Okay, it's been a topic forever here that Cryptic seems to be able to use any Star Trek character but is restricted from actor likenesses without paying individual actors.
This is why the canon characters we do have are grown up children, characters like Madred who already wore heavy makeup or people who have changed drastically in appearance like Harry Kim (now fat and sporting a moustache) or Donatra (I'll save you the spoiler).
I think it would be cool:
- To have Geordi revert to his mutated state from the episode
"Identity Crisis but give him a uniform for modesty and have him go back to using his VISOR (a more iconic visual). It could actually make for an interesting backstory if he had to partially mutate himself back to that state to survive some kind of engineering malfunction aboard the Odyssey. It would help make him more visual and distinct in a game that goes beyond the standard TV show budget and should tend towards more dramatic visuals anyway. Plus, the makeup pattern is basically a more dramatic, glowing take on Tamarian makeup, which would be a cool addition.
- If a familiar character was brought back as a
Kobali. This is a species that is made up of the dead, reanimated and genetically modified into a member of their species. Most retain no memories of their previous life but some do... and it would also be a way for someone from the DS9/TNG/VOY era to be relatively young and vital in the game. For example, maybe Bashir was killed in a medical survey to the nearest reaches of the Gamma Quadrant and brought back as a Kobali but his augmented DNA resulted in him retaining his personality and memories irreparably, forcing the Kobali to let him go.
- If Data stopped wearing his "skin" (perhaps in protest of the treatment of synthetic lifeforms, to remind people of his own synthetic status, to make a political statement) and simply took on a form roughly consistent with the glimpses we got of his metal frame underneath.
I wouldn't necessarily want to see these kinds of transformations become a schtick. But I wouldn't mind a handful to fast track a few familiar characters into the game as I'd rather have familiar characters turn up and the storylines be new than see us constantly experience things that we're told previous crews have experienced. New stories, old (if if mutated/changed) faces along for the ride with us.
Comments
Doctor Ree from Titan.
Christine Vale.
And most of all ... A time travel mission with Pike, Boyce and Number One.
My Star Cruiser is the U.S.S. Garrovick.
We do have the chance given to us to fill in holes that Cryptic leaves wide open. Would suck if they took all the good names away from us anyways.
I kinda agree with darkjedi on the ships too, if cryptic wants to do things like that have dialogue that mentions schools, monuments, libraries and the like, vary up what gets named after characters instead of just ships all the time.
I wonder if we'll ever see some novel or TV show that suggests their kids somehow went back and became the Gorn.
The JJ-verse has happened. So ... there's two alternate timelines. This game isn't hard canon. It might be, or might not be, soft canon. There's so much room for flexibility. And if the next Abrams Kirk movie is as big a hit as the last one, the next time we see the Picard crew might very well be in a few decades when the Next Next Generation gets an Abrams-Style reboot.
The door's open for some fun with the characters we love. Starfleet isn't such a huge organization that important members of its service won't get bumped into from time to time. Captain Data is captain of the fleet's flagship for instance.
Problems most likely stem from CBS ... the new movie ... and any lingering issues with the JJ-Verse.
For instance, there's always the risk the game reveals something about the new movie, inadvertently, too early and unofficially and unapproved.
Other than that, there's just the basic corporate management required of these things. This game falls under the toys department. dstahl's already noted there's a specific person at CBS that is involved in OKing things. That takes time.
CBS doesn't own the actor publicity rights or, to the extent they do, they weren't included here.
Then if it is that important to people, then I'd suggest that Cryptic/Atari should invest the money to get the rights to those characters. Just don't see the logic of saying "Here's Data, but he's torn his 'skin' off" just so you can say that Data appears. I'd prefer to see a work-around like they did with Spock for the Guardian of Forever mission than that.
Well the maiming suggestion comes from Leviathan. I'm sure Cryptic would rather do as you suggest and give us Data. Maybe a little bit altered (like the grey hair streak you see in All Good Things). But Data.