glitterboy2098 wrote:it is also worth pointing out that this is not a binary set. it doesn't have to be either or. the end result can be a blending of the two. the two cases of Marlene doing the spirit thing to summon scott are supposed to be the same thing.. we just don't see the rest of the team in shadow chronicles because they aren't a focus char for the scenes. and it's noteworthy that the shadow chronicles scenes would very easily fit into the "cut aways" during the show (where it switched to showing something else for a bit), allowing the extra dialog to exist side by side.
This is true, and in fact more likely IMHO. I personally attribute the absense in TSC of anyone from the NewGen team other than Scott and Ariel to budgetary concerns: they weren't written out because Yune didn't want them there; they were written out because he couldn't justify spending the extra money to include them. So yeah; they were there in TSC; they just weren't being shown to us.
(It's also worth noting that LLA went with the original episodes in that regard — though the fact that it was primarily a clip show of the original series makes that utterly unsurprising.)
The comics are a different matter, though; there were no “animation budget crunches” forcing them to make tradeoffs. If and when there are clashes between the original episodes and the Wildstorm comics, I'm much more inclined to flat-out give primacy to the comics: it's far more likely that the change in the comics is a deliberate one that's motivated by Yune's vision of what Robotech is.
Note, though, that the primary criterion I'm using here is “what is Yune's vision of Robotech likely to be”, not “is this coming from one of the original 85 episodes”.
glitterboy2098 wrote:likewise the bit with the regent does not actually clash with the "crusade" dialog.. the regent was also on a crusade to locate and harvest FOL.. he was just doing it in a different place. the idea that he started on that path as a result of something the regis decreed, only to create a split over how to go about it.. that's well within the grey area of the show dialog and canon.
It's worth noting that by the time that the Masters era ended, the Regent was dead. In fact, the conflict against the Regent and the conflict against the Regess are almost exclusively arranged in a serial fashion, not a parallel one. Unless the “Regess, the Supreme Leader of the Invid” comment dates back to the time before Edwards arranged for the Regent's death, there's no “canon clash” to resolve.
glitterboy2098 wrote:Continuity is best approached like historical research. tiers of canon are like primary vs secondary sources. a primary source ranks higher than a secondary source, but secondary sources often provide broader context or additional info. very rarely do the two outright contradict each other, though they often differ in detail. by examining it as a whole though you get a better picture, as the truth tends to end up somewhere in between.
Agreed. Note that, by definition, this meaning of “primary vs. secondary source” allows for the possibility that a secondary source might revise our understanding of a primary source, not just expand on it.
I
do think we'd be better off referring to Yune's comics and movies as primary sources on par with the original episodes, with apparent discrepencies between them being resolved in much the same way that discrepencies among different episodes of the original 85 get resolved: with reason and discernment, not blindly applying a blanket “X takes precedence over Y” rule. Reserve that for the
actual secondary sources, such as pre-Yune comics, novels, and animation: if they apply at all, they do so within the context established by the original 85 as modified and expanded on by Yune's comics and movies.
This is what that Q&A answer was actually talking about, as I understand it.
And, bringing this back around to UEEF Marines, this is said RPG book apparently falls down (I say “apparently” because my copy is still on order, so I can't personally confirm any of the alleged discrepencies): it violates the context established by the original 85 as modified and expanded on by Yune's comics and movies. So I would propose that the Three Laws of Robotech should be more along the lines of:
- Primary canon is defined by the original 85 episodes, as modified and expanded on by Tommy Yune's comics and movies.
- Sources other than the original 85 episodes that predate Tommy Yune can still be used, provided that they don't conflict with the primary canon as defined in the First Law.
- RPG material is not canon, but should strive for consistency with canon as defined by the first two laws.
If everyone considers these revisions to be acceptable, I too would like to move on to the “expanding the RPG” portion of the topic. I do think that a lot of the Marines materiel can be addressed by confining the book's focus to 2015ish–2030ish, and saying that the likes of the MAC III and the Tiger (which I consider to be a working name) are a subsequent generation of mecha that started to come into production circa 2030.
I also personally prefer the notion that the UEDF wasn't
completely replaced by the ASC, and that Sentinels Art Book destroid designs live on as UEDF Destroids from 2015–2030. Meanwhile, the IMAI destroid designs are what the UEEF Marine Destroids ended up being replaced by some time between 2030 and 2045.