posted
Mainly because Gene said so, and his word is supposedly God when it comes to Trek canon.
Canon is effectively a measure of how hard you need to work to reconsile contradictions. When a novel contradicts an episode, you toss the novel and leave it at that. When an ep contradicts another ep, you have to resolve it. Or at least we do.
------------------ "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
posted
I sure wish it were though, it answers lots of background questions, and wouldn't it be nice to include those freightor classes to our ship lists?
Anyway, the series occasionally pulls out ship names from TAS, like the USS Shir Kahr
------------------ "Homer, you're dumb as a mule and twice as ugly, if a strange man offers you a ride, I say take it"-Abe S.
posted
Basically, canon is the stuff that the writers have to consider "true" when writing. They don't always, but that's the theory. That's why novels aren't canon. They may not contradict anything, but the episode writers don't have to take them into account when writing the show.
------------------ "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra, and then, suddenly, it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." -Matt Groening
posted
I'd say it's canonity is just below that of all other official productions, but above that of all books and such, including tech manuals. Second tier, and it's worth working out any contradictions.
------------------ "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
posted
I heard that Gene didn't want TAS as canon because it had silly story lines like people growing younger and miniturisation - both which have now been done in episodes - "Innoncence" and "One Little Ship" respectively.
Andrew
------------------ "Neil says hi by the way" - Tear In Your Hand, Tori Amos
Alpha Centauri
Usually seen somewhere in the Southern skies
Member # 338
posted
Tsk... If you all regard TAS as non-canon because The Great Bird says so, then why don't you recognize ST5 as non-canon??? Gene personally de-canonized ST5! Not to mention his discomfort with some events in ST4 and ST6. Sorry to say, but I think you're a hypocrite if you regard ST4/5/6 as canon, but not TAS.
Anyway, I agree that some TAS stories are a bit far-fetched and illogical. But doesn't Canon also include such things? A small list:
"Where No Man Has Gone Before" [TOS] 21st century crappy old ship made it to the galactic edge, and so did the Enterprise. 26,000 ly appearently crossed in a small amount of time, instead of decades.
ST4 Humpback whales are intelligent.
ST5 The Enterprise gets to the galactic core (which is 24,000 ly away) in virtually no-time.
"Threshold" [VOY] A shuttle travelling at infinite speed. No matter how you bend or invent physics, infinite speed requires infinite acceleration, which in turn requires infinite energy, which eventually makes for a silly and illogical story. Salamanders are higher developed beings than humans.
Need more examples?
------------------ Advertisement in the United Federation NewsPADD, SD 53675:
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[BTW: if you think I sound angry, then I must say that was not my intention. ]
[This message has been edited by Alpha Centauri (edited August 02, 2000).]
I don't actually remeber then being portrayed as being especailly clever. One knewshe was pregnent, and didn't like humans killing whales. Pretty simple stuff, really...
------------------ "Why do you want to spend time with a deer? They're so stupid, they get hypnotized by headlights!" - Guido Anchovy
posted
They didn't actually turn into salamanders in "Threshold". They turned into a far-future evolution of humans which happen to be vaguely lizard-shaped.
------------------ "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra, and then, suddenly, it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." -Matt Groening
posted
Sadly, Gene found himself playing less and less of a role in Star Trek by the time those movies were released, for a number of reasons. Many see his claims that these movies were apocryphal as an attempt to reexert some control over his creation. Of course he had some real objections, such as the (to him) uncomfortably militaristic themes TOS movies had started toying with since The Wrath of Khan.
Alpha Centauri
Usually seen somewhere in the Southern skies
Member # 338
posted
Well, if I may believe Okuda's statements in his Chronology, Gene did considered ST5 as a whole, and partially ST4 and 6, as apocryphal, and thus decanonizing it.
I don't know exactly what Gene's reasons were, but if you allow conjecture, then I'd say that ST5 was invalidated because of the travel to the galactic core. ST4 because of the whales-can-communicate-with-alien_spaceprobes-and-are-sentient thing. But I don't see anything in ST6 that The Great Bird might consider non-canon.
About the whales issue: it has long been thought that they were intelligent, but recent research revealed that their intelligence is not that high; in fact, they're not more intelligent than most other animal lifeforms. I'll see if I can dig up an URL concerning this research. And indeed, they were not explicetely referred as intelligent in ST4 (my fault, don't shoot me), but it was at least vaguely suggested by the sum of events. To clear something up: I didn't judge them as non-intelligent because they are non-sentient. I know very well that intelligence and sentience are entirely different things.
------------------ Advertisement in the United Federation NewsPADD, SD 53675:
"Now for sale at your local dealer: Antares class vessels, as good as new! They can shapeshift! Everybody in the galaxy has one! Now for only $800!"
[This message has been edited by Alpha Centauri (edited August 03, 2000).]
posted
ST6 had a ship that could fire when cloaked. In current Trek, they're back to being unable to do this.
------------------ "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra, and then, suddenly, it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." -Matt Groening
posted
It's like that Excelsior t/warp drive. Never heard from again. Perhaps the thing was a special modification that wasn't REALLY useful in real combat, being only intended to be used in the assasination attempt. Maybe it's that big surge of nutrino radiation? Perhaps exposure to the shere numbers of nutrinos causes cancer rather quickly. 'Course, that'd have to be a FREAKIN' lot of neutrinos, but I don't see why that can't be the case.
------------------ "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
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