Poll Is Star Trek: Khan khanon?

[James Swallow]

Which leads me to the next question: do the show's producers have any kind of plan in mind for following up with similar productions if this does well? Or is this a one-off because it was intended once to be a TV series, and they think that will generate audience interest in the Khan story specifically?

I, for one, am hoping for the former; I've been pushing the idea of full-cast Star Trek audio dramas to anyone who will listen for many years!

 

[Christopher]

I, for one, am hoping for the former; I've been pushing the idea of full-cast Star Trek audio dramas to anyone who will listen for many years!

I'd love that, not just as a listener but as a writer, since I have audio drama experience and would be interested if they were hiring.

 

[ClayinCA]

I, for one, am hoping for the former; I've been pushing the idea of full-cast Star Trek audio dramas to anyone who will listen for many years!

I would expect you to be among the first in line to write for any such project, given your track record!

 

[David cgc]

Okay, granted, looking into it now, I see it is from CBS Studios' podcast division and Secret Hideout. Still, it's a side production in a different medium than usual. (The Lower Decks analogy doesn't work because that's a television series on the same streaming service as the live action shows.) And its writers are Kirsten Beyer, who's now a Trek producer but started out as a tie-in novelist and co-writes or oversees the Secret Hideout tie-ins, and David Mack, who's usually a tie-in author (although I know he's trying to break into film/TV). So it seems kind of borderline to me.

Plus, we've already had a full-cast audio play that was written by Beyer, and there was no ambiguity on that.

I don't agree that something can't be a tie-in if it's from the owners of the original work. I mean, Disney owns Marvel and publishes Star Wars comics as well as making the movies and shows, but the comics are still considered tie-ins, albeit "canonical" ones (the kind of "canon" that gets contradicted by new screen canon as casually as non-canon tie-ins, making it a meaningless label).

I have a friend who I keep getting into irreconcilable debates with on two subjects that have been muddled to the point of meaninglessness- "practical effects" versus "CGI," and what counts as canon, especially in Star Wars. The worst was when I casually mentioned a funny post I saw, and mentioned as stage-setting that it was and always had been public knowledge that Princess Leia was adopted. "No, it's not," he said. I pointed out the scene of her cousin being shitty to her in Obi-Wan Kenobi ("Well, of course the family knows, but doesn't mean it's public,") and then I referenced her bio on the Star Wars website and numerous Disney and EU-era stories, and then he said they not only didn't, but couldn't count, because of the comic that showed the Emperor found and destroyed Yoda's lightsaber, while Luke had it in The Mandalorian, showing that tie-ins were not just non-canon, but somehow anti-canon, always wrong. He said that if it had been public knowledge Leia was adopted, it was absolutely certain that a loyalist senator would've made a cutting remark about Bail Organa's virility during an open debate in the Imperial Senate.

There has, to this day, never been a scene in a Star Wars production of Bail Organa having a debate in the Imperial Senate, with or without any below-the-belt comments.

This guy decided that tie-ins are less canon than scenes he made up from shows and movies that don't exist. That's what canon debates do to people. That's what a loose hand on continuity gets you. I long for the strict, iron fist in the iron glove canon of a video-game franchise's tie-ins.

Although I still think it's unlikely that anything relating to Ceti Alpha V will ever come up again in Trek canon anyway, so it's probably an academic question.

I think it's more pertinent to tie-ins. As you said before, the canon is always free to disagree with itself, if someone doing a show wants to do something that contradicts the Khan audio play, they'll do it regardless of whether or not its canon. What it'll affect is if someone doing a novel, comic, or RPG supplement wants to drop in a reference to the version of events in To Reign in Hell or Ruling in Hell that's not consistent with Khan (at least, without an attempt to reconcile it with Khan). That's where it being canon comes in, if it's no longer the tie-in authors' prerogative to look at it and go, "No, I'd rather not reference this."

 

[Markonian]

It's a mainline production, of course it's canon.

 

[Christopher]

Plus, we've already had a full-cast audio play that was written by Beyer, and there was no ambiguity on that.

No ambiguity, because it was from Simon & Schuster Audio and was thus unambiguously a licensed tie-in. Kirsten and Mike Johnson have co-written most of the Secret Hideout tie-ins in the comics, and they did the same for the audio.

This guy decided that tie-ins are less canon than scenes he made up from shows and movies that don't exist. That's what canon debates do to people. That's what a loose hand on continuity gets you. I long for the strict, iron fist in the iron glove canon of a video-game franchise's tie-ins.

The problem isn't the makers having a loose hand on continuity, the problem is the audience being too fixated on continuity as the overriding priority of fiction. When I grew up, Trek books were rarely consistent with each other and frequently weren't even consistent with the show, but I accepted that as normal. I didn't need some official authority to tell me what counted as "real" in-universe, because I enjoyed exercising the freedom to decide for myself. And if I chose not to count a tie-in as part of my personal continuity, I was still able to enjoy it as an alternative possibility, because it's all equally imaginary anyway.

Continuity is not mandatory in fiction. It's one ingredient in the mix, and different creative works use it to a greater or lesser degree. It's a choice. I love a series with a strong continuity -- I strive to maintain strong continuity in my own fictional universes -- but I don't consider it a universal requirement, any more than I require that every story be a comedy or that every story conform to the Hero's Journey formula. They're all just options, and it's good that different works use them in different proportions, because it would be boring if everything was done the same way.

I think it's more pertinent to tie-ins. As you said before, the canon is always free to disagree with itself, if someone doing a show wants to do something that contradicts the Khan audio play, they'll do it regardless of whether or not its canon. What it'll affect is if someone doing a novel, comic, or RPG supplement wants to drop in a reference to the version of events in To Reign in Hell or Ruling in Hell that's not consistent with Khan (at least, without an attempt to reconcile it with Khan). That's where it being canon comes in, if it's no longer the tie-in authors' prerogative to look at it and go, "No, I'd rather not reference this."

Maybe. But we won't decide that here. It depends on what Paramount's licensing people tell the tie-in creators. And until someone does a tie-in covering the subject matter, whether or not it's canon will have no bearing whatsoever on the general audience's experience of listening to the story. So I return to my initial position: Who cares, as long as you enjoy the story?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

That's where it being canon comes in, if it's no longer the tie-in authors' prerogative to look at it and go, "No, I'd rather not reference this."

Don't you mean, "no longer the tie-in authors' prerogative to contradict it?"

Let's face it, "The Man Trap" is canon, but how often do you see a tie-in that references salt vampires?