Big Daddy
Canon: How many times is enough?
- Thread starter Tallguy
- Start date
Big Daddy
You could argue the LARGER canon because it exists (for better or worse) and for the same reasons. Do you see where consistency throughout the franchise is, also, in a manner of speaking, internal (to the whole fictional "world"). Again, the extreme example: if each show was internally consistent, but so totally different as to not have any connection/relevance to each other, how would you reason calling it Star Trek? I guess what I mean is, for these kinds of stories, a shared reality is part of the story. If that shared reality is inconsistent, then it's not really shared, and then the stories become different things.
I could dig if each Stark Trek focusing on following a certain species in this shared world, at different points in time in history. Or even something like, the same crew throught different "alternate" universes (like a whole Mirror Universe series, but even that is consistent on a lot of points). If on the other hand, as with the Trek franchise, most stories are meant to take place in the same reality, in the same shared history, then it'd be jarring.
I guess that's the real point: Canon (outside the story) is not important on the whole for story telling, unless you're telling stories that are meant to be connected (share reality/history/laws of physics). Star Trek obviously is. So canon is important. To what degree is up to each individual (writers or audience).
A time traveling Q.
Canon, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing, unless you enjoy internet arguments.
It is from a fandom standpoint, in the sense that references to OTHER stories in a loose continuity can add value to audience members who are fans of those other stories. So a new science fiction novel that references, say, Rendezvous with Rama as if it's part of its internal continuity would be a real treat for fans of the Rama novels, but that doesn't mean it should work extra hard not to fit into Rendezvous with Rama's fictional universe.
Because the title sequence at the beginning of each TV episode says "Star Trek" right there on the screen. Duh!
How about a not-so-extreme example? Marvel Comics Universe -- both the movies and the comics -- are FAMOUS for having inverse continuity, alternate continuity, soft and hard reboots, etc. Story arcs are trusted to be internally consistent, but retcons are plentiful it's not uncommon for stories that were stupid or confusing to just be completely forgotten like they never even existed (e.g. the Clone Saga that happened with Spiderman).
The "Robotech" anime series has a continuity so shot full of holes it's amazing anyone is able to make sense of it at all. This is mainly because the series is actually spliced together from five different anime franchises that have NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER and aren't even slightly related, but dialog and clever editing by the American studio that (kind of legally) stole it makes it seem like they do.
OTOH, the original Macross franchise is famous for producing animated films that basically re-tell the story of the TV series they're based on, with the same actors, the same events, the same locations (for the most part) but totally changing the sequence of events, omitting some and adding others. And then there's the fact that the original property produced two completely different branches of spinfoff timelines that directly contradict each other, with no explanation whatsoever.
Star Trek is unique among scifi properties for the way its fans expect it to have super tight continuity across all of its many properties. No other scifi property pays that much attention to it (with the possible exception of Star Wars now), and most of their fans are USED TO IT.
And Star Trek stories, for the most part, are not.
Star wars had and has a much tighter continuity then Trek. C-Canon(Continuity canon, now Legends) included everything and existed from 1991 to 2014 and had all material as part of one single continuity with the films. They've since started over so they could overwrite the other stuff, but are doing things the same way.
I haven't really read any Trek books but I've always heard they were noncanon and followed several different continuities. SW either old or new canon is the gold standard for a tight continuity across multiple media platforms and eras.
I'm going to do this in two back-to-back posts, and cover each with spoiler tags for those who'd rather not indulge in something more pedantic.
ABOUT CANON FACTS
ABOUT CANON FACTS
If we see it for ourselves, then it's probably canon. But never forget, just because some character says it, or even thinks it, or concludes it, it doesn't mean it's true. They may be lying, repeatedly exaggerating if they say it more than once, joking, or just mistaken. The only canon thing about it may be that they did indeed say it, or thought it, or deduced it (perhaps erroneously).
Now if they say something, like in TOS, no natural phenomenon travels faster than the speed of light, and by the TNG something comes and we find natural things that do, this is not a violation of canon, but a new discovery. Looks like some natural phenomena do travel faster than light. Our bad. However, if they witness something like that in ST: ENT, then that is either a violation of canon since that discovery would/should have been known by Kirk, Spock, and others, or we must accept the new fact Kirk misspoke, didn't know what he was talking about, and Spock and others just didn't bother to correct their ignorant captain (and that's not the best option), or Kirk meant, except for A, B, and C, which this is not, all other KNOWN natural phenomenon travel at < c.
Making new stories, but in the past, like ENT, is much harder since it is in the past of TOS or other series going forward, so it's far trickier, and it is or should be incumbent upon them not to violate canon, or if they must, find ways to explain why new "discoveries" were lost, kept secret, and/or weren't known later BEFORE using them.
For example, in ENT cloaking technology is abundant (suliban, Romulans), so why is Spock so surprised by it in Balance of Terror? The reason may be since Archer's time, they found a way to see through that primitive cloaking technology (using Daniel's information). They have since built that level of sensors or detection ability in their view screens, which show everything they detect, not just visible light, even showing "false" color images of what would normally be invisible to the naked eye. As such, all cloaking tech by known species since Archer's time had been useless. In the 4-year Romulan war with Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites in the near future after ENT (the war mentioned by Styles in BoT) the Romulans gave up on using it since it was quite expensive and obviously no longer working (the Feds and others could see right through it). So Styles knows from history that Romulans use painted war birds, but no mention of cloaking tech since the Romulans didn't use the useless stuff in that war, or for another 100 years). They had been working on since. But to bend visible light, and subspace signatures, and other normal operating ship/engine emissions so they'd beat current sensor technology, why, those power costs would be enormous!!! The Feds couldn't beat their own sensors, and they have excellent sensor technology, so Spock knew of no known species that could. Thus, it was a surprise the Romulans had solved some of those problems.
The point of canon lore, however, is to provide restrictions, a framework, guidelines, so we are all playing by the same rules and coloring inside the lines. Those who don't know it, or worse, don't care, color outside the lines or break the rules of the game and often leave a mess for others to deal with, not unlike the problems expeirenced in other games when some people don't play by the rules. Limits are not a bad thing - but the scaffolding upon which, and with which we build.
Canon fact should never be casually altered, particularly for a single story just to make some idea work. Or worse, to do it just to invent a problem or obstacle only to do it again to solve that problem is just bad writing and usually amounts to little more than Deus ex machina.
Now if they say something, like in TOS, no natural phenomenon travels faster than the speed of light, and by the TNG something comes and we find natural things that do, this is not a violation of canon, but a new discovery. Looks like some natural phenomena do travel faster than light. Our bad. However, if they witness something like that in ST: ENT, then that is either a violation of canon since that discovery would/should have been known by Kirk, Spock, and others, or we must accept the new fact Kirk misspoke, didn't know what he was talking about, and Spock and others just didn't bother to correct their ignorant captain (and that's not the best option), or Kirk meant, except for A, B, and C, which this is not, all other KNOWN natural phenomenon travel at < c.
Making new stories, but in the past, like ENT, is much harder since it is in the past of TOS or other series going forward, so it's far trickier, and it is or should be incumbent upon them not to violate canon, or if they must, find ways to explain why new "discoveries" were lost, kept secret, and/or weren't known later BEFORE using them.
For example, in ENT cloaking technology is abundant (suliban, Romulans), so why is Spock so surprised by it in Balance of Terror? The reason may be since Archer's time, they found a way to see through that primitive cloaking technology (using Daniel's information). They have since built that level of sensors or detection ability in their view screens, which show everything they detect, not just visible light, even showing "false" color images of what would normally be invisible to the naked eye. As such, all cloaking tech by known species since Archer's time had been useless. In the 4-year Romulan war with Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites in the near future after ENT (the war mentioned by Styles in BoT) the Romulans gave up on using it since it was quite expensive and obviously no longer working (the Feds and others could see right through it). So Styles knows from history that Romulans use painted war birds, but no mention of cloaking tech since the Romulans didn't use the useless stuff in that war, or for another 100 years). They had been working on since. But to bend visible light, and subspace signatures, and other normal operating ship/engine emissions so they'd beat current sensor technology, why, those power costs would be enormous!!! The Feds couldn't beat their own sensors, and they have excellent sensor technology, so Spock knew of no known species that could. Thus, it was a surprise the Romulans had solved some of those problems.
The point of canon lore, however, is to provide restrictions, a framework, guidelines, so we are all playing by the same rules and coloring inside the lines. Those who don't know it, or worse, don't care, color outside the lines or break the rules of the game and often leave a mess for others to deal with, not unlike the problems expeirenced in other games when some people don't play by the rules. Limits are not a bad thing - but the scaffolding upon which, and with which we build.
Canon fact should never be casually altered, particularly for a single story just to make some idea work. Or worse, to do it just to invent a problem or obstacle only to do it again to solve that problem is just bad writing and usually amounts to little more than Deus ex machina.
Specific Examples And Commentary.
So Vulcan has no moon. Thus, when they stuck some in for visual effects in TMP, they violated canon (and took those out of later cuts of TMP). This is not likely a joke or a mistake on Spock's part. That Vulcan was conquered, however, could easily have been a mistake or a joke on McCoy's part, so unless you hear it at least once more and possibly several more times, it's probably not true and not canon, apart from being true McCoy said that.
Money in Kirk's time means credits. When they say they don't use money, they just mean they don't carry around physical bills and coins anymore, ever, and may even be using biometric identification or an implanted micro credit chip and you just run your hand over a scanner. Later, even gold pressed latinum isn't something you carry around like coins or bills, but more like today if one carried around gold bars or jewels (we could, but for smaller transactions, it's not worth the effort of making "change.") And when Picard says they've gone beyond the need for money, he probably means society is socialistic enough that minimal needs are met for free (clothing, food, shelter, medicine, basic education). But if you want more than gruel, or more than the basics, you're probably going to have to work for it.
Kirk was obviously wrong about woman not being allowed to command starships, and he may have meant no woman had yet achieved that goal (it's not like there are hundreds and hundreds of starships (only 12 in the fleet like her, at that time, so 13) and only one man (or woman, let's assume) in a million can command a starship. The fact no women had yet may have been what he meant. There may have even been a glass ceiling, not official, but making it harder and yet to be broken, but not impossible, and later, it obviously had been. Thus, unless it was said more than once and whole stories were built around it, it's more likely a mistake, only partially true, or requires qualifiers to explain the whole picture, and not a canon fact that is true (just that Kirk said it).
Romulans had warp drive in ENT, but maybe they were using FTL carriers and dropping off smaller, STL craft in Balance of Terror, keeping the valuable ship on the other side of the neutral zone and only risking the STL ships. Or maybe they just have the warp engines shut off since a warp signature would bleed though the cloak and they'd light up like a beacon, revealing their location. And it takes at least 30 minutes to heat up warp engines, and too much power so they couldn't use the cloak while heating them up and they'd be exposed, so it could be explained in a number of ways. Mostly ENT probably violated canon, but there are other possibilities.
They never saw the Romulans in ENT (apart from the top guy in the vulcan high command who would wish to keep that secret). They used remote drones. The audience saw them, but that's not the same as saying Archer and his crew saw them.
I'll also say, since it was quite important elsewhere, the fact T'Pol knew they were called Romulans doesn't mean she knew what they looked like, or that they were an offsoot of the Vulcan people. They used the Vulcan database a lot in ENT, and that was comprised of hearsay, rumors, Vulcan discoveries, and traded information from other species. The database has an entry for Romulans, including how most people on this side of the tacks pronounce the name of that race, and what they are like (secretive, territorial, aggressive). When Hoshi hears them call themselves Rumalin (in their native language, which was not Vulcan or an old dialect of Vulcan since the Universal Translator had ZERO clue about it and Hoshi didn't know it AT ALL, despite both knowing Vulcan quite well), so there is no reason to think T'Pol would recognize them as Vulcan cousins. Thus, who they are remains a mystery until Kirk's time. Even the 4-year war, though they had the tech, they didn't share visual information, and if beaten, blew up their ships rather than surrender or be captured, so it's not inconsistent nobody on this side knew what they looked like. And it's likely 2,000 years ago when they departed Vulcan, and before Vulcan bombed themselves back into the Stone Age for time during the time of Surak, those boys didn't call themselves Romulans then. Instead they were called Vulcans, and may have been part of a subspecies of them, but still Vulcans. After they left and found new home worlds, they named those, changed their language, distanced themselves for those moldy old Vulcans and the teachings of Surak which they despised and rejected and hated so much they felt the had to leave the whole planet. So new name, new language, and nothing in the surviving Vulcan record that would categorically identify them as Vulcan cousins.
Most apparent discrepancies are for a one-time story, and it's often easy to think of a way around them. But if they are used or mentioned again, it's much harder. Trek is not without flaw.
Of course, if one really must, theoretically there are in infinite number of parallel or mirror universes, and each story might be in its own universe. This is especially good for people who don't give a hang about canon, which is an acceptable choice for some. It's also equally acceptable to discount a whole episode like that, too.
For all of Trek, I generally like to think it's O.K. to outright ignore up to 5% of the episodes of any given series to judge the series' quality as a whole. That's still 95% good or great. If you have to disavow more than 5%, then it's just probably a bad or lesser series. Thankfully, I find EVERY series of Trek to be well above average TV using those guidelines, and I like them all. Some movies, not so much, but those are stand alone and are judged that way, too.
Also, for any Trek, when working with the actual numbers, rather than point out or count each mistake as a glaring inconsistency that is impossible to reconcile, I'd just make whatever adjustments are necessary to make it work. For example, while it's dramatic and impressive the Enterprise is sent 1000 light years away in That Which Survives, the fact it got back under its own steam in 12 hours is ridiculous (it should have taken more than a year, perhaps close to 2). You can also make some serious contortions about the existence of natural subspace corridors (which they never mention) or just assume instead of 990.7 light years, it was 9.907 or whatever it takes to make it work. These errors are less obvious and unless you go out of your way to make those calculations, you probably won't see them, and thus any discomfort you have about those kinds of errors is largely self-inflicted.
Finally, the way the show "looks" might best not be thought of as canon but a product of the times and the budget when the show was made. So a remake can look quite different without that necessarily being a change of canon fact. The only exceptions there would be if the way they looked somehow was discussed and used as a plot point in the story. It would be too hard to accept, for example, communicators built into the uniforms of a pre TOS Federation crew, or are implants, since the ability to have them taken away was a major factor in many stories.
One rule or approach does not fit all, though, and each instance or apparent discrepancy must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Most can be, if you try.
Money in Kirk's time means credits. When they say they don't use money, they just mean they don't carry around physical bills and coins anymore, ever, and may even be using biometric identification or an implanted micro credit chip and you just run your hand over a scanner. Later, even gold pressed latinum isn't something you carry around like coins or bills, but more like today if one carried around gold bars or jewels (we could, but for smaller transactions, it's not worth the effort of making "change.") And when Picard says they've gone beyond the need for money, he probably means society is socialistic enough that minimal needs are met for free (clothing, food, shelter, medicine, basic education). But if you want more than gruel, or more than the basics, you're probably going to have to work for it.
Kirk was obviously wrong about woman not being allowed to command starships, and he may have meant no woman had yet achieved that goal (it's not like there are hundreds and hundreds of starships (only 12 in the fleet like her, at that time, so 13) and only one man (or woman, let's assume) in a million can command a starship. The fact no women had yet may have been what he meant. There may have even been a glass ceiling, not official, but making it harder and yet to be broken, but not impossible, and later, it obviously had been. Thus, unless it was said more than once and whole stories were built around it, it's more likely a mistake, only partially true, or requires qualifiers to explain the whole picture, and not a canon fact that is true (just that Kirk said it).
Romulans had warp drive in ENT, but maybe they were using FTL carriers and dropping off smaller, STL craft in Balance of Terror, keeping the valuable ship on the other side of the neutral zone and only risking the STL ships. Or maybe they just have the warp engines shut off since a warp signature would bleed though the cloak and they'd light up like a beacon, revealing their location. And it takes at least 30 minutes to heat up warp engines, and too much power so they couldn't use the cloak while heating them up and they'd be exposed, so it could be explained in a number of ways. Mostly ENT probably violated canon, but there are other possibilities.
They never saw the Romulans in ENT (apart from the top guy in the vulcan high command who would wish to keep that secret). They used remote drones. The audience saw them, but that's not the same as saying Archer and his crew saw them.
I'll also say, since it was quite important elsewhere, the fact T'Pol knew they were called Romulans doesn't mean she knew what they looked like, or that they were an offsoot of the Vulcan people. They used the Vulcan database a lot in ENT, and that was comprised of hearsay, rumors, Vulcan discoveries, and traded information from other species. The database has an entry for Romulans, including how most people on this side of the tacks pronounce the name of that race, and what they are like (secretive, territorial, aggressive). When Hoshi hears them call themselves Rumalin (in their native language, which was not Vulcan or an old dialect of Vulcan since the Universal Translator had ZERO clue about it and Hoshi didn't know it AT ALL, despite both knowing Vulcan quite well), so there is no reason to think T'Pol would recognize them as Vulcan cousins. Thus, who they are remains a mystery until Kirk's time. Even the 4-year war, though they had the tech, they didn't share visual information, and if beaten, blew up their ships rather than surrender or be captured, so it's not inconsistent nobody on this side knew what they looked like. And it's likely 2,000 years ago when they departed Vulcan, and before Vulcan bombed themselves back into the Stone Age for time during the time of Surak, those boys didn't call themselves Romulans then. Instead they were called Vulcans, and may have been part of a subspecies of them, but still Vulcans. After they left and found new home worlds, they named those, changed their language, distanced themselves for those moldy old Vulcans and the teachings of Surak which they despised and rejected and hated so much they felt the had to leave the whole planet. So new name, new language, and nothing in the surviving Vulcan record that would categorically identify them as Vulcan cousins.
Most apparent discrepancies are for a one-time story, and it's often easy to think of a way around them. But if they are used or mentioned again, it's much harder. Trek is not without flaw.
Of course, if one really must, theoretically there are in infinite number of parallel or mirror universes, and each story might be in its own universe. This is especially good for people who don't give a hang about canon, which is an acceptable choice for some. It's also equally acceptable to discount a whole episode like that, too.
For all of Trek, I generally like to think it's O.K. to outright ignore up to 5% of the episodes of any given series to judge the series' quality as a whole. That's still 95% good or great. If you have to disavow more than 5%, then it's just probably a bad or lesser series. Thankfully, I find EVERY series of Trek to be well above average TV using those guidelines, and I like them all. Some movies, not so much, but those are stand alone and are judged that way, too.
Also, for any Trek, when working with the actual numbers, rather than point out or count each mistake as a glaring inconsistency that is impossible to reconcile, I'd just make whatever adjustments are necessary to make it work. For example, while it's dramatic and impressive the Enterprise is sent 1000 light years away in That Which Survives, the fact it got back under its own steam in 12 hours is ridiculous (it should have taken more than a year, perhaps close to 2). You can also make some serious contortions about the existence of natural subspace corridors (which they never mention) or just assume instead of 990.7 light years, it was 9.907 or whatever it takes to make it work. These errors are less obvious and unless you go out of your way to make those calculations, you probably won't see them, and thus any discomfort you have about those kinds of errors is largely self-inflicted.
Finally, the way the show "looks" might best not be thought of as canon but a product of the times and the budget when the show was made. So a remake can look quite different without that necessarily being a change of canon fact. The only exceptions there would be if the way they looked somehow was discussed and used as a plot point in the story. It would be too hard to accept, for example, communicators built into the uniforms of a pre TOS Federation crew, or are implants, since the ability to have them taken away was a major factor in many stories.
One rule or approach does not fit all, though, and each instance or apparent discrepancy must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Most can be, if you try.
C
C57D
Guest
Yeaaahh!! And can we please have the original Spaceflight Chronology and (pretty please) the Final Reflection's Klingons?So is it "not a bad way" or a "good way" to look at it?
I'm so confused now
And, yes, I think TOS is its own thing, which also allows Franz Joseph's designs back in to canon!
No and yes.
C
C57D
Guest
Okay. I can cope with sacrificing SFC to get John M Ford's fantastic Klingons!!
l
Yes and Yes, relegate Enterprise to a alternate universe created by the events of First Contact. Spaceflight Chron is a superior history (imho), I like how it places Humans and Vulcan on more of a equal footing right from the start.
The Vulcan homeworld being a moon orbiting the large planet seen in the original version of TMP fixes that quite nicely. Vulcan has no moon.
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I'd expect that Discovery should stick with its own internal consistency as much as possible. Of course, retcons can happen all the time; but it shouldn't have to worry about whats been established by TOS-ENT in any significant way.
Like all the stuff about warp factors, slipstream, size of the alpha quadrant etc; - toss it all and start fresh.
Like all the stuff about warp factors, slipstream, size of the alpha quadrant etc; - toss it all and start fresh.
Well, EVERYTHING except Enterprise puts humans and Vulcans on equal footing. (Hmmm. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/47324/why-we-capitalize-all-race-names-but-our-own)
I don't like the SFC much but I do like many works that follow it (Strangers from the Sky).
Yes, it's wonderfully pedantic and very Vulcan that T'khut (I am not looking up the spelling) is not properly a moon. But then neither is Luna.
Having many Trek "moons" be substantially larger than Luna and orbiting a gas giant would explain how a moon would hold an atmosphere, their 1 G or thereabouts gravity, and other things, but they are still called moons. And having multiple habitable moons around the same gas giant might sometimes explain why some cultures that are barely space-capable are visiting their "next door" neighbors. In the remastered TOS episodes, Starbase 11 appears to be on such a moon orbiting a gas giant (The Menagerie, Part 1 and Court Martial).
However, the planet Vulcan is always called a planet and never a moon, and that's a fairly important distinction to astronomers and astrophysicists. In TMP, they showed two orbs in the sky, IIRC, but they took those out in the director's version, though they claim it was not to comply with the "no moon" dialogue from The Man Trap but for other reasons.
Some now say Vulcan has a sister planet (but from TMP, if it has any validity, it would have to have two or more sister planets, and the stability of such a system is in doubt when they are that close together (unlike earth's sister, Venus, which is so far away it looks like a bright star, or Mars, not a sister but also looks like a star). But a binary planet (two planets orbiting one another and close enough to see each other as discs in the sky) may be possible and stable (so the theatrical release of TMP is still a problem, but the director's cut is fine). But hardly anyone official wants to give definitive answers to these sorts of things.
No one ever heard of Sybok until STV, maybe she went Sybok on their Vulcan asses and was cast into outer darkness. But I agree, if Spock did have a half human sister why does he act as the only human he knows well is his mother.
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If Burnham is a student at the VSA, Starfleet has no jurisdiction over their recruitment policies.
Not Starfleet but the Federation might have some. If they aren't going to let the Bajorans have a caste system then I'm I doubt they would allow Vulcan to discriminate on species.
Jason
On the other hand, that Bajoran issue came up over a century later. You can make a case that the Federation was less centralized and hands-on back in DISCOVERY's era. The Federation of Kirk's time often seemed more like a loose alliance of planets than some big overarching government with explicit membership requirements.
Compare today's global politics to those of one hundred years ago. A century ago, there was no such thing as the United Nations, NATO, etc. The Russian monarchy had just been overturned, the Emperor ruled Japan, women did not have the vote in the USA, etc.
So DISCOVERY and DS9 could be coming from very different eras.
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