I have no idea how copyright issues work for the novels, so could it be that the publishers of the books have a claim to that name? Again, I have NO CLUE as to how the rights work when it comes to the novels and such.
Everything is under the CBS banner, there are no copyright conflicts between the different TV series and the books.
Ah, ok. Well, in any case, I think it was awesome seeing Gomez again. Lower Decks is really just an amazing and fun show that has such a huge Star Trek heart at its core. You can tell the people behind it really care about what came before.
The da Vinci wouldn't have served their purposes here, because the idea is that the Cerritos is a smaller, second-tier starship and this mission had them supporting a larger, front-line starship, and then having to come to its rescue and take the lead unexpectedly. But the da Vinci is an even smaller, more specialized ship than the Cerritos, much the same kind of second-tier ship that gets sent on followup and support missions. So it wouldn't have fit the story.
Probably because the Saber class isn't big or majestic enough. It's probably smaller than the California class. The big thing in this episode was "small ship rescues big ship". Couldn't do that with something as small as a Saber.
I have a feeling Gomez being a captain was just a coincidence and not a purposeful reference to the novels. If it was intended as a reference to the books, I would think there would have been a refence to the SCE or her having served on the Da Vinci.
Also, it'd be pretty standard for Captain's to graduate to larger ships as they got more acclaim, so not surprising that Gomez is the Captain of a ship that isn't the Da Vinci. I'd not be even slightly surprised if Mike McMahan could cite you chapter and verse on the novelverse.
If McMahan had actually wanted to use the da Vinci (instead of the Archimedes) for LD, would he have been able to? Or would there be rights issues at play that would prevent this? (you know, like how they couldn't use T'Pau on ENT, or Nick Locarno on VOY, because the original writers of the eps where those characters appeared, would be owed some serious coin)
No, everything done by the authors in Trek novels is owned by the studio lock, stock, and barrel. Besides, the real obstacle to using the da Vinci would be that the story called for the Cerritos to be rescuing a more powerful ship, and a Sabre is tiny (and the Cerritos is apparently surprisingly large for shuttle bay reasons. It’s the White Star all over again).
No. There were no rights issues preventing The Titan from being Luna class on Lower Decks or Control being on Disco, or the Vanguard design being used in TOSR and Lower Decks, so why would there be right issues preventing the da Vinci showing up in Lower Decks?
DSC's Control really has nothing to do with the novelverse version. They just happen to have the same name.
The point still stands, Disco featured an AI that ran Section 31 named Control, a concept that was originally introduced in the novels, and there were no rights preventing them from doing that, so why would there be rights preventing Lower Decks from featuring a Starfleet starship named USS da Vinci?
^ Hey, don't look at me...if there's no problem, then no problem, right? Actually I wouldn't have even thought of that if not for the other characters I just mentioned. Why would there be NO problem with what you were talking about (Control, etc.) but characters like T'Pau and Locarno could not be used again without paying royalties to whoever wrote the eps where they first appeared? What's the difference, legally speaking?
IIRC, I read laws changed and when ENT actually finally featured T'Pau, they weren't obligated to make payments. But I did read it online, soooo....?
I thought that was because when T'Pau DID appear on ENT, she was only there that one time. T'Pol, OTOH, needed to be created because they couldn't use T'Pau as a regular series character. Or something like that. Fucking lawyers...the enemy of common sense.
That's different. TV script writers are contractually entitled to residual payments for the reuse of their characters or dialogue, but tie-in novelists are not contractually entitled to any extra payments if our concepts or characters are used. Although in both cases, it's the studio that actually owns the characters or concepts. The writers' entitlement to residuals does not mean they have ownership rights; rather, it's their compensation for giving up those rights to the studio.
If only it weren’t for lawyers, so no one would get compensated for anything and we could live a life of unfettered corporate common sense. (I’m actually in a very awkward position because I’m normally unsympathetic towards arguments in favor of being continuously compensated for work done, potentially well beyond the deaths of your descendants, but I’m also unsympathetic to appeals to “common sense” that work by ignoring everything that’s actually involved in a situation. No matter who wins, I lose.)
It's not for the single work itself, it's for the reuse of it. If other people are going to redistribute your work in a way that they profit from, or incorporate elements of your work into a new work that they profit from, surely it's only fair that you get a cut of that profit. I get royalties for every copy of my book that's sold, because every sold copy makes the publisher more money, and I'm entitled to a cut of that money because the book only exists because of my work.
Wow this thread really had no luck, did it? Proposal: merge in these two conversations which might have happened had this thread been properly remembered during seasons 1 and 2 as it should have been. https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/did-lower-decks-finale-hat-tip-sce.309409/ https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/spoiler-regarding-lower-decks-finale.305877/