Could we adopt a Star Wars style of canon?

[Therin of Andor]

Wait a minute-fans would needle Roddenberry about elements of the licensed material in person? Wow. Did you ever get to see this? How did Roddenberry react?

How does any guest react at a convention?

Answer: it varies.

Every convention experience is different, and every guest could be having a good or bad day, but inevitably at any Star Trek convention, people will tend to ask certain annoying/stupid questions over and over again. This can either make the guest laugh it off, or get a bit testy, depending on any number of factors.

I never saw GR at a convention, but I've heard plenty of tales - and sure, every now and then someone would ask him something a bit ridiculous, such as why Kirk didn't take a particular action in one of the movies, using tech which had only ever appeared in a Star Trek licensed tie-in book. Or why the movies ignored Konom, the Klingon turncoat from the comics. Or why Caithlin Dar in ST V wasn't called a Rihannsu. Etc.

Sometimes GR laughed. Sometimes he sighed. Sometimes he tried to explain patiently that licensed tie-ins, even though Paramount approved, shouldn't be informing the series. And sometimes he got angry back in the office and wrote a few reprimanding memos.

Richard Arnold began explaining to fans about "canon", so that people might understand why not to ask dumb questions, I guess, and away went the whole mess from there. And it didn't stop dumb questions being asked.

The only time I recall a story where GR was getting very testy while on stage was replying to the "Bring Back Bev" campaigners at a convention that "if he listened to the fans then Star Trek would be shit!"

 

[Gotham Central]

Here's the thing, I do think that its important to keep some kind of relative literary canon in place. One of the things that I have really enjoyed about recent trek literature is that it has somewhat expanded the Trek universe. New stories seem to feed off of elements written in earlier stories. This was never the case in earlier trek novels. For instance, New Frontier characters pop up in other novelizations. I'd also say that the official "relaunches" have helped to create a more seamless trek literary universe.

That all said, it really is too bad that the trek novels were not official. Much of the pre-TOS history depicted in the novels was far more interesting (and seemed to fit on screen facts better) that what ultiately was filmed later. For instance, the novel "Federation" has a really good history of WWIII, Cochrane and the emergence of warp flight. (and it made a hell of a lot more sense than Cochrane being a drunk who cobbled together a warp engine in an abandoned missile silo after the breakdown of civilization.

 

[Therin of Andor]

This was never the case in earlier trek novels. For instance, New Frontier characters pop up in other novelizations. I'd also say that the official "relaunches" have helped to create a more seamless trek literary universe.

Huh? The Bantam novels did sometimes refer to each other, and even shared characters between authors. Dr Ruth Rigel for example.

The early Pocket novels also shared characters (eg Security Chief Ingrit Thompson, Naraht the Horta, Vice-Admiral Lori Ciana), made cross references to each other, the "ST Tech Manual", and FASA RPG designs, and the DC Comics.

That all said, it really is too bad that the trek novels were not official.

They are all official, just not deemed canonical. And are only read by less than 5% of the total viewing audience.