Did CBS Steal the Tardigrade Idea?

[Belz...]

That still makes no sense. How does having a black female character and a redhead, etc, raise questions? Why does any of this have anything to do with the tardigrade?

Does it have to have something to do with the Tardigrade? No, it doesn't. We're discussing the possibility that CBS "stole" his idea specifically because there's a number of elements that are similar. Might be concidence. Might not. My point, which I've already repeated many times, is that though one can explain away individual similar elements, the fact that there are several of them at once raises questions or, if you're a Vulcan, eyebrows.

It's like, if I make a sci-fi show about the travels of a ship called the USS Enterprise, and there's an African-American female comms officer, an asian helmsman, and a logical first officer, and I'm accused by CBS of plagiarism, I can't defend myself by saying "but what does any of these other things have to do with the fact that the ship is named Enterprise?" It's not just that central fact, but that there are other elements around it, that is the issue. The tardigrade itself is just one element, though it is the central one.

But yeah, the main thing is that you've got a giant tardigrade that can instantaneously go anywhere in the cosmos. That's a bit specific as a concept. Again, might be a coincidence, but the question is still there. It's not impossible for someone to be made aware of this game and then think they can get away with ripping it off, or doing it unconsciously.

Which is just hilarious, considering you're the one who complained about me 'ignoring' things first.

That makes no sense at all. I was responding to your specific complaint that I didn't answer every single point, by pointing out that you didn't, either, so your complaint rings hollow. And where did I complain about it first?

Ok, I see you have no intention of supporting your claims. You got caught making things up about me, and you're trying to avoid admitting to it.

 

[KennyB]

Gee, I wish. But you're continuing to dodge my points and questions, mate. It's becoming pretty blatant by now. Why don't you give it a try?

His username IS "dodge"...……...

 

[Rahul]

TBH I do wonder about the timeline of things:
Did this game have a trailer depicting the tardigrade FTL-thing way in advance before the series premiered?

Because the visuals of the tardigrade zapping into hyperspace look eerily similar to DIS. But they must have been available to the public during the production phase of DIS, otherwise they couldn't have influenced it.

I only found this trailer:

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Which (at least on Youtube) was uploaded a few months before DIS aired (and before anyone knew DIS would feature a FTL-tardigrade story as well). But probably too close to the release of DIS to have any significant influence on production of it's early episodes.

Does anybody know what (and when!) was the earliest trailer/screenshot of that game online depicting the blue sparkling tardigrade going FTL?

 

[KennyB]

TBH I do wonder about the timeline of things:
Did this game have a trailer depicting the tardigrade FTL-thing way in advance before the series premiered?

Because the visuals of the tardigrade zapping into hyperspace look eerily similar to DIS. But they must have been available to the public during the production phase of DIS, otherwise they couldn't have influenced it.

I only found this trailer:

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Which (at least on Youtube) was uploaded a few months before DIS aired (and before anyone knew DIS would feature a FTL-tardigrade story as well). But probably too close to the release of DIS to have any significant influence on production of it's early episodes.

Does anybody know what (and when!) was the earliest trailer/screenshot of that game online depicting the blue sparkling tardigrade going FTL?

Earliest I can see are 2014/2015 time frame.

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and
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50444.0
Still I think it will be hard to prove the idea was "stolen". It is like many other scientific subjects...….blackholes/novas/binary star systems......there will probably be some form of settlement but I do not think this was intentional.

 

[Marynator]

Oh dear, I can totally see how he'd see similarities because his tardigrades also can travel through space, but I'm honestly having a really difficult time seeing anything after that, you know what I mean? Similarities you see with characters are so vague and common, like simply having a black woman isn't enough, like really? But I think if she was an orphan raised by stoic aliens and she's a protege of the captain and she's accused of causing a major war and goes to prison, only to be recruited by her new captain as a specialist, then maybe you've got something, but just being a diverse cast of humans really feels quite weak to me, you know what I mean?

I'm certainly not a lawyer, but my feeling is that tardigrades are not his intellectual property, I'm pretty sure I remember reading about them a few years ago, and to me they seem like some big part of current scientific interest, especially how they can survive in space and will probably leave our solar system before we do. But he totally didn't invent them or anything, and I feel it really makes a lot of sense to me how you'd see several science fiction projects using them right now.

I really don't feel comparing this to ripping off of Star Trek is at all fair, because of several reasons, but mostly you know Star Trek was like a big pop culture phenomenon, and his game is extremely obscure, right? And also if you use Enterprise well that's a trademark ripoff, it's more like you're just using a spaceship, because he doesn't own tardigrades. I feel it'd be more fair if you said Gene was plagiarizing some barely known story from somewhere about a space station with a crew of humans from different nationalities and a half-alien.

I think also if you compare to Harry Potter lawsuits claiming JK Rowling stole ideas, you'll find they're waaaay more similar than what you're seeing here, and all of her suits against her were dismissed with prejudice and her accusers were forced to pay penalties, so looking at that I really don't think this is at all going to end well for this game maker.

My feeling is he's trying to use this for publicity for his mostly unknown video game he's been working on, and like some other people have said he's probably getting really bad legal advice, and I do hope this whole thing doesn't ruin him and force him to cancel his game.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Now I am interested in this game.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Oh dear, I can totally see how he'd see similarities because his tardigrades also can travel through space, but I'm honestly having a really difficult time seeing anything after that, you know what I mean? Similarities you see with characters are so vague and common, like simply having a black woman isn't enough, like really? But I think if she was an orphan raised by stoic aliens and she's a protege of the captain and she's accused of causing a major war and goes to prison, only to be recruited by her new captain as a specialist, then maybe you've got something, but just being a diverse cast of humans really feels quite weak to me, you know what I mean?

I'm certainly not a lawyer, but my feeling is that tardigrades are not his intellectual property, I'm pretty sure I remember reading about them a few years ago, and to me they seem like some big part of current scientific interest, especially how they can survive in space and will probably leave our solar system before we do. But he totally didn't invent them or anything, and I feel it really makes a lot of sense to me how you'd see several science fiction projects using them right now.

I think it's just about possible that DSC producers might have heard rumours about tardigrades being used in a space travel game and extrapolated that into their own version of how the tardigrade works in DSC.

I feel it'd be more fair if you said Gene was plagiarizing some barely known story from somewhere about a space station with a crew of humans from different nationalities and a half-alien.

Coincidently, J. Michael Straczynski occassionally suggested exactly that vis-a-vis DS9 and B5. Guess what, legal action went exactly... nowhere. A clue where this might go, perhaps?

I think also if you compare to Harry Potter lawsuits claiming JK Rowling stole ideas, you'll find they're waaaay more similar than what you're seeing here, and all of her suits against her were dismissed with prejudice and her accusers were forced to pay penalties, so looking at that I really don't think this is at all going to end well for this game maker.

Me neither.

My feeling is he's trying to use this for publicity for his mostly unknown video game he's been working on, and like some other people have said he's probably getting really bad legal advice, and I do hope this whole thing doesn't ruin him and force him to cancel his game.

Considering his initial approach was to get an agreement on "parallel development", I think 'bad legal advice' is a good explanation for where things are now.

Given where he is with development, I can't really see the completed game seeing light of day regardless.

 

[cultcross]

Now I am interested in this game.

I hear it's a rip off of Star Trek.

 

[dahj]

Ok, I see you have no intention of supporting your claims.

Lol, no, I'm doing exactly the same thing you're doing, ignoring 90% of the post and responding to a random sentence.

I'm just doing it funnier

P.S. You really need to check this self-important attitude of "everyone must respond to everything I say (but I can do whatevs)," it's unseemly. Feel free to consider your frustration at my responses a tiny lesson in humility.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Does it have to have something to do with the Tardigrade? No, it doesn't. We're discussing the possibility that CBS "stole" his idea specifically because there's a number of elements that are similar. Might be concidence. Might not. My point, which I've already repeated many times, is that though one can explain away individual similar elements, the fact that there are several of them at once raises questions or, if you're a Vulcan, eyebrows.

It's like, if I make a sci-fi show about the travels of a ship called the USS Enterprise, and there's an African-American female comms officer, an asian helmsman, and a logical first officer, and I'm accused by CBS of plagiarism, I can't defend myself by saying "but what does any of these other things have to do with the fact that the ship is named Enterprise?" It's not just that central fact, but that there are other elements around it, that is the issue. The tardigrade itself is just one element, though it is the central one.

But yeah, the main thing is that you've got a giant tardigrade that can instantaneously go anywhere in the cosmos. That's a bit specific as a concept. Again, might be a coincidence, but the question is still there. It's not impossible for someone to be made aware of this game and then think they can get away with ripping it off, or doing it unconsciously.

No, it isn't. If you want to make that example even remotely comparable to what's actually happening here, it would go something like this:

There is ship named Enterprise with a black woman working somewhere below decks doing something totally unspecified, an asian doctor who likes trading insults with the first officer who also enjoys it because he is not extraordinarily logical at all, and the chief engineer wears a beatles inspired Chekov-esque hair cut but is otherwise nothing like Chekov.

This is the point that you keep trying to steamroll over in insisting that the individual merits of each thing don't matter because only the 'big picture' matters: small, unremarkable similarities in individual characters when married to vastly bigger differences in the same characters DO NOT produce a similar 'big picture' at all. The cast of characters of DSC does not sound anything like the cast of characters of this game unless you go out of your way to cherry pick the very small number of similarities between them and ignore everything else.

There has to be a threshold for how similar a character or concept needs to be before it can actually be considered as contributing to an overall picture of possible copying. Otherwise we might as well pile on every single thing that is in any way similar between the two, like how they both take place in space or they both take place in the future, how they both have male characters, and also, yes, female characters, and even well-trained professional characters, and they both use lots of scientific words, etc.

In the end, there is no reasonable argument to be made that 'is black and female' or 'is a woman with red hair' or 'is a white man in love with a non-white man' comes anywhere near that threshold. And yes, even 'Is a black female standing next to a woman with red hair and a white man in love with a non-white man' is still WAY too vague and shallow to be a legitimate complaint.

To say that the tardigrade can't be dismissed with certainty is fair. It is imo by far most likely to be a simple coincidence, but it is similar enough that the question is understandable. The rest, however, does not contribute to an overall picture of being even more similar. When viewed in full, it makes both productions feel significantly LESS similar. And as such it is ridiculous to keep pulling those elements into the conversation as further 'evidence', because they do not provide any evidence at all for the claim they're supposedly supporting.

 

[Noname Given]

Coincidently, J. Michael Straczynski occassionally suggested exactly that vis-a-vis DS9 and B5. Guess what, legal action went exactly... nowhere. A clue where this might go, perhaps?

JMS made the claim simply to get free publicity for Babylon 5 at the time (in 1993 TNG was at the height of it's popularity and DS9 was the first spinoff in the same era; so yeah, he knew news organizations would jump at it and give B5 free publicity for its premiere.

 

[Philip Guyott]

TBH I do wonder about the timeline of things:
Did this game have a trailer depicting the tardigrade FTL-thing way in advance before the series premiered?

Because the visuals of the tardigrade zapping into hyperspace look eerily similar to DIS. But they must have been available to the public during the production phase of DIS, otherwise they couldn't have influenced it.

I only found this trailer:

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Which (at least on Youtube) was uploaded a few months before DIS aired (and before anyone knew DIS would feature a FTL-tardigrade story as well). But probably too close to the release of DIS to have any significant influence on production of it's early episodes.

Does anybody know what (and when!) was the earliest trailer/screenshot of that game online depicting the blue sparkling tardigrade going FTL?

Earliest I can see are 2014/2015 time frame.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
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and
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50444.0
Still I think it will be hard to prove the idea was "stolen". It is like many other scientific subjects...….blackholes/novas/binary star systems......there will probably be some form of settlement but I do not think this was intentional.

Many have said the the game was never released, however in actuality the game was first submitted onto Steam Greenlight in November of 2014. Tardigrades was later voted through Steam Greenlight back on November 13th, 2015.

I agree that it is unlikely someone working for CBS saw it and stole the idea, however it is not impossible.

 

[Philip Guyott]

Personally, I think that CBS should have used the tardigrade design from this game instead.

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Imagine one of these guys ripping into people on the ship.
It would be both cute and terrifying all at the same time.

 

[ELURIA]

Wait up, it's a Midnight's Edge video. They are absolute garbage, and all of their subscribers are too.

Alex Kurtzman... is that you???

 

[DaveyNY]

No

 

[Krandor]

Many have said the the game was never released, however in actuality the game was first submitted onto Steam Greenlight in November of 2014. Tardigrades was later voted through Steam Greenlight back on November 13th, 2015.

I agree that it is unlikely someone working for CBS saw it and stole the idea, however it is not impossible.

Greenlight just means the community wants the game to be finished. There is no completed game anybody from CBS could have played so to steal all the stuff he claims they stole they have to have gone through 6 years of dev blogs and trailers looking for stuff which is a very different situation from somebody from CBS played the game loved it and decided to take some of the concepts over to DSC.

 

[Tuskin38]

Alex Kurtzman... is that you???

Midnight’s edge is just bad

 

[CorporalClegg]

Many have said the the game was never released, however in actuality the game was first submitted onto Steam Greenlight in November of 2014. Tardigrades was later voted through Steam Greenlight back on November 13th, 2015.

And as I have already said (twice) that's akin to post one's first draft fan-fic on WordPress. In pieces.

 

[Noname Given]

Midnight’s edge is just bad a lunatic when it comes to non-TNG era Star Trek

FTFY

 

[Rahul]

And as I have already said (twice) that's akin to post one's first draft fan-fic on WordPress. In pieces.

The thing is - there have been legitimate cases where actual television creators straight up stole theories and plot points from fan fiction forums - and had to compensate the fan fiction writers for that.

I don't find it unlikely the makers of DIS could have stumbled upon an obscure Game trailer and, most likely unintentional, incorporated some of those ideas into their own work.

That would require the sensitive part of the material actually being available on the web though. The blue sparkling FTL-tardigrade definitely appeared in the Game during the time DIS was created. The question is: Was that critical part of the Game in any form available to the public at this time? Was there ever a trailer, screenshot or demo showing this specific element of the game?

If it were - like a trailer or blog or something - this guy absolutely has a case. If not, then, well, not.