Did Vulcan space have a name?

[Christopher]

Yes, that's exactly my point! There is no decision! Canon is not a value judgment, it is simply a category! Some things are canon, other things are not, period!

Canon is very, very simple. It's trivial. But fans have got all these misunderstandings about what it means and twist it into all these overcomplicated assumptions and arguments and it's all such a damn waste of time.

[Sci]

Bottom line: Canon doesn't really matter.

And it's the Confederacy of Vulcan.

[NeedsOfTheMany]

There are way too many arcs in the story lines, parallel universe trips, alternate realities etc. to be focused on anything canon in Star Trek. Enjoy everything for what it is and live in the moment.

[Nerys Myk]

The story lines, parallel universe trips, alternate realities are the canon. They may not all be in continuity though.

[at Quark's]

Christopher wrote:

---

You know, in the first couple of decades of Trek fandom, you never heard anyone use the word "canon," not that I recall. Because there was little or no new screen Trek on the horizon and thus the prospect of something in the tie-ins being contradicted was a non-issue. The risk of contradiction did exist in the era when new Trek was continuously being produced for TV, and that's when "canon" became a buzzword -- but there is no new Prime-universe canon being produced and isn't likely to be anymore, so it is once again a non-issue. The tie-ins are the only game in town, so saying "they aren't canon" is a totally meaningless set of syllables.


Of course, tie-ins can still contradict each other; Pocket, IDW, and ST Online all have separate and incompatible continuities, sometimes more than one per company. But that's always been the way. Again, in those early days, the tie-ins went in a lot of different directions. Since there wasn't any new "gospel" being produced, or at least very little of it, it just didn't seem that important whether a story conformed to some singular "real" version of things. It was an exercise in make-believe, something where authors and fans were free to use their imaginations to fill in the gaps, and it was much more individualized. None of this modern attitude of authoritarian canon than fans have to submit and conform to or else... something. It was a lot more populist than that.

Interesting remarks. I'm going to apply this line of reasoning to my views on the history of Christianity and let my subconscious chew on it for a few days... see what it comes up with. Thanks.

(disclaimer: I'm not entirely serious. But partly, yes.)

(oh, and apologies for making a totally off-topic remark)

[Gaith]

Did Vulcan space have a name?

"The Inky Vulcy Darkness"

[Timo]

Based on this, the planet Vulcan, prior to Surak, expanded into neighboring systems with a warlike vigor.

Or then it did not. Quite possibly, the savage colonization period of Vulcan was over long before the local space age began - just like here on Earth (hopefully!).

Spock would simply be saying that people of Vulcan stock would be capable of atrocities like savage colonization periods - therefore people of Vulcan stock encountered in space can be expected to be fully capable of space savagery. Seeing pointy ears and green blushes doesn't mean the opponent would be calm and logical and pacifist; rather, barring the remote possibility that those folks had their own Surak, anybody with those racial traits should be considered a potential berserker.

As for the Confederacy of Vulcan thing, we could expect the name to reflect the makeup of the polity somehow. Is the Vulcan sphere of influence a politically organized whole? Or is it impossible to nail it down in terms any more formal than "Imperialist West" for the comparable sphere of US influence on Earth, due to the underhanded nature of Vulcan control over the players involved?

On the other hand, it is a Star Trek tradition not to pay much attention to the (current) factual meaning of such terminology, or indeed to defy all reason just for fun. What is "unified" about the Cardassian Union? Who are the "allies" in the Ferengi Alliance? We have yet to hear of an Empire that would actually have a sovereign of any sort in command - has the word lost all of its Earth-history meaning by the time of Star Trek? Is "empire" merely another expression for "ambitious"?

We never quite learn of any planet other than Vulcan itself that would be under factual Vulcan rule, now do we? There's the monastery on P'Jem, but even that could be some sort of a religious exception, a piece of Vulcan on uncontested Ufotarian soil.

Timo Saloniemi