Did CBS Steal the Tardigrade Idea?

[Rahul]

Pretty much my default response to your constantly shifting spins on how this mysterious "one guy" for reasons unknown decided to exercise his producing power and influence hundreds of people to adapt bits of some random game in a very high profile show while absolutely making sure that it's "obvious" that he's stealing from that game...

...what?

 

[Jinn]

...what?

...what?

(Okay, can we do this for an entire page?)

 

[Mudd]

The logic of the CBS defense here so far is:

1. I've heard of tardigrades before;
2. Tardigrades are cool;
3. Tardigrades have been posted about a lot on the Internet;
4. Now that STD had been accused of stealing an idea, it's crystal clear that the idea of a giant space-warping tardigrade would naturally occur independently to lots of writers, despite the fact that it's actually occurred to only two (2) writers;
5. The STD writers, known for their fantastic originality in storytelling and their wholly uniquely imaginative approach to...something, sometime...must almost certainly be INNOCENT, INNOCENT, INNOCENT!

 

[Awesome Possum]

So a tardigrade looks like an actual tardigrade, which some game also used. How is that copying? That’s how tardigrades look. If two projects both have a duck and it looks like a real duck, is one copying the other? Does it not hurt your head to do the mental gymnastics required to really believe this?

 

[dahj]

Could simply be a Gene Coon/"Arena" scenario.

Clearly not, because Arena was fairly well known.

 

[Krandor]

So in your opinion it's astronomically impossible that:

A) Some nerds that are into Star Trek also are into Steam games? And

B) someone had a vague idea about including Tardigrades on the show, did a small google search to learn more about Tardigrades in space environment... and came across a trailer for a game about Tardigrades in space? And then just simply lifted the aesthetics and some ideas?

Except what we saw on-screen was not even the original idea. The original idea was to have the Tardigrade as a crew member who would be named after the scientist who discovered Tardigrades (just like they did with Stamets).

So in your suggestion they tried to go one way with Tardigrades and didn't like the result and then when they decided to change decided to then change into something that looked like the game. That doesn't make sense to me.

It makes more sense that when they decided to re-do the tardigrades they made them into a space looking version of the real tardigrades that winded up looking like the game.

And the way the tardigrade worked isn't even similar either. In the game the human is wrapped around the tardigrade and then they teleport together. In DSC initially the tardigrade is simply the navigator and not the one actually causing the sport jump. The spore jump is from Stamets and his mushrooms (which Fuller has had a fascinvation with Stamets WAY before discovery) with the tardigrade just being navigator. We do in one scene see a tardigrade jump by itself but only himself and not taking anybody.

Yes there are some similarities but many more differences. They both have a room with blue particles. Are those room with blue particles serving and doing the exact same thing? Can't play the game so I don't know and if what that room is doing isn't out there and the same then is that stealing?

EDIT: I just did a google search for "tardigrade in space". I'm at page 10 and this game hasn't come up. In fact only 1 or 2 DSC articles have come up. Lots and lots of non-game and none-scifi articles on tardigrades in space

 

[BillJ]

...so I don't think that the guy will do well in court.

I didn't think Trump would ever, in a million years, be POTUS. Yet, here we are.

 

[Jinn]

INOCENT, INNOCENT, INNOCENT!

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If two projects both have a duck and it looks like a real duck, is one copying the other?

Both are copying Disney, they have a monopoly on all things duck.

 

[Jinn]

I didn't think Trump would ever, in a million years, be POTUS. Yet, here we are.

I didn't think Brexit would happen, I didn't think Trump would get elected and I dismissed the "Lorca's from the mirror universe" stuff that got posted after people saw that he always had a knife on his person; I'm clearly no authority on what'll happen in the future

 

[Rahul]

Gene Coon had read the original "Arena" by Frederic Brown. They were in a script crunch and Coon went home and banged out his "Arena" over a weekend. Never consciously realizing he was drawing from that story. Someone ended up catching it before the episode aired and they worked out an agreement with Brown to use the story.

That's a pretty similar scenario, yes.
People here love to pretend it's absolutely impossible to stumble upon this "Tardigrades in space"-game while researching Tardigrades in space, and it's pretty awkward someone got inspired by it to the point of plagiarism - but hey, whatever. I don't blame them for it - this has happened many times before in art, and similar situations will happen again, yours is just one of many, many more examples.
That stuff is pretty common. They usually just work things out, but this being a small Indie developer, I can see the big corporation pick a fight instead of working things out like they normally would do. And also being somehow lauded by people online for it... because whatever.

 

[Jinn]

I didn't think Brexit would happen, I didn't think Trump would get elected and I dismissed the "Lorca's from the mirror universe" stuff that got posted after people saw that he always had a knife on his person; I'm clearly no authority on what'll happen in the future

I also didn't think that a Picard show would happen. And I didn't think that Gerry Duggan could write a brilliant Guardians of the Galaxy ongoing.

Gee, I suck at this, don't I?

 

[BillJ]

People here love to pretend it's absolutely impossible to stumble upon this "Tardigrade in space"-game while researching Tardigrade in space, and it's pretty awkward someone got inspired to the point of plagiarism by it - but hey, whatever. I don't blame them for it - this has happened many times before in art, yours is just one of many, many examples.

I have no idea one way or the other about the likelihood of CBS either directly or indirectly lifting this idea? I would think this is a more complex situation, because a co-creator credit for the entire series could be at stake if the guy wins.

If they get together and guy has something substantial, or even something insubstantial that might play well in court, CBS may decide the best thing to do is come to a private settlement.

 

[Markonian]

But it was said before you had to wade through various game dev blog posts to come across all the content. Buried somewhere among other indie games on Steam. When there’s the Cosmos content readily available.

Plus, the Ephraim idea came before the cosmozoan Tardigrade angle.

 

[Rahul]

I have no idea one way or the other about the likelihood of CBS either directly or indirectly lifting this idea? I would think this is a more complex situation, because a co-creator credit for the entire series could be at stake if the guy wins.

If they get together and guy has something substantial, or even something insubstantial that might play well in court, CBS may decide the best thing to do is come to a private settlement.

No way in hell is this going anywhere above a private settlement. CBS has way too many way too good lawyers for exactly those type of situations.

The only real question is if the settlement is good enough for him to pay for his own lawyer's cost, or if he is going to sit on them.

 

[CorporalClegg]

The logic of the CBS defense here so far is:

1. I've heard of tardigrades before;
2. Tardigrades are cool;
3. Tardigrades have been posted about a lot on the Internet;
4. Now that STD had been accused of stealing an idea, it's crystal clear that the idea of a giant space-warping tardigrade would naturally occur independently to lots of writers, despite the fact that it's actually occurred to only two (2) writers;
5. The STD writers, known for their fantastic originality in storytelling and their wholly uniquely imaginative approach to...something, sometime...must almost certainly be INNOCENT, INNOCENT, INNOCENT!

You conveniently left out the part where one of those "writers" is a cooperative body belonging to one of the largest IPs in the world that has a long 50 year history of using trendy science theories as means of space travel, and the other is one single guy working on a video game with only the tiniest of digital footprints consisting of a few cherry-picked bits of pixel art residing on the deepest, hardest to reach bowls on the interwebs, where only few dozen people in the whole world even knew of its existence.

 

[Rahul]

You conveniently left out the part where one of those "writers" is a cooperative body belonging to one of the largest IPs in the world that has a long 50 year history of using trendy science theories as means of space travel, and the other is one single guy working on a video game with only the tiniest of digital footprints consisting of a few cherry-picked bits of pixel art residing on the deepest, hardest to reach bowls on the interwebs, where only few dozen people in the whole world even knew of its existence.

All hail our corporate overlords! What they say is the truth shall be the truth! Don't trust your eyes, don't trust your ears, we have always ̶b̶̶e̶̶e̶̶n̶̶ ̶̶a̶̶t̶̶ ̶̶w̶̶a̶̶r̶̶ ̶̶w̶̶i̶̶t̶̶h̶̶ ̶̶e̶̶u̶̶r̶̶a̶̶s̶̶i̶̶a̶ had giant FTL-capable Tardigrades in entertainment!

 

[Krandor]

So out of curiousity I did an alexa search on his dev blog page (which CBS would have had to have gone to to steal all these idea). That is today AFTER the publicity about the game. Doesn't prove anything either way but I find it interesting.

Graph over time - not enough data to graph (indicating there was almost no traffic)
Globl rank 3,639,879
US Rank - 416,713

Those are low numbers to start with even including thefact he likely got a boost with the lawsuit/contriversy.

And that is shown by 4 of the 5 top search terms that got people there are star trek related.

Only 17 sites link to it.


Top Keywords from Search Engines
Which search keywords send traffic to this site?

Keyword Percent of Search Traffic
1. tardigrade game 30.67%
2. star trek discovery tardigrade 16.33%
3. star trek tardigrade 4.47%
4. tardigrade star trek 2.67%

 

[Krandor]

I guess it's possible but seems unlikely with the samll footprint

 

[Jinn]

All hail our corporate overlords! What they say is the truth shall be the truth! Don't trust your eyes, don't trust your ears, we have always ̶b̶̶e̶̶e̶̶n̶̶ ̶̶a̶̶t̶̶ ̶̶w̶̶a̶̶r̶̶ ̶̶w̶̶i̶̶t̶̶h̶̶ ̶̶e̶̶u̶̶r̶̶a̶̶s̶̶i̶̶a̶ had giant FTL-capable Tardigrades in entertainment!

CorporalClegg? More like CorporateShillClegg!

Sorry, I couldn't resist. It's too many "c"s! Let's bring in CorporalCaptain!

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I think this guy has a case.

1. People are practicing casual fallacy when it comes to the Tardigrade. "We have space faring Tardigrades therefore we always had space faring Tardigrades" First the popular new media focused on how Tardigrades can SURVIVE IN SPACE by desiccating themselves. Cosmo speculated how they can use that ability to travel through CONVENTIONAL means to other planets. It's a huge jump to giant Tardigrades can bend space time and travel faster than light. That's like saying since I can walk to the park therefore the logical consequence is the Guild Navigator from Dune.

You realize that the desiccation bit was actually used in DSC, right? Was it used in this game?

And I have seen giant tardigrades before as well. The ONLY unusual similarity here is the Tardigrade being able to travel ftl (which is also not achieved in the same manner). Is that too big of a leap to make? Maybe. Maybe not. As far as I'm concerned, it's certainly not enough *by itself* to start condemning people.

2. Character argument is also a casual fallacy. Minority and LGBT representation is so terrible that it's big news when it happens. The odds of having two pieces of media with a female lead of African descent and a gay mixed race couple is nearly astronomical

Someone else mentioned HTGAWM. 2 minutes googling random shows with black female leads also brought up The Bold Type. Rare does not mean anything even remotely approaching 'astronomical'. Plus, the rarest part about this combo is simply the fact of having a black, female lead and that was literally one of the very first things announced about DSC.

Also, this game hasn't been released and in order for CBS to even know about the characters in the game they would have to have spent hours digging through this guy's design journal, where the character designs are spread far and wide.

3. The original idea for the Tardigrade is not a defense. Alien navigators with special abilities is not a new concept . The question is where did the get the idea they ACTUALLY used. It's not exactly logical to go from he's a crewmember to let's make him a drive part.

Going from 'alien navigator' to 'alien who makes navigation possible' is not an incomprehensible leap. Nor is plugging a biological being into a ship drive anything new.

5. Finally this can be solved easily. Find all the people working on STD who have Steam accounts and look at their logs. Steam tracks what games you look at.

Steam has almost none of this information on it. The trailer and announcements pages (which seem to be the only available info) do not even mention the 'black female lead character' at all, nor do they include that shot being shared around as proof that the tardigrade fx were copied. It does have some stuff talking about gay characters, but no explicit description or clear depiction of any 'mixed-race couple'. So, once again, you're talking about somebody at DSC doing a deep dive into the disorganized design journals of a completely unknown game designer for no reason.