How canon is canon?

Shortly after the premiere episode of Enterprise, people started nailing B&B for having humans make first contact with Klingons a century earlier than "canon" had established.

An LUG sourcebook (The First Line to be exact) states that the first starship to contact Klingons was the USS Ranger, and that the Klingons developed starships by capturing that vessel.

My question: Is this the canon everyone talks about, and is it actually canon? I mean, when was it actually stated on a TELEVISION EPISODE that the Ranger made contact with Klingons? Or is that whole thing just a fan-created thing that's been around so long that it's just generally accepted as canon?

Because if it's never been actually stated on the shows, then this is my response to everyone who nailed B&B about "Broken Bow":
:D :p :D :p :D

According to TOS episode, the day of the dove, first contact between the Federation and the Klingon Empire took place in 2218, not the 2150's. Thats about as cannon as you can get i guess. B&B just decided that "Earth's Akiraprize would go ahead and make first contact, and consider that first contact totaly different then the Federations first contact with the klingons. Maybe the klingons dissapear for a few decades, you know in a civil war between the smooth heads and the wrinkle heads, and then the smooth heads won, and then have a first contact with the federation, and the wrinkle heads have become slaves, and around 2270 the wrinkle heads have an uprising and kill every single last smooth head.... i dont know whats worse, my explanation, or whatever B&B come up with

Personally, I don't take LUG books to be the gospel according to Trek.

For me, those things shown in episodes are considered canon, and even they conflict. That having been said, I'm not too picky that Andorian antennae didn't move in TOS and they do in Enterprise. I'd like them to explain things like that, and maybe they will, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. I'll just watch Star Trek, use what I like and discard the rest.

The ever-present canon debate. Interesting to note that both Star Wars and Star Trek have the same type of debate. :)

As best as I can determine, drawing on information from both genres, canon is ultimately in the eyes of the beholder. One person may say only the episodes and movies are canon; another might say all the novels and RPG materials are canon as well; yet another may say some novels and some movies and some episodes are canon. Even Roddenberry supposedly stated that some of the events in the movies were apocryphal.

A RPG has to take a genre and fill in the blanks that aren't seen on-screen, and often has to try and answer the questions that the series didn't answer. Players and Narrators always end up questioning the things that don't quite get touched on, and the RPG has to be able to fill in the holes, even though that hole might be filled differently on a future episode.

I believe it's up to each Narrator and player to determine what is and is not canon for their particular campaign. If the Narrator says that for his/her campaign, Voyager never existed, then it never existed. If another Narrator says it did exist, but it didn't get lost in the Badlands, then it didn't.

To end this rambling (sorry!), let's leave it at "To each his/her own."

Never mentioned in a show. Heck, the Ranger being the ship is fairly recent, being mentioned by LUG.

The date of first contact with the Klingons is established in the Star Trek Chronology which many people accept as fact. It has lots of speculation, some of which I agree with, others (like TMP taking place in 2271) I disagree with.

However, it is a well-researched book and almost always states their assumptions and the reasons for them.

To quote LUG from the Disclaimer of the Star Trek RPG:

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While we have tried to extrpolate logically within the flavor of Star Trek, we have taken some liberties and players should remember that only the events, characters, and places that appear on the shows or in the films are canon.

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To quote the 96 version of the Chronology.
p vi:

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Where we have arbitrarily chosen a date, we have noted that the date is conjectural, and we have included some indication of the basis for the conjecture. The reader is, of course, free to agree or disagree with our interpretations.

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pp.37-38

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2218
First Contact with the Klingon Empire...

"Day of the Dove" (TOS) McCoy noted that Klingons and humans had been adversaries for 50 years prior to the episode, set in 2268.

Editors' Note: "First Contact" (TNG) also described this as happening "centuries" ago, but it is only 144 years before that episode (2367).

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While that date is not explicitly labelled as conjecture, it certainly seems to have room for error. For example, "Broken Bow" takes place in 2251, over two centuries prior to "First Contact". The Chronology assumes that 50 years of hostility went all the way back to the first contact with the Klingons. But perhaps the contact was long before "50 years of constant hostility".

As an example from the US, we never really liked the Soviet Union, even sending troops (along with other European powers) around 1918 to try to stop the Communist Revolution. But we pretty much ignored the Soviet Union as an enemy until the late 40's. So, we had a "bad first contact" in 1918 and decades of hostility between the late 40's and late '80's. Not that we liked them prior to the late '40s, just that they weren't the major adversary of the United States until that point, indeed even being an ally in the early-mid '40s.


Moving along, the date given (2271) for Star Trek: The Motion Picture is described as being "somewhat conjectural".

As for The Motion Picture occuring in 2271, that's been totally thrown off due to the Voyager episode Q2. In it, Icheb tells Janeway that Kirk's original five-year mission ended in 2270. Then, Star Trek: The Motion Picture has Decker telling Kirk that the admiral himself hasn't been in command of the Enterprise in over two and a half years. That places The Motion Picture no earlier than 2272 and possibly into 2273 (in fact, the novelization of TMP is even more specific, stating that Spock has been studying Kohlinar for 2.8 years; I know, non-canon).

But I say this just for everyone's information.

Um...guys? Since all of our games aren't canon, isn't canon what you want it to be? After all...the shows contradicted themselves on a regular basis, as did the movies, the books, games, etc...

It's not as if this is reality.

At last..a sensible voice. Well pointed out qerlin, Star Trek is not real! Who cares if the continuity is messed up occasionally (such as when were the eugenics wars??). This is because it is fiction, and when it started the writers didn't have whinging fanboys to worry about, and so just made 'one off' stories.

It is only since the fanbase has become more picky that continuity has been attempted, but with the back-catalogue of mistakes it is impossible to correct.

Let's just watch it and enjoy it, and leave the continuity problems for the Official Timeline books etc to worry about!!

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Originally posted by qerlin
Um...guys? Since all of our games aren't canon, isn't canon what you want it to be? After all...the shows contradicted themselves on a regular basis, as did the movies, the books, games, etc...

It's not as if this is reality.

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I have to argree. Canon is what you say it is...you are the GM after all. I recall that some posts indicate that some of you out there deny Voyager's existence in their universe or at least the Voyager potrayed on TV...:)

If B&B want to change "canon" that's their entitlement, its their show after all. They must be doing something right otherwise why are they still in charge of Trek. But enough of that, I'm not defending what they're doing...I personally disagree with it...my solution...deny anything that I don't agree with and change what I want to suit MY GAME...so to repeat what a said CANON IS WHAT YOU SAY IT IS...

Despite what some (including family) might think, I am aware of Trek being a TV show. :) My real worries in life revolve around paying the mortgage, staying employed, being a good husband and soon-to-be daddy.

That said, the whole "canon" thingamabobber serves to have as a baseline. In my opinion it is pretty useful to have a common set of assumptions, especially among gamers, so if a new player joins a group you don't have to hand them your 6-volume personal history of Star Trek. (hmmm, I may have just described the Jim Dixon timeline...) :D

What I mean is that lets not worry too much about the little inconsistencies that are cropping on what appears to be just about two months' worth of ENTERPRISE episodes. There is an underlying consistency in Trek (well at least until ENTERPRISE began) so I think basically most players, new or old are familiar with the basic canon, its just the nitty gritty nitpicking stuff that may vary from game to game so you'll just have to educate the new players as you go along.

Personally, I rely on the Chronology for my timeline. As I said earlier, ENTERPRISE is still way too new for any conclusions to be drawn about how it ties into TOS et al, in fact it may be some weird parallel universe or alternate timeline (I won't put it past B&B) so lets not worry too much about it. For now (as mentioned earlier) I'm relying on TOS, TNG,DS9, parts of VOY and the of course the nine (soon to be 10) motion pictures.

Like Dan said,

I pretty much use "canon" as a base line of events through ST history....

I think what has so many pissed about the "Broken Bow" Klingon encounter is that it blatently(sp) screwed up the "established" time line....right from the get go....

to many it seemed the first thing B&B did in ENT was show that they don't really give a rats a$$ about what TOS established.

Granted, they were going to have to take some "liberty" with "official" ST history....when your doing a show set in the past .

But,...as I warned my PC group before ENT came out...B&B have a hard on for all things Klingon....I said that the whole Klingon thing would be the first thing they do....history or no history...TOS canon or canon...and they did,not only once but out of six episodes we have seen the Klingons twice :rolleyes:

I guess what might bug a lot of Trek-a-zoids [myself included] is that these guys(B&B) know all this canon/history/material...is out there....and there is a base line through most of it of "accepted" Star Trek History....they could have at least tried to work there stories a bit closer to what the fan base would expect to see [in an over all sence].

(I am mostly talking about "Broken Bow" and the whole Klingon mess)

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Originally posted by Admiral Wolf
But,...as I warned my PC group before ENT came out...B&B have a hard on for all things Klingon....

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You can say that again.

This fits squarely in the realm of personal opinion but, frankly, I am so sick of Klingons it irritates me to no end. They appear prominently in 4 of the movies, were cast characters in two of the four shows, TNG beat us over the head several times a year with Klingon-slanted stories, DS9 turned around and did the same damn thing, and even VOY couldn’t resist the allure of ramming Klingon stories down our throat.

It came as no surprise to see Klingons in “Broken Bow” for me.

I fail to see the attraction to Klingons: big, snarling, two-dimensional, fight-happy characters whose motivations are easy to predict. If it wasn’t for the concept of honor (blatantly stolen from the TOS Romulans, thank you), they’d be about as exciting to watch as animals mating.

Klingon rant over. :D

Romulans know honor? Only in the sense of the Chinese Communist Government that it portrayed. :D

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If it wasn’t for the concept of honor (blatantly stolen from the TOS Romulans, thank you), they’d be about as exciting to watch as animals mating.

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TOS Klingons tended to be one-dimensional - John Calicos, however did the best portrayl of Klingons and hinted to some of the elements that TOSMovie and TNG Klingons would show.

As for TOS Romulans. There is nothing I have seen about the TOS Romulans to have me agree with the above statement. While Romulans have gotten more devious in TNG, there hasn't been a huge shift from the TOS days.

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Originally posted by prophetsteve


TOS Klingons tended to be one-dimensional - John Calicos, however did the best portrayl of Klingons and hinted to some of the elements that TOSMovie and TNG Klingons would show.

As for TOS Romulans. There is nothing I have seen about the TOS Romulans to have me agree with the above statement. While Romulans have gotten more devious in TNG, there hasn't been a huge shift from the TOS days.

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I have to disagree with you on this point. Have you read Way of D'era (not canon I realize) most of the honour concepts in that sourcebook sprung directly from Mark Lenards Romulan Commander. How someone can say that the Romulans are with out honour is beyond me. They are wholly dedicated to their government and to each other. Yes they attacked the listening posts along the RNZ, but those too could have been considered a threat from the Romulan point of view. The Romulan Commander left the Enterprise after he disabled it, he could have just as easily destroyed her, but didn't see any reason to kill an honourable enemy who no longer had the abilty to defend itself. A Klingon would have swooped in for the glory of the kill...Glory, Honour does not make.

Most Romulans that have been seen on screen have been portrayed as soldiers doing their duty...The Klingons on the other hand we have seen many more of them following their own crass ideals no matter the effect it has on the Empire or the Federation. Disobeying orders hardly show honour.

To me the Klingons will always be the Trek equivalant of the Mongol Hordes. Where as the Romulans will always be the honoured enemy in the shadows.

Loyalty and Patriotism are the traits I associates with the Romulans, but I'm sorry I cannot say Honor.

As for Mark Lenard's Romulan Commander role, he is a rare exception.

BTW, Don, I cannot get enough of Klingons. But I do agree with you, there have been an overuse of this particular species, appearing almost twice as much as Vulcans in all of the series and movies to date.

They should have used Andorians at the start.

But isn't true honour a rarity among Klingons as well.

These characters, Mark Lennard's Commander and Worf are usually the yardstick against whom you measure the rest of their kind and find the rest of the race wanting.

To be really honest, I always found TNG's Klingons' honor a bit like Vulcan's logic... very adaptable to the circumstances and especially to the plot. :)

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Originally posted by ghosty
But isn't true honour a rarity among Klingons as well.

These characters, Mark Lennard's Commander and Worf are usually the yardstick against whom you measure the rest of their kind and find the rest of the race wanting.

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I decided Worf was definitely unusual - a product of an upbringing well separated from Klingon reality. If you think about it, his adoptive parents had little access to real Klingons, and instead encouraged him to read the library records, which probably included huge amounts of inspirational literature. Hence Worf grew up believing all Klingons were like the ideal he believed in. A lot of TNG and DS9 Klingons seemed designed to give him a rude awakening - most Klingons live much more pragmatically...

It's rather like the codes of chivalry and bushido - they were a romantic ideal that some tried to live up to, but many fell short of, mainly due to their own character failings. To read anything about it today, you'd believe all Samurai really would commit suicide if ordered, and all knights really did only fight other equally well-defended foes... the reality was somewhat different.

I definitely got the impression TOS Romulans had a desire to be honorable, but were often forced by circumstances (i.e. relatively primitive ships) to be less so. There was a definite shift in their portrayal with TNG, including a much sneakier and brutal outlook. One of the things I liked about Way of Dera was that it managed to explain their code in a way that fitted both versions.

My point is that Worf is special and unique which is why he is the moral yardstick against whom you measure the other Klingons. Yes they do give him a rude awakening when they act less than honourably but the thing is Worf does not change because of it. He doesn't loose sight of who he is and that he is Klingon and he lives up to the Klingon Ideal.

Worf is like the ronin characters you see in many Japanese samurai flicks. The ronin is an outcast, but he is usually more noble and more honourable than the "noble" samurai around him.

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Originally posted by ghosty
Personally, I rely on the Chronology for my timeline.

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I never really did, fully, because it already had a number of assumptions and conjectures that I disagreed with. More recently, since the last edition of the Chronology, there has been both the addition of many new episodes' events, and episodes have provided info that now establishes events that were previously only conjectural (e.g., the exact dates of Kirk's 5-year mission, and by extension, TMP).

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As I said earlier, ENTERPRISE is still way too new for any conclusions to be drawn about how it ties into TOS et al, in fact it may be some weird parallel universe or alternate timeline (I won't put it past B&B) so lets not worry too much about it. For now (as mentioned earlier) I'm relying on TOS, TNG,DS9, parts of VOY and the of course the nine (soon to be 10) motion pictures.

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I have been steadily incorporating "Enterprise", myself. To say that "Enterprise" should be ignored is to say that TNG should be ignored, too, for its continuity-botches with TOS. Just using canonical info as the basis, TNG has still done far worse than ENT at keeping up continuity with what's gone before, and there was far less of it at the time. (!)

If and when they really do something big enough to force an "alternate universe" issue to come up, we'll grapple with it at the time. But they haven't gotten anywhere near such a thing, so I just don't see the concern, except for fears of what the producers *might* do. Considering that they've been busily surprising me (in a positive way) so far, I'm okay with rolling with them for the time being. :)

Best,
Alex

Guess I should have qualified my statement by saying that I approach Romulans by the take found in Way of D’era and Diane Duane’s (?) work. Both not canon I realize, but as Phantom pointed out, the Romulan Commander in “Balance of Terror” (?) demonstrated more honor in one episode than all the Klingon appearances combined.

But, as others have pointed out, perhaps Mark Lenard’s character was an exception and their attitude in the TNG era and onward certainly supports this position.

Be that as it may, I’m still sick of one-dimensional Klingons. :)

Don: nice to know that there are other Rihannsu fans here (sometimes they seem to be few and far between :) )

Duane's books are the PERFECT bridge between the 23rd century and 24th century Romulans. The "old guard" (the "honorable foe") Romulans [Lenard's Commander, Ael, etc] are a dying breed in an Empire being taken over by power hungry opportunists [the "lieutenant Romulan" in TOS, the 24th Century Romulans].

Well don't feel too left out Duck. I'm a true fan of Duane's work. The Romulan Way was an excellent novel and gave insights into a race which had (until then) featured in two TV epsiodes. Rihanssu rock...:)

Have you guys read all the books (My Enemy, My Ally, The Romulan Way, Swordhunt, and Honor Blade)? Then there's book 5, now at the printers...:)

Yup but I found the new books are not up to the standard of the original two.