Do you care about canon?

[Kimarhi]

I think there are possibly ways to have the knowledge of the Alien on Earth erased. It was being floated at Fox before Disney took over.  The term 'memory hole' was being used.  Dunno if we could've pulled it off, and kinda glad we didn't need to.

No way it would ever work.  We still have cave paintings from when people were hunting wooly mammoths. 

No way is any technical glitch going to erase a global infestation in a digital era.  If it somehow could, mofos would take out a pen and paper and right shit down.  Not to mention the oral history of people telling their children and grand children about the earth war with an invasive species that nearly killed everyone on earth.

Not only that, corporations were stockpiling Aliens well into the 200 year gap between Aliens and Alien Res.  ON EARTH. 

That whole idea was dumb as f**k. 

[SM]

It wouldn't have been a glitch. The USM would be an authoritarian government for a period of around 150 years, and the knowledge would have been deliberately erased.  Over the course of decades stories about Aliens invading Earth would gradually fade to conspiracy theories to ultimately nothing.  It would have ignored all the old Dark Horse stuff (which definitely wouldn't have worked as they were not only on Earth but every second planet as well).

But similar to the story I concocted to make Prometheus fit with AvP a few years earlier - like I said, I'm kinda glad they didn't go with it.

[SiL]

It wouldn't have been a glitch. The USM would be an authoritarian government for a period of around 150 years, and the knowledge would have been deliberately erased.

To what end, exactly?

The entirety of space is successfully governed by a single government? We can't even manage that on one planet.

*confused angry noises*

[Local Trouble]

I still think the USM should be retconned as a neo-socialist regime like the UPP.



Dat red star.

[Kimarhi]

Damn commies.

[Corporal Hicks]

Has Disney even defined what is canon now?

Not as far as I'm aware. Last I heard Marvel was just able to do its own thing, with no real collaboration or crossover with what the other stuff was doing. Not sure if that's changed in the last year or so.

[Huntsman]

I want a good story first and foremost, but canon to me is important if they're going out of their way to set something in the same timeline.

[Corporal Hicks]

Canon *should* be important, but as studios don't always give it the respect it deserves, it's always going to fall to fans to assert their own interpretation of canon.

But this is always the thing I come back to. Fans don't get to interpret canon because that's not what canon is. Canon is the "truth" as defined by Studios/Disney.

Canon ultimately only really matters in terms of a common point of reference for nerds like us.

I think this is the extent that I care about some officially sanctioned canon. A line one can draw in the sand and say "If we're going to ask questions, here's the available information to draw answers from, and here's what we can ignore".

Outside of that, I don't really care.

And this is one of the circumstances where I completely agree and understand. But then, without the studios actually letting the fandom know what they consider canon, what's the point in us caring? We can define our own point of reference for discussion.

Obviously folk like SM were in a position to know what was canon. But when you have randoms online refusing to take his word because it might mean something they dislike is considered canon, it gets in the way of reasonable discourse.

Sorry if I'm sounding like a dick or being pedantic here. It's a topic we're discussing on the podcast shortly and I'm trying to get some interesting POVs from folk.

I think there are possibly ways to have the knowledge of the Alien on Earth erased. It was being floated at Fox before Disney took over.  The term 'memory hole' was being used.  Dunno if we could've pulled it off, and kinda glad we didn't need to.

I'm very curious about this? The plans I saw had it just all happening again.

[SiL]

But then, without the studios actually letting the fandom know what they consider canon, what's the point in us caring? We can define our own point of reference for discussion.

People care because they like their fiction to have a logic and a continuity that they can learn and memorise and be knowledgeable on. They like it to feel like an actual place, an actual history, and a canon delivered from on high provides that guideline. Without it, people will make their own.

And it's not just fiction. Just look at the real world when people's firmly held beliefs get challenged by new information, or meet people who don't have the same opinions.

We like rules and principles and guidelines and facts that say something is right and something is wrong because that's how we make sense of things. When anything and everything can happen simultaneously in a contradictory manner, it spoils one's ability to engage and immerse as fully.

[Corporal Hicks]

We like rules and principles and guidelines and facts that say something is right and something is wrong because that's how we make sense of things. When anything and everything can happen simultaneously in a contradictory manner, it spoils one's ability to engage and immerse as fully.

But anything can happen simultaneously. It's fiction. Does the possibility of multiple timelines effect your ability to enjoy fiction?

People care because they like their fiction to have a logic and a continuity that they can learn and memorise and be knowledgeable on. They like it to feel like an actual place, an actual history, and a canon delivered from on high provides that guideline. Without it, people will make their own.

But what about when we're not privy to what is canon directly from the horses mouth?

(again, sorry for any tone)

[SiL]

Does the possibility of multiple timelines effect your ability to enjoy fiction?

You can run two races at the same time, but each race can only have one winner. If there are multiple timelines, then you need to disambiguate the timelines, which is effectively establishing several canons.

And, personally, yes, multiple timelines do affect my enjoyment because it removes the stakes. Your favourite character died? Don't worry, they're still alive in this other timeline! Death is meaningless, anything can and will happen.

People care because they like their fiction to have a logic and a continuity that they can learn and memorise and be knowledgeable on. They like it to feel like an actual place, an actual history, and a canon delivered from on high provides that guideline. Without it, people will make their own.

But what about when we're not privy to what is canon directly from the horses mouth?

You actually quoted my response to this, I've bolded it for you. In the absence of an official line people will try to make their own because that sense of coherence is important to them.

Basically for many fans it's important that there is a canon, regardless of where it ends up coming from. Ideally from the source, but failing that, they'll do it themselves.

[Kradan]

I think there are possibly ways to have the knowledge of the Alien on Earth erased. It was being floated at Fox before Disney took over.  The term 'memory hole' was being used.  Dunno if we could've pulled it off, and kinda glad we didn't need to.

No way it would ever work.  We still have cave paintings from when people were hunting wooly mammoths. 

No way is any technical glitch going to erase a global infestation in a digital era.  If it somehow could, mofos would take out a pen and paper and right shit down.  Not to mention the oral history of people telling their children and grand children about the earth war with an invasive species that nearly killed everyone on earth.

Not only that, corporations were stockpiling Aliens well into the 200 year gap between Aliens and Alien Res.  ON EARTH. 

That whole idea was dumb as f**k.

ADHD is a bitch

[Corporal Hicks]

You actually quoted my response to this, I've bolded it for you. In the absence of an official line people will try to make their own because that sense of coherence is important to them.

Basically for many fans it's important that there is a canon, regardless of where it ends up coming from. Ideally from the source, but failing that, they'll do it themselves.

But that's my point. That is not canon. Fans can have preferences, build their own continuity, but it is not canon. So in that regard, an absence of defined canon is important, because you then have to make up your own continuity/headcanon.

[SiL]

But that's my point. That is not canon. Fans can have preferences, build their own continuity, but it is not canon. So in that regard, an absence of defined canon is important, because you then have to make up your own continuity/headcanon.

Well, no, canon doesn't require that the rules or list of accepted text are ordained by any specific authority, just that there are rules or a list of accepted texts. If that's reached by consensus it's as much a canon as anything else.

So if the license holders don't make one, or don't make it known, fans will try to make their own, resulting in endless arguments.

Again we can see this played out in real life, where religions fracture over their interpretations of texts because God Himself is unavailable for comment.

[SM]

It wouldn't have been a glitch. The USM would be an authoritarian government for a period of around 150 years, and the knowledge would have been deliberately erased.

To what end, exactly?

The entirety of space is successfully governed by a single government? We can't even manage that on one planet.

*confused angry noises*

Not the entirety- just the United Systems. To what end? Control probably. It was a way to make the proposed invasion storyline work with Resurrection. Never got far enough along to be properly fleshed out.

I think I'd recently re-read 1984 and based the United Systems on the Party along with The Revision Committee who revised the Bible in the film.

As for canon - fandom, like nature, abhors a vacuum.