Man the canon or damn the canon?

[AslanC]

OKay, what (if any) is canon in your game?

For my new one most everything except Voyager and Enterprise is canon. My reasoning is simply that I don't like the series and there is nothing either has done that I can't just steal, modify and then insert into my game.

How about you?

And why?

[Siroth]

Originally posted by AslanC
OKay, what (if any) is canon in your game?

Actually, I consider everything canon except ENT, since the show must either support what comes after it (in TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOy) or be ignored. (Hey look, I didn't even have to say how much I dislike the show, oops I'm still typing... )

That said, the campaign I currently play in started following canon as established by the end of DS9, yet has come to divert a great deal from it afterwards. Then again, this 'diversion' has come in no small amount due to the ability of our characters to change the time-line several times... For instance, we changed the timeline so that there was no Founders' Disease at the end of the Dominion War. How? Well, we ended up killing Sloan before he could put the plan into action... Though through no fault of our own, of course! Blame our narrator!

On the other hand, canon can be a help. When the narrator was sick of running the same campaign and wanted to be a player, I took over as narrator for one episode. I ran a game right after First Contact about a Maquis mutiny on a Starfleet vessel. Then, just as the mutiny had succeeded and the ship was entering the Badlands, the Cardassians joined the Dominion and the area was swarming with Jem'Hadar!

The plot would not have been possible if not for what was established in First Contact and DS9, so you shouldn't always consider canon to be a hinderances. More often than not I find there are plenty of stories between the lines just waiting to be told. All you have to do is keep your eyes open for them.

[Perrryyy]

If I can come up with a reason for my Vulcan Science officer to have rounded ears, & blue blood with yellow polkadots, I go for it.

Seriously, I consider canon guidelines, not a straightjacket.

(and I know this is the same line I used in chat about 2 weeks ago, so I don't expect to sway anyone.)

[Dan Stack]

I tend to use whatever is in the shows, including that which I don't like... if I know about it. (I tend not to watch the shows I don't like)

I tend not to use the Trek novels, though I'm not above borrowing the occasional idea from them.

I also think of the Call of Cthulhu tales as canon in my games.

[Perrryyy]

I tend not to use the Trek novels, though I'm not above borrowing the occasional idea from them.

I have a tendency to borrow from the novels if I can manage a good character or story out of it too.

[Owen E Oulton]

"OKay, what (if any) is canon in your game?"

Sorry, but this is a copmpletely nonsensical question, and demonstrates a lack of understanding as to what a literary "canon" is. You're mistaking it for an official continuity, which is a somewhat different concept.

Canon in a game campaign would properly be the events which took place in play or were established in a game context. The recognised continuity in your game may or may not include all of the Star Trek canon, but let's try and get the terms right, eh?

Everybody chooses which sources to use in his or her own game, but why is it that everyone who decides they don't like a particular show always gets so self-righteous about it?

[AslanC]

The hair you are splitting doesn't change the fact that everyone understood the question. Does it?

So why split the hair?

[Ovar]

Like others have said, cannon is a guideline for me not the rule of law.

I've so far included parts of
Enterprise
TOS
The Movies ('cept five)
TNG
DS9
Voyager

as well *some* parts of the New Frontier Novels into my game. (Basically anything tooo 'out there' is left out. It's generally that there is a ship called Excaliber out there in Thallonian space, under Calhoun, the crew has the same names, everything else is negotiable.)

In short I keep what I like or works and I dump the rest.

[AslanC]

Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
[iEverybody chooses which sources to use in his or her own game, but why is it that everyone who decides they don't like a particular show always gets so self-righteous about it?

Who has gotten self righteous about it here? Looks to me like everyone is having apolite and nice ocnversation where no one has taken a shot at anyone.

[ghosty]

I get a sense of deja vu at this point...haven't we discussed this before. .

I'm partial towards keeping TOS, TNG, DS9 and the movies (except STV). The jury is still out on VOY though...I tend to keep it as canon mainly because some of the characters keep cropping up in my game from time to time.

Novels are a bit touch and go. Most of the Peter David material tends to make it into my games. As does Diane Duane. I like the novels set after DS9 finale and the events there sort of take place unless I've already screwed with it in my own continuity.

Personally I don't adhere to the canon as if it was cast in stone, I keep what I like and discard the stuff and nonsense (eg. the warp 5 speed limit never even got a whiff in).

[Antonsb214]

I mainly use TNG and DS9, the only two shows my players are familiar with. Voyager had some OK moments, but I don't use it because my crew doesn't go anywhere near that part of the galaxy.

[Publius]

I use as much as I can from canon. I try to remain as much within the guidelines of official Trek-dom as I can. Part of the fun for me is trying to stay as closely as possible "within the lines" while still creating story ideas which give the players a good experience at the gaming table.

That being said, I do not discard the wealth of material out there that has been written, drawn etc. for Trek but not appeared on-screen. Examples of this would include the suppositions found in the Encyclopedia, the situations not seen onscreen from the Starfleet Survival Guide, the listings in the Starship Spotter, various technical manuals etc. I try to integrate as much as possible from these sources as well.

[Owen E Oulton]

I disagree that it's hair-splitting, not do I believe that everyone necessarily understands the question as you meant it. It never, ever hurts to use words correctly.

I use the entirety of the Star Trek canon as the background for my game. It's the "official record" - what you find in the history books, complete with all the contradictions inherent in any extensive literary or cinematic canon (as an example from the most hotly debated literary canon argument of them all, where was John H. Watson hit by the Jezail bullet - and "Afghanistan" isn't the right answer!). It's not necessarily what really happened, any more than "Et tu, Brute?" was Julius Caesar's dying question., but it's the common ground - all my players have seen every episode and it forms the basis for what "everyone knows." It also allows me to do some heavy rationalisation - for instance, the reason the Enterprise-A was able to reach the centre of the Galaxy was that the rogue Cytherian (a.k.a. "God") used the same influence and advanced knowledge to influence the engineering crew to modify the engines as did the Cytherians in the N^th Degree with Reg Barclay (being under Sybok's influence, they were more psychologically malleable, so the holodeck was unecessary).

This approach also allows me considerable flex in using non-canon material.
- Galaxyquest replaces Trek in my campaign history as a media phenomenon in the late 20^th century.
- An early Federation cruiser, the NX class USS Excalibur NX-57, was present when the surface of Altair V was laid waste by the misuse of Preserver artifacts by Dr. Edward Morbius in 2180.
- The animated Star Trek is a series of TNG-era children's holonovels based extremely loosely on Kirk's 5-year mission with only bits of it haveing any basis in fact (Yesteryear).
- The Starfleet Marine Corps was disbanded in 2296 after investigations into the Khitomer incident three years earlier.
- Miles O'Brien was always an enlisted man, the Lieutenant's pips and reference in one episode are "errors" in the historical record (the "reality" being that in an alternate universe, he really was an officer, but Worf never actually made it back to his own universe in Parallels, but the phase variance caused by this largely insignificant difference was below the threshold of a Galaxy class starship's sensors). This is all background to the campaign continuity, but can be arbitrarily changed if it hasn't been established in game context.

Game "canon" (i.e. the actual events as established in game play) varies from the official record in several ways.
- History records that USS Excalibur was destroyed and all hands killed in the M-5 wargames: in point of fact, there were two survivors, and the ship was mothballed until its use several years later as a testbed for some of the systems in the refit Constitution class and complete refit in the early 2270's. One of the surviving crewmen became captain of the refit ship. The ship's number was NCC-1705. The official number, NCC-1664 (never established on screen anyway) was actually an older, Baton Rouge class.
- The historical record implies that the events of Star Trek III and IV are only about 3 months apart. In game continuity, it was more like 18 months.
- Captain James T. Kirk had a brief affair with Captain Tobi Perrini in 2290.

I'm just glad I'm not running a Babylon 5 campaign - it would be real difficult to rationalise their history and stay within the show's continuity.

[KillerWhale]

I use everything canon, even if I dislike it. Which does not mean the players cannot alter the timeline by their own actions; if they do, it will create an alternate reality.

[Aldaron]

Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
I disagree that it's hair-splitting, not do I believe that everyone necessarily understands the question as you meant it. It never, ever hurts to use words correctly.

Owen!!! Damn your eyes!

I wasn't confused until you quibbled the point!

Can you elaborate on what you were saying to AslanC with an example of "continuity vs canon"?

To my mind, canon is the accepted 'happenings', much as the books of the Bible are considered canonical by Christians, a set of histories (TOS, TNG, etc) are considered canonical in Trek.

It is the 'starting position' - before the game campaign commences. What occurs after it starts (or stems directly from canon, such as a visit to Ocampa after the destruction of the Caretaker) is subsumed into continuity.

Now...I may have it completely arse-about. But going by the definition of "canon" as a 'set of rules, or books, commonly accepted as correct', I don't think I have.

AslanC was asking, if I read him correctly, 'what books do you include in you Trek canon?' In other words, do you include Enterprise, or pretend it didn't happen.

Now, continuity is the 'keeping it all making sense', to me. So, if you include Enterprise, you have to maintain continuity by rationalising how the Ferengi remained a secret until the 24th Century, since it was established in your canon that they did - unless of course, you simply remove that episode from your canonical documents.

My campaign, for example, includes in its canonical sources: TOS, TNG and DS9. Voyager has gone AWOL just recently, so I don't have to decide whether or not to include it - if I do, you can bet it won't be ending the way VOY did! (In fact, I'm trying to hunt down the terrific 'alternate' script someone wrote and posted for Endgame - I'd use that!)

So, so far I have the TOS/TNG/DS9 'books' as my canon. However...I remove some 'verses' from the books (ie: episodes). Such as:

The Mirror Universe - doesn't exist in my campaign.
The various TOS episodes with 'Space Nazis', 'Space Romans' and 'Space Surfie Chicks' (what, you mean there wasn't one with Space Surfie Chicks!!!! )
The woeful TNG episodes like The Royale and Justice.

So my game 'canon' comprises modifed versions of TOS/TNG/DS9.

My game's continuity ensures that if my characters visit Eroticon VI on shore leave, that if they run into Eccentrica Gallumbits two seasons on, she'll recognise them.

For example: It's been established in my game's history that Dr Sito Rana (played by my wife) is an old friend of Major Kira Nerys; they knew each other as teenagers on Bajor during the Occupation.

The reason? Sito Rana was a member of the Kohn Ma. When she realised the horrific things they were doing (killing more Bajoran 'collaborators' than Cardassians - by wiping out villages where collaborator's lived), she fled. They have a 'once-in, never-out' policy, however, and were after her.

She was protected by the Shakaar resistance group until she could get offworld, and that's where she met Kira and the two forged a friendship as teenage girls.

Now...in a game-year's time, another survivor of the Kohn Ma may come after Sito. Or she may need a favour from Kira. This goes with the continuity bit...as does the fact Sito hates Captain Picard (the last message she got from her sister told of her chewing out by Picard - then he sent her off to die). So I can play on that continuity to create a conflict should Sito and Picard ever meet (which they undoubtedly will! )

This is continuity - events in an earlier episode have ramifications in later ones.

What comes before your episodes constitutes your canon, in my book. It's the starting position.

Sooooo...how has AslanC got it wrong? (Or me, for that matter).
I'm the first to admit I'm no literary expert, and this is based on my interpretations of the definitions of the words 'canon' and 'continuity'...

<font color=blue>Canon: The collection of books received as genuine Holy Scriptures, called the sacred canon, or general rule of moral and religious duty, given by inspiration; the Bible; also, any one of the canonical Scriptures.

Continuity: the state of being continuous; uninterupted connection or succession; close union of parts; cohesion; as, the continuity of fibers</font>

(Both from: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary , 1998)

Just as another example: canon has it that Sito Jaxa died in 2370. But...by a twist of continuity (the fact her body was never found) I can 'bring her back' in another episode without violating either canon or continuity.

Now...if I tried to bring back Sisko's wife (can't remember her name, OTTOMH), that would be violating both, as she was seen dead before Sisko abandoned the Saratoga.