A little timline discussion

Reading any WC forum since the movie came out makes one thing clear. There's a lot of people who have the opinion that the movie is not WC- the games are.
Others say, if it's called WC, then it IS WC.

Well.. I personally am one of those who don't think WC is the game WC, nor that it is not WC at all.
Since it obviously has WC's story but collides with several facts from the games/novels I approach it like the Highlander saga.

The original Highlander movie had 3 sequels if I remember it correctly and one series.
All sequels kinda altered the ending of the original movie and the sequels themselves didn't work together but all had a different timeline.

But they're all Highlander nevertheless.. I see it that way.. the movie doesn't have to be in the same timeline as the novels and the games.. for me it is an alternative one to the timelines described in the animated series or the novels.

I think saying that WC is WC and everything is equally true is as much making a mistake as saying that everything that alters the games is not 'real' WC.
I say they can exist parallel and don't have to be seen as either being one huge WC, not as one real and one copy WC.

One shoulds approach it like Star Trek, although even STar Trek had some movies or episodes even Gene Roddenberry said about that they were not really Star Trek and didn't fit into the rest.

If one is trying to construct a consistent universe I'd say one has to decide which sources to include.. some always have to be let out.. either the story as it happened in the WC4Novel is true.. or the one of the game is true.
But which sources are chosen is up to every single one and is a matter of taste. That doesn't disqualify any of the other sources.

Any opinions? :)
 
This has already been debated over and over again.

For the dominant part of the fan base, Wing Commander fiction, unlike Star Wars, has no hierarchy. On Star Wars, you have the “universe”, which includes the movies and a few other sources, and the “expanded universe”, which is everything else. Go to www.starwars.com and check out the database.

On WC, regardless of the eventual major discrepancy, everything is considered. It’s problematic because some people will tend to give more weight to a specific source that emphasizes the aspect that best fits their personal preferences.

In any case, however, everything is considered.
 
Erm.. isn't that what I said in my post? That all sources are equally valid, although they normally can't all made to fit in one big timeline..
 
Originally posted by PrinceThrakhath:
If one is trying to construct a consistent universe I'd say one has to decide which sources to include ... But which sources are chosen is up to every single one and is a matter of taste. That doesn't disqualify any of the other sources.

I respect the sentiment, but while letting each person do his or her own thing, so to speak, might be “better” from the perspective of the one person, it would not be “better” from the perspective of this, the one forum. I mean, if what you like to do on this site is discuss aspects of the WC story or time line, it’s going to be difficult to do that if everyone is always free to disagree over what counts as the story or time line in the first place.

To take an amusing example, I greatly enjoy playing chess with my three-year-old niece. But we just don’t play by the same rules. In fact, she always ends up beating me simply by moving a pawn–sometimes one of mine no less–and announcing “checkmate”. As entertaining as this is, I’m still left looking forward to when we’ll be able to have our first real game, since that’s, after all, the main point of playing. (To be sure, though, discussions over whether the game should ever develop new rules do have their place from time to time.)

So for the sake of this forum, we should want to have a common and also, to the extent possible, objective standard of interpretation. And I would claim that (1) our allowing Origin the proverbial “last word” on what WC is, and (2) our interpreting conflicts so as to harmonize rather than exclude WC sources, both go a long way toward realizing such a standard. (But of course one should always feel free to propose a “better” approach.)
 
Originally posted by Nemesis
I respect the sentiment, but while letting each person do his or her own thing, so to speak, might be “better” from the perspective of the one person, it would not be “better” from the perspective of this, the one forum.
I tend to think that even though each person can choose to disregard any part of the WC universe in their heads, for discussion purposes in this forum, all WC stuff must be considered.

I mean, sure, if I want to think WC3 isn't WC, nobody can do anything to change that... but if I come here and try to convince everyone that Kilrah never exploded, people have every right to call me an idiot.

It looks like a really obvious and stupid thing in this example, because it's exaggerated... but people try to argue things like that all the time, really.

--Eder
 
In a discussion ever source has to be considered, of course. But the problem remains that sometimes there just is no single answer.
Either Tolwyn was old enough to fight with Arnold Blair in the Pilgrim war, or he was young enough to graduate by the time the war with Kilrah started as said in Action Stations.
I didn't mean that everyone can give a different answer. No of course not, that would just confuse everybody.
Instead both answers have to be given, presented equally valid, but not working both at the same time.

Coming back to the Highlander example I gave, if someone asked me what happened to Connor McLeod after the first movie I have to tell him that there are 3 possibilities. THose don't all work together, but are all valid and up to one's taste.

So that's what I mean. In the community all sources are equally valid of course, so that's why I said calling some sources valid and others not is the wrong approach.
All I wanted to say is that although all are valid, one shouldn't feel forced to say that they all are part of one single timeline.

My point was that they are "alternate endings" to the same movie. Both exist, both are valid but both at the same time can't work.
And if someone is talking about that movie then it is obvious that both endings have to be considered and none can be called "not the real ending"
 
Originally posted by PrinceThrakhath:
In a discussion ever source has to be considered, of course. But the problem remains that sometimes there just is no single answer . . . Instead both answers have to be given, presented equally valid, but not working both at the same time . . . All I wanted to say is that although all [sources] are valid, one shouldn't feel forced to say that they all are part of one single timeline.

Well it’s not a matter of being “forced” to accept a single time line; a single time line is what naturally “drops out” from the effort to harmonize the conflicts among the sources and to derive thereby a consistent canon. Now when I say “harmonize” do I mean to claim that all the facts to be found in each of the various sources have been (in past discussions) or will be (in future discussions) preserved and thus included in the canon? No, because some facts have been “excluded” in the past and I’m not about to bet on what the future holds. (Especially when a new game is about to appear.)

Given that, and if I understand you correctly, you’re concerned then with how I or anyone else could ever claim that we had a good (read: objective) reason for choosing to ignore a given “unrepentant” fact. In this regard, let’s consider the explicitly alternate “winning” endings to WC4. In one, Blair goes off to become a flight instructor; in the other, he becomes an admiral, assuming Tolwyn’s former station or at least some of his former duties. (Don’t mean to sidestep your own example, but IIRC, LOAF has provided a time line that accounts for Tolwyn’s involvement in the Pilgrim War.)

I take it that you would say that these two endings are “equally valid” (all the more so because the game explicitly allows for them). And so they are, but that does not mean we are prevented from concluding that the first (flight instructor) is what really happened and is therefore part of the canon, while the second (admiral) is not. Instead, we can conclude that because the other relevant sources (WC4 novel and Prophecy guide) require it lest we have no harmony at all among these sources. In other words, where we cannot ideally harmonize all the facts, we can legitimately settle for the maximum degree of harmony that can be achieved with almost all the facts.

The only point I’m trying to make in all the above is that you’re focusing on a very extreme possibility, and one that if it ever has arisen (and I’m not sure that it has) could only do so once it “failed” the fairly extensive and discriminating analysis I’ve suggested. And even then, I would argue that the way to treat such an “undecidable” conflict would be to merely flag it with a question mark for future minds to grapple with, not “resolve” it with some “under-the-rug” notion of parallel WC universes and/or alternate time lines. Besides, this forum has done a sensational job in harmonizing most if not all of the conflicts in our one WC universe and single time line. (Highlander may well be a different story, and it is anyway, and so it is beside the point.:))
 
About WCIV. Tolwyn was a commodore first and an admiral later. So it would make little sense for Blair to be an admiral on WCIV and a commodore on WCP. Anyway, it's quite obvious the instructor is the "good" ending. :)
 
Ah, but Tolwyn was an Admiral (Movie) and then a Commodore (WCA) and then a Vice Admiral (Freedom Flight) and then a Rear Admiral (End Run). Plus he may have been a full Admiral in WC2. So, all in all, he may not be the best example of a straight-forward career path :).

(on a sidenote, if we assume that Tolwyn wasn't a full Admiral in WC2, but a Rear Admiral like in the subsequent novels, that could explain his animosity towards Blair - presumably, it would have been the loss of the Tiger's Claw that got him demoted from Vice to Rear Adm.)
 
Yeah, and maybe "Admiral" was his first name, beacuse Blair keeps calling him that after he gets the "Space Marshal" rank. :D

But seriously, the ranks on the movie are very different from the games, so I don't think it would change much. Maybe movie "Admiral" is to WCA "Commodore" what "Lt JG" is to "cadet" or "2nd Lt". Or maybe not. What I do know is that I don't care.
 
Originally posted by Nemesis
...In this regard, let’s consider the explicitly alternate “winning” endings to WC4. In one, Blair goes off to become a flight instructor; in the other, he becomes an admiral, assuming Tolwyn’s former station or at least some of his former duties. (Don’t mean to sidestep your own example, but IIRC, LOAF has provided a time line that accounts for Tolwyn’s involvement in the Pilgrim War.)

Well no.. not really like that.. The alternative ending of WCIV is maybe a bad example since that is meant to be wrong ending, somehow like a Kilrathi Fleet conquering Earth in WC3. They can also be regarded as valid of course, but then all sequels couldn't be inlcuded anymore I guess.
A better example would probably be WC4 and its novel since both stories differ very much but would equally work with the rest. Here you can't really tell what story is valid now. Was catscratch involved with Sosa or was it Blair. Did Seether beat Blair at the Bar and Maniac helped him out, oder did Maniac watch and Blair stayed cool.
Usually one goes for the game's story but if someone regards the novel as more detailed and not so interactive and therefore rather goes with the book than the game, ok.
In this case you either have to decide which is the real thing and take the other source to fill some details in, or you give two answers like "in the game Blair did this, in the novel he did that"

About Tolwyn.. well if I take the facts about the Pilgrim war given by the Confed Handbook then Tolwyns age is kinda the biggest problem. I tried to harmonize that some time ago myself and never got to a satisfying result, but however.
 
Howdy!

Certainly one of my favorite topics.

In general-

I personally think that as sci fi universes go, Wing Commander is very continous -- the fact that there are so few products, coupled with the variable interactive nature of the games means that it can all be fit together reasonably well. Certainly better than a 'popular' Sci Fi universe... or even better than 'real' history or classic mythology which relies on dozens of different takes on the same situation. As a basis for timelining something, that's a pretty good place to start.

I think it has to be taken on an entirely case-by-case basis -- if this doesn't seem right, we should look at it and figure out why and decide a solution -- whether that's an explanation or to say that so andso fact needs to be ignored on a larger scale will depend on the situation. I think that a lot of times we forget that the tie-in novels and such are much more of a blessing than a curse -- the WCIV novel, for instance, may contradict some things, but it also lets us create a very detailed day-by-day (and at points hour-by-hour) history of what happened in those few weeks of Wing 4.

It's worth pointing out that fans of those 'other' universes are a bit full of themselves -- the idea that some Star Trek or Star Wars products are 'canon' (or have different *levels* of 'canon') and some are not doesn't *actually* exist as a helpful guide as to whether or not I should read the latest Enterprise novel. It's purely a writers guide -- when you have hundreds of hours of filmed footage and thousands of tie-in products, you can't expect everyone submitting a spec script to be familiar with everything. So they set guidelines -- you don't have to know that a writer in 1983 said so-and-so, but you do need to know what happened in these specific episodes. No company would willingly tell people 'don't buy our products, they're not officia'. :)
 
Originally posted by PrinceThrakhath:
The alternative ending of WCIV is maybe a bad example since that is meant to be wrong ending, somehow like a Kilrathi Fleet conquering Earth in WC3. They can also be regarded as valid of course, but then all sequels couldn't be inlcuded anymore I guess.

I don’t think we’re disagreeing (or if we are, we’re not that far apart). Anyway, you seem to agree that we should as a matter of course try to, and often can, construct fairly objective reasons for choosing between otherwise valid but conflicting “scenarios”, which is my only point. But the alternate endings in WC4 are a very good example of how that works, not a bad one. And if by describing the one ending as “wrong”, and presumably the other as “right”, you only mean that Blair as an admiral is not the “path” you (and probably most of us) would want him to take, I have no problem with that sentiment. (But that would not be a proper basis for choosing between the two endings; if the “wrong” one were more consistent with the rest of WC, we would be obliged to accept it and discount the other.)
 
Originally posted by Nemesis
...you only mean that Blair as an admiral is not the “path” you (and probably most of us) would want him to take, I have no problem with that sentiment. (But that would not be a proper basis for choosing between the two endings; if the “wrong” one were more consistent with the rest of WC, we would be obliged to accept it and discount the other.)

Well no, I don't disagree with the "bad" ending for Blair. But as far as I know that end isn't continued in the further products. I haven't read the WCP Guide for some time so I don't know if that tells us if Blair was a FLight intructor or not.. if it doesn't then of course the "bad" ending would also be valid.

My point was however not that I want to exculde something I don't accept as real.
My point was that we have to consider everything that exists. Only when it comes to creating a continuous timeline which usually demands for making a decision which path is real now and which not, one might have to decide for one of them.

What I basically meant is that there are two postions/opinions around:

- Certain sources are valid, some are not
and
- All sources are valid, if having conflicts or not

and that I don't fully agree with either one.
My position is a mixture of those. As long as a discussion is going on about facts and happenings in the WC universe and as long as questions about that are asked and answered one has to stick to all available sources, and if those conflict one has to deliver both versions pointing at the sources each one comes from.
As soon as it comes to the personal decision which of the conflicting sources one decides to prefer, then the first of the upper position has to be taken.

Most of the people see the games as the sceletton and use the game-novels to fill in details which we don't see in the game.
That is ok, but the other way around it would also work, and nobody could really deny that 100%.

I mean, if Flash is a testpilot as in the game, or a replacement pilot (from Blackmane if I remember it correctly) as in the novel.. that's up to personal preference. It's two different stories about the same man. Both work with the timeline, both are from a WC3 source. Which one is chosen to be true now .. that's up to every single fan to decide for himself as long as no new source confirms one of them as to be prefered by Origin, or whoever owns WC by then.

Hope I made myself somehow clear *g* Sorry I couldn't make it somewhat shorter.
 
I still think we mostly agree, but I do wonder a bit when you speak of a source being valid or invalid, and also when you talk of an issue being “up to every single fan to decide for himself”.

For a given conflict we should be talking only about whether a particular fact in a WC source fits with the rest of canon; a WC (Origin-approved) source is going to remain a valid source despite giving rise to conflicts or having a particular fact ultimately discounted. And where a given conflict is difficult to resolve to the point we fail to reach a consensus, it is no solution to then say that each person is free “to decide for himself”; it is simply the case that the issue needs to be revisited in the future (and as a practical matter will be).

Finally, any “personal decision” or “personal preference” that consists of saying–to take your example of Flash–that Flash is a test pilot “because I just like the idea of Flash being a test pilot” does not count as any kind of reason in a debate about canon.
 
Well I didn't say that "I like Flash better as a Test-Pilot" is a reason to make it valid. I just say as long as there is no 3rd source finally confirming one of them, a debate about canon isn't possible since there are no facts speaking for either one of them more than for the other. So I meant that as long as two colliding facts exist and both work with the rest of the story and one can't tell which one's final now it's up to every single one to take the one he likes best - but of course only UNTIL a new source is finally stating which one will be continued.

If your problem with my statements is that I called it source, well ok then.. with source I didn't mean e.g. the entire book.. more the one sentence in that book providing that fact. If one fault exists in that book I wouldn't block out the entire book of course, just let that one sentence away. I guess that's what you meant.

But to go back to the problems like the Flash one.. there you can't let a sentence away.. since both Game and Novel are valid sources and both Flash backgrounds work with the main story.. so there's no reason to ignore either one.. but obviously both can't work at the same time.. and there's my point.. as long as two equally valid facts exits yet can't work together one must talk about both being "the truth" until another source might come out which might work only with one of the two, disqualifying the other.
 
Originally posted by Bandit LOAF
I think it has to be taken on an entirely case-by-case basis -- if this doesn't seem right, we should look at it and figure out why and decide a solution -- whether that's an explanation or to say that so andso fact needs to be ignored on a larger scale will depend on the situation.

I agree. And the best solution should take all sources into account, instead of taking one and ignoring another.

I also think that we shouldn't just give weight to literal quotes like "Blair was scared" or Blair saying, "I'm scared", but to the general context of things. If on a cartoon or in a game he looks or acts scared, it's reasonable to assume that he is, even if there's no one saying that. So if someone says that Blair was scared on a giant warlord bug jumped over him inside an massive collapsing alien gate, it’s reasonable to assume he was scared.

Yeah, sounds like a work for Captain Obvious, but it's not unusual for people to forget that on the heat of the discussion. There are moments where we shouldn’t take everything too literally. Of course if a novel say Blair in on Thunderbolt #20 on patrol on the Loki system, it’s a pretty literal quote. But not everything is quite like that.

It's worth pointing out that fans of those 'other' universes are a bit full of themselves -- the idea that some Star Trek or Star Wars products are 'canon' (or have different *levels* of 'canon') and some are not doesn't *actually* exist as a helpful guide as to whether or not I should read the latest Enterprise novel.

I don't know about Star Trek, but this is a necessity on Star Wars. They made a lot of money by selling tons of merchandise, but when they decided to make the prequels they simply couldn't have to "obey" all the countless SW fiction officially released in all those years. The basic idea was to get a lot of cash, and not to keep the a coherent universe, which proved to be a sound business decision.

At least they are good enough to have a very well done database. It's imperfect, but it's a good guide.
 
Originally posted by PrinceThrakhath:
Well I didn't say that "I like Flash better as a Test-Pilot" is a reason to make it valid.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you did; I was just trying to understand if you meant some subjective view (and it appears you didn’t) when you referred to a “personal decision” or to what a person “likes best”.

I just say as long as there is no 3rd source finally confirming one of them, a debate about canon isn't possible since there are no facts speaking for either one of them more than for the other . . . as long as two equally valid facts exits yet can't work together one must talk about both being "the truth" until another source might come out which might work only with one of the two, disqualifying the other.

That’s very clear, and it’s a very conservative view of canon. I respect it, but I myself take a more liberal view. I would argue that we fans can legitimately claim a minimal creative role in WC by debating how some imagined “3rd source” would and should resolve conflicts among the currently existing sources. (But as I’ve said before, such resolutions must be supported by objective reasons.)

Still, we might be able to bridge our two views about canon by reducing them to just a matter of semantics. I think the upshot of your perspective is that any proposed reconciliation that does “sacrifice” one stated fact for another, while not really canon to your way of thinking, is nevertheless a valid candidate for canon since it would only lack Origin’s imprimatur. I would have no problem with that technical distinction since I don’t believe it would make any practical difference in how we go about debating issues of canon.

As for the “Flash” storylines, I think there’s a lot of overlap in the stated facts. The only “hard” conflict I’m aware of is which fighter Flash first flew in on–a Thunderbolt or an Excalibur. The other conflicts are “softer”, and so most of the facts could probably be preserved with only a few tweaks between them.
 
Re: Flash. It's interesting that in the HOTT novel he actually mentions having been a test pilot... surely there's a way to fit both into the same timeline (especially given that Blackmane comes after Tamayo...). Perhaps Flash tested the Excalibur at Tamayo, wasn't challenged by Blair and then returned to his Home Defense position at Blackmane, where he joined the Victory when they needed reinforcements?
 
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