Poll Is Star Trek: Khan khanon?

[Steve Roby]

Gene Roddenberry (or, probably, Richard Arnold) made statements about what's canon. I don't remember anyone from Paramount or CBS making any ex cathedra statements since then. People involved with the tie-ins have made comments, but those are pretty practical statements (you can't expect TV writers to be familiar with over a thousand books and comics), and they're not CBS or Paramount. I mean, maybe Paula Block or John Van Citters has said something, but they were/are in licencing. They had no control over the TV series or movies.

 

[JD]

Except when it comes to novels, comics, video games, rpgs, tie-in materials, etc. etc. Even other Trek novel authors on this very board have stated that novels aren’t canon. So who made that decision?

I don't know if anybody specifically made that decision, it's pretty much the standard that tie-ins aren't canon. Typically the only time you have someone making a specific decision is when they decide a tie-in is canon. And even when they do, it doesn't really mean that much because even "canon" tie-ins are contradicted all the time. Just look at Star Wars, after the Disney sale made a big deal out of how everything is canon unless it specifically made to not be, and even they've had quite a few contradictions come in between different tie-ins and between the tie-ins and the Disney+ shows.

 

[Dukhat]

I don't know if anybody specifically made that decision, it's pretty much the standard that tie-ins aren't canon. Typically the only time you have someone making a specific decision is when they decide a tie-in is canon. And even when they do, it doesn't really mean that much because even "canon" tie-ins are contradicted all the time. Just look at Star Wars, after the Disney sale made a big deal out of how everything is canon unless it specifically made to not be, and even they've had quite a few contradictions come in between different tie-ins and between the tie-ins and the Disney+ shows.

Let me be clear: I personally don't give a crap about canon. I used to, but I don't anymore. Mainly because CBS/Paramount cares about it far less than I do. I'm just replying to this topic about the canonicity of the Khan audio and was curious if there was any official word on the subject.

 

[Christopher]

Gene Roddenberry (or, probably, Richard Arnold) made statements about what's canon.

At a time when he had been eased back to a ceremonial position and had no real authority over the series, which is probably why he felt the need to compensate by asserting the right to define canon. The people actually creating canon don't have to define it, because they're too busy making it.

But that was an exception that fandom misconstrued as the rule. Generally the only time anyone in authority has reason to address canonicity is in regard to secondary or peripheral productions whose status is ambiguous, such as tie-ins or works in other media, e.g. animated versions of live-action franchises, TV series set in movie universes (e.g. Netflix Marvel), or in this case, audio dramas. There's no need to define or declare the main canon as canonical, because that's just what it is by its very existence.

I mean, maybe Paula Block or John Van Citters has said something, but they were/are in licencing. They had no control over the TV series or movies.

Their job is only to make sure that tie-ins are consistent with screen canon, not the reverse.

I don't know if anybody specifically made that decision, it's pretty much the standard that tie-ins aren't canon. Typically the only time you have someone making a specific decision is when they decide a tie-in is canon. And even when they do, it doesn't really mean that much because even "canon" tie-ins are contradicted all the time.

Yes. It's more common these days for tie-ins to be nominally canon, but almost inevitably, they end up getting contradicted by new canon, or at most only approximately followed. For instance, the comics based on the Legendary Godzilla/King Kong MonsterVerse are supposedly canonical, and monsters introduced in them have shown up in the Monarch TV series, but the character of Lee Shaw in Monarch is only loosely based on a character from the first tie-in comic and the details of his biography contradict the comic.

Just look at Star Wars, after the Disney sale made a big deal out of how everything is canon unless it specifically made to not be, and even they've had quite a few contradictions come in between different tie-ins and between the tie-ins and the Disney+ shows.

It amazes me how quickly people forgot that this was also true of the pre-Disney "Expanded Universe" that began in the 1990s. Lucasfilm Licensing insisted all the books, comics, and games were canonical, but George Lucas himself was on record as disagreeing; new productions often cribbed characters, species, nomenclature, etc. from tie-ins and toys, but just as often contradicted their continuity, which required the supposedly "consistent" EU to disregard the stuff that had been contradicted while still pretending to be a consistent whole, or come up with handwaves to reconcile the contradictions.

And it wasn't the Disney sale per se that led to the replacement of the EU with a new tie-in continuity. It was the making of the sequel trilogy, which covered much of the same time frame and conceptual ground as the EU fiction but in a different way, so that it was no longer feasible to continue the EU storylines and they had to start over with a clean slate consistent with the new canon. Basically the same as how the post-Star Trek Nemesis novel continuity was able to keep going until Picard canonically established a contradictory version of post-NEM events.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I assume the people who care about and decide what's "canon" operate at the production level. And they probably care less than we do.

 

[Christopher]

I assume the people who care about and decide what's "canon" operate at the production level. And they probably care less than we do.

In the sense that "canon" is just a term we use to describe what the makers of the shows create. They don't have to care about what to call it; they just care about making it. They don't stop to think "Is this canon?" as they create canon, any more than I think "Am I walking?" when I go for a walk.

 

[Steve Roby]

I assume the people who care about and decide what's "canon" operate at the production level. And they probably care less than we do.

I'm not sure that there is such a thing as the people who decide what's canon. Not for most shows, anyway.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'm not sure that there is such a thing as the people who decide what's canon, with rare exceptions like J. Michael Straczynski, who ended up contradicting his own canon stance almost instantly.

In the sense that they are writing the show and can decide to ignore stuff or add stuff.

 

[Steve Roby]

I thought someone might respond while I was editing.

 

[Christopher]

It's always the prerogative of writers to rewrite their own canon. Creativity itself is a process of repeated revision, of starting out with rough ideas and refining or replacing them along the way, and in an ongoing series that process doesn't just stop after the first installment is released. You can try to make the changes in a way that's at least roughly consistent with what came before, but sometimes that proves unfeasible.

 

[Therin of Andor]

At a time when he had been eased back to a ceremonial position and had no real authority over the series, which is probably why he felt the need to compensate by asserting the right to define canon. The people actually creating canon don't have to define it, because they're too busy making it.

Indeed. When Richard Arnold was an annual guest at Brisbane, Australia, ConQuest conventions, he was particularly vocal about "What Is Canon?", and then he did likewise in a regular column in the Official Fan Club publication. Since it was part of his job to read all of the tie-ins and approve them for the "Star Trek Office" (ie. GR), he was well ahead of the screenwriters, who were always so busy writing TNG episodes that they had no time to be reading Trek novels and comics.

RA told several stories about why GR became so protective over the tie-ins. Diane Duane had been invited to a big convention and a flier arrived in Gene's office promoting Diane as "the creator of the Rihannsu". Not Diane's fault, this would have been the fan-run committee calling her that, but GR was (supposedly) livid. RA's big complaint was that, onscreen, the Romulans called always themselves Romulans.

Another incident was just after FASA's TNG "Officer's Manual". IIRC, the "Season One Sourcebook" then went to print completely circumventing RA, and that reference book made many (incorrect) assumptions based on Season One of TNG. RA really stepped up surveillance and FASA's license was not renewed.

The first novel to carry the famous disclaimer (about varying from GR's stance on the Star Trek universe) was because there was no time to make all of RA's recommended edits and still make deadlines, but Pocket Books took that disclaimer tactic as a way to get several more books through the approval process faster, but that had not been RA's intention.

 

[Christopher]

RA's big complaint was that, onscreen, the Romulans called always themselves Romulans.

Well, that's a nonsensical objection, given that they were always shown speaking English, or having their speech universal-translated into English. If, say, a Japanese person were speaking English, they would refer to their people as "Japanese" instead of "Nihonjin," because that's the English translation of Nihonjin. Ditto if a Japanese movie were subtitled or dubbed into English. By the same token, a Rihannsu speaking English, or a translator interpreting their speech into English, would use the English term "Romulan" no matter what their name for themselves was. (At least, that was a logical interpretation until Enterprise annoyingly established onscreen that "Romulan" was their name for themselves.)

Another incident was just after FASA's TNG "Officer's Manual". IIRC, the "Season One Sourcebook" then went to print completely circumventing RA, and that reference book made many (incorrect) assumptions based on Season One of TNG. RA really stepped up surveillance and FASA's license was not renewed.

Granted, that book was a mess and definitely needed more oversight. (For instance, it mistakenly claimed that Betazoids were native to the planet Haven.) But that could've been done without overreacting.

 

[Extrocomp]

Actually, it was the Officer's Manual that said Betazoids were from Haven. The First Year Sourcebook corrected that mistake. It still had some odd things like claiming that Picard was born in Paris and that Tasha Yar is from Hokma V.

 

[Christopher]

Actually, it was the Officer's Manual that said Betazoids were from Haven. The First Year Sourcebook corrected that mistake. It still had some odd things like claiming that Picard was born in Paris and that Tasha Yar is from Hokma V.

Their birthplaces weren't established until later seasons anyway, so those weren't mistakes at the time, just speculations.

 

[David cgc]

(At least, that was a logical interpretation until Enterprise annoyingly established onscreen that "Romulan" was their name for themselves.)

Though, inexplicably, Hoshi called them "Romalin" after just listening to a "Romalin" ship verbally identify themselves, before T'Pol corrected her pronunciation of the name Hoshi had heard and immediately repeated. I'm sure there's a way to make that make some kind of sense (some kind of bizarre linguistic reverse-imperialism where the Romulans had already familiarized themselves with Earth culture and decided on an appropriate mythical analogue, but they had a heavy accent, and T'Pol somehow knew or understood that the Romulans had picked this name or would do something like this when meeting a new species and deduced the human word they were trying to use), but it's either "Hoshi is bad at her job" or "'Rihannsu' with extra steps."

 

[Christopher]

Though, inexplicably, Hoshi called them "Romalin" after just listening to a "Romalin" ship verbally identify themselves, before T'Pol corrected her pronunciation of the name Hoshi had heard and immediately repeated. I'm sure there's a way to make that make some kind of sense (some kind of bizarre linguistic reverse-imperialism where the Romulans had already familiarized themselves with Earth culture and decided on an appropriate mythical analogue, but they had a heavy accent, and T'Pol somehow knew or understood that the Romulans had picked this name or would do something like this when meeting a new species and deduced the human word they were trying to use), but it's either "Hoshi is bad at her job" or "'Rihannsu' with extra steps."

Since Mike Martin had revived the name Rihannsu in his Romulan War novels, I tried to reconcile it in Rise of the Federation: Uncertain Logic by saying that the Rihannsu disguised themselves from the Vulcans by adopting the name "Rom’ielln" during their 100-year war with the Vulcans (as referenced by Q in VGR: "Death Wish").

Still, it's annoying. Since "Balance of Terror" established the twin planets Romulus and Remus, Paul Schneider's obvious intent (which Diane Duane followed) was that those were names humans assigned to those planets based on Roman mythology -- since, after all, if the whole war was fought with neither side ever seeing the other and presumably having little communication, the Earth forces probably wouldn't have even known what their enemies called themselves. Not to mention that people at war with other nations rarely go out of their way to respect their enemies' names for themselves. In WWII movies, the American or British characters didn't go around calling their enemies Deutsche and Nihonjin. They called them by English names, or derogatory nicknames.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Paul Schneider's obvious intent

Is it? We had "Centurion" as a rank "Praetor" as a title and "Decius" as a name. All used in the confines of the BOP. He was leaning heavily into the Space Rome thing and probably didn't give a damn about its "accuracy" or the conniptions it might cause in folks decades down the line. It a deliberate attempt to invoke a certain feeling from the audience about who the Romulans are. It's code.

 

[Christopher]

Is it? We had "Centurion" as a rank "Praetor" as a title and "Decius" as a name.

So? We also saw them speaking English to each other, so we can't take their onscreen language use literally. Come on, it's just common sense. Humans name astronomical bodies after things from human mythology. And people in real life usually use their own names for foreign countries/cultures rather than the indigenous names.

I mean, we've seen this acknowledged by Trek creators outside of canon. Diane Duane presumed that "Romulan" was the human name for the Rihannsu. Marc Okrand decided that "Klingon" was an anglicization of tlhIngan. I don't recall anyone ever protesting those choices, because the concept of other cultures having different names for themselves is just common sense. It helps make the universe more plausible, and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to argue against that.

 

[FredH]

So? We also saw them speaking English to each other, so we can't take their onscreen language use literally. Come on, it's just common sense. Humans name astronomical bodies after things from human mythology. And people in real life usually use their own names for foreign countries/cultures rather than the indigenous names.

I mean, we've seen this acknowledged by Trek creators outside of canon. Diane Duane presumed that "Romulan" was the human name for the Rihannsu. Marc Okrand decided that "Klingon" was an anglicization of tlhIngan. I don't recall anyone ever protesting those choices, because the concept of other cultures having different names for themselves is just common sense. It helps make the universe more plausible, and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to argue against that.

I never quite understood how tlhIngan was supposed to have become anglicized as “Klingon” instead of “Tlingon” (or “Tuhlingon”).

 

[cooleddie74]

It's a good enough audio drama that, at least for now, I consider it my head canon. Actual canon? I don't think Paramount and CBS do, but then I'm pretty sure they don't consider the "Unification" short film from a year and a half ago to be hard canon neither, but I hold it in my head as being what happened to Kirk's body and Spock Prime.