Maybe we should consider anything appearing in a TV ep or in a movie on-screen evidence, primary material, or primary sources.
Anything written about or interpreting on-screen materials, such as encyclopedias and chronologies, officially liscenced or not, would be considered secondary material or secondary sources.
Behind the scenes information, quotes from scripts, rumors from model makers, would be called what they are but not labeled "canon" or "noncanon."
Something like the animated series, which appears onscreen but has not been considered "canon" would be "not considered part of the official universe" (or something like that)
Any other suggestions?
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I have sex regularly
And people have been getting on my case for being a prick lately.
Lee makes (like usual) perfect sense.
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but then I have sex regularly. 8)
Be sure to turn around and say hi to Berman & Braga for me during that.
I think the desires of "nerds" to have their works considered "canon" is part of the problem. Their belief (or maybe the practice) that the imprimatur of canon can be bestowed like that by TPTB on a gaming system (or a fan work, or a novel) is an indication of the problems with the term.
There have been too many arguments about this term for it to be only a concern of fanboys, regardless of whether they are virginal or fornicating.
It's not a belief. It's fact. It is what it is. The people who make the show deceide what actually "happens" in their universe. If they want to say that TAS never happened, then we can bitch and scream about it all we want, but TAS will still not have happened in the Star Trek universe.
Likewise, it doesn't matter if someone spends YEARS coming up with a timeline that successfully incorporates every single line from every single episode, film, book, and commemerative plate. If Berman says "we're not using that", then they won't use it. And it's just a really elaborate "what if?"
Ultimatly, Berman says what is canon, and what isn't. And he says the TV shows, the films, and Okuda's stuff. And he also says that it can be contradicted. That is Trek canon. Changing the name won't change the facts. Canon is canon. And fat people are fat.
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And fat people are fat.
You have a stunning grasp of the obvious. I mean, I've just been floored. Next, you'll be telling me the sun is *yellow*!
The reason that they do that is for user-friendliness.. they want the casual viewer to be able to continuously tune in and not have missed anything, to instantly know the premise. They imply that if they gave the ability to change the premise to someone not on the writing staff of one show, they ruin their marketability. (i.e. If a novelist portrays Riker and Troi getting together, that obviously conflicts with what the TNG writers are planning, so they avoid the issue altogether. If they had to do an episode where they said 'Oh Riker and Troi started dating again two months ago,' The Casual Viewer would be confused and betrayed, because they watch every show loyally, but shouldnt be expected to buy the novels.) No one besides the honchos can decide to take any concept anywhere now.
This makes sense of course. How could you let some one time writer of a comic book or novel establish something really stupid that would just confuse the viewers if they had to stick to it when it came to light in a filmed production? The rules for the novels started to evolve: You can play in the universe, but put everything back where you found it. The Enterprise saves the day, Riker's new girlfriend dies and they set a course for Starbase X.
But this leads to this continued divisiveness in the ranks of the fans.
My favorite novelists for Trek are Peter David, Diane Carey, Diane Duane & Greg Cox. Their novels each capture a specific portion of the Star Trek experience so well, and represent Star Trek to me at its purest. It really irks me when i percieve that they have captured something special about Star Trek, that isnt contradictory in the least with filmed material, and i open my mouth about it and some jackass says 'thats not canon! go away'
If someone, who is licensed by Paramount to be creating a novel, comic, technical manual or role playing game, made such a product and it did not contradict anything continuity wise and did not change any premises presented on the TV show, why couldnt they get behind it? Why isnt there anyone who reads what is being produced and sold to make sure it fits into the picture. The producers of the show and the movie couldnt really care less about anything else but the little picture, the piece that is in front of them at the moment. And why should they? They are trying to produce a story. I could understand wanting to make it easier to produce Enterprise by making it the sole domain of the writing staff thats there now. But wouldnt it work if they also had said writing staff or a proxy who worked both with the film producers and the creators of other media, a supervisor or simply a go-between that could take their intentions and translate them to the other media. I think that by neglecting the licensed works to maintain the filmed works, Paramount is devaluing the overall franchise.
When someone writes a crappy-ass novel or ridiculous comic, no one really bothers to edit it because, hey, its not canon or anything. Its printed and sold. The buyer is aware they gotten something shoddy, and is pissed at the fact that they would put 'Star Trek' on the front of a lame-ass product. So many people just dont go back to Star Trek merchandise because Paramount just doesnt police whats going on there.
I have more to say, but I have to go to the bathroom.
Scuse me.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
The thing is, it doesn't really matter for the small novels. Who cares that in the last TNG novel, the Enterprise went to a planet, Picard and, oh, let's say Troi got kidnapped. Riker panicked a bit. And everything worked out. No-one cares.
OTOH, to take Vendetta as an example, everyone cares. 3 Borg Cubes invade the Federation. Picard goes through the pain of remembering Locutus. Big Doomsday Machine mk 2 blows shit up. Hugely important. And also potentially runinous to future episodes. We'd have had to insert a scene into "I, Borg".
TROI: You're not over Locutus, are you?
PICARD: No. Especially when that Ferengi got turned into a Borg. And there were those 3 Borg Cubes...
The chances of the viewer at that point having seen "BOBW" is fair. The chances of them having read Vendetta is tiny. Confusion, and sulking ensues.
And comparing to Star Wars doesn't work either. There are 8 filmed hours of Star Wars. There are roughly 9 million filmed hours of Star Trek. If you have to compare it to something, compare it to B5, which adopts a similar policy of "It's canon if JMS says so", so most of the books are in the universe, but not strictly canon. One book is 10% canon, and one is 90%. Everything else, it's one a case by case basis. And that's for a show that lasted 5 years.
So, essentially, with Trek; small books: No one cares. Big books: Too important NOT to mention, and confuse everyone.
Besides, Okuda already has enough trouble compiling all the info from a couple of hundred filmed hours of Trek. You want to add the hundred odd novels to his workload too? Poor bloke...
And it would explain how Captain Amasov met the Borg, even though the Endeavour wasnt at Wolf 359.
Meh.
And why make up a new term to replace "canon"? You say the problem is w/ fanboys wanting their stuff to be canon, and it creates divisiveness. Okay, so what?
Current situation:
fanboy: "i red a boook where rieker and troy has teh hot sexx0r on teh bridge and i tihnk that shuld be cannon!"
Proposed solution:
Rename "canon" to something else. Maybe, for example, "peanut butter".
Resolved situation:
fanboy: "i red a boook where rieker and troy has teh hot sexx0r on teh bridge and i tihnk that shuld be peenut butter!"
Changing the name isn't going to have any effect on the way people think. They'll just be using a different term. A fanboy by any other name will still come in his pants when he sees a fleet of fifty Akiras and Promethei.
). Filmed material should be considered the primary source, and anything else is just commentary on the primary material or supplementary to it. I think the trouble lies in the declaration of other, nonfilmed material (books) as canon (or not) and in the banishment of some filmed material (STV, TAS) from canon. Simply saying "if it was filmed, it happened" is the best thing, I think. (I'd like to think the animated events also happened. too). Saying that some non-filmed material is canon gets people thinking that any non-filmed material is potentially canon. This is the fault of the producers.
How can the Encyclopedia (and the Chronology) be considered canon? They are both reference works that by the very act of putting material in a different (written) form change it. They are by definition secondary sources. That's like saying the Holy Bible is canon and that "Asimov's Guide to the Bible" is canon as well.
Is there "really" a huge energy field surrounding the galaxy? In a few episodes of TOS there was. But no one has seen hide nor hair of it since, despite getting a fair number of references to things extragalactic. Does UESPA exist? Is Kirk's middle initial R or T? When did Data graduate from Starfleet Academy? Can you fire phasers out of the torpedo launchers? And so on.
I think, rather than thinking in terms of canon vs. noncanon, we should probably be thinking of...a continuum of probabilities. Filmed material that isn't goofy is extremely likely to be included by later writers. Filmed material that is goofy is slightly less so. Reference materials by certain people have one probability of being used, those by others, another. And so on. Tie-in novels are way down on the other end.
I apologize if this is overly wordy.
Personally, I haven't read a Trek novel in a long time, and I admit to being strongly biased against media tie-ins in general. But just because a thread is about, say, Diane Carey, doesn't mean it has to be about making everyone believe that what she writes about "actually" happened.
And the Encyclopedia itself is not canon. The information in it is, by virtue of having been in the TV shows or movies.
Similarly, if I say "The USS Enterprise had a registry number of NCC-1701.", that's canon. Does that mean this post is canon? No. It just contains canonical information. Same w/ the Encyclopedia.
we basically argue which writers count. eh..
The writers intended for there to be a great barrier that the Enterprise could reach.
The writers didnt intend for the Enterprise to have 55 decks. That was the idea of the graphics crew.
But Gene didnt intend for Spock to have a brother.
So who should be given the keys to making canon
Paramount (who are legally in charge, and are interested in ST making good business sense for them [i.e. the current production is the only one that matters, everything else is just milking sales dollars]),
Gene Roddenberry (who is the orginal creator, and thus given the most credence, but disagreed with the way his creation was treated),
The writers of the individual episode (Who have a story to tell, but dont really have a clue about the continuity sometimes)
The designers and actors who sometimes violate the intentions of all three previous by interpreting something in a wrong/different way in their portrayal and presentation.
Because if we go back and ask the writer X of episode X what he intended species X to look like when he introduced him, he'll tell us they had three heads. But then writer Y wrote episode Y and showed that species X has two heads. The original writers intentions are moot, because a second writer, a design team and TPTB changed that for him. Canon and intention become separated.
'Simply saying "if it was filmed, it happened" is the best thing, I think.'
And that's what they do. With the proviso of "unless we contradict it. In which case, go with the most recent reference, or the least silly. Or try and come up with an explanation yourselves. We know you like to do that."
Likewise, in Star Trek, Paramount Pictures is the supreme leader, though they often operate through their "vicar," currently Rick Berman (with help from Brannon Braga). What they say goes; they are right, you are wrong. On any particular issue, say, the look of a series set in the 2150's, they get the last word. Now, they might consult their advisors, like Mike Okuda, or examine what fans have already established, or desire, for the look of the 2150's, but, no matter how they go about establishing a look, the look is theirs, alone, to create. A fan might think that the look would be reminiscent of the original series, but if PB&B disagree, the fan is wrong. Does that make the producers evil? No. They have a complex and large "universe" to manage, are more educated and experienced in the ways of television production than most fans, and could probably write a treatise on why their look would work better than a sixties set rehash.
The issue of canon versus non-canon is a non issue. I may disagree with fellow Catholics about the ordination of women, but I must concede that ultimately those who are against it are currently "right." Your interpretation of the Star Trek universe may differ with that of PB&B, but, by definition, theirs is right. We do not need a new word for canon; what we need is to agree to disagree. If you think there are three-nacelled dreadnaughts roaming Federation space, more power to you. You have that "right." However, as the Star Trek universe currently stands, there is no evidence to support that thought, and I have the right to call your though non-canon, because it is.
And the Encyclopedia contains details never seen onscreen, but which ARE considered canon by Paramount. (e.g., the Constitution-class registries.) Same counts for the TNG and DS9 Technical Manuals. That stuff is canon. It's a part of the official ST continuum that TPTB rely on when creating new stories.
-MMoM
"And the Encyclopedia contains details never seen onscreen, but which ARE considered canon by Paramount. (e.g., the Constitution-class registries.) Same counts for the TNG and DS9 Technical Manuals. That stuff is canon. It's a part of the official ST continuum that TPTB rely on when creating new stories."
No, no, no. We've explained this. The Tech Manuals, Chronology and what not are "special". They are canon by dint of having been writen by people who work on the shows, and because if someone were to ask "so, er, how many transporter rooms has the Enterprise-D got", they'd ask Okuda, who'd look in his tech manual, and tell them.
But if a writer wanted a plot point that conflicted with what the technical manual said, he'd ignore it. Episodes have ignored the fact that the ships computer can turn of hand phasers on board ship, and many other things stated in the tech manual. The warp speed chart alone is just there to be pointed and laughed at.
And Mim, you're point about TAS doesn't hold. TAS wasn't excersised from canon for being old. It was taken out for being really, really silly. I can live without the Trek universe having contained a planet of giant Spock clones, thank you very much.
I think human beings turning into salamanders when reaching transwarp speeds to be even sillier.
When I first read your post Raw Cadet, I read it wrong. I thought you were saying that you were a Romulan Catholic. Zwounds!
re:New word for canon-- Blunderbuss, I'm telling you. It's good. Think about it...
Star Trek: Voyager should be excised from canon for being crap.