Whoever would have thought bees would help settle a long-running feud? Well they have and, "honestly and truly", the creators of Star Control, and Stardock, are finally getting along.

Who owns what trademark and copyright, and so on, has all been cleared up. Moreover, the creators of Star Control and Star Control 2, Paul Reiche and Fred Ford, will now work with Stardock - creator of Star Control: Origins - on making a brand new Star Control game. Work begins this autumn.

A couple of months ago, this would have been unheard of. Reiche and Ford, and Starock boss Brad Wardell, were at loggerheads about who owned Star Control and everything it entailed - we wrote a feature last year about the big Star Control tussle.

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Is there something about space games in particular that causes developers to fall out with one another to the extent that it's deemed necessary to dispatch a squadron of legal vipers to sort things out? They've darted between David Braben and his one-time Elite co-pilot Ian Bell, and were once turned on his old publisher, Gametek. Outspoken space sim creator Derek Smart had a dust-up with the same publisher, long before he made it his mission to discredit Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts and his efforts on Star Citizen.

A little less fiery but no less combustible is the stand-off between the original creators of Star Control and current IP owner Stardock, who last month were firing words like "rights", "permission" and "trademark" across one another's bow. Things have gone quiet since, but only because a couple of legal away teams are probably engaged in a bout of judicial kal-if-fee, for which universal translators are set to impenetrable.

To use contemporary presidential patois, it's all rather sad. What's particularly unfortunate in the case of Star Control is, not only is Star Control 2 up there with Elite as one of the greatest space games of all time, fans have had to endure a 25 year wait for the series to progress. That's it's doing so in two directions - a prequel from trademark holders Stardock and a Star Control 2 sequel from the series' creators - almost seems too good to be true. Sadly it might just stay that way if the relationship between the two studios doesn't improve.

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Things are not at all well in the world of Star Control, with a public war of words erupting between two parties who claim the rights to sell the classic PC space games.

The story began with a 1st December blog post from Fred Ford and Paul Reiche, the original creators of the Star Control universe. In it the pair, who recently announced a new Star Control game, said there was a "growing legal conflict" between them and publisher Stardock, which is working on a Star Control game of its own.

The conflict appears to revolve around the sale of the classic Star Control games. Ford and Reiche contend Stardock isn't allowed to sell Star Control 1, 2 or 3 without their permission. "That permission has not been given," they insisted.

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