Forum:SH:The Great EU Purge (New Canon;Legends discussion)

seriously are we not going to talk about this? Jennifer Heddle the Senior Edditor at Lucas Books said "It's all non-canon, but it all exists as a resource that could be used down the line."

This is kind of an important topic to dissucss since we now know the plans --DarthJon (talk) 14:38, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * It is indeed time to take our heads out of the sand. We now know for sure that the EU as we know it is a completely separate continuity from the nine films, The Clone Wars, and Rebels, and now is the time to discuss as a community and figure out as a community how we're going to proceed. Do we, for example, split Luke Skywalker into two articles (a canon article and a "Legends" article)? Do we relegate "Legends" to the Behind the scenes sections of characters/planets/situations/etc. that originated in the films? We have just over four months until the first book of the new continuity is released, and we need to figure out a gameplan before that time. Everyone's opinion is valid, and anyone with an idea is welcome to throw it out there.

My proposal is to tag EU-exclusive articles as "Legends;" possibly an image in the upper-right corner like we currently do with non-canon articles. Articles on things from the films could be split into two --- eg, Luke Skywalker and Luke Skywalker (Legends). Info from Episodes I - VI would be present in both articles. Quinlan Vos, for example, would have stuff from The Clone Wars and his Episode III namedrop in both of his articles, but everything from Dark Horse et al would be exclusive to his "Legends" article. We can ask VIPs on Twitter for clarification on stuff like TCW promotional material and sourcebooks, the films' visual guides, etc. Thoughts? Menkooroo (talk) 14:59, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * On the IRC people are talking about using tabs, each article will have a canon tab and a Legends tab. No idea how that will work for things that only exist in Legends material, or for things that only have *names* in Legends material. For example the many races, planets, technology etc. that are seen in the movies and Clone Wars but have only ever been named in the Expanded Universe. Strictly speaking that means they don't have names in canon yet. --Multiversity (talk) 15:12, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * That's a good question. Is M'iiyoom Onith still canonically the H'nemthe M'iyoom Onith? Or is she "Unidentified pointy-nosed cantina patron?" Also, a couple of anons were discussing this on Talk:Expanded_Universe. I was beaten to the punch with the two-article suggestion! Menkooroo (talk) 15:17, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * I'd say using names from non-canon sources for canon concepts/characters/etc. until overriden by a canon one is fine. Especially that some of the names, while not appearing in the movies/shows were named behind the scenes while the movies were being worked on. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 15:25, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * Articles with no canon name but named in Legends could simply have a message box at the top saying e.g. "this has no canon name yet, so the article uses a SW:Legends name" (and as we see with Rebels using the Lasat race, it's likely that more often than not the Legends name will be used if available) JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 15:25, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * That's probably the best option. I think examples like Korriban/Moraband where the names don't match will be few and far between. --Multiversity (talk) 15:29, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, for every Moraband, we have several examples like Twi'lek or Coruscant where the name originated in the EU and was subsequently used in the movies/TV show. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 15:42, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * What about characters like Darth Plagues? In the canon all we know is that he was a sith lord who mastered keeping people alive.  We don't know what race he was, when he was live or if he was even Palpantines master.   --DarthJon (talk) 15:26, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, that's exactly the sort of thing we're talking about. If a decision were adopted where the main article only included information from the main canon and nothing from the Expanded Universe, then the main article would probably return to something more like this. But all of that is up in the air at the moment. ProfessorTofty (talk) 15:33, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * Given the new canon policy, pretty much the only available options are either this or keeping Legends information in the main articles until directly contradicted by the new canon (this way we'd throw away most of the post-ROTJ info from main articles, but keep most of the stuff from e.g the Old Republic era, which is not likely to be contradicted in the new movies). JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 15:36, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

Another interesting point I just thought of: Presumably The Clone Wars would have to be considered part of the Legends "canon" in the same way the OT and the PT are - not officially labeled as Legends but taken as part of the background for the Legends stories. So for example in Legends continuity Korriban is still also known as Moraband as well as Korriban, whereas in canon it is now only known as Moraband. --Multiversity (talk) 15:46, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, what about The Clone Wars tie-in media - are novels, comics etc. based specifically on TCW part of Legends or part of the new canon? 16:05, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's something on which we should definitely seek clarification. Things like visual guides --- of both the films and TCW --- would give us species and character names for a lot of background characters, etc, etc. Jennifer Heddle has been really cool so far about answering questions which she's able to answer. If we keep up a good relationship with her, she could be a fantastic resource for how we're going to proceed. Menkooroo (talk) 15:59, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

Given the new definitions of canon, there are pretty much two ways to go forward - either separate Legends information entirely from the newly defined canon, or treat Legends info like S-Canon info in the past - part of the main articles unless directly contradicted. Also, could the information possibly still be kept within the same articles, but with some javascript button that could be used to hide all Legends info and display only stuff that is marked as canon? JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 16:05, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Wellll, Legends info isn't S-canon --- it's non-canon. Heddle made that explicitly clear in some of her tweets. Menkooroo (talk) 16:14, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Example: in the Moraband article, you'd have "Moraband is the original homeworld of the Sith", with a button that would either hide or display the information marked as "legends". Would this be doable? This way we would still have one article on each topic (aside from maybe some post-ROTJ stuff) instead of having several. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 16:08, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Hold on, are we definitely sure everything is non canon? That isn't what I got from the official announcement, it only seems to confirm post-ROTJ stuff isn't main canon now. Anything pre-ROTJ might still be canon surely, I mean the latest TOR update was done with the Story group and so presumably is new canon not just legends, which by extent might mean all of TOR or at least some other parts could be. Did I miss another statement or announcement that definitely said all EU except the Clone Wars TV series and Star Wars Films are not canon? Ayrehead02 (talk) 16:11, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Apparently Jennifer Heddle is unsure about TOR at the moment. She has specifically mentioned pre-ROTJ stuff as being non-canon --- see Tope's collection of her tweets here (Tope, hope you don't mind me linking to that --- I saw it in the recent changes so I figured it was cool). "Q: What about the Kenobi novel, and other pre-Original Trilogy material? JH: Legends." Menkooroo (talk) 16:14, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * She specifically said that KOTOR is Legends now, for example. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 16:18, April 26, 2014 (UTC)