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)

I feel that Weissman's comments were pretty clear. He wanted a humans-only universe. While it would have an alien feel, it would contain no aliens. Only non-sentient alien lifeforms would be allowed. The existence of a couple of alien species in novels violates this and should not be considered canon. As a side note, there examples from other science fiction franchises in which certain articles are not considered canon (Star Trek V, for example.) The same idea should be applied here. Enjoy the novels if you will, but do not regard them as part of the regular universe.

I disagree that anything published in a novel can supersede anything published in a sourcebook. How could something published later overrule what was published earlier? If that were the case, any author could rewrite canon as they so choose and nothing would be sacred. What's more, the novel was published by a third-party source and written by an outside author, whereas Shrapnel was published by FASA and penned by the creator himself.

Later publications always overrule older publications (until the later publications are themselves undone.) Hence the term "retcon" - retroactive continuity change - that plagues many fictional universes (Star Wars, Star Trek, BattleTech, etc). However, BT authors do not randomly get to rewrite the setting - authors write on topics assigned to them by the Line Developer(s), who have the responsibility of determining how the setting evolves. BT's line developer has a group of fact checkers that keep an eye on old publications so that new drafts do not vary from the continuity set in old publications (in theory). Even the BattleCorps drafts get reviewed, flamed, and even shot down for continuity-related issues, while new sourcebook and rulebook writings get very thorough reviews. This prevents "any author" from randomly changing the setting to suit their whims. But when a deliberate change is made, it supercedes older publications. That's not always a bad thing - some older publications were just plain wrong or silly, and FASA most definitely did not use much in the way of fact checking (which was screamingly obvious when FanPro and Catalyst began working on the new House Handbooks and found all manner of contradictory events.) --Cray 16:42, 8 February 2009 (PST)

I am not going to start an edit war; I have better things to do with my time. While I still maintain that I am correct, I would suggest, as a compromise, to call Far Country neither canonical nor apocryphal while still leaving in the comment left by a previous author that "many fans feel [the novel] should have no place in the fictional BattleTech universe."