Talk:Far Country

About aliens

User 67.171.228.113 is correct when he argues that Jordan Weisman felt aliens were out of place in the BattleTech universe (thanks for citing the source, btw!). In his 1988 introduction to Shrapnel, Weisman wrote (on page 6): "What I wanted was a universe that had a taste of the alien, but did not contain aliens." However, I do not think this citation can be taken to mean that there positively are no aliens in the BT universe:

• Technically, Weisman states here what he had in mind when designing the universe - which is not neccessarily the same thing as how the universe turned out. Also consider that aliens in fact do not play any significant role. Besides the Tetatae I can only think of the swamp people (who captured Ardan Sortek on Stein's Folly in The Sword and the Dagger) who pass for sentient aliens, and neither plays any significant role in the universe. There is also a plethora of comic-style alien pets and plants which are in fact quite ubiquitous throughout the novels and sourcebooks.
• As for the question what constitutes Canon, novels are always considerd full canon. They flesh out the universe that Weisman only created in sketches, and the more detailed sources are usually held to trump more general information.
• Similarly, it is held that among canonical sources, later publications trump earlier publications where they contradict them. This is certainly the case here for Far Country (which was published five years later).

There is nothing to suggest that the novel appearances of sentient aliens in two cases should be regarded as apocryphical, imho. I am therefore inclined to change the text back to read "canonical" in a few weeks time. Before I change it again, however, I would like to see a discussion here (to avoid an edit war). Frabby 04:08, 8 February 2009 (PST)