Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Trek/mainpage/canon
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What is canon?
- Since articles about fictional characters, places, events and objects should be written in an out-of-universe perspective, most of the issues regarding "canon vs non-canon" simply fall away, as no information should be presented as fact, and it all should be sourced. Canon status can inform the prominence and relevance of information. In brief, this is all television and film on-screen material.[1] Sources for canon information should be noted, ideally with context (was the information in dialogue, seen on-screen or was it from an Okudagram?). Editors are encouraged to not rely on the Encyclopedia's attribution of facts to the episodes and check for themselves, as the Encyclopedia does not always note when it is speculating. TLA/Es for each also appear. Paramount presently recognizes the Star Trek continuity as:
- Television series:
- Star Trek: The Original Series – TOS, ST:TOS
- Star Trek: The Animated Series – TAS, ST:TAS
- Star Trek: The Next Generation – TNG, ST:TNG
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – DS9, ST:DS9
- Star Trek: Voyager – VOY, ST:VOY
- Star Trek: Enterprise – ENT, ST:ENT
- Star Trek: Discovery – DIS, ST:DIS
- Star Trek: Short Treks - SHO, ST:SHO
- Star Trek: Picard - PIC, ST:PIC
- Star Trek: Lower Decks - LOW, ST:LOW
- Star Trek: Prodigy - PRO, ST:PRO
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - SNW, ST:SNW (upcoming)
- Television series:
- Feature films:
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture – ST:TMP, TMP, ST I *
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – ST2:TWOK', TWOK, ST II *
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock – ST3:TSFS, TSFS, ST III *
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – ST4:TVH, TVH, ST IV *
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier – ST5:TFF, TFF, ST V *
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country – ST6:TUC, TUC, ST VI *
- Star Trek Generations – ST:G, ST VII *
- Star Trek: First Contact – ST:FC, ST VIII *
- Star Trek: Insurrection – ST:I, ST IX *
- Star Trek Nemesis – ST:N, ST X *
- Star Trek (2009 film) - ST XI *
- Star Trek Into Darkness - ST XII' *
- Star Trek Beyond - ST XIII' *
- For clarity, use of TLAs with Roman numerals to denote films is discouraged.
- Feature films:
- Regarding the remastered episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series:
- Where the remastered version of the original series differs from the older version both versions should be presented. New information (such as new ship models not depicted on the original version), should be explicitly cited to the remastered version.
- Regarding the remastered episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series:
Semi-canon
- There is a body of officially licensed reference work produced by people who have directly worked on the various Star Trek shows and films. These are generally regarded as "true" except where they contradict new episodes. Such works are considered a grey area: the creative teams behind the various Star Trek television series and films are under no obligation to adhere to any conjecture or extrapolation offered in these works. (See individual entries for exceptions.)
- According to The Star Trek Encyclopedia, Gene Roddenberry unsuccessfully attempted to have elements of the films Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country declared apocryphal. This should be disregarded as Paramount Pictures has made no official statement. Speculation from Star Trek writers and backstories created for characters but never indicated on screen are not canon. Spellings of words found in scripts may be used.
- Where information from these works is utilized in Wikipedia, a reference should always be noted, either in the References section. Where an article is portraying a mixture of information from various sources, it may be wise to attribute the information directly within the text.
- Reference guides:
- Internet:
- Official website. The website includes substantial information taken from works such as the Chronology and Encyclopedia, leading to some confusion over canonical status. Paramount considers the website to be a print source, and (thus) is inline with the canonicity of other print references.
- Internet:
- Backstage information:
- Some information has been provided only through off-screen anecdotes, such as the names of various species seen in the Star Trek films, computer displays that are not legible to viewers, and the surname of Spock's mother. These are sometimes closer to fanon than official references. This information can come from official magazines and supplements, licensed trading cards (for example, Star Trek Customizable Card Game), and writer and production crew interviews.
- Backstage information:
Non-canon
- While these works are beloved by fans and may commonly be regarded as fanon, they are not official, and if included should always be clearly attributed to their source, and not presented as "true" in the fictional universe.
- Treatment of non-canon material within articles is a matter of judgement. It may be useful to consider non-canon material at length, especially if it influences later material, or was a matter of particular controversy (for example, Timeline of Star Trek describes several other timelines which put Okuda's timeline into a historical context), or Vulcan's moon. Much non-canon material is inconsistent with other non-canon material, so attempting to portray a consistent all-encompassing Star Trek Expanded Universe is problematic. In other cases, non-canon material may be better treated as a minor footnote, with a reference to the article about the non-canon work in question.
- It is worth noting that this viewpoint is considered controversial by many fans, some of whom consider literary works to be superior to many examples of the televised and filmed Star Trek. The responsibility for deciding what is non-canon rests with Paramount Pictures, the owners of the Star Trek franchise.
- Regarding Star Trek: Phase II:
- It is often stated that the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture were followed by a second five-year mission. Gene Roddenberry had planned to produce a new TV series in the late 1970s, and TMP was an expanded version of the original script for the first episode. However, since nothing was ever filmed, and no reference has ever been made on screen to a post-TMP mission, all references to Phase II or a second mission have to be considered non-canon. (Two scripts written for Phase II, "The Child" and "Devil's Due", were later used for TNG.) Note that the semi-canon Star Trek Chronology accepts the validity of the second five-year mission.
- Regarding Star Trek: Phase II:
- Other publications:
- Star Trek novels
- According to current editors at Pocket Books, no novels or other printed stories are considered canon by Paramount. This includes episode and film novelizations, the Deep Space Nine relaunch novels, and the Voyager novels "Pathways" and "Mosaic" (even though they were both written by the Voyager executive producer Jeri Taylor, and at one point were considered to be the only canon novels).
- Star Trek comics
- Role-playing games and the Star Trek Customizable Card Game
- Star Trek novels
- Other publications:
- Audio:
- Several original audio adventures featuring Captain Hikaru Sulu and the crew of the USS Excelsior were produced in the 1990s by Simon & Schuster Audioworks, a company related to Pocket Books. These audio dramas are presently considered non-canon as they are generally categorized the same as the original novels.
- Audio:
- Video games:
- Star Trek video games
- While there have been no official statements, none of the Star Trek-based computer and video games produced over the years should be considered canonical.
- Video games:
- Fan fiction (fanon):
- Fan-created fiction, websites, films, games, and other materials are never considered to be canon, since there is no involvement of Paramount Pictures.
- Likewise, the Star Fleet Universe and all associated content is also not canon.
- Fan fiction (fanon):