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Your approach to series continuity?
connectamabob
Member Posts: 140 Arc User
How do you (personally) handle stuff that's outside the core, seen-on-screen "hard" Trek continuity in your Foundry writing?
Do you include soft canon/fannon, or avoid it? Are you willing to outright contradict it if you don't like it?
Do you feel compelled to keep your stuff in continuity with other people's foundry missions for the sake of the game, or do you ignore it and do your own thing? By which I don't just mean character /story stuff, but actual overarching world stuff, be it tech or political or whatnot.
What about stuff that's canon for the game, but not for the TV/movies, either in a soft canon/apocryphal sense, or a contradictory sense? Do you feel the need to adhere to that, or do you ignore it if it suits you/you don't like it?
I don't mean whether or not you're willing to make up totally new stuff (kind of a given), but rather whether you try to write around already existing ideas, or overwrite/ignore them if it either suits your story or you feel you can do better.
Do you include soft canon/fannon, or avoid it? Are you willing to outright contradict it if you don't like it?
Do you feel compelled to keep your stuff in continuity with other people's foundry missions for the sake of the game, or do you ignore it and do your own thing? By which I don't just mean character /story stuff, but actual overarching world stuff, be it tech or political or whatnot.
What about stuff that's canon for the game, but not for the TV/movies, either in a soft canon/apocryphal sense, or a contradictory sense? Do you feel the need to adhere to that, or do you ignore it if it suits you/you don't like it?
I don't mean whether or not you're willing to make up totally new stuff (kind of a given), but rather whether you try to write around already existing ideas, or overwrite/ignore them if it either suits your story or you feel you can do better.
Post edited by connectamabob on
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I'll respect other Foundry missions, if I know about them. Don't really see that generally as a problem.
At Fanon, that's starting to get ridiculous. One person can only know so much. If I were aware of it, I would probably respect it, but the reality is I'm not going to be aware of every single fan written story and I'm not going to spend time seeking them all out.
Click here for my Foundry tutorial on Creating A Custom Interior Map.
I try to respect those parts of soft canon that I've read or played, if not adhere to them strictly. Personally I've always liked the Shatner/Reeves-Stephens novels, so I incorporate a lot of that. Sometimes I'll go research something on Memory Beta to see whats been written. I did that with the Tzenkethi when I was going to include them in the "Dissent" Series. I didn't take everything there as gospel, but I utilized some of it.
As for fanon, well I prefer to think of my missions as their own fanon universe, so there is continuity within that. Recurring characters, an actual timeline, etc.
Among other things, I have an interest in making holonovels for people to play, in which case I can utterly ignore canon.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Games, as long as they do not contradict what happened on screen, sure. But I've only played Shattered Universe, Invasion, Conquest, Encounters, Elite Force, Generations and A Final Unity. As far as I'm concerned, Invasion, Shattered Universe, Elite Force and A Final Unity happened (My mission even spawns from A Final Unity in a manner of things). And my player ship is the Sentinel C, following the loss of the Sentinel B in Invasion. Even has the same registry (with an extra 9 on the front, because of game reasons).
Generations contradicts what we saw on screen, so it is the movie version.
In terms of books, I tend to avoid using them as canon. There's too many and they can get quite restrictive in what has happened. Although with Calhoun in game, that does mean A New Frontier books are all canon.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
Some of the books are easy to accept as canon(the Corps of Engineers books), others are problematic(Demons of Air and Darkness).... ok that one is VERY problematic....
Now, I DID use place names derived from Diane Duane's Rihannsu in one of my stories. But... a large part of that seems to be used as BG info in STO.
My character Tsin'xing
*The shows/movies: Generally, yes though you need to keep in mind that the ST writers could themselves be rather slack here so you need to exercise some judgment. It's a great deal of fun to throw some refrence to an episode now and again and it creates a little bonding moment between you and the player when they go: "Hey, I remember that!" Just be careful not to overload your missions with this stuff.
*My own Missions: Yes
*Other people's mission: Not at all, too many to keep track of and I don't want to be pigeon-holed by what someone else has done.
When in doubt I call upon the floating stone head, Zardoz, to guide me. All hail Zardoz! the gun is good!
I will lean towards game and it's cannon, as, I am writing for a section that takes place in the game universe. Paulson Nebula is a good example of this: in the shows it was a soft, pretty, whispy blue. In the game, an obnoxious red which is a misty goop of red tide. For a mission which I used it, I went with the game. And, it has gotten my flak (for more than just the obnoxious part too). When you go against cannon main show, it's a possible mission death sentence.
There are beautiful exceptions, blurring the lines like the game does in some places, explaining away something with something else. What you thought was one thing was really another. However, there is only one bit of Trek Cannon that if I really want to ignore... and that's Methuselah. I like the idea, but, his rap sheet is just too long and has too many inconsistencies for me to be comfortable with.
It's always dangerous when you pick some big part of unwritten cannon or aspect of the show to make a focus. The specific mirror universe for example. Mainly because everybody (including yourself) has an idea of what it should/would/could be. I know, I took a big chance when I attempted to include a child of Reginald Barclay into the foundry. Flirting with disaster in more ways than one. It's dangerous, but, has worked out thus far. Honestly, it was pretty crazy to try, but, I was expecting a Barclay somewhere in STO, so, when the opportunity showed up...
I will say this about foundry mission cannon; good luck. There is so much out there, how do you go with with outside of your own? I know I'm not going to accept the cannon of someone's mission that unwrites the entire trek universe as a hologram. And although I may like the idea, how am I supposed to know your toon married some other toon back off in this other missions series you like? I think the one exception is when the community, or the devs themselves, latch on to something.
I think we all pretty much have to agree that Helna is STO cannon, especially now that we can have our own doff of her.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Curse my two n's and my over-reliance on Spell Check! CURSE YOUUU!!!
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Well, not entirely. A lot of people ended up answering a question I wasn't really asking. Namely, I'm not asking about how people approach canon from the shows and movies. I consider that more or less a given. Nor am I asking whether or not you research soft canon/fannon or worry about contradictions with stuff you're not aware of. Probably my own fault for not being clearer.
I was asking how people feel about actively contradicting preexisting soft canon/fanon that they are already aware of. Do you feel comfortable contradicting novels? Other people's missions? Common fan ideas that may be taken for granted but aren't evidenced in the shows/movies?
Do you worry about how such would be received by your audience? Would you worry about fans of those ideas/books giving you bad reviews? Would that effect how you write the mission, or whether you choose to create the mission or not? How do you feel when you play a mission that does this? Is that effected by whether you prefer one idea over another, or is it based in the principle of canon itself?
I guess my answer is that I would generally not contradict any sort of material I am aware of, provided I consider it reasonable, and legitimate. It depends if it seems like the person is respecting the universe and not abusing their narrative to make wide-scale alterations. If they're doing that, then I will disregard their contributions.
If I played a bad Foundry mission, which I found unbelievable and/or contradictory in itself, then I would have no problems disregarding it. If someone writes a mission that makes major changes to the universe, which fly in the face of what we've come to expect, then I also would likely disregard it. A mission with basically no story gets disregarded by default as being a holodeck simulation or something like that (no sense taking a mission's storyline more seriously than it does itself).
For example, if someone blew up a location accepted to exist, like Jupiter Station, I would disregard it. If they came up with their own "Starbase 136" or "Deep Space 13" then I'd say I could accept it. But there are limits. If a bunch of Deep Space stations all blew up it would start to become far fetched.
The only exception I might make, is if someone came up with a truly epic storyline to explain a major alteration to the universe, then I might possibly accept it. It would depend if I felt being part of that continuity made my own missions better, and how much respect I had for their work.
By default I think it's better if Foundry missions respect each other's continuity. In fact, I have considered starting a thread to try to track relevant events that occur in different people's missions, so that we could try to reference each other's works and not contradict them (obviously it would be entirely voluntary).
As far as outside fanon, that everyone accepts but isn't explicitly presented in the shows, maybe you should give some examples. If everyone accepts it, then for all I know, I do too.
Regarding Canon
Even on the concept of canon, I have to be honest, I pretty much disregard a lot of the stuff from TOS, primarily the ridiculous number of "gods" running around everywhere, and the numerous "mirror Earths". I may not openly contradict it, but I simply don't touch it. I've been watching TOS lately (never really watched the whole show before), and I swear it's got to the point where every third or fourth episode Kirk is asking Spock "What are the odds that a world halfway across the galaxy could develop so identically?" "Almost inconceivable, Captain."
Yeah, actually pointing out how unlikely it is really doesn't improve things, it just makes it worse. As far as I'm concerned, "mirror Earths" (Mirror Universe aside) go straight into the dustbin, and it seems like that's how TNG onward basically treated them as well.
Click here for my Foundry tutorial on Creating A Custom Interior Map.
Anyways, I don't worry about fanon or "soft-canon" when writing foundry stuff.
My character Tsin'xing
As far as I'm concerned, anything's game as long as it can be explained in less then a paragraph as need be, and doesn't contradict anything else I've written. If it contradicts canon or one of the books, I usually take the newer source, In case of fanon I'll either ignore it or tweak it to fit, if I can do that without taking out the heart of the source. Also, I don't go out of my way to throw in any references that don't have to do with the story.
My reasoning is that whenever they refer to an earlier event on the shows, it usually can be summed up in a couple of lines.
This summary, should be thorough enough that any reader can understand it, but succinct enough as to not patronize readers who already caught the reference. Also, I don't like to break characters to explain something, that always bugs me when I see it. If a character couldn't have known about something, they shouldn't act like they do. Likewise, if a character is an expert on the topic, they shouldn't ask stupid questions about it. Also, people don't read reports verbatim, engage all your characters in a conversation about the reference if it takes more then a couple sentences. I've read a few fanfics, and played a few foundry missions, where single characters drone on for whole pages about some event or another, sometimes as if they're reading an MA entry, and it slows the story down a lot.
You can get around these restrictions with clever storytelling though, it's not entirely out of character for someone like an EMH, an android or a Vulcan to over explain something.
Oh, right. I'm with you. I don't write over anything that is set down in the game, or the shows. That is all history, that is all happened. I have no issue at all contradicting books (well, not the New Frontier books, since they obviously are canon in game) but everything else, weither I've read it or not, for my stories, it's not happened.
Likewise, I have no issue at all contradicting someone's foundry mission, if so needed. I try to keep in mind the foundry missions I enjoyed as being in canon, but like negorak, if it's something galaxy wide, then I disregard.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'