laughing is fantastic.
     
  20. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

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    The original story was printed in Spockanalia (I don't remember which issue). Both are a hoot! :lol: