Someone explain Star Fleet Universe licensing to me

[rusty_shackleford]

How did these guys get a seemingly perpetual and unlimited license to totally-not-Star-Trek? What's the history behind this?

 

[JamesDixon]

They got the license from Franz Joseph for his Star Fleet Technical Manual. Which Paramount recognizes and granted a limited license as long as SFB stays away from named characters from TOS and TAS. The universe is wholly from Joseph's work and the implementation of various authors like Larry Niven.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They got the license from Franz Joseph for his Star Fleet Technical Manual. Which Paramount recognizes and granted a limited license as long as SFB stays away from named characters from TOS and TAS. The universe is wholly from Joseph's work and the implementation of various authors like Larry Niven.

It's definitely... interesting. Kind of surprised they haven't done more with it.

Been reading GURPS Prime Directive(second printing for GURPS 4E) and it seems like an actually better setting from a worldbuilding POV than what Star Trek actually became.

 

[JamesDixon]

Been reading GURPS Prime Directive(second printing for GURPS 4E) and it seems like an actually better setting from a worldbuilding POV than what Star Trek actually became.

You should read FASA Star Trek then. It uses a lot of what John Ford wrote for Star Trek novels in the 1980s and makes for a far better setting then what we got now. FASA's Klingons and Romulans are miles better than what we have now.

 

[Norfleet]

It's definitely... interesting. Kind of surprised they haven't done more with it.

Not doing more with it is apparently part of the license. The entire point is that they do that much, and no more. Otherwise all their new material would diverge so far from recognizable Trek that it would lose its appeal, at which point you'd be better off doing your own Space Trek setting, like the Orville.

 

[rusty_shackleford]