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Ronald D. Moore, the man behind the critically acclaimed "Battlestar Galactica," is trying to catch that bolt of lightning in his bottle twice with a potentially new Fox series known as "Virtuality," but questions are popping up more and more about where the story idea may have originated.

An alert Airlock Alpha reader in Finland, described as a "Battlestar" fan, did some research on "Virtuality," a show set aboard a long-duration starship known as the Phaeton, making a 10-year journey to a star, and entertaining its crew through a virtual reality system and keep them sane, which works great until a flaw is discovered in the system.

That concept, however, bears a striking resemblance to a 2005 novel written by Joe Haldeman known as "Old Twentieth," a story that takes place on a starship known as the Aspera, which is on a 1,000-year voyage to Beta Hydrii. Of course, the Aspera crew needs to stay sane on such a long journey as well, so to keep their marbles together, the ship is equipped with a virtual reality system that allows crew members to visit other locations ... until that system develops a flaw.

The comparison between "Virtuality" and "Old Twentieth" is not new, however, the initial hub-bub of activity surrounding it took place in May and was barely noticed by most people. However, author Joe Haldeman himself -- a five-time Hugo winner and a five-time Nebula winner -- has noticed a lot of similarity between the two concepts, and wrote about it in his LiveJournal.

"It does look disappointingly similar to 'Old Twentieth,'" Haldeman wrote last May. "I thought the book had real movie possibilities, but it doesn't have a chance now. People will think it was ripped off from the TV series. There ain't no fucking justice, as Moses said. Then God dropped Chartlton Heston on him from a great height."

It's not clear through the post if Haldeman plans to take legal action, but even if he did, he seems already defeated that there might not be much to sue on.

"Of course, you can't copyright an idea, but there's no law against pissing and moaning," Haldeman wrote.

Haldeman has published at least 30 novels and short stories since 1972, including "The Forever War" that first broke him into the scene in 1975, the novella "The Hemingway Hoax" in 1990, and "Camoflauge" in 2004.

This isn't the first time that Fox has been on the wrong side of a source material dispute. Back in 1999, "The X-Files" creator Chris Carter developed a series based loosely on the comic book "Harsh Realm" created by James D. Hudnall and Andrew Paquette, but when Paquette was informed by the then SyFy World -- the forerunner of Airlock Alpha -- that the credits for the series premiere on the east coast (which aired three hours ahead of Paquette's viewing on the west coast) didn't even contain a reference to either comic book creator, the two successfully sued, and a credit was added for any future distribution that reads "Inspired by the Harsh Realm comic book series created by James D. Hudnall and Andrew Paquette, published by Harris Publications Inc."

Thanks to Petri Teittinen for the tip!

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