Should the novelverse create an Essential Chronology?

[Charles Phipps]

I'm referring to the old Star Wars Expanded Universe/Legends "Essential Chronology" by Kevin J. Anderson. It's a book which collects the general events of the Expanded Universe as well as a summary of the history of the Star Wars universe into a single document which allowed newcomers to the SWEU to be able jump onboard to all the major plots.

I think it would be extremely helpful to fans who want to jump onto the novels but might find their changes to the ST canon a bit impenetrable. Honestly, I'm not even sure this thing requires an actual licensing since it's more a analysis sort of thing. I'm honestly surprised such a thing hasn't been created already as you'd think there'd be plenty of cool stuff to write about Tzenkethi and other Caeliar.

What do you guys think?

 

[JoeZhang]

If it was written from a real world perspective you wouldn't need to license it - hell you could start by forking content from Wikipedia and memory beta.


However since they exist - I would pay for it.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Memory Beta is certainly helpful but putting it into a clean chronological narrative and, well, having people have the financial incentive to actually finish it and sort it all out would be good too. There might be too much material for one book, to be honest, but it would certainly help.

I'd also love to see a Guide to The Novelverse Characters.

Bacco, Akaar, and so on.

 

[F. King Daniel]

There's already one at the back of Voyages of Imagination, but it's quite outdated now.

I'd love a reference work featuring profiles of planets, ships and characters from the novelverse. Kinda like DC's old "Who's Who in Star Trek"

 

[Christopher]

If it was written from a real world perspective you wouldn't need to license it - hell you could start by forking content from Wikipedia and memory beta.

If you intended to make it available for free, perhaps, and if you gave proper attribution to the sources. Otherwise it would be plagiarism.

Maybe an index of the main novelverse material would work, but it would get a bit fuzzy around the edges, since there's not always a consensus on what older books or comics "count" toward the novel continuity. And the current TOS novels are usually standalones that aren't necessarily consistent with the novelverse. Trek continuity has never been as all-encompassing as the Star Wars EU attempted to be.

 

[JoeZhang]

If you intended to make it available for free, perhaps, and if you gave proper attribution to the sources. Otherwise it would be plagiarism.

Keep up at the back - what do you think fork it means?

And you can reuse Wikipedia content for commercial purposes with the right licenses.*


* yes I know the limitations so don't wall of text me, I'm not interested,

 

[Christopher]

Keep up at the back - what do you think fork it means?

I have no idea. I've never come across the expression before.

 

[JoeZhang]

I have no idea. I've never come across the expression before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks

 

[Idran]

And yeah, Christopher, you're right about attribution, but everything on Wikipedia as well as any Wikia is under a Creative Commons Share Alike license, which gives literally everyone the right to use any content from their sites for any purposes whatsoever, commercial or non-commercial. The only requirements are attribution and that any such works also be under a Creative Commons Share Alike license.

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Edit: Here's some more information on the different varieties of Creative Commons licenses; there is a noncommercial CC license, but it's explicitly not the one Wikipedia or Wikia uses. They want people to use their stuff openly and without restriction, even if that means selling stuff. And they want to make sure that people can use the stuff people make from their stuff openly and without restriction as well.

 

[TheAlmanac]

I'd love to have any kind of reference work along these lines--and feel like the lack of such guides is part of the reason why the novelverse's existence isn't better-known.

Any author(s) who put this sort of thing together would, of course, have to make judgement calls as to what "counted" and who to include, but determining the level of "fuzziness" is a behind-the-scenes thing that wouldn't really be visible to the reader of the finished product.

 

[John Clark]

I'd like something like this along with a character guide that Charles Phipps mentions (Probably with artistic versions of said characters from the authors description).

I don't see it happening though

 

[Plaristes]

I would love an Essential Chronology to the Novelverse!

If you intended to make it available for free, perhaps, and if you gave proper attribution to the sources. Otherwise it would be plagiarism.

I don't think this is true, Christopher. Look, for example, as Hasslein Books: http://www.hassleinbooks.com/pages/index.php. They've done detailed unauthorized chronologies of Planet of the Apes and Back to the Future, for example. They sell them for profit and have been doing so for years. Maybe if they were creating new stories they would be violating copyright, but simply summarizing stories and placing them in chronological order doesn't appear to be illegal.

 

[Idran]

I would love an Essential Chronology to the Novelverse!


I don't think this is true, Christopher. Look, for example, as Hasslein Books: http://www.hassleinbooks.com/pages/index.php. They've done detailed unauthorized chronologies of Planet of the Apes and Back to the Future, for example. They sell them for profit and have been doing so for years. Maybe if they were creating new stories they would be violating copyright, but simply summarizing stories and placing them in chronological order doesn't appear to be illegal.

Christopher was talking specifically about should such a work be derived largely from Wikipedia and Memory Beta with modifications, not what would be needed in a general sense.

 

[Charles Phipps]

From what I understand, if they wrote the "Complete History of the Novelverse" then they would be fine as there's thousands of academic works of that sort. It couldn't be official, use any art, or use any pictures, though, which would suck.

But it would still probably be pretty useful in many respects.

A Memory Beta/Wikipedia derived one would be legal with attributions as I understand it.

 

[JD]

I don't understand why anybody would buy something taken of off sites like Wikipedia or Memory Beta, it's already free on the internet, so why would I want to pay for it?
But if we were to get an official character guide or chronology for the novelverse that had content that isn't available online for free, like official images of never before seen characters, or a unique presentation I would be thrilled.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I don't understand why anybody would buy something taken of off sites like Wikipedia or Memory Beta, it's already free on the internet, so why would I want to pay for it?
But if we were to get an official character guide or chronology for the novelverse that had content that isn't available online for free, like official images of never before seen characters, or a unique presentation I would be thrilled.

I personally would prefer an original written in-universe version but, of course, the big issue is that would take a while. Either way, Memory Beta and other material requires you to know what you're looking for too. Even so, a Chronology wouldn't be able to be complete but it might be good for a highlights.

Christopher would have been my dream guy for a licensed in-universe one after the DOT tie-ins.

 

[trampledamage]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks

That's some pretty "inside baseball" info there - I'd never come across it before either.

 

[Idran]

It's a pretty common term within most branches of IT, but yeah it's not especially common outside it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think Memory Beta's as good as it's going to get. Sure, they have an odd tendency to pay attention to things that happen in ST Online, but at least you can edit.

And you can reuse Wikipedia content for commercial purposes with the right licenses.*

Then again, there's also things like this. It's inconceivable that what THEY do could ever be legal. Surely they can't possibly have a license for that?

I don't understand why anybody would buy something taken of off sites like Wikipedia or Memory Beta, it's already free on the internet, so why would I want to pay for it?

Exactly. Which makes that prior link even more pathetic, IMHO.

 

[Idran]

Then again, there's also things like this. It's inconceivable that what THEY do could ever be legal. Surely they can't possibly have a license for that?

Yes, they do; everyone does. Like I posted earlier, the CC-BY-SA license that Wikipedia uses means that literally anyone can use Wikipedia for anything they want to, for both non-commercial and commercial projects, without any expectations of royalties to or restrictions by the original creators, so long as a) they attribute properly, and b) they release the work they create under the CC-BY-SA license as well.

They legitimately don't mind at all if people do things like this, however silly they seem; if they did mind, they could've set things up under a CC-NC license instead, which does restrict commercial usage. Wikipedia and Wikia both made the explicit choice to allow anyone to create a commercialized work from their sites.