By that logic, we're obliged to take the uncontradicted parts of *every* scene of *every* path of *every* Wing Commander game seriously, as a possibilty . . .
Yes, that follows, and that’s fine. It’s a nice description of what we do in the Zone all the time as we debate what we know and what we don’t know about the WC universe.
. . . as there would be players who arrived at that scene by honest choices.
No, you’re confusing my parenthetic comment with my main point. (Probably my fault.) I’m definitely not trying to tie how a player plays the game to what then can become canon. My side comment was simply to say that if you or I were to play WCIV for the first time, made what we had every reason to believe were valid mission choices, won the game by bringing Tolwyn down and exposing the Black Lance, only
then to see Blair as an admiral in control of “Black Lance fighters” . . . well, the
apparent implication of that for us (both as players and as Blair) is . . . oh, NOT a happy one.
But if it’s possible that we
weren’t the cause of the Black Lance surviving . . . such as that, among other possibilities, the Black Lance continues in the other endgame too . . . well, we can still hold our heads high.
As I said, it was a side comment, and so not meant to be part of the main point.
[T]hen the WC universe fractures into a dozen or more differant continuities, which would be ridiculous.
No, that doesn’t follow. We’re still talking about only
one continuity. We’re just trying to figure out what does or will make it up, and so we ponder what the possibilities are. (Kind of like life generally.)
The scene is an alternate ending that is not the canon ending chosen by the WC creators, and that is that.
No, to the best of our knowledge, only
part of the one endgame can’t be canon.
You seem to treat the two endgames as somehow mutually exclusive with absolutely no overlap. But they
do overlap. Isn’t Tolwyn’s downfall part of both? (For that matter, isn’t the Confederation in both?) And if Tolwyn falls in both, why can’t the Black Lance survive in both? It’s . . . a possibility.