Talk:Doctor Omega (series)

Licensed source?

It's not immediately apparent from the page why this book is considered a valid source. Could someone enlighten me? Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 10:42, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

The book uses several DWU concepts (such as naming Validium and Chronodyne) which I am assuming Jean-Marc will have needed permission to use? If not, I'm happy with it being marked invalid but the book is steeped in DWU lore. RadMatter ☎ 11:04, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

If there is no legal basis to the use of validium and chronodyne — and if there is no mention on the printed book's copyright page, we should assume that such brief mentions are just that, brief mentions, no different from a Who story namedropping Kryptonite or whatever — then it really shouldn't have a page. It just ends up as "fanfic". Please check if there's such a mention on the copyright page; if there isn't, I'm afraid this page is a goner. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 11:59, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

If a Doctor Who story simply named Kryptonite in reference to the Superman character/movies that is one thing, it would be a completely different thing to have a Doctor Who story state that Kryptonite was real and have the characters actually use it. That is what happens in this case. Validium and chronodyne are stated to be actual elements that Doctor Omega was using, rather than referencing elements from another series.

Nevertheless, I will check the copyright page when I have a chance. RadMatter ☎ 12:14, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The former actually does happen quite often! A character from Buffy cameos in Camera Obscura, the Doctor will mention offhand that he's met Arthur Dent or visited Discworld, the planet Oa will be destroyed by the Master in a throwaway line…

Or, for the situation of other media not covered by this Wiki which do this with Doctor Who elements, just look at any of the "In-universe references" from our list of Cultural references to the Doctor Who universe. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 12:35, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

While I hate to be on the side of exclusion, I don't even believe Chronodyne is a DWU concept...

From my (limited) research, Chronodyne also appears in the 1989 novel Chekhov's Journey and was the name of "Chronodyne Corp" in the 2013 novel Project J.

To me, it appears as if Chronodyne is a generic sci-fi concept, like plasma cannons, skimmers, and vibroknives.

Epsilon📯 📂

14:05, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I have since checked the copyright page and there is no listed licensing for the mentioned concepts.

However, I do believe that this page should remain in an invalid capacity due to the fact that there is a foreword by Terrance Dicks which talks in depth about Doctor Who, and several significant changes were made to the original story to closely relate it to the DWU. RadMatter ☎ 22:08, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The latter, again, means nothing for the Wiki. Any number of works might try to hint that they are within the DWU without evidence to that effect, and we still won't have pages about them… Many of the Audio Adventures in Time & Space (and other BBV Productions stories) that we don't cover went so far as to have little "From the Universe of Doctor Who" stickers on the covers or promotional material, and that still doesn't make us give them individual invalid pages!

The foreword is more interesting — but that would mean covering the Doctor Omega book, purely as a piece of merchandise. This is not the same thing as covering the novel in an {{invalid}} capacity. "Invalid" is a very specific status on this Wiki, which implies a full plot summary and the creation of pages about the characters, tagged as invalid and placed in Non-DWU individuals. We aren't going to do that.

What we could do is (removing the "(novel)" dab term) have a page on this book treating it as a reference work, with the Introduction as our main point of interest, and the fact that the book "also" contained a "fanfic" of sorts that took up most of the page-count would become something of an afterthought. But while I could see this being worth it if there were no other Doctor Omega works with ties to the DWU, I believe it is simplest to simply cover this information at Doctor Omega (series) page, within the established framework of Category:Real world series with DWU connections pages. This page should be merged back into that one. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:16, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Can I request that this discussion is left open for a short period of a week or so, giving me the chance to reread the work to confirm that there are no other more significant connections. RadMatter ☎ 22:20, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough! But don't create any pages based on the contents of this story in the meantime. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:27, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

OK can we delete the page now? NightmareofEden ☎ 21:34, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Indeed — or, rather, I've merged it back into Doctor Omega (series), to preserve the page history. I've done the same to the pages about subseries — there's really no call for us to separately document something like Doctor Omega's Parallel Adventures, any more than we have subpages for different subseries of Star Trek.

The only one I've retained, for now, is The Doctor Omega Chronicles — because it's occurred to me that, quite unlike the Lofficier novel, these two books may actually have a legal DWU connection that would warrant covergae. Namely, the Galopin ship, which is none other than the space-ship used on the cover of The Gallifrey Chronicles to illustrate the ship of the Triumvirate creating the Eye of Harmony. (Which, yes, has fairly interesting implications about a possible identity for the Other…)

The wrinkle is that "the cover of The Gallifrey Chronicles" is not a valid source, even though it's an official DWU one. There isn't much precedent for a valid, narrative spin-off of a licensed but non-narrative (and therefore invalid) work. Weird situation. Still, it's worth pausing to think about it. What do people think? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 15:21, 20 May 2022 (UTC)