Up to Date Trek Encyclopedias?

[VulcanMindBlown]

Is there anything that can work like a Memory Alpha, with the most up to date and reliable canon? It seems that Star Trek: The Federation: The First 150 Years, made in 2012, contradicts the Star Trek: Enterprise Relaunch novels regarding the "Earth-Romulan Conflict" by Michael A. Martin.

 

[JD]

There is a new canon only 2 volume Star Trek Encyclopedia coming out on Oct. 18. If you mean something for the books, I would love that but I don't know if it would happen.

 

[Kor]

Is there anything that can work like a Memory Alpha, with the most up to date and reliable canon? It seems that Star Trek: The Federation: The First 150 Years, made in 2012, contradicts the Star Trek: Enterprise Relaunch novels regarding the "Earth-Romulan Conflict" by Michael A. Martin.

It sounds like you are looking for a source on Trek literature, which is not canonical, rather than on-screen canon Trek.

Try Memory Beta: http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Kor

 

[Idran]

Yep; the only canon is what we see on TV or in movies.

 

[Galileo7]

Yep; the only canon is what we see on TV or in movies.

Absolutely agree. Canon is the 13 movies and 7 television series, so far.
For obvious reasons both Star Trek Beyond and the Star Trek 2017 series are not included in the 2 volume Star Trek Encyclopedia coming out on Oct. 18. Although for no logical reason TAS is not included.

 

[Idran]

Absolutely agree. Canon is the 13 movies and 7 television series, so far.

Well, there's an interesting philosophical question. Is it accurate to say that Beyond and the new series are canon now, or would that not be a true statement until they actually premiere to the public? It seems to me that it would make more sense to say that they will be canon, since there aren't any in-universe facts yet definitively associated to either.

Well, no, I suppose that's not strictly true to Beyond, there's stuff we know about what happens in it from trailers and promotional material and basic induction. But considering that those are still free to be changed (if unlikely to be) up until the moment it first shows in theater, I'm honestly not sure if they really qualify as things we know to be true about the setting yet.

Plus there's the fact that there's always a chance of a not-yet-released work not actually being released. Incredibly slim for these two, but if one or the other ended up never actually coming out, then would that mean that it's no longer canon, or that it never was canon?

 

[Doom Shepherd]

It seems that Star Trek: The Federation: The First 150 Years, made in 2012, contradicts the Star Trek: Enterprise Relaunch novels regarding the "Earth-Romulan Conflict" by Michael A. Martin.

Maybe that's because they're put out by two entirely different and unrelated companies, Titan Books for the former, and Simon & Schuster for the latter, so they don't coordinate their stories?

 

[Idran]

Well, to a degree; I know that some recent books on the Pocket Books side took some references from Goodman's book. The last RotF book did, and I think I remember another doing so? So there's nothing preventing it from happening. In theory, I think Goodman could even have chosen to talk with Martin about things and kept his book lined up with the Litverse if for whatever reason he'd wanted to do that? Unless there'd be some legal thing keeping tie-in authors from two different publishing companies from discussing their respective works like that.

 

[VulcanMindBlown]

It sounds like you are looking for a source on Trek literature, which is not canonical, rather than on-screen canon Trek.

Try Memory Beta: http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Kor

Yes, I know about Memory Beta, and that is the kind of material I am looking for, but I wanted a better source of information that a wiki.

Well, there's an interesting philosophical question. Is it accurate to say that Beyond and the new series are canon now, or would that not be a true statement until they actually premiere to the public? It seems to me that it would make more sense to say that they will be canon, since there aren't any in-universe facts yet definitively associated to either.

It depends on how or what you consider canon. I was talking about the original universe, not the one that Captain Nero interfered in to make Chris Pine as Captain Kirk.

 

[Idran]

Oh no, canon isn't a personal opinion thing, it's the media that comes from the source. There's stuff like headcanon which describes what a given individual considers as "official" in terms of their own interactions with fandom from their own perspective, but canon is always the stuff that comes from the source.

(I apologize to past me for saying this, but upon reflection I think I have to concede this as consistent usage generally. )

 

[Avro Arrow]

(I apologize to past me for saying this, but upon reflection I think I have to concede this as consistent usage generally. )

But past you will never see the apology, because by the time you wrote it, you were already present you, or future you, or something.

Hmm... do you have a microwave and cell phone handy?

(Note: possible spoilers at that link...)

 

[VulcanMindBlown]

Oh no, canon isn't a personal opinion thing, it's the media that comes from the source. There's stuff like headcanon which describes what a given individual considers as "official" in terms of their own interactions with fandom from their own perspective, but canon is always the stuff that comes from the source.

(I apologize to past me for saying this, but upon reflection I think I have to concede this as consistent usage generally. )

Who determines the canon when it comes to something that is not used on a television show or a movie?

 

[Christopher]

Well, there's an interesting philosophical question. Is it accurate to say that Beyond and the new series are canon now, or would that not be a true statement until they actually premiere to the public? It seems to me that it would make more sense to say that they will be canon, since there aren't any in-universe facts yet definitively associated to either.

As Idran says, "canon" is just a shorthand way of saying "the media that comes from the source." It doesn't mean "facts" or "truth." It just means it's the stuff made up by the creators or owners of the property rather than the stuff made up by other people. And since it is all just made up, a canon can contradict its own "facts" quite a lot, with retcons or mistakes or whatever. So it's not about the "factual" nature of any single piece of information. It's just a way of categorizing where the overall story comes from.

Who determines the canon when it comes to something that is not used on a television show or a movie?

Nobody "determines" canon. It's not an official seal of approval. It's not a label that some guy at CBS or Paramount goes around stamping onto things. It's a term of criticism. It's a description, a way that people talking about a fictional series refer to the original work as a way of differentiating it from derivative works like fanfiction, tie-ins, or pastiches. Nothing needs to be declared canonical; if it comes from the creators or owners, canon is simply what it is, by definition.

It's like, say, calling something a hill vs. calling it a mountain. Calling it that doesn't make it what it is; it's just a way of describing and classifying what it intrinsically is.

 

[VulcanMindBlown]

As Idran says, "canon" is just a shorthand way of saying "the media that comes from the source." It doesn't mean "facts" or "truth." It just means it's the stuff made up by the creators or owners of the property rather than the stuff made up by other people. And since it is all just made up, a canon can contradict its own "facts" quite a lot, with retcons or mistakes or whatever. So it's not about the "factual" nature of any single piece of information. It's just a way of categorizing where the overall story comes from.

Nobody "determines" canon. It's not an official seal of approval. It's not a label that some guy at CBS or Paramount goes around stamping onto things. It's a term of criticism. It's a description, a way that people talking about a fictional series refer to the original work as a way of differentiating it from derivative works like fanfiction, tie-ins, or pastiches. Nothing needs to be declared canonical; if it comes from the creators or owners, canon is simply what it is, by definition.

It's like, say, calling something a hill vs. calling it a mountain. Calling it that doesn't make it what it is; it's just a way of describing and classifying what it is.

I remember this discussion at Shore Leave. Couldn't they benefit from a person or a group having the rights to determine how canonical something is and write a book or article on it or something by someone who is a fan and not some person at Paramount who doesn't know what he or she is talking about????

 

[Christopher]

I remember this discussion at Shore Leave. Couldn't they benefit from a person or a group having the rights to determine how canonical something is and write a book or article on it or something by someone who is a fan and not some person at Paramount who doesn't know what he or she is talking about????

It's not a matter of "rights." Canon is not something that needs to be "determined" or assigned. It's not a seal of approval or a declaration of value. It's just a way of describing the origin of a work. If I create (or own) a fictional universe, then the stories I tell in that universe are the canon, because that is just what the word means. It's not a status that needs to be assigned or declared, it is just a description of what something intrinsically is.

 

[Idran]

Yeah, saying you need someone to determine if something's canon or not is like saying you need someone to determine if something's red or not. Being red's not a good thing or a bad thing, and if you look at something and say "that's red", you aren't saying anything about its quality or importance or whatever.

 

[Trek Survivor]

I remember this discussion at Shore Leave. Couldn't they benefit from a person or a group having the rights to determine how canonical something is and write a book or article on it or something by someone who is a fan and not some person at Paramount who doesn't know what he or she is talking about????

What you're talking about is essentially somebody/a group determining the 'quality'/worth (measured by whatever criteria is agreed) of whether a story joins canon or not.

As others have said, that's not what canon is at all - canon has nothing to do with subjective considerations of worth/value etc.

Remember, it's all made up fiction though, so would it even matter if there was somebody telling us a book is "canon" or not? If I enjoy a Star Trek book, and it gels with my understanding and expectations of the series, then it's as good to me as anything canonical.

It gets the "Trek Survivor" seal of approval, and with the greatest respect to professional critics, the writers, creators and other fans, it's really only my own determination of a piece of fiction's worth/value that I am concerned with!

 

[Christopher]

I think the problem is that some franchises, ones that have a great deal of tie-in material or a complicated relationship between the canon and the tie-ins, have issued statements clarifying what they consider to "count" in the canon -- notably Star Trek in 1989 (though that memo ceased to be binding within a few years) and Star Wars at various times -- and many fans have gotten the impression from those that canon is something that needs to be defined by official ukase. But those instances are the exceptions. Normally, canon is a very simple thing to define -- it's the stories from the creators of the series as opposed to stories by other people. But there are occasional cases where things get more complicated and need clarification. The problem is that the default definition is so straightforward and academic that nobody needs to talk about it, and so it's only in the exceptional cases that anyone in authority bothers to say anything about it, and so that creates the false impression that the exceptions are the rule.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I remember this discussion at Shore Leave. Couldn't they benefit from a person or a group having the rights to determine how canonical something is and write a book or article on it or something by someone who is a fan and not some person at Paramount who doesn't know what he or she is talking about????

Richard Arnold was a fan, and he vetted tie-ins for Gene R. at Paramount from 1986 till September 1992. That went well, and was without controversy, eh?

Paula Block was definitely a fan (her old fan story was published in the first "Strange New Worlds" collection) and headed Viacom Consumer Products, later CBS Consumer Products, who oversaw (for many, many years) tie-ins for both CBS and Paramount. Currently, John Van Citters holds that position and the tie-in writers seem very happy with his work, often thanking him in their afterwords. Hardly "some person... who doesn't know what he or she is talking about..."

 

[Leathco]

Well, I for one am excited for the new encyclopedia. Wil there be ebook versions?