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If Star Trek: The Animated Series is canon, then what about the Slaver race?

We know the slavers had the galaxy in chains millions of years before humans existed and that "stasis boxes" are left littered around in their namesake, but is this a potential area of investigation for STO? A Slaver Rep project?

The Slavers and the Kzinti were gifts from Larry Niven and I don't know if that makes them verboten for Star Trek expansion.

There was also an unknown 300,000,000 year old starship that the Enterprise encountered early on - it was grown, not built - and that would be an interesting story arc, perhaps?
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  • sistericsisteric Member Posts: 768 Arc User
    The Kzinti still belong to Larry Niven, not CBS. Niven retained the rights to them, so STO would need to make a deal with Larry Niven to get the Kzinti in the game. And I think we have the Caitians because of Larry's answer to that.

    The Slavers status is unknown to me but if Larry Niven was the creator of them, then most likely he retained all rights to them. And that means there will not likely be anything based on them on the game.

    The old bio-genic starship could probably be brought in if they could come up with a good reason to do so. But I don't think that they have that yet on their storyline they have sketched out for the next couple of seasons.
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  • bloodyrizbloodyriz Member Posts: 1,756 Arc User
    edited November 2015
    sisteric wrote: »
    The Kzinti still belong to Larry Niven, not CBS. Niven retained the rights to them, so STO would need to make a deal with Larry Niven to get the Kzinti in the game. And I think we have the Caitians because of Larry's answer to that.

    The Slavers status is unknown to me but if Larry Niven was the creator of them, then most likely he retained all rights to them. And that means there will not likely be anything based on them on the game.

    The old bio-genic starship could probably be brought in if they could come up with a good reason to do so. But I don't think that they have that yet on their storyline they have sketched out for the next couple of seasons.

    Partly true, the Kzinti and Slavers belong to Larry Niven AND his publisher. Niven actually was going to allow Trek to use his stuff, hence the episode of TAS in question which was adapted from a Niven short story, by Niven. However it was the publisher which blocked the partnership, not Niven.​​
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  • lopequillopequil Member Posts: 1,226 Arc User
    Not to rain on your parade but I think you're more likely to see a Bandersnatchi BOFF. We already have the Kzinti though... I mean Ferasans of course. Yup.

    Since you mention Niven, an encounter with the galactic evacuation fleet would make a good mission for this new age of exploration.
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  • bobbydazlersbobbydazlers Member Posts: 4,535 Arc User
    edited November 2015
    according to the some the animated series is not cannon others say it is, checking the internet will reward you with a plethora of conflicting views, I enjoy any incarnation of star trek even some of the fan made offerings so as far as I am concerned I don't care about canon one way or the other and neither do sto devs apparently and that's fine by me, I enjoy it so what does it matter, its up to the devs and if there are any copyright issues if something is included in the game or not.

    if it looks like star trek to me and feels like star trek to me then its good enough, I can always use my imagination to fill in the blanks if somethings slightly off anyway.

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     I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.

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  • annemarie30annemarie30 Member Posts: 2,745 Arc User
    According to the foundry faq from a long time ago, all series except tas and all,movies except jersey are canon. No books magazines manuals or other written word is canon.
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  • lianthelialianthelia Member Posts: 7,921 Arc User
    azrael605 wrote: »
    Yes the Kzinti and the Slavers both originate from Larry Niven's Known Space setting, which spans many many volumes, in fact according to some of Niven's statements in "N-Space" the Slavers ARE the Kzinti.As well, it may have been the publisher that stalled out the agreement to begin with but Niven himself later stated that he was so unhappy with the TAS adaption of his story that he would later turn down any further attempts to use his Known Space material for anything Trek-related, even handing out a "cease and desist" to a fan artist wanting to use a Kzinti as a visual in a Trek painting.

    Yeah...SFC couldn't get the rights either so they named the second cat species Mirak instead of Kzinti.
  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,983 Arc User
    edited November 2015
    sisteric wrote: »
    And I think we have the Caitians because of Larry's answer to that.

    Ferasan, actually (see. telepathic traits.) Caitians were also introduced by TAS but as semi-original creations belonging to Star Trek (hence Caitians as background FED representatives in the original series movies, ST4 for sure but there might be one or more hiding in the crowd shots of ST6 as well.) :P
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  • kodachikunokodachikuno Member Posts: 6,020 Arc User1
    edited November 2015
    from Memory Alpha:
    In 2003 Jimmy Diggs tried to pitch a CGI animation adventure in feature length entitled Star Trek: The Lions of the Night in which the crew of the USS Enterprise-B under command of Captain Sulu was facing an invasion fleet. The project however didn't go very far, even though it had the support of Larry Niven and the Roddenberry estate.


    It has been recently disclosed that if Star Trek: Enterprise had been renewed for a fifth season, Manny Coto wanted to do a Kzinti episode. Much of the concept for the episode "Kilkenny Cats" (which was based on a story by Neal and Jana Hallford) was to draw from the earlier concept Star Trek: Lions of the Night by Jimmy Diggs. D.C. Fontana and André Bormanis were also involved in the editing of the script.

    It is notable that the concept design of the Kzinti vessel draws considerably from the Kzinti fleet as presented in the Star Fleet Universe, which have a similar layout to the design shown, including the same triple warp nacelle layout and pod-mounted drone (missile) launchers. Jimmy Diggs did that on purpose, hence the three nacelles, but with more emphasis on creating a believable warship. The 2150s version combines aircraft and submarines of World War II (see here).

    So Niven isn't totally against letting Trek use them... As for the ship... I've oft hoped it'd be used as the basis for an STO Ferasan vessel of the Raptor class
    dark_stalker___star_trek_2_by_josh_finney.jpg

    and apparently he wanted them to be fairly badass looking
    latest?cb=20061217104505&path-prefix=en


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    tacofangs wrote: »
    STO isn't canon, and neither are any of the books.
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  • kodachikunokodachikuno Member Posts: 6,020 Arc User1
    My point was if Niven was willing to let Kzinti be used in 03, and ENT wanted to pitch a Kzinti episode, its possible that Niven isn't dead set on 'never ever' and more on 'not until they do them right'
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    tacofangs wrote: »
    STO isn't canon, and neither are any of the books.
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  • shrimphead2015shrimphead2015 Member Posts: 537 Arc User
    That ship is pretty badass looking though!​​
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  • kitsunesnoutkitsunesnout Member Posts: 1,210 Arc User
    Wow, that Kzinti model almost looks like a werewolf, now that would have been much more awesome to play as than STO's interpretation of them that we know as ferasans being recolored caitians with fangs stuck on the bottom of mouth incorrectly lol.

    They could however actually go with that design showed there and just "Do it right" as Niven would have liked and just regard the ferasans as their own thing. One can dream.
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  • gawainviiigawainviii Member Posts: 328 Arc User
    In TAS: The Slaver Weapon, they find a picture of a one-eyed Gorn-looking creature in a stasis box. They identify it as a Slaver, but aren't they really just guessing? "Since it's a slaver box, with a slaver weapon, it must be a slaver picture. Logical, right?"

    What if... just maybe, the Slavers are Iconians? Memory Alpha says, "The Slavers were the founders of an ancient alien Empire, which was the master of all intelligent races in the Milky Way Galaxy about 1 billion years ago." Sounds about right to me... give or take a few millennia, which could have easily been a generic over-estimation indicating "a very long time ago".
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  • dareaudareau Member Posts: 2,390 Arc User
    I thought M'Ress (the Caitian) was in TAS before the slaver weapon episode - because they could do "better animated aliens" on TAS than on TV... Same with the 3-armed Edoan...
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  • ssbn655ssbn655 Member Posts: 1,894 Arc User
    edited November 2015
    azrael605 wrote: »
    Yes the Kzinti and the Slavers both originate from Larry Niven's Known Space setting, which spans many many volumes, in fact according to some of Niven's statements in "N-Space" the Slavers ARE the Kzinti.As well, it may have been the publisher that stalled out the agreement to begin with but Niven himself later stated that he was so unhappy with the TAS adaption of his story that he would later turn down any further attempts to use his Known Space material for anything Trek-related, even handing out a "cease and desist" to a fan artist wanting to use a Kzinti as a visual in a Trek painting.

    No the Kzin are not the Slavers in Nivens universe. The race known as the Slavers were the Thrintun (singular Thrint). A toad like one eyed being who enslaved a race early on called the Tnuctipin who bio engineered an orginaism called food yeast that the bio engineered Thrintun food animal Bandersnatch (refered to as Whitefood by Thrintun) fed on. This yeast evolved into most life in the universe by the time Known Space universe stories started. Reference "World of Ptavv's" , http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Thrint , http://www.digiplanet.com/wiki/Thrint
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  • lianthelialianthelia Member Posts: 7,921 Arc User
    from Memory Alpha:
    In 2003 Jimmy Diggs tried to pitch a CGI animation adventure in feature length entitled Star Trek: The Lions of the Night in which the crew of the USS Enterprise-B under command of Captain Sulu was facing an invasion fleet. The project however didn't go very far, even though it had the support of Larry Niven and the Roddenberry estate.


    It has been recently disclosed that if Star Trek: Enterprise had been renewed for a fifth season, Manny Coto wanted to do a Kzinti episode. Much of the concept for the episode "Kilkenny Cats" (which was based on a story by Neal and Jana Hallford) was to draw from the earlier concept Star Trek: Lions of the Night by Jimmy Diggs. D.C. Fontana and André Bormanis were also involved in the editing of the script.

    It is notable that the concept design of the Kzinti vessel draws considerably from the Kzinti fleet as presented in the Star Fleet Universe, which have a similar layout to the design shown, including the same triple warp nacelle layout and pod-mounted drone (missile) launchers. Jimmy Diggs did that on purpose, hence the three nacelles, but with more emphasis on creating a believable warship. The 2150s version combines aircraft and submarines of World War II (see here).

    So Niven isn't totally against letting Trek use them... As for the ship... I've oft hoped it'd be used as the basis for an STO Ferasan vessel of the Raptor class

    Other than the missile pods it isn't bad...but I'd prefer either removed to attached to the hull instead of attached to wings...or move the wings...

    More like the Mirak ships...

    star-trek-starfleet-command-2-1.jpg
  • rattler2rattler2 Member, Star Trek Online Moderator Posts: 59,174 Community Moderator
    The Mirak were actually a conversion of the Kzinti into a usable force for SFC2 because they didn't get permission to use the Kzinti themselves. Since SFC is basically a computer version of SFB, they made most of the races based on their SFB Counterparts, just set in the TMP era.

    They were able to use the Lyrans, Hydrans, and ISC, but not the Kzinti. So they got around that by turning the Kzinti into the Mirak.
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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    rattler2 wrote: »
    The Mirak were actually a conversion of the Kzinti into a usable force for SFC2 because they didn't get permission to use the Kzinti themselves. Since SFC is basically a computer version of SFB, they made most of the races based on their SFB Counterparts, just set in the TMP era.

    They were able to use the Lyrans, Hydrans, and ISC, but not the Kzinti. So they got around that by turning the Kzinti into the Mirak.
    Actually... they lacked the ability to use them, apparently because Niven disliked the way they used them in the SFB game. Sooo... blame Amarillo for the lack of Kzinti in STO.

    Seriously, they looked and acted like generic tiger people.... At least their ships looked right.
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  • yukonsamyukonsam Member Posts: 103 Arc User
    It's probably the case that even if they have the rights to use the TAS elements of Known Space, they'd prefer not to. Beyond the legal niceties, Niven's franchise is significantly darker in tone than even the darkest of Trek. It'd be like bringing in the X-Men... sure, it's canon that they've visited the Star Trek Universe (for a given degree of "canon"), but that doesn't mean they belong here.

    But if someone wants to pitch Ringworld Online, I'm all ears (working title... it doesn't have to be about Ringworld).
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  • kodachikunokodachikuno Member Posts: 6,020 Arc User1
    nixboox wrote: »
    the Voth were a race based on dinosaurs which would be in the same 100s of million of years era.
    Are you like the only person on the planet that doesn't know when t-rex were out an about thanks to Jurassic Park?
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    tacofangs wrote: »
    STO isn't canon, and neither are any of the books.
  • lopequillopequil Member Posts: 1,226 Arc User
    Are you like the only person on the planet that doesn't know when t-rex were out an about thanks to Jurassic Park?

    Supposedly the Voth came from Hadrosaurids, which were around in the Cretaceous period ca. BC 150 million, but that's by the by. If we were to pay much attention to Niven's description of Kzinti ships we would be fighting against flying saucers; the main attractions of the Kzinti were always their customs and culture, i.e. having to "earn" a name, an almost Klingon attitude towards honour, the hazards of a "scream and leap" attitude to strategy and so on.

    In the end I suspect it all boils down to royalties: as much as we'd like to see more material from Trek being given the STO treatment the legal wrangling needed make such a thing very difficult to bring about. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see the Ferasans* get a fleshing out, but it just isn't on the cards.

    When it comes to canon and TAS I understand that Yesteryear is the only part that Gene deigned to include, but he was also responsible for early TNG so he can get knotted as far as I'm concerned.

    *Caitans too, I suppose, but did you ever notice how the only Caitans ever to get lines are about as far from Kzinti as it's possible to be?
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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    lopequil wrote: »
    Are you like the only person on the planet that doesn't know when t-rex were out an about thanks to Jurassic Park?

    Supposedly the Voth came from Hadrosaurids, which were around in the Cretaceous period ca. BC 150 million, but that's by the by. If we were to pay much attention to Niven's description of Kzinti ships we would be fighting against flying saucers; the main attractions of the Kzinti were always their customs and culture, i.e. having to "earn" a name, an almost Klingon attitude towards honour, the hazards of a "scream and leap" attitude to strategy and so on.

    In the end I suspect it all boils down to royalties: as much as we'd like to see more material from Trek being given the STO treatment the legal wrangling needed make such a thing very difficult to bring about. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see the Ferasans* get a fleshing out, but it just isn't on the cards.

    When it comes to canon and TAS I understand that Yesteryear is the only part that Gene deigned to include, but he was also responsible for early TNG so he can get knotted as far as I'm concerned.

    *Caitans too, I suppose, but did you ever notice how the only Caitans ever to get lines are about as far from Kzinti as it's possible to be?
    I think they use M'ress as the model there.
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  • vetteguy904vetteguy904 Member Posts: 3,984 Arc User
    nixboox wrote: »
    According to the foundry faq from a long time ago, all series except tas and all,movies except jersey are canon. No books magazines manuals or other written word is canon.

    That's changed with the release of the ST:TAS as per my previous wiki-quote.

    the foundry EULA trumps wikipedia, IMHO. The EULA does not list TAS as a official source. maybe Bort or Trendy can shed some illumination?
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  • lianthelialianthelia Member Posts: 7,921 Arc User
    rattler2 wrote: »
    The Mirak were actually a conversion of the Kzinti into a usable force for SFC2 because they didn't get permission to use the Kzinti themselves. Since SFC is basically a computer version of SFB, they made most of the races based on their SFB Counterparts, just set in the TMP era.

    They were able to use the Lyrans, Hydrans, and ISC, but not the Kzinti. So they got around that by turning the Kzinti into the Mirak.

    Yeah I know...like I said...Mirak were meant to be Kzinti...their faction ship designation in game even was Z (Since K was for Klingon)

    STO isn't the only Trek game that couldn't get access to Kzinti...
  • gawainviiigawainviii Member Posts: 328 Arc User
    nixboox wrote: »
    According to the foundry faq from a long time ago, all series except tas and all,movies except jersey are canon. No books magazines manuals or other written word is canon.

    That's changed with the release of the ST:TAS as per my previous wiki-quote.

    the foundry EULA trumps wikipedia, IMHO. The EULA does not list TAS as a official source. maybe Bort or Trendy can shed some illumination?
    Problem with that idea, is that it's taken out of context. Foundry EULA omitting TAS means we, the player, can't use TAS properties in creating "New Game Material" (i.e. UGC)... it doesn't stop Cryptic from using TAS as canonical... THEIR license certainly allows them to use TAS, as can be evidenced by the existence of things like Caitians, Sehlat, and Rator III... not to mention the Kzin Ferasan.

    Even ignoring that... CBS trumps Cryptic. CBS says TAS is canon. Whether it changes (again) the next time there's a change in copyright ownership is a moot point, because the Office of Temporal Investigations has issued a gag order preventing me from revealing what happens to the Trek franchise in the future.
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