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I recently read a thread that asked if Starcraft 2 stole from 40K after reading though the whole thing and thinking about it for a bit then talking to a friend about it and thining about it again I came up with an answer, No. When you really think about it as far as Sci Fi/Sci fantasy goes there isnt much variety. There are really only three sides to Sci Fi Humans, Advanced Snobby Aliens, Biomorph Organic Aliens.

Humans are usually lower tech than the advanced aliens with the exeption of "socially advanced" aliens like in Avatar sometimes stealing technology or ideas. Humans often sport suits of powered armor, or only select advanced military organizations (UNSC (SPARTANS), Imperium of Man (40K), Fallout, Avatar, etc) sometimes its standard for everyone (Mass Effect, Starship Troopers) Humans often use solid projectile weapons sometimes electrically powered (gauss/rail) Humans are usually the main protaganists, sometimes with the Advanced Snobby aliens helping out.

The Advanced Snobby Aliens Usually higher tech than the Humans with evergy shields and weapons, psionics, antigravity vehicles, advanced starfleet and often the bringer of space travel to humans (eldar, protoss, predators

The Biomorph Organic Aliens usually are an all consuming race that infects other races almost always controlled by a higher up more advanced unit (queen, hivemind, overlord) and often the other two races will join together to stop the organic aliens (Aliens, Zerg, Tyranids)

So in the end no one ever really copies anyone else they just follow the stereotypical archtypes of Sci Fi. Very specific things are kinda iffy but over all its just following whats been done for a long time

Congratulations RedGuardian! you have discovered the secret of the Sci-fi genre, here...have 10 internets....

Hang on while I try to show that all fantasy is just copies and rehashes of a few old books.

Nevermind, too much work.

I'll do it instead for sci-fi.

Nevermind, too much work.

I think I'll just copy someone else's post about it, change a few words and post it as my own. Just like every other person who designed a fantasy/sci-fi realm/universe.

Well one could argue that SC (and WC) did steal from 40k.

The general internet consensus that I've seen always said that Blizzard supposedly was working on a 40k/fantasy type RTS game with GW. Anyway the partnership broke up and Blizzard continued with the idea, changing just enough to avoid copyrights infringement.

Never seen an actual source for this so take it as a grain of truth.

It's not really appropriate to think of the use of general themes and tropes as 'stealing' ideas. If that was the case hardly any new stories would be conceived. And you can always take a reductionist view of any new story until you start accusing everything of ripping off Gilgamesh or the Illiad or the Bible or what have you.

The individuality of stories comes from the details of characters, settings and events. If those are flagrantly copied, then there may be an issue. Even by that criteria, though, Shakespeare would be a fraud.

LeetBix wrote:Well one could argue that SC (and WC) did steal from 40k.

The general internet consensus that I've seen always said that Blizzard supposedly was working on a 40k/fantasy type RTS game with GW. Anyway the partnership broke up and Blizzard continued with the idea, changing just enough to avoid copyrights infringement.

Never seen an actual source for this so take it as a grain of truth.

I would be surprised.
Warcraft 2 is obviously its own game, or maybe you could call it a clone of Warhammer FB, but StarCraft was orginally "Orcs & Humans in space" when it was first showed off and it got slated terribly for being a re-hash of Warcraft 2. At which point Blizzard completely re-worked the whole thing and came back with what is now known as StarCraft.

Beatonator wrote:

LeetBix wrote:Well one could argue that SC (and WC) did steal from 40k.

The general internet consensus that I've seen always said that Blizzard supposedly was working on a 40k/fantasy type RTS game with GW. Anyway the partnership broke up and Blizzard continued with the idea, changing just enough to avoid copyrights infringement.

Never seen an actual source for this so take it as a grain of truth.

I would be surprised.
Warcraft 2 is obviously its own game, or maybe you could call it a clone of Warhammer FB, but StarCraft was orginally "Orcs & Humans in space" when it was first showed off and it got slated terribly for being a re-hash of Warcraft 2. At which point Blizzard completely re-worked the whole thing and came back with what is now known as StarCraft.

Warcraft didn't start with Warcraft 2, it started with Warcraft Orcs and Humans. The Orcs were very different, even doing things like summoning Bloodthirster-esque demons.

As much as it's blatantly obvious that everyone borrows, steals, is inspired by everyone else and we've gone over this exact type of threat about a dozen times already

I have to admit when I walked in and saw someone playing Starcraft 2 during one of the cut scenes, dead set and not joking, I honestly thought someone had brought out a Rogue Trader computer game.

Well, the creative lead for Starcraft 2 was Andy Chambers, so you're going to see the same influences early 40k had in it.

When you get to the bottom of everything, everybody copied JRR Tolkien.

Here an old list of where GW borrowed from in 40k:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071125132841/http://ca.geocities.com/crazy40kguy/namesandhomages.html

Leonus Cohol wrote:When you get to the bottom of everything, everybody copied JRR Tolkien.

BTW even Tolkien borrowed from others, e.g. the Finish Kalevala (including the language as base for Elvish).
And there are people like Jule Verne and HG Wells predating Tolkien.

All creative work uses some elements already existing. It is the originality of the mix or the added stuff that makes the difference. GW mostly mixes existing stuff without adding much. It's the higher management and legal department that deny this fact and think that GW invented the world and everyone else should bow to the masters. Without this unrealistic attitude, there would be no problem and the exchange and advancement of ideas would prosper much more.

Sience-Fiction is full of these things you named in the same way as Superhero-stories are full of mean villains and children stories are full of happy ends

All creativity is just theft, this is not news.
Welcome to human nature!

While I agree with everyone on the nothing new thing, I do think starcraft is a pretty blatant rip off of 40K. Each of the 3 races is extrodinarily similar to races in 40k, so much so that when I started 40k, my younger brother goes "hey cool where did you get the zerg figures". I mean come on, they even used the term "space marine" too. I think Blizzard just got a little too close to 40K for me. But they did make IMO the best video game ever, so I'm really not complaining that much.

BTW- does starcraft predate the introduction of Tau? Cause I think the protoss are like the eldar, however they do have a lot of Tau aesthetic to me, but I'm not sure if the Tau were around at the time.

Starcraft is really the only blatant copy but not everything is.
Marines, Zerglings, and certain Protoss units are the only copies. Units like the Hydralisk, Mutalisk, Marauder, Siege Tank, Colossus, and others are all pretty original.

Even ALIEN "borrowed" ideas.

Dan O'Bannon even admitted it.
It's one of his better known quotes.

"I didn't steal ALIEN from anyone. I stole it from EVERYONE."