Do you have a "personal" canon?

Discussion in 'General Trek Discussion' started by plynch, May 2, 2010.

  1. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Not in dialogue, but those names have been written on the dedication plaques on the bridge, making them canon enough.

    Except for the Akira. We've never even seen the interior of one.
     
  2. RegFan

    RegFan Commodore Commodore

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    Threshold isn't canon to me. TAS is, even though I haven't watched it. I also include some of my own theories in my personal canon but if one of them was directly contradicted in the "real" canon or the problem was explained in a different way, it would no longer be part of my personal canon.
     
  3. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Let go of your scientific beliefs for just an hour and you'll realize Threshold is an awesome episode. I love it.
     
  4. Luther Sloan

    Luther Sloan Captain Captain

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    All the Trek films and television shows are canon. I may not like a particular series, or episode, or film; However, I find ways to explain the stupidity behind certain episodes and films, though.

    I mean, sometimes you might hear me talking about other science fiction films and make a silly remark like...

    "Matrix 2 and 3 didn't happen!"

    What this means is that they still happened within the Matrix Universe. They just happened in another alternate reality and not in the core Matrix universe time line.

    At least in my opinion, anyways.
     
  5. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    Most dedication plaques have never been shown upclose, so they're difficult (if not impossible) to read onscreen. Otherwise, most of how we know about these ship classes are from interviews (or reproduced artwork) from various Trek production personnel.
     
  6. Myasishchev

    Myasishchev Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yes. Things which I dislike are excluded, if possible--it sometimes isn't, because they may form the foundation of something I like. For example, I can totally ignore the Ocampan reproductive cycle, but I can't ignore Sisko being a Space Jesus; although both are tremendously bad ideas, Sisko's face-god turn is unfortunately pretty integral to the Dominion War, the show and the franchise in general, all of which I like, whereas Ocampan reproduction's absolutely terrible, never-read-a-biology-textbook-or-done-arithmetic stupidity is safely sealed off in the Delta Quadrant, where no one has to look at it.

    Reasonable inferences also accrue to my personal canon (e.g., Augments numbered in the tens or hundreds of millions, Romulans left Vulcan in sublight vessels, Remans are biologically Vulcans, etc.).
     
  7. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I love the simplicity and candor.

    Not to sound snarky -- but the Enterprise doesn't have any decks. It isn't real. I know you know that. I think we just come to a big disconnect: those of us who want a sort of alternate reality to imagine and those of us who don't. And if you DO, of course you want consistency. That's certainly understandable.

    That bit about some canon being in contradiction with other -- yup, and hoo boy, people sure do some mental gymnastics to reconcile why some writer in 1967 wrote one thing and Ronald D Moore wrote another. I think this is just sort of beyond my understanding, and I can live with that. Peace to all.
     
  8. Matt4511

    Matt4511 Captain Captain

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    Any dedicated Trekkie has a personal canon, since the show has so many violations of continuity that it only holds together if we collectively close our eyes and hum loudly during certain glitches.

    More to the spirit of the OP, though, yes. While most of my tweaks are just to reconcile minor continuity issues that are bound to crop up when dealing with such a sheer volume of work (I'm not bent out of shape by such things and just sort of roll with them) I have in my own wee little mind utterly decanonized Enterprise in its entirety. As I explained in another thread, it doesn't work for me as a TOS prequel, and since TOS is the senior series, I keep it and dump ENT in the bin.

    I could maybe get behind it behind an alternate timeline, but outside of Prime. I think the 23rd and 24th Centuries, projected forward from ENT, would not look at all like the series and movies we saw.

    And I have no problem with ST09 being an alternate unfolding of history based on the divergence point of the Kelvin being destroyed by a plus-tech Romulan ship. How divergent the timeline was up to the time of the Vulcan catastrophe, I'm not sure. In some ways it seems like a lot, in others, not so much.
     
  9. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Maybe I'm not a dedicated Trekkie. I've seen the Star Trek eps 20 times each (and own them in the unadulterated version), but watched the other series pretty much once though I did DS9 in order via Netflix. Hey wait - I just played Star Trek scene-it at the coffeehouse yesterday wearing a Trek polo, with my son and three others in unis. That must count for something. maybe my brain just worls differently. I see the continuity errors and just sorta go, "Eh -- they're different [visions, writers, whatever]."

    I agree if I were to try to assemble it into some coherent universe, either some things would have to go, or there'd be some serious 'splainin' to do.

    EDIT - Plus I'm a Captain on a Star Trek bbs. Ok, I must NOT be "not a dedicated Trekkie." Since I am, I must be missing some fun, so I think I am going to work on a personal canon. I first choose to include TAS. Here I stand, I can do no other.
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2010
  10. Luther Sloan

    Luther Sloan Captain Captain

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    Fanon to help explain canon is about as close to "personal canon" as I get.
     
  11. number6

    number6 Vice Admiral

    The whole "personal canon" thing is pretty silly.
     
  12. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    I think "personal canon" just a list of what individual people like (and don't like) in Trek. Otherwise, I don't think it really means anything, IMO.

    It certainly doesn't have any bearing on official canon, so I can see people comparing what they like to personally include or exclude from Trek...
     
  13. Tulin

    Tulin Vice Admiral Admiral

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    In my own canon VOY and ENT did not happen.

    Both shows are execrable messes, tarnished the name of ST and were partly responsible for the downturn in ratings that basically resulted in the modern TV ST coming to a close.
     
  14. plynch

    plynch Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Is fanon the word for the mental gymnastics to reconcile seeming contradictions?
     
  15. Luther Sloan

    Luther Sloan Captain Captain

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    Yes. I suppose it does.

    :lol:


    Sources:
    http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Fanon#Non-canon
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanon_(fiction)#Fanon
    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fanon
     
  16. Deckerd

    Deckerd Fleet Arse Premium Member

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    Shouldn't it just be 'episodes you don't like' then?

    Even on this board, which is pretty geeky, the whole idea of canon makes most members snigger and point.
     
  17. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    But by calling it their "personal canon," people can also pretend those episodes didn't happen either. :rommie:

    Conversely, some personal canons also include stuff that didn't happen onscreen as well (such as from books, video games, etc.).

    But I think the thing to remember is that personal canons go out the window in discussions about official canon though, so I look at them as really harmless in threads devoted to personal canons.
    Compared to other geeky issues that have been debated on this board, "personal canons" are fairly tame, IMO...
     
  18. Geckothan

    Geckothan Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I generally ignore ENT, VOY, TFF, NEM and XI, and I completely ignore all fan fiction.
     
  19. doubleohfive

    doubleohfive Fleet Admiral

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    MAN! How do you guys enjoy anything?

    THIS.
     
  20. SFRabid

    SFRabid Commodore Commodore

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    There are a few things from college that I pretend never happened.