posted
This is a bit more than just an idle curiosity... I'm wondering just how the idea of a "canon" for the Trek franchise came to be adopted. Was it with the advent of the official reference books, like the Encyclopedia and the Chronology? Was it earlier, as they started publishing novels? Was it really started by Gene Roddenberry specifically to make sure that Franz Joseph's work was never used in any later Trek productions?
I'm curious because I'm writing an article on the subject... and it's occurred to me that I have no idea just how it came about.
So when did people start shouting, "That's not canon!"?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
Mostly that last. And that mostly came about when GR was squeezed out of a position of having any say in what made it to the screen (around Star Trek III-IV). When he started pre-prod on TNG, Berman and Okuda latched on quite fervently when he started saying what was to be considered officially acceptable reference material. Anything he didn't comment on, they went with Paramount Liscensing as the guide. This is why Okuda's fleet stuff is more in line with FASA than fandom -- at the time, FASA had the liscense to do that stuff, and fandom was all built off of a book that was published through a rival company by an individual who not only no longer had a liscense, but whome GR publicly vilified.
So, short version, around 1987-88 is when the concept first started showing up. By 1994, it was in full swing.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
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posted
Are you citing the Paramount Trek canon for those dates, P? I thought those dates were considered only semi-canon as they were never seen onscreen.
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posted
Thanks, Peregrinus! I had a feeling it was more office politics, but forgot about how FASA figured into the equation...
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
FASA's history and stories of the pre-TMP era starfleet is great to read. They made really detailed histories for each of their ship designs and a completely plausable background for the whole Klingon/Romulan "technology exchange" thing.
As for Canon, two FASA ships designs were briefly displayed on a computer screen in TNG's Conspiracy. So at least a small bit of FASA is canon.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
The story of GR's relationship with FJ is long and gory and probably best told in Greg Tyler's (of The Lost History of Star Trek website) 1999 interview with FJ's daughter, at http://www.trekplace.com/interviews/fj-kdint01.shtml.
The short version: FJ didn't understand how the TV industry works, and GR didn't understand engineers, so they both all unwittingly stepped on each other's toes. Then Paramount more or less took Star Trek away from GR at just about the same time FJ's stuff--for which all royalties went to Paramount, not GR--was breaking every sales record in the publishing industry.
It's like a latter-day Greek tragedy. There isn't really a bad guy so much as bad timing.
And it's a shame, too, because FJ had some really cool ideas. His vision of the Federation was much less humanocentric, for one.
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
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posted
Dammit, show some initiative. Delete everything after the ".com" and follow the links. "Interviews", "Franz Joseph", and then the top and bottom ones in that list of buttons (interview with FJ's daughter and timeline of GR and FJ's relationship).
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
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