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How Canon Works In Star Army

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I saw in the Shoutbox where a new player was told that Open RP isn't canon. This is not the case and I want to clear up that misconception.

As I thought about how to explain it, I decided the problem was that, even after all these years of RP, we still didn't actually have a solid guide on how canon actually works in Star Army! It feel like this is big oversight on my part. So, I wrote up an article this morning that explains what Star Army canon is.

Star Army has different "levels" of canon. Stuff is canon if it is on the wiki, or if it's in the RP forums, and it's considered the MOST canon if those two types of canon combine in a Voltron-like manner to become "hard" canon.

Here's the article that breaks it down: Guide to Canon on Star Army
 
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Are links from the wiki to the RP threads a requirement to meet hard canon?

I ask because we've flipped board software and nullified backlinking efforts before.
 
Doshii Jun said:
Are links from the wiki to the RP threads a requirement to meet hard canon?

I ask because we've flipped board software and nullified backlinking efforts before.
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No, but they are the best way to show that something is obviously "hard canon" as opposed to just "firm canon" wiki source material, because they show the article is RP-based. I have no plans to switch software soon, and if we do sometime years later, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. At least this time, we'll have URLs with the thread name in them instead of random numbers.
 
We need like a sliding ladder of canon showing how different events override eachother and what the requirements for each step are.

eg: Hard, firm, implied, soft, speculated and none.
 
Wes said:
No, but they are the best way to show that something is obviously "hard canon" as opposed to just "firm canon" wiki source material, because they show the article is RP-based.
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OsakanOne said:
We need like a sliding ladder of canon showing how different events override eachother and what the requirements for each step are.
Click to expand...
We seem to have the scale, and how one overrides the other.

What we're missing is what happens when one does override another. Right now, I feel like we risk running into that, essentially invalidating RP already in existence because we didn't have this clearly stated before.
 
When the wiki and forums don't match up, the wiki takes precedence; however, we should also try to edit the wiki to match what's on the forum as closely as possible. In other words, we should try to harmonize things. If there's disagreement, we should start a thread in setting discussion where I'll make a judgement on what the "official" canon is and update the wiki accordingly.

Example 1: Recent scenario of Asura III
  1. Arieg makes an unapproved article for Asura III (non-canon)
  2. Wes likes it and adopts it for his Asura III article (making it firm canon)
  3. Wes posts RP based on it (soft canon)
  4. The article is updated based on the RP (moving the establishment of Fort Asura in RP from firm canon to hard canon)
Now in the scenario, I made a mistake by using the unapproved article when it was still unfinished and unapproved, which caused some drama. Ideally step 2 is the article being approved in the NTSE like normal. In this case, Arieg's WIP parts of the article on Asura III were eventually removed so he could work on them separately and the main planet article only has hard canon info now.

The ideal flow therefore is: idea > wiki WIP > wiki approval > forum RP > update the wiki based on RP

Another acceptable flow is idea > forum RP > wiki WIP based on the forum RP > wiki approval - This flow might be seen in Open RP.

Example 2: Rixxikor canon

Rixxikor article created > article approved > RP happened featuring Rixxikor > article was updated with history and more information based on the RP.
 
Hmmm. OK. I follow.

I still believe previous RP could be at risk, but as long as the wiki can be updated with the RP, we should be fine. GMs will have to be careful about framing certain events or setting pieces as "plot devices only" to justify moving past the NTSE process.
 
Well, we could have other events be "how some people remember a set of events as happening". Like... The entire canon is a cultural recollection of events within a fictional universe. Not everyone's recollection of what happened is going to be the same. There's even made up stuff, lies, embellishment and exaggeration - turning events and history into legends through chinese whispers and heresay.
 
That only works for something written entirely IC. The Wiki is meant more like a character sheet in D&D is, it's our way of keeping track of things, not something that's written by the characters in setting.
 
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In some cases the wiki will deliberately not match the actual RP because of sticky situations. For example, if there's a major retcon. When the setting updates of 2011 took effect, it removed the giant FTL deadzones from the starmap because they had been phased out of the setting. They're still in the "soft canon" of RP that is the forum posts of 2010 and earlier, but not on the wiki anymore.
OsakanOne said:
Well, we could have other events be "how some people remember a set of events as happening". Like... The entire canon is a cultural recollection of events within a fictional universe. Not everyone's recollection of what happened is going to be the same. There's even made up stuff, lies, embellishment and exaggeration - turning events and history into legends through chinese whispers and heresay.
Click to expand...
The wiki is an OOC document describing the site's canon, not any character or culture's opinion. That said, you're welcome to put "The Lorath, however, believe that... <insert BS or opinion here>" in an article.
 
Wes said:
In some cases the wiki will deliberately not match the actual RP because of sticky situations. For example, if there's a major retcon. When the setting updates of 2011 took effect, it removed the giant FTL deadzones from the starmap because they had been phased out of the setting. They're still in the "soft canon" of RP that is the forum posts of 2010 and earlier, but not on the wiki anymore.
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Ahhh. The tiers make a better argument now. Got it.

As long as we note such retcons, we should be good. Context, as always, is vital.
 
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