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Author Topic: A question on Open Source...  (Read 20734 times)
nick012000
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A question on Open Source...
« on: August 18, 2006, 05:55:59 am »

Would it be legal to write a story about the Ur-Quan invading the Star Wars universe, and then submit it to LucasArts with the intention of them publishing it for profit (even if whether or not they do is an entirely different matter)? I know that the Ur-quan Masters is Open Source, and that you can create derivative works off of it, but I figured I'd ask to make sure.
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2006, 09:21:52 am »

The program code is open source (GPL), the content isn't.

If you only send the story to LucasArts and let them decide what to do with it they obviously can't have any issues with it, but the story is likely to be considered a (non-licensed) derivative work of UQM or some other TFB production. While TFB has been tolerant of fanfic so far, I doubt that they'll let LucasArts publish stuff with their characters/races. For the same reason, I doubt LucasArts would publish it.

Of course, if TFB and LucasArts are OK with it, it probably is OK.
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2006, 05:20:35 pm »

I certainly hope this was a hypothetical -- LucasArts isn't going to dilute their brand that way. And anyway, the Ur-Quan would get their asses kicked by the Empire.
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2006, 07:35:25 pm »

And anyway, the Ur-Quan would get their asses kicked by the Empire.

This thread is now officially derailed Cheesy

I beg to differ, tough before this discussion can fully commence you have to clarify a few things.
- They would kick the Ur-Quan only, or the entire Hierarchy?
- Only the Kser-Za, or the combined Ur-Quan forces?

Either way I think the Ur-Quan would put up an even fight.
Their intelligence, patience, and ruthless efficiency is unparalelled by anything in the Star Wars universe.
They are not weak-minded fools, so they can't be manipulated by the force.
Their Dreadnought's can take on any Star Destroyer.
If the Empire would want to use the Death Star, Sa-Matra would blow it to bits before it would have a chance to get in position.

So, how did you arrive at your conclusion?
(note: I am aware this could be a joke, but damn, this topic looks like it could be a lot of fun Wink)
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2006, 08:23:59 pm »

The Ur-Quan have ships with just 42 crew and no shields. Star Destroyers have
hundreds of gun turrents and shields. I have a feeling the conflict would
be fairly one sided.
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2006, 08:40:26 pm »

The Ur-Quan have ships with just 42 crew and no shields. Star Destroyers have
hundreds of gun turrents and shields. I have a feeling the conflict would
be fairly one sided.

Come on, the amount of crew is symbolic in my humble opnion.
A ship with 42 crew members? That's barely a capital ship if it even qualifis as one.
And gun turrets are good against fighters, but I don't see any advantage over one great big fussion cannon, when it comes to fighting against big slow moving vessles.
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #6 on: August 18, 2006, 11:01:29 pm »

There are less Star Destroyers than Dreadnoughs - the Ur-Quan have advantage in numbers over Empire.
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #7 on: August 19, 2006, 01:58:47 am »

Then let's set some ground rules; formulate your arguments simliarly to the articles found at:
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/

Star Destroyers may be less numerous, but each one is a mile long.  They all have energy shielding, and 72 TIE fighters (each pretty darn equal to an Ur-Quan fighter).

The Sa-Matra is closer in comparison to the Executor, which is 11 miles long, has 860 TIE fighters, and thousands of turbo-lasers.

A Death Star is like a precursor planeteering-tool factory: churning out planetary destruction one hyperspace jump at a time.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2006, 03:04:41 am by Culture20 » Logged
nick012000
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #8 on: August 19, 2006, 02:51:56 am »

Novus: Thanks, that's what I wanted to know. Looks like I'll just submit it to TheForce.net as fanfic, then. I'll post it here, too.

As to how the Ur-Quan would fight... I'd say that an individual Ur-Quan Dreadnought could put up a fight with an individual Star Destroyer (though the Galactic Alliance has many more ships than the Ur-Quan do). An Ur-Quan Dreadnought can survive multiple direct hits from nuclear missiles, and their fusion cannons seem to pack as much power as Star Destroyer turbolasers do, judging by their effects on ground targets. As for their strategy... I'd imagine that they'd target the more aggressive species first, in order to build up a new Hierarchy of Battle Thralls (and build their numbers to take on the Galactic Alliance). So, pretty soon it would be the Ur-Quan, Mandalorians, Gungans, Rodians, Wookies, Trandoshans, etc. vs. the Galactic Alliance.

As for Sa-Matra vs. Death Star... largely a moot point, since the time period I'm setting this in is post-Yuuzhan Vong invasion, so the dominant force in the Galaxy is the Galactic Alliance, who don't favor superweapons. Additionally, we never saw the effects of the Sa-Matra's main guns in action, and remember that the Death Star is designed to withstand the attacks of capital ships (which is why the Rebel Alliance attacked it with fighters- attacking it with capships was suicide).
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2006, 09:47:32 am »

Novus: Thanks, that's what I wanted to know. Looks like I'll just submit it to TheForce.net as fanfic, then. I'll post it here, too.
TheForce.Net seems to believe they can get away with this sort of thing, and as long as you're just taking general ideas and not specific characters (that may also be trademarked; for example, "Darth Vader" is a registered US trademark of LucasFilm), the copyrighted material you're using is sufficiently minimal to be (arguably; this is a grey area) OK. Recently, LucasFilm has shown tolerance toward fan material (e.g. Star Wars: Revelations; see also this Wired article on Star Wars fanfics), so you should be OK.

TFB seems to be quite relaxed about fanfic (Accolade must have paid them for the right to do SC3, so I don't think that counts), so I doubt they'll give you much trouble if you stick to non-commercial distribution.
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2006, 11:25:30 am »

Star Destroyers may be less numerous, but each one is a mile long.  They all have energy shielding, and 72 TIE fighters (each pretty darn equal to an Ur-Quan fighter).

We have no specs for the Dreadnought, so we have to guide our  judgement by a general feeling of it's size. I'd say it's pretty damn big.
I'd agree the fighters are equal, but how many hits can a Star Destroyer's shields and hull take from the main weapon of a ship who's second name is Planetary Siege Unit.

Quote
The Sa-Matra is closer in comparison to the Executor, which is 11 miles long, has 860 TIE fighters, and thousands of turbo-lasers.

I strongly disagree.
The Sa-Matra destroyed entire fleets before they even had a chance to see what they are up against. It's range, accuracy and firepower make it pretty much unstoppable by any capital ship, hence the comparison to the Death Star.

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A Death Star is like a precursor planeteering-tool factory: churning out planetary destruction one hyperspace jump at a time.

Yes, the Death Star has a lot more firepower, but it needs a lot of time to get in position, and charge it's weapons before it can fire.

[edit]Oh, by the way. Funny you mention the precursor planeteering tool. Remember it took an amplified precursor bomb to destroy the Sa-Matra?[/edit]

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Additionally, we never saw the effects of the Sa-Matra's main guns in action, and remember that the Death Star is designed to withstand the attacks of capital ships (which is why the Rebel Alliance attacked it with fighters- attacking it with capships was suicide).

Yeah, but again, Sa-Matra's main weapons have very long range and firepower greater then most capital ships. Even if the Sa-Matra couldn't destroy it instantly, she could cause great damage before the Imperial fleet could even had the chance of responding.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2006, 01:32:05 pm by Ivan Ivanov » Logged

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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #11 on: August 19, 2006, 11:57:40 am »

What? TIE fighter equal to a Deadnought? Such nonsense! I'd more imagine a TIE fighter being about equal to 3 or 4 Dreadnought fighters...

Anyways, we had this kind of discussion before, and ended up concluding that Ur-Quan would seriously "pwn" Empire's asses off...

Ha! Using false logic, we'd then get that Zelnick could totally wipe the Empire! Ha! Tongue

Really though, the Ur-Quan have nearly unlimited ammounts of ships, with gazillions of battle thrall ships, and a very powerful longrange battle platform. No way in hell the Empire is going to beat that, especially not if the Kohr-Ah decide to help their "brothers" (would they?).
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #12 on: August 19, 2006, 01:08:14 pm »

I think the UQ have about a thousand ships.
a. they took a long time conquering the SC2 quadrant
b. they need battle thralls to defeat the alliance
c. the Shofixti were able to destroy a third of their fleet in one supernova, and those were hundreds of ships I think.

So ... probably this nomadic race had no chance against a well-equipped empire that covers an entire galaxy.
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nick012000
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #13 on: August 19, 2006, 02:33:44 pm »

1. Star Control hyperdrives are orders of magnitude slower than Star Wars hyperdrives. In Star Wars, the average ship can jump across the galaxy in a day. In Star Control, a ship would be lucky to jump to the next star in a day.
2. And they'll need battle thralls to take on the Galactic Empire, too. Like the Mandalorians, the Gungans, the Wookies, the Trandoshan, etc.
3. Yes. They have a weakness to supernovae. I'll point out that Star Destroyers are destroyed by supernovae too.
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Re: A question on Open Source...
« Reply #14 on: August 19, 2006, 02:37:02 pm »

I used a-c to underline the point that their fleet isn't that big.

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In Star Wars, the average ship can jump across the galaxy in a day.

Uhm, no, that would take months as far as I could understand.
I think it's a hundred lightyears each day or something like that.
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