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We have ~ 1300+ questions on the site, with many answers.

The problem is that, as of 2014, Disney bought Lucasfilm and instituted new Canon rules, which makes a LOT of the answers on the site out of sync with the new rules of canon which relegated all of EU C-canon to Legends brand (of questionable - if any - canonicity).

As such, we need to develop a unified policy on how to handle such answers where all or part of the answer is sourced from Legends (formerly EU/C-canon).

Please either post your own proposals, or vote on the existing ones.

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    We should recognise that there is only one real Star Wars canon: Episodes IV, V and VI. ;) Dec 22, 2014 at 7:07

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The same way we'd handle any living canon that develops large changes, we add new answers or adjust existing answers via edits, if the changes aren't too drastic. At the moment, we don't have anything to really change, since the only new canon is a few books and a few episodes of Rebels. I imagine it'll become a more serious problem once the first new film is released, since that'll really step on the toes of the post Ep 6 EU-now-Legends books.

This situation is incredibly similar to what happened with Star Trek after the release of Star Trek (2009). And almost all questions handled it the way I'd expect this to be handled. The question body made it clear which timeline the question was about, and answers addressed what the question asked. Occasionally information from the other timeline can be used to address questions, and people make it clear when that's what they're doing.

All the old Star Wars EU works continue to exist, and there are and will be questions on them. There will be new questions about Star Wars' new canon, and we'll address them as we always have. When there are conflicts, I expect the community to rise to the occasion and address those conflicts thoroughly and with excellent content.

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  • -1 - first, canon purists would hate this approach (I already got a downvote from Richard because my answer no longer was valid according to new canon, and I admit he had a point).... Dec 22, 2014 at 4:11
  • ... Second, our content can't be stale and talk about C-canon as if Disney and Legends didn't happen. Both because it will confuse new users (of whom we should expect a glut due to new Disney content, especially Episode VII); and because we can't really afford to be purveyors of substandard content. Dec 22, 2014 at 4:12
  • @DVK So, edit your post... just like my proposal suggests, and once it's no longer incorrect, I'd bet Richard will reverse the downvote.
    – user1027
    Dec 22, 2014 at 4:14
  • of course I edited. (Promptly earning myself another downvote, this one with no explanation, but that's tangential). If your answer is "Edit those answers that need it", then your answer doesn't address my question at all. If your answer is "most answers don't need to be edited", see my comments for why I think that's wrong assumption. Dec 22, 2014 at 4:18
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    @Keen -I did change it to an upvote.
    – Valorum
    Dec 22, 2014 at 9:19
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My proposal would be as follows (the approach is heavily based on Wookieepedia canon policy):

Any answer which has content from both New Canon (G+T canon and new Disney material), as well as Legends (formerly known as C-canon or Extended Universe material), should have TWO separate sections:

New Canon

put in the parts of the answer that are based on New Canon

Legends

put in the parts of the answer that are based on Legends material.

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  • (specific wording of "Canon/Legends" or "New Canon/Legends" or "Disney Canon/Legends") is subject to a separate discussion, irrelevant to the meat of this answer) Dec 22, 2014 at 4:15
  • Apropos of the wording, "Non-canon/Star_Wars_Legends" seems most appropriate, rather than blessing it with a canon status.
    – Valorum
    Dec 22, 2014 at 9:21
  • +1 this is my approach, although I just use "Canon" vs. "Legends". We should definitely discuss the specific wording.
    – Null Mod
    Dec 23, 2014 at 17:02
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As it stands there are 4 main categories of question that need to be considered:

  1. Questions relating to the new canon that are fully answered with reference to the new canon only.
  2. Questions relating to the old EU that are fully answered with reference to the old EU only.
  3. Questions relating to the new canon that are answered by pulling in information from the old EU.
  4. Questions relating to the old EU that are answered by pulling in information from the new canon.

Of these the only one that is potentially troublesome is number 3. And I say "potentially" because an element from the old EU may yet be pulled into the new canon which would have the effect of making the answer valid.

Number 1 is evidently self-contained and need not be touched.

Number 2 is also self-contained; it doesn't cross a canon-boundary so there's no need to do anything about it.

Number 4 is also OK: since the new canon takes priority over the old EU, an answer referencing the new canon must always be valid.

Regarding number 3, in reality (and from a purely pragmatic perspective) little has actually changed. Under the old hierarchical canon, something in what was formerly "G-canon" or "T-canon" would always trump EU material, and it was never the case that anything at this level would have had to be beholden to EU material. A "G-canon" or "T-canon" work could have blatantly contradicted an EU work, and that would have just been tough cheese.

It was also always the case that the EU was always viewed as something that may or may not have happened, and should never have been read as something that definitely did happen:

The analogy is that every piece of published Star Wars fiction is a window into the 'real' Star Wars universe. Some windows are a bit foggier than others. Some are decidedly abstract. But each contains a nugget of truth to them. Like the great Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi said, 'many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.'

(Christopher Cerasi)

I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions.

(George Lucas)

Legends merely formalizes this, and the new movies are just doing what they have always had the right to do: supersede EU material. Even if the old EU had never been de-canonized, even under the old system, the scriptwriters of the sequel trilogy have never had an obligation to use any or all of the extant EU material. This was always a risk when relying on EU material when sourcing an answer.

The question is not so much "How should we handle Star Wars Q&As post-Disney-canon-revamp?" but rather "How should we handle potential contradictions between the (old) EU and the upcoming sequel trilogy?", and that would have always been the case, even if there had not been a canon-revamp.


The best approach therefore seems to be to do nothing for now. The answer is still valid as of the time that the question was asked, so it's served it's purpose. Stack Exchange is a Q&A platform, not a repository of canon. Unless material in an answer is explicitly contradicted by new canon, there is no reason to change it. If material in an answer is never contradicted by new canon, there is never a reason to change it. Otherwise it can be handled on a case-by-case basis.

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