Did CBS Steal the Tardigrade Idea?

[cultcross]

Just regarding the tardigrade - the other characters are trivial

It may be ridiculous, but it's hardly trivial - it is the basis of his case that Discovery must have copied from him specifically. Without his 'other similarities', you are left with the case being that nobody could have independently come up with a space faring tardigrade which has a whiff of desperation about it as a claim, given the coverage of tardigrades surviving in space and the long scifi history of 'creature, but in spaaaaaace' which Discovery even went back to with the space whale.

None of the rationalizations advanced here so far for the plausibility of the "coincidental" invention have been anything other than funny - certainly not persuasive on the merits

The rationale for it being anything but a coincidence (which isn't really the right word, anyway - the argument isn't that they sprung from nothing into their heads, but that they came to the same idea from similar inspiration) is essentially pointing and going "look, a space tardigrade", especially if one ignores the 'trivial' bits.

Ultimately, as I said earlier, this is why film companies keep memos, initial sketches, minutes from meetings etc. It helps prove how ideas came about.

 

[Yminale]

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.

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

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.

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.

One thing about CBS. They still haven't sued to Orville even though it's clearly not parody and they have a real good case for it. There for the argument for competence goes out the window.

 

[cultcross]

The odds of having two pieces of media with a female lead of African descent and a gay mixed race couple is nearly astronomical

How To Get Away with Murder, also copied from Tardigrades video game.

 

[BillJ]

The case will likely hang on the complainants ability to connect someone from CBS to his game. Either through emails or some kind of written correspondence. Like him pitching the game to someone that had a connection to CBS in some form.

 

[Yminale]

How To Get Away with Murder, also copied from Tardigrades video game.

Is the murderer a space traveling blue Tardigrade.

 

[cultcross]

Is the murderer a space traveling blue Tardigrade.

You said:

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

I was demonstrating only that this was not true. Gay couples on TV were a rarity in the early 90s, sure. They're much more common now. There's even a top ten list of mixed race gay couples on TV. All I had to do was pick a show with a black female lead.

Find all the people working on STD who have Steam accounts and look at their logs. Steam tracks what games you look at.

And that wouldn't prove anything - they must prove they copied the game, not that they knew about it.

 

[Yminale]

You said:


I was demonstrating only that this was not true. Gay couples were a rarity in the early 90s, sure. They're much more common now. There's even a top ten list of mixed race gay couples on TV. All I had to do was pick a show with a black female lead.

Much more common is not the same as well known. You could probably find a handful of shows on cable or on Netflix that meets my critieria but that's my point It's RARE. I still stand by my argument.

Also Shonda Rhimes is not the most creative person. Maybe she did steal from Tardigrades

I also make a another argument. CBS is know for it's over the top conservatism. Why would they promote a liberal agenda in a "flaghip" show. Plagiarism is a better explanation than liberalism.

 

[Jinn]

I also make a another argument. CBS is know for it's over the top conservatism. Why would they promote a liberal agenda in a "flaghip" show. Plagiarism is a better explanation than liberalism.

Huh? Sorry, but I don't see that at all. Why would CBS approve of a gay couple and a black female lead more when they producers say that they lifted the "concept" from some indie game? The outcome is still more liberal then if they had scrapped the gay couple. In fact it would have probably made more sense to not include a black female lead and a gay couple if they had "stolen" the tardigrade idea in order to not arouse suspicion.

 

[Tosk]

I love this just as much as the old B5/DS9 arguments.

 

[cultcross]

also make a another argument. CBS is know for it's over the top conservatism. Why would they promote a liberal agenda in a "flaghip" show. Plagiarism is a better explanation than liberalism.

What? Star Trek has always been a CBS property and is dripping in progressive liberalism (or says it is anyway...). Vocal progressive Bryan Fuller was hired to make Discovery and dialed that side up to eleven straight away. All the cast can talk about is Star Trek's progressive outlook. Not to mention CBS aired season one of Supergirl, the show giving the SF&F forum heart palpitations from its liberal agenda.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I want to see the many other examples of huge star-traveling tardigrades in popular fiction that CBS will offer in defense.

Because, you know, the idea is in the zeitgeist.

Well, I don't work for the CBS legal team, but I'll give it a shot.

(Click to enlarge)


Sources:

Author Chris Beckett -
http://www.chris-beckett.com/uncategorized/3169/tardigrades/
https://theforgottengeek.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/the-peacock-cloak-by-chris-beckett/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Beckett

Star Trek TAS and SCE ebooks characters -
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Em/3/Green
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/P8_Blue
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Corps_of_Engineers

Captain Marvel #12 -
https://retcon-punch.com/2015/02/18/captain-marvel-12/

Ian Joyner's concept art for Ant Man and the Wasp -
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/yax4K

Adventure Time Season 5 -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time_(season_5)

Hostile Worlds Podcast -
http://hostileworlds.net/

Ian Miller's "Captain Tardigrade - Defender of the Multiverse" videos (Mildly NSFW and off-color) -

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I'd say after Tardigrades were first carried into space in 2007 aboard the Russian FOTON-M3 satellite and aboard the space shuttle Endeavour to the ISS in 2011, and then featured on the 2014 Neil DeGrasse Tyson version of Cosmos several times they gained a new popularity as the inspiration for spacefaring or oversized creatures in genre fiction and social media.

 

[Jinn]

I miss the Nasat. They were cool. I didn't even know they premiered in TAS. Here's a picture of P8 Blue from a Cross Cult cover:

 

[Krandor]

The case will likely hang on the complainants ability to connect someone from CBS to his game. Either through emails or some kind of written correspondence. Like him pitching the game to someone that had a connection to CBS in some form.

I agree and I don't think at this point they have that connection and are hoping to find it during discovery. The challenge will be to try to get the data to support that without it looking like an overbroad fishing expedition (which is really would be). The other challenge is the information they would likely need (like steam logs) CBS themselves doesn't have and asking employees to provide them without an indication there would be anything there has privacy implications. So the best they are likely to get are email correspondence on cbs email addresses and hope they can find a smoking gun there.

They have a tough road to prove this but I do agree with you they are going to need a link given that this is a pretty obscure game.

 

[Rahul]

Actually, if that really is everything that can be found about "Tardigrades in space" (and considering something like Ant-Man both came after DIS and the Tardigrade-frenzy and has a logical reason to appear in that movie) - just going on VISUAL similarity - this graphic actually proves how laughably close the DIS tardigrade and the game tardigrade are.

Like, just by showing how other entities depcit tardigrades, it shines a bright spotlight on just how friggin' similar the whole DIS depiction to the tardigrade game is.

I still expect this to go fully in CBS favour - but just because I'm a cynic, and it's a foreigner against a big American corporation in an American court. But holy cow, the more I see about it, the more I think someone stumbled at night upon an obscure Steam game, got a little "inspired" by it (but probably wasn't even aware he was recycling ideas), and came back to work the next day with a big, bold new "idea".

It's the same in music industry - many artists have unwillingly used someone else's accords, it just happens, because it really is super hard to keep track off where your own ideas actually came from. Just that there the similarities are easier traceable.

But holy shit do these alternative depictions highlight the similarities between the original two.

 

[Krandor]

I still expect this to go fully in CBS favour - but just because I'm a cynic, and it's a foreigner against a big American corporation in an American court. But holy cow, the more I see about it, the more I think someone stumbled at night upon an obscure Steam game, got a little "inspired" by it (but probably wasn't even aware he was recycling ideas), and came back to work the next day with a big, bold new "idea".
.

just "stumbing upon it" might have gotten you tardigrade in space but it would not have gotten the black female lead, the gay couple, and all the other stuff this guy is claiming. He's reaching big time on this whole thing.

Let's not forget that a lot of the concepts in that whole part of the story - Stamets, mushroom, Mycellium network were things that Bryan Fuller was VERY interested in way before discovery was even a thing.

 

[Tuskin38]

I think this guy has a case.

Nah he doesn't.

 

[dahj]

Actually, if that really is everything that can be found about "Tardigrades in space" (and considering something like Ant-Man both came after DIS and the Tardigrade-frenzy and has a logical reason to appear in that movie) - just going on VISUAL similarity - this graphic actually proves how laughably close the DIS tardigrade and the game tardigrade are.

 

[Rahul]

I don't know. All the other examples above are clearly different artistic interpretations of tardigrades in a genre environment that have nothing in common with each other except of featuring a vaguely tardigrade-thing.

THIS:

OTOH is pretty obvious the live-action version of the same tardigrade idea.

Just to be clear on one thing:
Nobody on CBS intended to steal this idea. They aren't stupid. If they had known about those similarities beforehand, they would have either changed their own version or bought out the other guy for pennies in advance. This was clearly an accident by someone not aknowledging where his "Inspiration" came from. Not a deliberate act.

I mean, theoretically it could be an accident. They recently found two guys in two different countries who have partly identical fingerprints, something long thought to be impossible. And with the Internet now being a thing all over the world, and it for everyone being easier to produce content than ever before, some eerie coincidences are bound to happen.

But don't pretend there is nothing there there, it only makes you come across as willfully turning a blind eye on the company owning your favourite property.

Because this is more than some superficial similarities. This is preeeety awkward for CBS. Even if it were only a coincidence, in a fair world they'd need to explain themselves. Perhaps this was even the reason why they axed their own tardigrade story so fast in favour of a Dune-knock-off.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I've already shown the astronomical improbability of just randomly stumbling upon this game on the internet. The only way anyone at CBS would have found it is if:

A) They were a fan of amateur point and click video games stuck in development and buried in the bowls of Steam. And, as I said, no of the "evidence" is on the game's Steam home page. You have to go to the guy's dev blog and search through all the entries to find it, which is even more improbable.

B) They opened up Chrome and typed "Tardigrades in space," to which creates a legal paradox.

 

[Rahul]

I've already shown the astronomical improbability of just randomly stumbling upon this game on the internet. The only way anyone at CBS would have found it is if:

A) They were a fan of amateur point and click video games stuck in development and buried in the bowls of Steam.

B) They opened up Chrome and typed "Tardigrades in space," to which creates a legal paradox.

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?

IMO that sounds very likely in my opoinion, and is probably what happened (the latter one more likely than the first one)