Doctor Who can & should just retcon all of the stuff beyond David Tennant or Matt Smith (take your pick).
That being said, it's not going to happen officially and I haven't seen much fan effort to salvage it away from the ongoing vandalism. So as a franchise this one looks like it's probably dead forever.
Lawyers can't stop you from creating your own spin off. They can only prevent you from publishing & selling it.
I don't expect anyone here would be trying to start up their own physical print book sales or physical hobby model sales, though. The threat of legal issue is pretty much just a cope to avoid doing the work.
I'm not a BattleTech fan so I don't have a handle on the nuances of the setting, but it seems fairly straightforward to clone since the setting seems to only have one major conceit (big manned robots).
Creating a setting with some names-filed-off factions with new characters would be easy. For copyright-safety you can't use literally-the-same mech designs & names but there's enough mech designs and material out there from various properties that it would be very difficult to claim something is a infringement rather than a derivative work.
There's good reason to be livid, because Leftists don't care about canon in franchises. Woke infestation basically signals the end of the franchise as we've seen with Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr. Who, Witcher, Marvel, etc.
There's no point in caring about the IP if the rules of the IP can be changed on a whim based on some Leftist's personal feelings.
The correct action in this time is for fans to simply draw a line in the sand. No more GW products, no more GW books or lore are canon (most of the recent stuff is shite anyway since they decided that Belisarius Cawl can just magick do anything with no rhyme or reason).
There has to be someone who is making a non-Woke BattleTech these days.
This would still be diversity pandering and bad.
To be honest, the greater importance GW has given Sisters of Battle, female inquisitors, how every Eldar main character these days tends to be female -- They're already pandering hard.
I'd much rather they play their hand this way, it clarifies the situation.
Yeah it's obviously true that 40K has a huge amount of lore and it's not possible to easily replace that. What I'd suggest is simply having a group of lore nerds sit down with the 40K lore and agree to an approach of either time-skipping forward (aka 45K) or freezing the timeline at a certain point (pre-Primaris marines for example) and agree to that.
Then you work on developing basically a set of interchangeable terms e.g.
Space Marine = Space Marine (Not copyrightable)
Imperium of Man = The Galactic Dominion
Chaos = Ruin
Demons = Demons
Warp = Nethereum
Eldar = Sylvani
Tyranids = Raveners
Start with the big concepts and work your way down. Stuff would feel different even if you did a perfect 1:1 copy to start with, and that's assuming no one wants to add or subtract something.
I ran this through ChatGPT just to present how this could look:
The Galactic Dominion (Imperium of Man) The Galactic Dominion is a vast, galaxy-spanning empire of humans led by a powerful, god-like figure known as the Celestial Sovereign. The Dominion is a highly militaristic and religious society, with a strong emphasis on loyalty, obedience, and the eradication of all threats to humanity.
The Eternal Forgemasters (Adeptus Mechanicus) The Eternal Forgemasters are a faction of tech-priests who worship ancient technology and machines. They are responsible for maintaining and producing the advanced weaponry and equipment used by the Galactic Dominion's military forces.
The Astral Warriors (Space Marines) The Astral Warriors are genetically engineered super-soldiers who serve as the elite fighting force of the Galactic Dominion. They are organized into chapters, each with its own unique culture, traditions, and specialties.
The Devouring Swarm (Tyranids) The Devouring Swarm is an extragalactic race of insectoid aliens that consume all organic matter in their path. They are driven by an insatiable hunger and are capable of rapidly evolving and adapting to new threats.
The Ethereal Crafters (Aeldari/Eldar) The Ethereal Crafters are an ancient, psychically-gifted race of aliens who once ruled a vast empire. They are now divided into distinct sub-factions, each with its own agenda and goals. The Crafters are known for their mastery of advanced technology, psychic abilities, and their ability to manipulate the threads of fate.
The Necro Continuum (Necrons) The Necro Continuum is an ancient race of mechanical beings who once ruled the galaxy. After a long period of dormancy, they have awakened to reclaim their lost empire. The Necro Continuum possesses advanced technology and the ability to self-repair, making them a formidable force.
The Verdant Tide (Orks) The Verdant Tide is a race of green-skinned, warlike aliens who live for the thrill of combat. They are known for their brutal tactics, ramshackle technology, and their ability to grow stronger and larger as they fight.
The Immaterial Realm (Chaos) The Immaterial Realm is a parallel dimension of raw psychic energy and chaotic entities. It is home to the Chaos Gods, powerful beings who seek to corrupt and control the mortal realm. The Immaterial Realm's influence seeps into the material world, twisting the minds and bodies of those it touches.
The Ethereal Collective (Tau) The Ethereal Collective is a young, technologically-advanced race that seeks to unite the galaxy under its banner of the "Greater Good." The Collective is known for its advanced plasma weaponry, sleek armor, and its use of diplomacy and coercion to expand its influence.
The Dread Kindred (Dark Eldar/Drukhari) The Dread Kindred are a sadistic offshoot of the Ethereal Crafters who revel in causing pain and suffering. They are masters of fast-paced, hit-and-run tactics and use advanced weaponry and technology to terrorize their enemies.
The Unyielding Vigil (Sisters of Battle/Adepta Sororitas) The Unyielding Vigil is an all-female military order dedicated to the worship of the Celestial Sovereign and the protection of the Galactic Dominion. They are known for their unwavering faith, their powerful armor, and their use of flame-based weaponry.
Not great for 1 try, but some aren't bad (I like "Dread Kindred" for Dark Eldar as it has some vampire vibes).
GamesWorkshop is pretty small potatoes in the grand scheme of things so it seems infantile to presume that hitting them financially won't work.
In either case, you haven't proposed any actual plan of action so I'm waiting to hear what the approach you advocate is (beyond raging pointlessly on forums)
The "how" is easy. If you slice off even a small-ish fraction (10 - 20%) of GamesWorkshop's profit & market share then the bean counters start asking if it's worth it.
If you make them bleed, they might backtrack. In the current environment, there is literally no other option that fans of 40K have.
As far as the principle of "ceding ground" -- You're assuming that fans of 40K have any ground to begin with. Simply put, they don't. There are guys who played the game for decades, grew up with the hobby, painted, competed, taught their sons how to play. But none of that matters.
The people with the actual power work at GamesWorkshop, and those people are either too cowardly to steward the game correctly or ideological enemies. The only real way to prevent this from happening is to have ownership of the game & IP and strictly gatekeep any role of authority from subversive elements. The process of decay and corruption is ultimately inevitable for any insitution and 40K franchise is no exception. The solution to decay is rebirth in new creation.
"Make it hurt"
That's exactly what abandoning official 40K would do if a significant enough chunk of the playerbase jumped off to their own system & setting.
If you have a different proposal, I'm open to hearing what alternatives you think exist. But from where I stand the reason that all this happens is that the fans don't really have any leverage because GW owns the game + setting. They can screw people over and unless fans are willing to walk away and play something else (even if that something else is the same w/ filed off serial numbers) then GW holds all the cards.
It'd be simple and straightforward to clone the core setting & rules of 40k and just make your own. There's literally nothing stopping people now, easier than ever. A council of high-profile 40k guys who agreed to stop promoting 40k and supported a fan-made & fan-curated alternative could succeed.
Not sure what you're saying here. The #1 problem that most games (and creative projects generally) have is getting noticed. You have to hustle to get noticed.
I don't know enough about Arrowhead's situation to say but it's reasonable to believe that someone titled Community Manager is the one posting stuff to social media, coordinating interviews with press, arranging community-facing events (e.g. Q&A, parsing user feedback, etc). Maybe they were big enough that these hats weren't being worn by one person, but they often are.
Having a "community manager" is pretty essential in the sense that you want your developers busy developing the game, not distracted with controversy or marketing or policing fanbase behavior
But a developer that cared about being "non-political" would have to dismiss like 99% of the people applying for this role because they're all crazy power hungry commies
Almost certainly. If Google & Microsoft are resorting to obviously bullshit injection tactics that even Jr level programmers should find distasteful, Adobe definitely is.
That's not true unfortunately. "Affirmative Action" started in 1961.
The phenomenon of identifying unqualified non-White workers as "Affirmative Action Hires" was already ongoing in the 80s and 90s. There was more accountability and less tolerance for f-ups in earlier decades, so bad workers probably got fired more readily, but the statistical trend for workers is that in basically every profession a Black person filling in a role has a ~10-15 pt lower IQ than a similarly accredited White person. (No idea for Hispanics, but presumably somewhere in the middle there.)
The DIE consultants have a point in that POC women that aren't designed by DIE consultants tend to look like White/Euro women with dark skin.
In practical matters, it doesn't matter. The FedGov isn't doing something to protect people. If Texas steps up to protect people, then Texas acquires legitimacy that the FedGov doesn't have.
Why even bother paying taxes to FedGov if they won't do something basic like preventing invaders from another state coming in, selling drugs, rpng people, murdering them, etc.
Killing innocent white girls: Good! Killing violent murderer scum too young for prison: Bad!
I agree with you on all of that, but seems like we're talking about different levels of influence. At the general level it's precisely the wrong lesson for the Right to intuit that "virtue signaling" is bad -- Authentic displays of virtue are good. It's just that the virtues have to actually be good.
"Normies" always dictate the definition. And that's why crafting rhetoric is important. Whatever nuance your rhetoric has needs to be clear when it's boiled down to the mass of low IQ supporters.
The rhetoric about "virtue signaling" to normies is just an indicator of hypocrisy. But it never challenges the fundamental premise. And Leftists are immune to accusations of hypocrisy (as demonstrated over ~a century) because they don't care about consistency, principles, or much of anything except gaining power & hurting their enemies.
I don't think that's really been the implication most of the time.
Mainstream "Conservatives" tend to be in favor of leftist causes. Lets use a generic example of a CEO who donates to some Feminist NGO. If a mainstream Republican is ridiculing a Leftist target, they aren't going to say, "We shouldn't donate to Feminist causes because we don't want women in the workplace. We want them raising families, not raising corporate profits at the expense of workers wages."
A mainstream critique would say, "This donation isn't significant," or, "They aren't doing this because they're sincere," but the fundamental value of the Feminist cause is not really critiqued.
Because black people wouldn't exist 200 yrs after a nuclear apocalypse?
Most people literally download their personality and hobbies from the mainstream media narrative.