Court Returns Stolen Stargate MMO To Founder
An anonymous reader writes "A Maricopa County Superior Court judge has ended a bitter dispute over control of a Mesa video game company's assets, effectively giving the online combat game Stargate Resistance and the long-delayed MMORPG Stargate Worlds back to Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment. Fresh Start tried to remove all of Cheyenne Mountain's assets from its offices on Feb. 24, but was prevented from doing so when the police arrived. Networking cords had been cut and left to hang loose, and PC cases were empty shells that had been gutted of components such as hard drives. But time may finally have run out for Worlds, Cheyenne Mountain's signature project: The ruling comes as MGM Studios has apparently terminated the license it granted in 2006 for the Arizona company to produce video games based on the Stargate movies and TV shows."
My friend will be very sad today.
Not sure what Fresh Start Software's motive was, but if it was to block development of a Stargate videogame, they achieved their goal.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Very few other sci-fi themes contained the qualities contained within Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon5, Firefly and others,
fixed that for you.
Love the ironic juxtaposition of your post and sig.
Have you read the linked articles? The whole affair is a clusterfuck of people, companies, real and intellectual property, law suits and whatnot. I dare you to make any sense of it!
When I read the summary, I was like "Oh nice, a Stargate MMO, let's find out more about it and the story!". After having RTFA and another it linked to, I was like "WTF, I need a dozen organigrams and flowcharts just to keep up with what's going on! I don't even care anymore!"
Yes, Star Trek brought to us a vision of the future wherein no matter where one roams in the universe, 1) Everybody looks human, 2) Everybody speaks perfect English, despite never having been contacted before by humans, and 3) Sex with alien species is considered perfectly natural. All I can say is... Ewwwwwwwww!
Oh come on.
To be fair, Star Wars, BattleStar Galactica, Firefly, Babylon 5, Dr. Who, Space: 1999, and a host of other shows all featured those characteristics.
It's not because the shows' makers were unimaginative, it's because they are television shows.
It's difficult to find actors who don't look like humans; audiences in the countries where these shows were produced mainly understand only English (there are no native Klingon speakers, no matter how many nerds learn the Klingon language); and sex keeps stupid people watching the show, helping the ratings. Ok, Dr. Who hasn't featured much, if any, sex, but that's because it was a BBC production aimed at families.
Putting moderation advice in your
As all good science fiction does, current events and the human condition were examined, placing the characters in moral quandaries throughout the show. Religion, origins, etc. were explored while maintaining a reasonable level of scientific realism. Significantly, B5 had none of these things.
I don't know how you came to that conclusion. The only 'scientific realism' that I saw in BSG was the lack of sound in space. Since that has been a harping point amongst nerds for some time before, it just came off as another of the checklist items of "what's edgy". Contrary to half thought out beliefs, there is sound is space. You can perform an experiment right now to prove it. Say "Test. Test. Test." Go ahead, try it. Was there sound? Yep. Are you in space? Yep. Sound may not travel through a vacuum, but there is definitly sound in space. So, should you hear it in a TV show? That is artistic choice. Certainly if the perspective is from a first person, you should not be able to hear a ship fly by. On the other hand, if you are getting a third person perspective, thus are already recieving information that no character is getting, it makes exactly as much sense that you can hear the ships as you can see them.
On the other hand B5 was constantly making a point to work with science. From explaining why the different races ship blow up in different colors, to acknowledging that not every species breaths the same air, to acknowleding that they could have pests. BSG on the other hand just says "God did it".
Which brings us to religion. There is nothing new in BSG in it's "examination" of religion. It is just rehashing the Christian mythos with nothing new added. How you missed religion in B5 is beyond me. The entire 5 year story arc was riding the religious theme. Perhaps you missed it because it wasn't the same old story you've heard a million times. Maybe it was because it actually examined the religion instead of just saying "God did it". From the beginning to the end, B5 examined religion through the Shadows. Not only examining good and evil from the mortal view, but questioning the good and evil of the gods themselves. Going even farther, questioning whether the ideas of good and evil even apply.
Basically your analysis is that BSG's simplistic trendy addition of those subjects counts, while B5's deeper analysis of the subject going so far as to even question if the questions are even asked right, doesn't count.