For example, the Federationās founding members (Tellarites, Andorians, Vulcans, Humans) were the subject of fan theories and āfanonā for many years before the ENT writers made it official. One of the interesting (and fun) aspects of this recent wave of series has been seeing the writers increasingly add nods to fan theories and pieces of fanon lore over the years. What are some good examples of this?
And relatedly: whatās a fan theory, or piece of fanon, that you suspect the current writers believe, even if they havenāt explicitly stated it on-screen?
Fair enough - but most completely fan created stuff as opposed to licensed doesnāt have that wide a distribution so very few things rise to the level where itās been accepted enough in the fan consciousness to be fanon. Fewer still get converted into canon. Most of the time itās contradicted.
I suppose one example would be NiāVar, which had its origins solely in fanzines. But that doesnāt quite work either since it wasnāt a widely known concept until DIS resurrected it.
The only thing I can think off off-hand thatās widely accepted is that the Klingons got cloaking technology from the Romulans in exchange for Klingon ship designs. But thatās been contradicted to a degree too.
I think that you could consider everything from fanzines and fanfic through licensing to what gets onscreen as a large ongoing dialogue.
Some cool things drift around for a long time, so itās not even clear if they originated in specific tie-in fiction unless the authors themselves identify who came up with a name - as we can do with Number One being given the name Una.
The preponderance of EPs at this point are fans who bring their own longstanding ideas of canon, but theyāre to some extent influenced by the ongoing fan and licensing dialogue.
In some cases, especially with Goldsman who was deep in the fanzine debates of the 70s, I get the idea that heās intentionally working to counter longstanding fan headcanon or interpretations that he sees as a barrier for new generations to accept TOS.
When we get to tie-in fiction, the writers of licenced products are in most cases also fans, and, like Goldsman, have been immersed in and speculating on past canon for decades themselves. And then the younger television writers have clearly been reading some of the tie-in fiction or playing the games. Or they themselves have been written them, or at least their consultants.
As a Treklit fan, I am seeing that the new shows increasingly draw on the licenced tie-in writing, both books and comics as well as STO.
Discovery season two pulled in the S31 Control AI concept. Picard season three brought STO ships to television, but also paralleled and wove in elements of the the TNG characters from the Relaunch books.
I donāt think itās reasonable to attribute it simply to Beyerās influence as a tie-in author whoās now an in-house canon anchor and writer on all the live-action shows. Thatās part of it, as are David Mackās contributions on Lower Decks and Prodigy.
Prodigy has brought the Brikars (originally created by Peter David for the YA Academy books) into onscreen canon. Thatās probably my favourite ācanonization.ā But Mack has also encouraged a restoration of noncommissioned officer roles and several other subtle āsolutionsā out of Treklit.
Anyway, its an interesting thing to trace.
This is an excellent comment, and honestly should be visible higher up. You should make a top-level post out of this!
Thanks for the encouragement.
I will do that. I might wish to add another example or two.