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CANON The canonicity of some works – both those usually considered canon (the live series and movies, as above) and '' (''ST6:TUC'') to be apocryphal, although these films remain full canon. Paramount Pictures , owners of the Star Trek franchise, has maintained the definitions of canon since Roddenberry's death in 1991. This means that, while the writers of subsequent Star Trek TV and film productions were not forbidden from referring to concepts introduced in a non-canon source, they are also not obliged to consider any of them when developing storylines. This has led to many occasions in which official "canon" stories contradict "non-canon" stories, particularly those from the novels and comic books. Further complicating the issue is exactly which version of a live action work is precisely canon. The '' but later included on their DVDs. SEMI-CANON Official works licensed by works like the popular '' Star Trek Chronology '' and technical manuals about Star Trek 'technology' . Such works are generally written by major contributors for on-screen materials (the live series and movies) and contain canonical elements. On-screen canon evidence supersedes information in reference works whenever there is a contradiction. NON-CANON According to the editors at '' novels ''Pathways'' and ''Mosaic'', both by the series producer Jeri Taylor . This viewpoint is considered controversial by many fans of Star Trek fiction, some of whom consider the literary works to be superior to many examples of the televised and filmed Star Trek. Confusing the issue further, the StarTrek.com FAQ currently lists those two novels as being canon. This confuses the issue, since it raises the issue of who exactly at Paramount Pictures defines the canon: the production staff of the Star Trek movies and television programs, or executives higher up in the company, and what happens if a minor point of canon conflicts between the two. Various official Computer Games based on Star Trek have been released – often by Paramount's sister firm Simon And Schuster – but these, too, are discontinuous from the canon. No '' called "The Catwalk." The non-canon nature of TAS remains an area of controversy among fans as the series introduced several key pieces of backstory for the Trek universe, including details of Spock 's childhood, and the identification of Robert April as the first captain of the '' Enterprise ''. Neither of these elements have as yet been officially introduced into canon. There is similar ambiguity regarding licensed Star Trek Trading Card s and the related Collectible Card Game s. FANON Star Trek (''TOS''). CANONICITY OF OTHER MATERIALS Unofficially decanonized material While official policy of Paramount Pictures is that all live action Star Trek is fully canonical, interviews and commentaries with writers and producers have revealed that there was an unofficial but widespread policy in the Star Trek production offices that certain parts of Star Trek were to be ignored outright and treated as if they never existed. These elements were parts of Star Trek that the producers (and largely fans) considered to be in conflict with existing canon, and not worth acknowledging. Particularly, the events of ''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier'' and the '''' (''VOY'') episode " Threshold " received this treatment. Despite over 560 hours of canonical Star Trek produced after ''ST5:TFF'', not a single reference to any of its events has ever been made in canonical on-screen Star Trek since then. In fact, some later works outright contradict or ignore these works, such as the episode " Sarek " of ''TNG'', which mentions that Sarek's first wife was from Earth (contradicting the "long lost" secret Vulcan princess he supposedly married before Amanda Grayson according to ''ST5:TFF''). Despite the seemingly monumental engineering achievements in "Threshold" (being able to achieve infinite/transwarp speed, even if the process is injurious to organic life), they are never mentioned again in ''VOY'' or any other canonical source. Roddenberry canon and personal canon Roddenberry canon is a term used by fans to refer to Star Trek subject matter that ''), and including the animated series. Some fans also use this rationale to discount anything produced after Roddenberry's death, or anything after the original series or some other arbitrary point where they believe that Star Trek diverged from the wishes of Roddenberry. The term "personal canon" has been used to describe such selective rejection of aspects of the Star Trek franchise by fans, in what is often called called Krypto-revisionism . Star Fleet Universe The Star Fleet Universe is a separate, officially licensed, and consistent but schismatic canon of Star Trek that first split in 1979 with the production of the '' Star Fleet Battles '' wargame set in the Star Trek setting, and later the '' Star Fleet Command '' computer game and '' Prime Directive Roleplaying Game ''. It is a separate canon that because of limitations in its license, it can only use the original series, the animated series, and the Franz Joseph reference works to base its setting from, and has expanded to create an entirely separate and far more warlike setting. FASA In 1982, around the time of the release of ''ST2:TWOK'', '', and other officially licensed books of the time like '' Mr. Scott's Guide To The Enterprise '', were consistent with and based on the FASA materials. However, in 1987, ''TNG'' began to significantly contradict many assumptions of FASA about the direction of Star Trek. After FASA produced their ''Star Trek: The Next Generation Officer's Manual'' after the first season of ''TNG'', which tried to reconcile and retcon on-screen events into the FASA canon, Paramount Pictures revoked FASA's license to publish Star Trek materials, saying that their works were too militaristic for Star Trek. Shortly after the license was revoked, new licensed manuals and source materials were published that quickly contradicted virtually everything created by FASA and all the assumptions about Star Trek canon that had been established over the last several years, in what was interpreted by some as a Continuity Reboot since so much canon had been revoked and replaced. Franz Joseph materials In 1973 , Franz Joseph , a naval architect who was interested in Star Trek, was licensed by Roddenberry (who at the time controlled Star Trek licensing personally though his company Lincoln Enterprises) to produce official reference works about Star Trek. He produced the ''Star Trek Blueprints'' (ISBN 0-345-25821-5), a comprehensive deck-by-deck set of blueprints that provided in exacting detail every aspect of the starship ''Enterprise''. Following both Roddenberry's strong approval of the work and their large success to the fan community, in 1975 he followed by producing '' The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual '' (ISBN 0-345-34074-4), which gave not only general details about the ''Enterprise'', but included new starship designs. Information from the book was used in the production of the first three feature films. The opening to '''' included a scene where the names and registry numbers of ships mentioned in the Technical Manual were read in the background, while ship schematics copied directly from the Technical Manual were used as displays on the bridge in both ''ST2:TWOK'' and ''ST3:TSFS'' (including a close up in the latter). These uses by the production staff of Star Trek on screen cemented their image as official parts of Star Trek canon at the time. For many years, these reference works formed the backbone for treatments of the Star Trek setting. Their general assumptions about Starfleet and the galaxy as a whole were the basis of the Star Fleet Universe and FASA's version of Star Trek, as well as most novels about Star Trek. This book was one of the materials that was stripped of its canonical status at around the same time as FASA's version of Star Trek and its ideas about Star Trek were ignored from that point on. Klingon language Also in the Star Trek universe, issues of what is and is not canon also are rife in the various Klingon-speaking communities. The '' is canon is debated, although the author, Ann C. Crispin , states in the introduction to that book that the Klingon in that book was okayed by Okrand. Other groups have used Okrand's work and expanded upon it – for instance, Glen Proechel 's Interstellar Language School – or include various other Trek novels, novellas or movies in Klingon language canon. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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