Litverse & Star Trek '09

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by Christopher, Apr 27, 2017.

  1. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I always figured (and suggested in Watching the Clock) that most of what Daniels said about the future was just stuff he made up to avoid revealing future knowledge and just generally to mess with people.
     
  2. SolarisOne

    SolarisOne Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    So, Daniels was a troll? I can buy that. :lol:
     
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  3. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Hell, how often did Daniels evade Archer's questions saying "you wouldn't understand"?
     
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  4. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I never believed he had a quantum discriminator in his desk in high school. I think he was just exagerating
     
  5. JonnyQuest037

    JonnyQuest037 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    That... makes a LOT of sense.
    Abrams being more concerned with being cool than scientific accuracy? Hell, I've known that since he wrote the movie Regarding Henry and admitted (hell, practically bragged) in an interview that he never did any research into gunshot wounds or head trauma victims. He just wrote what he thought would be the most dramatic. He's always struck me as a rather lazy writer.
     
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  6. tenmei

    tenmei Commodore Commodore

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    The Illionois comment here reminds me of the story about Star Trek 2009 where the Kelvin was going to be called the Iowa, so that Kirk's line in Star Trek IV - "I'm from Iowa, I only work in outer space ..." - still made sense. Crewman Daniels, born on a future USS Illionois, perhaps?
     
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  7. JWolf

    JWolf Commodore Commodore

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  8. Jinn

    Jinn Mistress of the Chaotic Energies Rear Admiral

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    Nothing unless you don't contradict or mention the new movies.
    It's not about in-universe content but rather about legal stuff and as the prime universe parts of ST09 were in that movie it can't be referenced.
     
  9. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    First off, as I've been saying, the vast majority of Trek stories have not been about the Romulans. Even if we had to avoid them entirely, there would still be plenty of other stories to tell.

    Second, as I've also said, the majority of stories about the Romulans have not mentioned the planet Romulus itself, and the majority of those that have mentioned it have used it only as a synecdoche for the empire/civilization as a whole. The movie implied that the fall of Romulus meant the fall of the empire, but that's silly. Losing the capital would certainly hurt an empire, but not necessarily destroy it. Western-biased history teaches that the Roman Empire fell when Rome did, but that's a lie; its Eastern half endured for another thousand years with Byzantium as its capital. Romulan civilization could also endure the fall of Romulus.

    Of course, it might be best to avoid stories about the Romulans in the short term after 2387, but if the chronology got sufficiently far ahead, it would certainly be possible to involve Romulans in some capacity. At the very least, they could be included as individuals without the need to address their nation's political situation. There were plenty of episodes involving Worf that didn't involve Klingon politics, even though a significant number of them did.


    It's not a matter of individual opinion, it's a matter of objectively defined legal rights and business practices. The "universes" of Star Trek do not exist. They are merely imaginary concepts in works of fiction that are the legal property of real-world businesses. All Prime Star Trek is wholly owned and created by CBS Studios. But Kelvin Trek is created by Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures under license from CBS. CBS owns the franchise as a whole, but BR and Paramount have a copyright on the contents of the films it produced. So ideas original to those films cannot be used without BR and Paramount's consent. This would be true even if the Bad Robot movies had been set entirely in the Prime universe.
     
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  10. JWolf

    JWolf Commodore Commodore

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    But, since CBS owns the main Trek Universe and Paramount has a license to play in that universe, wpuld that not mean then that the Romulus disaster in 2387 be fair game for authors?
     
  11. Dayton Ward

    Dayton Ward Word Pusher Rear Admiral

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    Now I know what Captain Bateson felt like.
     
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  12. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Once more: It's not about "universes," which are merely imaginary constructs within stories. The imaginary distinction between timelines or universes within the fiction is less important than the real-world distinction between CBS and Bad Robot. As far as the law and business are concerned, Star Trek is Star Trek. Period. It doesn't matter one damn bit whether a concept or story within the franchise takes place in Prime, Kelvin, Mirror, Myriad, "Yesterday's Enterprise," or any other "universe" within the fiction, because those are all equally part of the intellectual property known as Star Trek. The only distinction that matters is who has the copyright to a specific work of fiction in real life. As I said, even if the Bad Robot movies had taken place entirely in the Prime Universe, any original concepts and events they contained would still be copyrighted by Bad Robot and Paramount, and thus CBS would not have exclusive control over them as it does with the rest of the franchise.

    Even aside from that, your question doesn't make sense. What's licensed to one party is not automatically licensed to any other party, because these things are worked out in specific contracts. Yes, CBS licenses Paramount and Bad Robot the right to tell stories that use the Star Trek universe and characters, i.e. existing concepts like the Enterprise, the Federation, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Vulcans, Klingons, etc. But they use that license to tell their own stories using those characters, and they have a copyright on the specific contents of those stories, so they have a say in who gets to use the concepts original to those stories -- e.g. Nero, the Kelvin, Robau, the fate of Romulus, Red Matter, Gaila, Alexander Marcus, the Franklin, Captain Edison, etc.

    It's the same reason DC took so long to start merchandising Batman '66 or adapting original villains from the show like King Tut or Bookworm. Since the show was made by 20th Century Fox and Greenway Productions rather than Warner Bros/DC, that means WB/DC didn't have the rights to the specific characters and elements it introduced, even though it had the rights to the larger Batman franchise as a whole. There's a functional distinction between the existing concepts they borrowed and the original concepts they created.
     
  13. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Did you even read the post you quoted? He explained it in there. That event was created for the KT Movies, so it doesn't matter if it happened in the Prime Universe.
     
  14. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    ADMIRAL RIKER: I can't believe it's been a year since that thing happened.

    CAPTAIN PICARD: Tragic... that thing. So many deaths. So much change.

    ADMIRAL RIKER: Such change. All stemming from that thing that happened.

    CAPTAIN PICARD: That thing we must never speak of.
     
  15. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    "We call to order this session of the Typhon Pact."
    "Hey, wait a minute, where's the Romulan delegate?"
    "The Romulans won't be attending this time."
    "But next time...?"
    "Don't expect any Romulans for a while."
    "Why not?"
    "...Reasons..."
     
  16. David cgc

    David cgc Admiral Premium Member

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    You know, I just realized, we went how many years without actually talking about how the Ascendants thing turned out, beyond the fact that it had, in fact, turned out? There is a precedent for just working around it, potentially indefinitely.
     
  17. TalonCard

    TalonCard Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    You know what really doesn't make sense? Going all the way back to the definition of fictional universes to prove your point. If he doesn't get it, he doesn't get it. No need to post a block of text denoting the distinction between fictional universes and the copyright limitations thereof.

    TC
     
  18. MadeIndescribable

    MadeIndescribable Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    You mean we need another Destiny to distract everybody??
     
  19. Burning Hearts of Qo'nOs

    Burning Hearts of Qo'nOs Commodore Commodore

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    [redacted] Problem solved!

    The bonus is afterwards books can literally say, 'After the incident that crippled the Romulan Empire,' and still be ambiguous about what incident it was.

    EDIT: Sorry!
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2017
  20. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    ^^We're not allowed to post story ideas in this forum.