Lit Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki

Can anyone fill me in on whats going on with this whole debate of InQuest/Decipher/etc?

 

In short: the Star Trek universe being ambiguously canon rather than non canon.

 

What does any of that have to do with a) Star Wars, b) the Wookiepedia, c) Inquest, or d) Decipher?

 

From what I can gather, though I may be wrong, in which case I'm sure someone can correct me:

a) One would assume nothing, b) but apparently we cannot be positive and can only make a guess otherwise we would risk defamation of LFL, (c) because there was an article linking Star Wars to Star Trek in Inquest, (d) and since Decipher presumably needed approval from LFL to avoid copyright infringement, it therefore would have been labelled Infinites if they hadn't wanted it to be regarded as canon, hence per (b) we cannot categorically state that it is not. The main row is about the interpretation of Leeland's statements regarding the article's status, as well as whether or not the Wookiee should just apply common sense.

All that junk aside though, it's basically just your typical online row that will probably go around and around and around in circles forever.

Which for me translates to good comedy.

 

I'd say check out the Wookiepedia entry (Mirror, Mirror), but the entry itself - ironically enough - contains no actual description in the text of the article itself, although you can extract it from the screenshot of the first page of the article.
Basically, InQuest Magazine had a 'what-if' article noting that Decipher (at the time) had the licenses for both the Star Trek and Star Wars CCGs and thus was discussing ways that Decipher could make a 'crossover' for their two games. Since it contained Star Wars information, a Wookiepedia article was made. In keeping with the rules of Wookiepedia's canon policy, since no information was available on the licensee status of InQuest, the article was labelled 'ambiguously canon'. In addition, any Star Trek material that appeared in the body the article has been given entries in the Wookiepedia, all also 'ambiguously canon'.
Valiento went directly to the TOS forums and presented the situation here. Leland's reply was simply "I'm unaware of Inquest ever being an official Star Wars licensee.", which as you can probably see in this thread wasn't felt definitive enough.

 

How the writing belies a point of view, other than that Booster Terrik is a large, unsubtle, and complicated man, I still don't get. And I recall the main issue being clarity, which suggests "people won't understand this", not "this is bad".

 

There were 1980s political cartoons about Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" Space Defense Initiative that had Star Wars stuff in them.

QED Ronald Reagan is ambiguously canon.

 

References on a TV show are one thing, but what about extended skits involving Star Wars on shows? Are we absolutely sure LFL didn't license them? Family Guy's "Blue Harvest"? Guest appearance on the Muppet Show? The Donnie and Marie Show where they played Leia and Luke and Redd Foxx was Obi-Wan? Hey, there was that episode of NewsRadio set in space where they referenced the events of ANH happening. Has Leland given a watertight answer of whether or not these were licensed or not?
As long as there is a single iota of doubt on their licensing status, Wookieepedia suffers every day is does not have articles on these ambiguously canon subjects.

 

Yes, this. The whole "notable until proven otherwise" mentality taken with the InQuest stuff just... flies straight in the face of how we treat everything else on the Wook. But, hey, it's been there since 05. It has to be right.

Tradition, tradition! Sedition!

 

We're working on it, Hav.

 

To be fair, the issue is that there's some legitimate question here whether these might have went through licensing, and there's just no record of it. I personally really don't think there's any chance they actually did, and Leland's just covering his bases by making wishy-washy "Well, I don't have any record, I don't have anything to say they did, I don't know that they did," statements, and I maintain that so long as LFL refuses to acknowledge them as canon, they're not canon regardless of what process they might have gone through, but that's just my opinion. Votes to change the way we handle ambiguous content have generally failed, so there's not much to be done about it.

 

All joking aside, I do understand why Wookiepedia has the 'ambiguously canon' field and it does make sense - especially considering that some of the best of it is occasionally mined by current authors (like in the upcoming Atlas). I don't deny the relevance of entries for Star Wars material whatever the source, or the designation. I don't think Leland was being deliberately obscure, rather it was an off-the-top-of-his-head answer without checking through old paperwork - and since I doubt that it was licensed, it's difficult to 'prove a negative', so to speak.
Like I said, the point should be moot because a 'what-if' CCG scenario involving Star Wars and Star Trek would be non-canon even if it was licensed. And the Star Trek stub articles are really absurd.
The actual article itself is devoid of content - it doesn't even describe what the article is about - and for all the concern over its status, the people citing a need for a better statement from Chee before removing the 'ambiguously canon' haven't followed up on Valiento and actually asked Chee for a clarification.
In general, I think TheFourDotEllipsis hit the nail square on the head. There's an attitude with preserving articles - maybe out of tradition, but also possibly out of sheer stubbornness. And that's a shame, as I think Wookieepedia has a lot of potential.

 

I was just about to say something like that. From what you have now explained about the actual content of the article, I don't even understand why this issue ever came up: what is there in it for there even to be a dispute about? It sounds like a purely factual, out of universe article suggesting how to play a game with both your Star Trek cards and your Star Wars cards. That's about as in universe as a Marvel vs. Capcom game, or Link showing up in Soul Calibre.

Trying to make this into "Star Trek is part of Star Wars" is surely the same as going "WOTC make miniatures of Forgotten Realms and Axis and Allies as well as Star Wars miniatures, so because you can fight with them against the other miniatures they must be ambiguously canon!"

I really don't get where there is even a question of canon in all this. I thought it was an article that had a story about Picard battling Vader or something, and that we were debating the canonicity of said article's story. But if all this is about is just some guidelines for how to play a game with two different sets of cards... this entire dispute is nonsensical. Maybe I can use my Warhammer Fantasy models with my 40k models, but it doesn't mean anything.

The only "question" I can see in this entire row is whether or not the proposed rules in the article were "official" or something. The word "canon" though implies something to do with the continuity and its status as part of the fictional world. Whether there is a question over the rules official status in the game mechanics of the card game... sure, maybe there's an issue there depending on whether the powers that be wanted people to be able to play with both sets of cards in the same match. But what has any of that got to do with continuity?

I can use my Zayne miniature in a battle with a Vong miniature... that doesn't make my ability to do so anything to do with the canon. So, with all common sense apparently ejected from this matter, I now propose that Elminster deserves a Wookieepedia article.

 

I've never read the article, but I understand it did provide an "in-universe" explanation to mix Star Trek and Star Wars in your CCG games.

Again though, it's not canon unless someone otherwise noted.

 

The article gives a backstory for each of the characters but just barely connects the two universes together. For example, Data's bio says he's more powerful than IG-88 and has armor good enough to stop anything short of a lightsaber. The actual "story" isn't really touched upon too much. All it really says is: "Transported to a galaxy far, far away, Picard and company find a new frontier to explore - and a new enemy in the Empire." That's it, the rest is just CCG rules and tips. They make it sound like something official, but as stated on the first page of the article, the whole thing is just a possible way to combine the Star Trek and Star Wars CCGs with a bit of a fanon backstory to make the whole thing sound plausible. Official or not, there just isn't enough info in the article to warrant a proper crossover between the two universes. I have no problem with articles from unlicensed sources, such as the stuff from Polyhedron, Shadis, Challenge, etc, in fact a lot of that stuff is really interesting. It's just that this particular article is more like a tips and tricks section in a PRIMA game guide than anything you would find in the aforementioned sources.

 

In that case, there really shouldn't be articles for all the elements in it.

 

Well, it's rather pointless now. It's been made clear that the articles are staying exactly in the same form as they have been. So, the status quo remains - taking anything on Wookieepedia with an immense grain of salt. Ah well...

 

What is up with the Wook?

Just about every second time I go to that site (both from my home and work computers), it redirects you to another site?! Is there something wrong with the web page?

 

Seems fine to me.

 

It's been doing that to me every once in a while for a few weeks now. That and the idiotic drop down ads that hide the text I want to read and don't actually have a way to be closed are becoming insanely annoying.

 

If you log on with a username you can change your skin and get rid of those annoying ads.

 

[image=http://www.helikitty.com/coopers.jpg]

Article, please.

 

Coopers? In the GFFA!

 

I have a question.