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Question about Star Trek Online

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 2:45 am
by Enterprise E
I was wondering about the canon, or rather quasi-canon status of Star Trek Online. I have heard several contradictory statements, even on this forum, about its canonicity, some saying it's just below the TV series and movies, and thus, above the novels, and others that say that it's just as canon as the novels i.e. not at all.

The reason I ask this is because I am thinking about writing a fanfic and I don't know whether to do it based on the current novel timeline or the Star Trek Online timeline. if Star Trek Online has a higher canonicity than the novels, I would like to know since several events happen in the novels that don't happen in the backstory of Star Trek Online.

Re: Question about Star Trek Online

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:09 pm
by 2046
More of a Rules of Evidence question, but in any case, I've never heard any statement that gave me any reason to think it was even near-canon that carried any weight.

There is a little debate at http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Talk:Star_Trek_Online with quotes, none of which go near that.

Is there something stronger I am ignorant of?

Re: Question about Star Trek Online

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 7:57 pm
by Enterprise E
Not that I've heard of besides some passing mentions a while ago. I haven't found anything on official sites, Memory Alpha, or even Memory Beta, which seems to put the novel timeline ahead of the events of Star Trek Online. Also, just to clarify the previous post, I meant the storyline events, rather than the game mechanics for potential canonicity or quasi-canonicity.

Re: Question about Star Trek Online

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 9:06 pm
by Khas
From what I've read, STO is "Soft Canon", which means that the story is canon unless contradicted by the shows/movies.

Also, SPOILERS! (Written in black below the main post. Highlight it if you don't mind being spoiled.)

Everything from the Dominion War to the destruction of Romulus to the current events of STO was engineered by the Iconians, who are planning to make a comeback.

Re: Question about Star Trek Online

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 11:25 pm
by Enterprise E
So it's a level higher than the current novels being written but not on the level of the shows and movies, correct? Also, where have you read such information because I have been looking for such statements but only found some on this forum in posts.

Re: Question about Star Trek Online

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:12 am
by 2046
Yeah, I'd need something solid to even go with soft canon.

Re: Question about Star Trek Online

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:35 am
by Khas
There's a thread about it here on ASVS:
http://forums.asvs.org/index.php?/topic ... on-status/

Re: Question about Star Trek Online

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2014 4:06 am
by 2046
Have read the thread.

- Don't know who Paul is or why he says there was an NDA about it.

- He references "CBS" but gives no details. To wit, quoting from CanonWars:
A whole other matter is the placement of Trek book licensing, formerly done via Viacom Consumer Products and given to Viacom subsidiary Simon & Schuster's Pocket Books imprint. Judging by the comments at the bottom of a computer game announcement in 2006, CBS Enterprises, via unit CBS Consumer Products, now handles Trek licensing for CBS Paramount Television. Simon & Schuster is also under the CBS Corporation, so little changed in that regard. It remains to be seen how licensing regarding Viacom's Paramount Pictures Trek releases will be handled.

It's also worth noting here that there's a certain irony in the idea that CBS, which originally rejected Star Trek in favor of Lost in Space, now owns it.
With that in mind, it seems most likely to me that the mysterious "CBS" he refers to is merely CBS Enterprises, who handles licensees such as the STO game makers. Naturally CBS Enterprises (or their liaison) is going to want to clear assorted things . . . Pocket Books personnel, despite being under the Viacom umbrella back in the day, couldn't just do what they wanted with Trek novels. They had oversight from VCP.

As to the idea of VCP/CBS Enterprises letting them believe they were soft canon . . . well, we don't even know what that's supposed to mean. Viacom and Pocket people were a little flighty back in the day on their treatment of the concept of canon, as illuminated in Paula Block's treatment of the canon Jeri Taylor novels. Taylor and company canonized them, but we have Block saying VCP themselves merely allowed licensees to treat them as quasi-canon, and then stopped of their own accord after Taylor left. In other words, VCP was sort of doing its own thing with licensees and not paying attention to the showrunners, which is rather odd.

I haven't kept up with Trek canon much in the past few years so I can't say if that behavior has changed, but in any case official licensor groups like VCP (or its post-split CBS Enterprises licensing outfit) are not generally the folks who actually dictate canon . . . just witness Lucas Licensing vs. Lucas back in the day, where Chee and the gang were talking about how they treated the EU and the films as one universe while Lucas had to explain over and over that there were separate universes.

I don't know who the go-to person for Trek canon would be right now, since ownership of Star Trek is split between CBS Corp. and Viacom (the latter of which made the newer movies).

But in any case, I don't see any reason to roll with the soft canon idea based on that thread.

Re: Question about Star Trek Online

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2014 6:34 am
by Mike DiCenso
This is a Rules of Evidence thread, and so it is moved there!
-Mike