JPH>  Your whole argument is based on the idea that there is a
JPH> "Correct" Trek out there somewhere.  That they guy who said that
JPH> Riker
BN>Well, no, actually, Jay, it's not. :)
        Is too, is too, is too! :)  You prove it in the next statment.
BN>  Reason being, that there
BN>_are_ folks who will insist that the show can't be right because
BN>a novel contradicted it.  Now all logic tells us that that makes
BN><0 sense, no? ;)
        Logic tells me that it's all imaginary!  The TV show was dreamed
 up the same way a novel was.  None of it makes any *real* sense.  It
 all makes a certain amount of sense within the Trek Milleau.
        I have said and I'll say again that I agree with the idea of
 canon as a startng point.  But that's just a matter of convenience.  A
 similar frame of logic tells us that since TNG disagrees with TOS then
 TOS must be canon and TNG regarded as inaccurate and "non-canon".
        There is a certain kind of internal logic to dealing with a
 mythical framework but detailing what is and is not an authorized
 source for the framework (What is and is not cannon) is much more
 difficult and not amenable to logic.
BN>Of course.   I'm not saying that there's a
BN>One True Trek  -- in fact I'm saying just the opposite.
        Me too.
BN>My point
BN>was that looking at it from the POV that the wishes of a 3rd
BN>generation cousin (twice removed ) would have standing to
BN>dictate reality to the rest of the family is more than a little
BN>nonsensical. ;)
        A third generation cousin has no standing to dictate reality, by
 neither does Gene Roddenberry.  Trek ISN'T REAL.  There is no reality
 to dictate.
JPH> couldn't be captain because the novel had Data as the captain is
JPH> *wrong*.
JPH>        Perhaps his statement might be inaccurate or unlikely, and
JPH> perhaps I might *disagree* with it, but to take a stand on the idea
JPH> of "Right"-trek and "Wrong"-Trek is to miss the point that
JPH> it's all imaginary anyway.
BN>True, but we do expect our fictional mythos to have a certain
BN>amount of consistency, no? 
        Yes, but over time and climbing this ol' staircase a number of
 times I have come to realize that consistency to me is not the same as
 consistency to you.  Canon+Jay P. Hailey =/ Canon+Bill Nichols.
        It's all a matter of opinion.
BN>Par exemple, if in one novel Jim
BN>Kirk is captain & in the next (given a succeeding timeline) he's
BN>doing a Kevin Riley & retraining down in engineering as an ensign,
BN>would that make sense?  Obviously no. :)
        Not to me, no.  But I'm the one that decides such things for me.
BN>And yet if we're to
BN>accept as an axiom that each novel is as much an authoritative
BN>reality as the next, or as the show it itself owes its very life
BN>to, then we're in the illogical & very untenable position of
BN>having to take the inconsistency as definitive fact.  And that's
BN>where the breakdown comes in & the need for some core reality in
BN>the mythos becomes evident. :)
        One more time:  You use the term "Definitive fact" and "Core
 Reality" in the paragraph above.  I deny that there are such things in
 regards to TREK.
        Although there are some strong opinions out there... :)
        But seriously, to accept seriously inconsistent facts about Trek
 is no challenge,  mostly because I don't.  But that is *my* trek.
 Yours is going to look slightly different.  The guy who thinks the
 novels are binding is going have a different one.  But none of them is
 any more valid than nay other becauser the whole thing is invalid.
 TREK isn't real.
BN>That's why years ago I made the statement that the novels perhaps
BN>should be considered as consistent within themselves, but
BN>discounted entirely for any *other* novel,
        Personally, I agree with that.  There used to be a fanzine
 called TREK and a paperback version called "The Best of TREK" in which
 I read an entertaining speculation about the alternate universes of
 TOS.  The claim was that there were possibily as many as four alternate
 universes portrayed in TOS, marked by which starbase and admiral the
 Enterpise reported to.
        Using this explanation for novels unravels the TREK multiverse
 into a large number of alternates.
        But that's just speculation.  Your milage may vary.
BN>or as regards the show
BN>itself, which in the final analysis *is* the patriarch, after all.
BN>There's room for it all, but we have to be careful of not falling
BN>into the trap of saying (as DB did) that the spin-off supersedes
BN>its parent.
        No one thing supercedes any other thing because they are all
 imaginary. I decide what takes precidence for me, you choose what's
 canon for you.  DB chooses what is accurate for *him*.  DB's statements
 or yours can influence but not choose what I consider to be "True".
BN>Of course, the fact that DB said all that for no other reason than
BN>to disrupt the echo is neither nor there.   You've noticed,
BN>I'm sure, BTW, that he's, er, "no longer here." ;)  It's amazing
BN>what a little mod effort here & there can accomplish. }}:)
        What does that mean?
Jay P. Hailey 
Chief Editor
THE UNIVERSE: TREK
 * OLX 2.1 TD * "Consider it a warning, Quark." - Odo
--- Maximus/2 3.01
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