Did CBS Steal the Tardigrade Idea?

[Belz...]

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

That is a lie. I respond to relevant parts of posts for which I have a reply. There's nothing random or incorrect or dishonest about it, and that you'd use that to cover your evasiveness is nothing short of despicable. Either support your accusation that I have a "team" -- especially after I've specifically said that I don't side with the accuser here -- or retract it.

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:

It was an example. It doesn't need to be exactly the same. You just need to understand what I mean by it and how it relates to the current discussion. Instead you've seized the fact that it isn't 100% identical as a way to dismiss the entire argument. I don't see what this accomplishes, except avoid any sort of possible agreement.

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

I'm not saying that they don't matter. I never said or implied this.

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.

See, that's a good starting point to have a discussion. Where would you draw the line? And does it require a specific element or a convergence of elements?

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.

I'd say it's more likely than not a coincidence. It's just that the use of the tardigrade is very damned specific. The other elements, even if individually weak, only add to the suspicion.

When viewed in full, it makes both productions feel significantly LESS similar

I think that's true.

 

[Red Panda]

Alex Kurtzman... is that you???

Alex Kurtzman probably loves them. He's into all that corporation conspiracy shit himself if I recall correctly from Alias and Fringe days, and I could see him getting off on the idea there are fans that think his company, CBS and Les Moonves are in cahoots with [censoring name of person because moderators kicked up a fuss last time I mentioned her] to purposely push a liberal agenda.

In addition to linking Discovery to [again, censoring myself so the moderators don't have to], Midnight Edge also believe CBS doesn't own the rights to Star Trek, and are buying people's silence over the "fact" they lost the rights years ago, so they can keep a ruse going.

 

[dahj]

That is a lie. I respond to relevant parts of posts for which I have a reply. There's nothing random or incorrect or dishonest about it, and that you'd use that to cover your evasiveness is nothing short of despicable. Either support your accusation that I have a "team" -- especially after I've specifically said that I don't side with the accuser here -- or retract it.

(That bit about demanding people reply to you just flew over your head, didn't it? )

 

[Tuskin38]

Also Stamets was inspired by a real person, which is another point against his claim with that character.

 

[Refuge]

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:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
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?

Frankly shouldn't it come down to the timeline. Clearly there IS a package. Tardigrade and character profiles. Both the game and the Discovery production have versions of that. One would think whoever made public theirs first would have some kind of case.

 

[Belz...]

(That bit about demanding people reply to you just flew over your head, didn't it? )

No one's done that. Stop making things up.

Like, seriously, there's no need for this sort of dishonesty in a discussion like this.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

I'm sorry but the characters don't look alike - picking on passing resemblances to people looking the way they do is silly. The rest is interesting; but also consider what the Tardigrade originally was going to be (Stamet's boss), so something else was going on. Indeed the problem with the Tardigrade is that Paul Stamets is probably a big inspiration, and he might have written or suggested much of the elements that may be a common source for both things.

I'm not sure, but I wonder if I think I agree with the writing of confirmation bias that people are reasonably with in the game developer's Reddit post at https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/778vix/in_2014_i_started_developing_a_game_that_uses/.

Also check out tardigrades in space:


I think the maker is onto something, but it's also resemblances that are being talked up with little analysis, as in the video posted above. It's dodgy side-eye suggestiveness - and basically reading out of the original blog by the maker - rather than any honest investigation.

This seems to me to be just a ton of hatred of Discovery (well, a reason to hate the show) 'just because', and nothing else but that.

 

[Jedman67]

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 pitched B5 to CBS/Paramount before going to WB.
After being rejected by C/P, and he started getting B5 into pre-production; all of a sudden a new star trek show comes out that takes place on a space station. I *imagine* that when the suits told ISB and RB to create DS9, they cherry picked a handful of things from the B5 pitch they liked and told them to run with it.
Actionable? Possibly, but unlikely. Certainly enough to make JMS annoyed tho.

 

[Tuskin38]

Ira claims he never watched B5 during DS9s run

Also Ira didn’t become show runner until S3, before that he was just a producer and writer.

 

[Mudd]

This seems to me to be just a ton of hatred of Discovery (well, a reason to hate the show) 'just because', and nothing else but that.

 

[Mudd]

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 don't see a winnable suit, here.

 

[gblews]

DoomCock mentioned in his recent interview with the developer that

1. CBS contacted him first
2. CBS threatened to sue him first for plagarism.

What you say here is the opposite of what was in the video on the first page of this thread. In that vid, the game guy had his people contact CBS via phone calls and letters. After having their calls and letters ignored by CBS initially, the game guy's attorney's finally got CBS reps on the phone and that is when CBS mentioned a counter suit, which would be a routine response by a company like CBS.

I cannot any reason CBS would contact the game developer first. The only way that might happen is if the game was making massive amounts of money and if the similarities between it and DSC were a lot greater than they are. Otherwise, for a huge corporation like CBS, it would not be cost effective to initiate litigation on something as insignificant as this. If the game guy said this in an interview, I would think he might he "exaggerating" a bit in order to give his position some credibility.

Also, according to the vid on page one of this thread, no lawsuit has been filed yet.

 

[Red Panda]

Why is the developer telling inconsistent stories about something so benign? Either CBS contacted you first, or you contacted them, it can't be both. If you can't make up your mind about that, how can anybody trust your word?

 

[Red Panda]

One would think whoever made public theirs first would have some kind of case.

If CBS has documents or artwork of their ideas that predates the developer going public, and it's time stamped as such, then that's the end of that. The show will probably say they took Ripper and just merged it with their spore storyline, and it resulted in a coincidence.

They don't need to prove anything regarding the spores and mycelial network, as Hannibal (the series) shows Fuller already knew about that stuff years before the game went public.

 

[Tuskin38]

The game went public around 2014 for the record, but I don’t know how much was revealed back then.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

It was an example. It doesn't need to be exactly the same. You just need to understand what I mean by it and how it relates to the current discussion. Instead you've seized the fact that it isn't 100% identical as a way to dismiss the entire argument. I don't see what this accomplishes, except avoid any sort of possible agreement.

The point is it's a bad example, because it transforms the situation into something that is far more similar than is actually the case here.

I'm not saying that they don't matter. I never said or implied this.

You have repeatedly dismissed the clear evidence that the individual characters are not really related to this game at all by claiming that "the sum total of the coincidences raises questions, not each of them individually."

That is, as far as I can see, stating the the big picture trumps all individual elements, and also seems to amount to going out of your way to never acknowledge that most of the individual elements are totally unrelated and don't even contribute to a big picture of suspicious coincidences in the first place.

I'd say it's more likely than not a coincidence. It's just that the use of the tardigrade is very damned specific. The other elements, even if individually weak, only add to the suspicion.

I think that's true.

You think it's true that looking at the full information regarding the characters only makes the two productions seem less similar, yet you're *still* pushing this idea of 'individually weak' elements 'adding to the suspicion'? These statements together make no sense.

See, that's a good starting point to have a discussion. Where would you draw the line? And does it require a specific element or a convergence of elements?

It can be either, but it requires a specific amount of similarity, not just in a shallow glance but also in each specific element. If you have your ship named enterprise and the Communications officer is a black woman from africa and the helmsman is an asian man from san francisco and the first officer is an alien hybrid, then you have a plausible case. If the captain is named jim and comes from iowa and the engineer is scottish and excitable and the comms. officer likes to sing and the helmsman likes plants and swordplay, then you have pretty much a slam dunk.

But if you have your ship named enterprise and the captain is a black man named Thomas who loves alien poetry, and the comm. officer is an alien who knows 1000 languages and reads dictionaries for fun, and the engineer (though still scottish) is a perfect professional who never makes waves and barely ever talks, and the first officer is a happy-go-lucky guy who always tries to cheer people up, and there's also a bunch of other important characters who have no analogue to be found in TOS, then your case is weak AF, even if the helmsman happens to be an asian guy. Now, if the asian guy still likes botany, fencing and helicopters, then MAYBE you can build a case on him plus the enterprise, but the engineer being scottish is not any reasonable form of 'evidence' because the engineer character is completely different to the core. But if the asian helmsman doesn't like any of those things, then your case is automatically limited to just the Enterprise itself.

 

[Philip Guyott]

Why is the developer telling inconsistent stories about something so benign? Either CBS contacted you first, or you contacted them, it can't be both. If you can't make up your mind about that, how can anybody trust your word?

It's possible that DoomCock is in the wrong here. In all the articles and videos I have seen, fans of the game contacted him first, followed by LA lawyers asking him if he would like to sue CBS. Finally he contacted CBS directly, and out of those initial talks CBS agreed to not use the tardigrade again in future episodes and in return not to sue him.

I am not a legal expert, but I can't help but wonder if he has a record of CBS legal promising him that they would not use the tardigrade again in future episodes, if a court might view that as an inadvertent admission of responsibility (i.e. guilt) on the part of CBS.Granted the tardigrade story arc was already complete, but this prevents them from revisiting the character in future seasons. Why would CBS be willing to make a such a concession to a small scale indie game developer who had yet to release his game to the general public?

 

[dahj]

there's no need for this sort of dishonesty in a discussion like this.

... considering this entire discussion is about a dishonest attempt to mooch money.

Also, throwing tantrums and calling people liars when you have no arguments is not really needed in a discussion either, might wanna think on that too

 

[Refuge]

... considering this entire discussion is about a dishonest attempt to mooch money.

Do you mean the Discovery production?

 

[Belz...]

The point is it's a bad example, because it transforms the situation into something that is far more similar than is actually the case here.

Analogies are never perfect. That's not their point. It's an illustration of a point. Presumably you understood it, but I'll clarify anyway: the point is that if you have one important similarity, it might raise suspicion, but it's the fact that you have several of them, even if all but one are minor, that may convince you that something's going on. Yes, in the example it's much clearer, but that was the point: to make it unambiguous.

You have repeatedly dismissed the clear evidence that the individual characters are not really related to this game at all by claiming that "the sum total of the coincidences raises questions, not each of them individually."

See above. That is not to say that the individual elements aren't important. In fact, I'm saying that dismissing them individually misses the bigger picture.

You think it's true that looking at the full information regarding the characters only makes the two productions seem less similar, yet you're *still* pushing this idea of 'individually weak' elements 'adding to the suspicion'? These statements together make no sense.

Yes they do, because although I agree that the sum total of Discovery is very dissimilar to the game Tardigrades, the basic concept of the tardigrade and how its used in the story, together with a small number of additional, similar elements, is what I find odd. I don't think that "makes no sense".

It can be either, but it requires a specific amount of similarity, not just in a shallow glance but also in each specific element. If you have your ship named enterprise and the Communications officer is a black woman from africa and the helmsman is an asian man from san francisco and the first officer is an alien hybrid, then you have a plausible case. (snip)

How about if it's an asian from Hong Kong? Does it suddenly no longer count? I don't think a "specific" amount is very useful since people could dodge lawsuits by making ridiculously small alterations.