Crossover with other franchises?

[FreddyE]

Are Star Trek novels allowed to cross over with other franchises, as the trek comics do? Or is that an absolute "no-no"?

It just occured to me how interesting a Star Trek DTI / Dr. Who Crossover Novel could be. The good doctor could be seen as an even bigger "time meddler" then Kirk ;-)

[Relayer1]

I know they're 'all in fun' but I find different universes so different as to be mutually exclusive to crossovers. I could probably accept a Who / Hitchikers Guide crossover, but I'm struggling to think of a franchise I could fit with Trek.

[Defcon]

Well, real crossovers are rare:

There was the X-Men crossover Planet X by Michael Jan Friedman and the "unofficial" Here Come the Brides crossover Ishmael by Barbara Hambly (I think this one just flew under the radar of both the editor and the licensor back then). I think that's pretty much it.

Other than that there are tons of nods and references to other franchises in various ST novels, but no real crossovers.

[The Wormhole]

Licensing is the issue. Since IDW holds the comic licenses for both Star Trek and Doctor Who, they can do that crossover. Likewise, Marvel held the Trek comic license and Pocket Books held the novel licenses for both Trek and Marvel back in the 90s which is how we got the Trek/X-Men crossover.

There definately won't a Trek/Doctor Who novel crossover since Pocket doesn't have the Who license (Who novels are published by the BBC themselves).

We can also rule out crossovers of any other kind, unless its with a franchise that Pocket or IDW also have the license for. Which means no Star Trek/Stargate crossover and certainly no Star Trek/Star Wars crossover.

[Therin of Andor]

FreddyE wrote:

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Are Star Trek novels allowed to cross over with other franchises

As mentioned, "Ishmael" crosses over with "Here Come the Brides". As that TV show was a Paramount venture, the Pocket editor of the day didn't panic too much when she realised it was an unofficial crossover, then discovered the rights had passed to a new owner and Pocket had to scramble to clear it.

There are humorous cameos as well: characters from "Bonanza", "Have Gun, Will Travel", "Maverick", "Doctor Who" and "Battlestar Galactica".

The use of Larry Niven's kzinti (from his "Known Space" books and the "Ringworld" series) in Filmation's TAS has meant the kzinti also made a cameo in Diane Carey's "Battlestations!" They were intended to play a major role in "The Captains' Honor", but were changed to the felinoid M'dok at the last minute.

Incidentally, the character Picard faces off against in "The Captain's Honor", Lucius Aelius Sejanus of Magna Roma (the "Bread and Circuses" planet), is supposedly inspired by Patrick Stewart's Sejanus in "I, Claudius".

[Allyn Gibson]

The Wormhole wrote:

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There definately won't a Trek/Doctor Who novel crossover since Pocket doesn't have the Who license (Who novels are published by the BBC themselves).

Never say never. If Pocket Books and Random House UK wanted to publish a Star Trek/Doctor Who novel, it would happen and they would find a way to make it work. As an example, Ace Books had the Marvel novel license in the late-90s, and yet Planet X happened.

Perhaps the publishers would waive their rights for certain territories, allowing the other to publish the book in that territory, resulting in separate US and UK editions of the book (which is happening now anyway with Doctor Who novels; Gareth Roberts' Shada and Stephen Baxter's The Wheel of Ice have separate US publishing deals). Or one publisher would handle the book and they would split the monies (like the Planet X situation).

In short, if the publishers really wanted it to happen, a way would be found.

[Christopher]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Incidentally, the character Picard faces off against in "The Captain's Honor", Lucius Aelius Sejanus of Magna Roma (the "Bread and Circuses" planet), is supposedly inspired by Patrick Stewart's Sejanus in "I, Claudius".

More specifically, he's said to be a direct descendant and namesake of that planet's counterpart for the real Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the historical figure Stewart portrayed in that miniseries. The authors of that novel chose to take the "parallel Rome" premise of the episode so literally as to treat "Magna Roma" (as the novel dubbed it) as essentially a parallel-timeline Earth, having an exactly identical history to Earth's with the exact same people and events, with the point of divergence being Sejanus's coup attempt against Tiberius, which failed in reality but succeeded in the book's "Magna Roma." (Which misreads the original episode, since Planet 892-IV only had a similar physical size and land-to-water ratio to Earth's and clearly had different continents -- not to mention being the fourth planet from its sun rather than the third).

[King Daniel]

Not quite a crossover, but the security chief of the USS Exeter was killed on the holodeck playing without safeties by Thor's Hammer, while The Incredible Hulk lifted a car nearby, in 2001's New Frontier: Excalibur: Restoration.

No names were named, but hard to miss with the current Avengers-mania.

[Lonemagpie]

Allyn Gibson wrote:

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Never say never. If Pocket Books and Random House UK wanted to publish a Star Trek/Doctor Who novel, it would happen and they would find a way to make it work. As an example, Ace Books had the Marvel novel license in the late-90s, and yet Planet X happened.

Perhaps the publishers would waive their rights for certain territories, allowing the other to publish the book in that territory, resulting in separate US and UK editions of the book (which is happening now anyway with Doctor Who novels; Gareth Roberts' Shada and Stephen Baxter's The Wheel of Ice have separate US publishing deals). Or one publisher would handle the book and they would split the monies (like the Planet X situation).

In short, if the publishers really wanted it to happen, a way would be found.

John Peel and I briefly discussed, back in the late 90s, the idea of a crossover that would have the Trek cast appear in a DW book for the BBC, and the Doctor and companions visit the Trekverse in a Pocket Books book, but never went as far as pitching a story...

Of course, individual authors can always cross over with their own creations from other franchises - the Feledrin gestalt alien in On The Spot is the same species from the DW audio Unregenerate, for example...

[Christopher]

Lonemagpie wrote:

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Of course, individual authors can always cross over with their own creations from other franchises - the Feledrin gestalt alien in On The Spot is the same species from the DW audio Unregenerate, for example...

You can do that in the UK, but anything we create for Star Trek belongs to CBS, not us.

[Lonemagpie]

Christopher wrote:

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You can do that in the UK, but anything we create for Star Trek belongs to CBS, not us.

My point is that you can import stuff to Trek. Not that's more (in this case) than the reuse of a name and a description.

Exporting it would be more of a problem.

Incidentally, on the matter of non-official crossovers, the best one IMO is with Blakes 7. It may not even be intentional, but if you watch By Any Other Name and then the B7 episode Star One as kind of a two-part story, it works fantastically well...

[Allyn Gibson]

Lonemagpie wrote:

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John Peel and I briefly discussed, back in the late 90s, the idea of a crossover that would have the Trek cast appear in a DW book for the BBC, and the Doctor and companions visit the Trekverse in a Pocket Books book, but never went as far as pitching a story...

The year John Ordover came to Shore Leave (I think it was 2003) he talked briefly about a Star Trek/Star Wars project he discussed with Bantam Books in the mid-90s that never got far off the ground that would have been like that. Pocket would have done a Star Trek novel that told the story from the Trekian perspective, while the Star Wars novel would have told the Warsian side. However, it wouldn't have been an official crossover. It would have been more like the unofficial Marvel/DC crossovers of the 1970s where the serial numbers were filed off but it was still clear who the characters were. If you read the two books together, you got the full story and you could piece it together. If you only read one book, you either had the New Republic encountering a ship from a democratic Federation or a Federation starship encountering a remnant Galactic Empire.

Also, swapping characters between publishers and having two books would probably be the easiest approach. It's how DC and Image worked their Batman/Spawn crossovers in the early-90s. Each publisher was allowed to do what they wanted with the other's character.

Lonemagpie wrote:

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Of course, individual authors can always cross over with their own creations from other franchises - the Feledrin gestalt alien in On The Spot is the same species from the DW audio Unregenerate, for example...

I remember reading your Voyager novel outline on Usenet a decade-plus ago, with Janeway battling the Master. Err, excuse me. Koschei.

[Christopher]

Lonemagpie wrote:

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My point is that you can import stuff to Trek. Not that's more (in this case) than the reuse of a name and a description.

But would you want to? If you did, you'd pretty much lose it to CBS. I've taken concepts I created for my original fiction and incorporated them into my Trek work, but only ideas that had fallen by the wayside, that hadn't yet seen print or no longer fit into my plans for my original work.

[Lonemagpie]

Christopher wrote:

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But would you want to? If you did, you'd pretty much lose it to CBS. I've taken concepts I created for my original fiction and incorporated them into my Trek work, but only ideas that had fallen by the wayside, that hadn't yet seen print or no longer fit into my plans for my original work.

I certainly wouldn't do it with something I was planning to use again.

Mind you, there's a difference between "created for" and "pre-existing" or public domain - all depends on all the individual contracts involved, and so on...

[Lonemagpie]

Allyn Gibson wrote:

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I remember reading your Voyager novel outline on Usenet a decade-plus ago, with Janeway battling the Master. Err, excuse me. Koschei.

It wouldn't have been the Master, and there would have been a number difference between this Koschei and the Whoniverse one... (Hell, who knows if the name would even have stayed)