Sci-fi writer sues Bungie for stealing ideas from his Wordpress site for Destiny 2's first campaign.

Bungie is off to court but it may not have to worry. The Game Post reports that the studio is being sued in a copyright lawsuit by plaintiff Kelsey Martineau for allegedly copying parts of Destiny 2 storyline from Martineau. He wants damages and injunctive remedies, but that's moot since you can't play the offending campaign.

Martineau, a writer and publisher, believes Bungie has stolen elements of the story he wrote in Destiny 2 for its Red War storyline. The storyline is now archived forever and sealed away inside the game's strange story vault. Martineau's complaint states: "In 2013-2014, Martineau wrote an original work under the pen name Caspar Cole about a unique fantasy world."

The story, published on a Wordpress Blog, "introduces a powerful military power, the Red Legion, which is caught in a never-ending cycle of war." The Red Legion is a group of brutal lads who are known for their flamethrowers and war beasts. They also tend to cause "chaos and devastation in civilian settlements."

It's not a million miles away from the Red Legion in Destiny 2: the enemy faction at its heart, who are bad, mad, and dangerous. Martineau's attorneys point out in the complaint that Destiny 2 was a notoriously fast turnaround game, suggesting that a lack of time and an overabundance of work led developers to create a story based "directly on Martineau’s work."

Martineau has a table that details the many similarities between his work and Destiny 2’s Red War campaign. He believes this makes his case solid. But the short version is: the Red Legion in his imagination and Bungie’s Red Legion look a lot alike. They're both big men with big guns, who are fond of war crimes and led by power-hungry characters.

Martineau's Traveler in Destiny 2 and Martineau's The Traveler in Destiny both have a strong desire to invade Earth. They want to capture a space station orbiting the Earth.

Will that be sufficient to convince the lawyers? I'm not sure. The idea of a bunch of warlike, big sci-fi baddies preparing to tear humanity apart isn't new. You could also pick out Halo's Covenant or Star Trek's Klingons, as well as Mass Effect's Turians, Krogans, or Reapers, as similar riffs.

It's a bit like the Lord of the Rings Fanfiction Author who tried to sue Amazon for stealing his ideas for The Rings of Power. Individuals are trying to get a payout from large companies based on similarities you can only see if you squint. Martineau's complaint is less brash than that of the Lord of the Rings fanfic author. This is the world in which we live: Huge corporations taking tiny creators to court for bagatelles, and small creators taking those corporations to court back. That's... just fair?