My brain -- which certainly has its quirks -- does not seem to have the need to consider some Trek events "actually happened" while other events (even some onscreen, official Paramount canon) "didn't." I keep reading of such personal canons and sort of don't get it. What do you mean when you include X or Y as actually happening, but exclude some things? I am not implying you're schizophrenic, by the way -- people do this in other genres, e.g. the last stories about Sherlock Holmes being excluded from many Holmes fans' personal canons. I just watch the eps, enjoy the overall "universe" that GR, Coon, Berman et al. spun out, and . . . yeah. Please don't go into too much on WHAT you include/exclude; there are threads about that. I'm just curious about the broader concept. And anyone like me without a "personal canon," feel free to weigh in too. Be well.
No, I don't have anything resembling a "personal canon". There are some episodes I dislike, but that's all. As you rightly said, nothing really "actually happened".
I have a personal canon, but it's more along the lines of what I add in my own mind, and not what I exclude. Some of my personal canon has to do with how I interpret things to fit my own comfort zone. For example, when Picard talked about the "Post-Atomic Horror," I took it to mean a major atomic disaster occured, like a Chernobyl, but on a much grander scale, and not a nuclear war. Just little things like that. But basically, as far as I'm concerned, if it happened on screen, it happened.
My personal canon: TOS happened except for 4-5 episodes (That which survives for example) TNG happened. except "Unnatural Selection" DS9 happened, except "Profit and Lace" VOY happened, except "Threshhold" STV did not happen as shown ENT was an unpolished holodeck simulation of what really happened, some events depicted like the ones in "Dear Doctor" never actually happened. TAS never happened
i have a personal continuity. i ignore crap from TOS like 'Spock's Brain' and 'Way to Eden'. i ignore 'Threshold' and TATV. i also count many novels and my fan-fic and when my fan-fic contradicts the books, i just decide it's because they're in seperate, but closely parallel universes.
TOS happened. TAS was a stylized storyboard of what actually happened. TMP happened. TWOK-TUC happened in an alternate universe. TNG and DS9 happened in an alternate universe although something like it may have happened in TOS' future. the TNG films, VOY and ENT were someone's holodeck fantasy. ST09 was a freakin' nightmare.
I include all eleven movies and thirty seasons of tv (including TAS) in my personal canon. I also include a large number of novels including the following: TNG Relaunch DS9 Relaunch VOY Relaunch ENT Relaunch Vanguard Series A Time To... Series Titan Series Imzadi Pathways Mosiac Mirror Universe Series Destiny Trilogy Articles of the Federation A Singular Destiny Upcoming Typhon Pact Series The Lost Era Series Corps of Engineers Series Crossover Dark Matters Trilogy
TOS happened except for 4-5 episodes (That which survives for example) In that which survives the travel 1000 lightyears (or 10000, I can't remember) in a short timespan. If it were a good episode, I would try to explain it away, but since it's a crappy episode, the whole epsisode is banned from my personal canon TNG happened. except "Unnatural Selection" DS9 happened, except "Profit and Lace" VOY happened, except "Threshhold" This is because I don't like what they're doing to the ST universe. e.g. after Thresshold they should have the ability to build infinite velocity ships. They can even man them, because curing them from Lizarditis is so easy. Unnatural Selection says the Transporter could cure anything. STV did not happen as shown Because the crew seems like a bunch of senile dudes who should not be commanding a starship. And everything else except two or three scenes is totally bullshit imo. ENT was an unpolished holodeck simulation of what really happened, some events depicted like the ones in "Dear Doctor" never actually happened. I don't think ENT contributed anything good to Star Trek. They did, in my opinion, make a lot of stupid decisions that I would prefer to ignore - The warp scale - Roms having cloak - TCW - Humanity being boring AND stupid (Ok they were always a bit naive and stupid, but that doesn't make it better) - Archer inventing the prime directive by condemning a race to a painful, meaningless death - Ferengi thrown back to their sorry pre-DS9 existence - Organians now being cruel (...) So I prefer to ignore it altogether. Except IAMD, maybe. TAS never happened because it's a freaking '70 cartoon for children.
TOS: The Cage to VOY: Endgame The Motion Picture to Insurrection Endgame has selfish time travel in it which would be prevented by the time travel cops. Which is why Nemesis is not part of my personal canon. Well, it did happen, but not in the "proper" universe.
I think of certain novels as having happened within the same world as the series/films: Ecklar's The Kobayashi Maru The 21st Century parts of Federation much of Dark Mirror and The Romulan Way The vague outline of Best Destiny and general concepts of Atlantis Station and Capture the Flag (I read these three in elementary school) sometimes Shatner's The Return Bajor's accession to the Federation in Unity I don't much concern myself with how everything fits together. I do tend to think of the Dark Mirror version of the Mirror Universe - which is more of a direct mirror for the TNG situation - than the Deep Space Nine version, which I suppose I think of as compartmentalized within Deep Space Nine somehow (I've never really given it much thought). And I only really think to include the Enterprise episodes I watched during the first two seasons (I didn't like the Xindi storyline or most of season four). Mostly, I seem to remember episodes involving the Vulcans, the Andorians, and Columbia. I don't tend to organize any of this consciously. Generally speaking, my impressions of Star Trek, regardless of source, compose what I think of as its whole.
I definitely have a personal canon. Star Trek is FICTION - not religion! It's okay to pick and choose. Honestly, it's hard to see how anyone can avoid having a personal canon. Does anyone really think Enterprise-A has 76 decks and all of them can be accessed from a single elevator shaft as we saw on STV-TFF?! Some "canon" is absolutely in contradiction with other "canon." You can't accept all of it.
Well most of the people have no personal canon because they simply don't care. Then there is no "I have to accept his, I have to disagree with that". Which is a healthy attitude.
Sort of...and yet not really. I guess I'd describe it as more of a preferred alternate universe, out of many universes we've seen in Trek. So everything onscreen happened (well, it happened onscreen), but I like to imagine an alternate universe where some things didn't happen. All the fanfic I write (well, most of it) deals with Alternate Universes...so for example in the "Prime" universe Trip died in TATV but not in the universe I write in. I have a personal canon in my personally imagined alternate universe(s) but not for anything that happened onscreen. I agree with you in principle. None of it really happened at all, so either 'believing' everything or selecting what you want to believe makes sense to me. Some of the time, anyways. And there's always details I fill in in my mind...another example, in the episode "Cogenitor" the Vissians say cogenitors make up 3 percent of the population. That seems preposterous to me, I like to think the universal translator translated 33 percent incorrectly.
I tend to take certain bits from the TNG & DS9 Technical Manuals, as well as bits from the Star Trek Encyclopedia as canon, as long as they don't contradict onscreen material and really sort of fit onscreen material pretty good. It's actually interesting that the names of most starship classes--such as the Oberth, Miranda, Akira, and Sovereign-classes (to name a few)--have never actually never been mentioned onscreen. Otherwise, I don't dismiss anything onscreen, even if I don't personally like it.
I don't have a personal cannon. I don't even own a gun. Hell, I ain't even got a freakin' water pistol!
My attitute as well. I don't really care how many decks there are in the Big E. It changes nothing about my enjoyment of the show. The only moment I care about "canonical information" is when I play my RPG, and even then only when the game master decides to be anal retentive about it.