Category talk:Lynn Abbey's Ultima Saga

Canonicity

Should this stuff be presented as canonical? I'm a little uncomfortable doing so, since while the books are certainly official, they're one author's interpretation of the events in Ultima, not Origin's. Concepts like the Virtue Quest Medallion make me twitch a little. Any thoughts? --Warder Dragon 05:09, 23 December 2011 (PST)

Nah, our canon policy: Ultima Codex:Canon policy clearly states what's canon and what not. Since novels obviously don't fall under published separately from the game, as they are original works, they don't count.--Tribun 05:44, 23 December 2011 (PST)

We should probably clarify the policy, since "All separately released publications, such as hint books" would encompass anything published with the Ultima franchise, including all of the novels. I think it should be "All separate publications released for the aforementioned games and expansions, such as hint books", which is how you are reading it (and I agree). Should I create a template similar to the ones made for Lazarus and U6P to apply to these articles? --Browncoat Jayson 06:13, 23 December 2011 (PST)

Those sound like good ideas to me, both the template and the Canon policy clarification. Let us... make it so. --Warder Dragon 06:18, 23 December 2011 (PST)

But why? Is it because Garriott let them be published? Gene Roddenberry declared the animated Star Treks noncanonical even though his name appears all over the credits. That might not be the best example, since he was often at odds with the studio. But speaking of Star Trek, there are a ton of Star Trek books out there, which I'm sure have legal license, but I seriously doubt are all canon. The Ultra-Mind 05:36, 27 December 2011 (PST)

It sounds like you're agreeing with us, Ultra-Mind. --Warder Dragon 06:49, 27 December 2011 (PST)

So we now stand at that the novels obviously don't count?--Tribun 06:55, 27 December 2011 (PST)

Really? I was saying that a consent to publish is not necessarily the same thing as an endorsement of canonicity. What were you saying? The Ultra-Mind 07:13, 27 December 2011 (PST)

More or less the same thing. None of us seem to believe that the novels are canon. Browncoat suggested that the canon policy as written needs to be clarified to exclude the novels. --Warder Dragon 08:14, 27 December 2011 (PST)

Oh! I was reading the opposite. Yes, I've read both of Lynn Abbey's Ultima books, and by the end, I just about had a crush on her, but I could see LB going through this thinking wow, that is not what I imagined for the Ultima universe. I'm The Ultra-Mind Dragon and I approve this policy amendment.

On the other hand... how come a search for "lynn abbey" gives so many hits? Awaken for one. Sure, the Trivia sections are fine for out-game material but this feels like it isn't. Then there's Britannia—same feeling. The Ultra-Mind 08:35, 27 December 2011 (PST)

Well, searching for "lynn abbey" will return each time one of the books is referenced, as well as each time this category is used. I suppose we could rename the category to just be "Ultima Saga", but that sounds awfully close to the "Ultima series", so I thought it would be confusing. I'm not sure how much that would reduce the hits tho.

On a completely different note, now I feel like I should add a topic for the author herself... hmmm. --Browncoat Jayson 10:29, 27 December 2011 (PST)

This seems to touch on an issue I was going to get onto in the style guide when I was distracted by Earth matters. ('Seems I never got back to it.) I wanted to propose that articles based on in-game topics should keep out-game material as second class citizens. This would usually mean discreetly placing out-game text towards the end of articles. Such non-canonical material would count. The Ultra-Mind 14:36, 29 December 2011 (PST)

Naming

If we would like to reduce the number of hits when searching for "Lynn Abbey" on the wiki, I would be willing to create a new Category: Ultima Saga and change all of the links that point to this one, and make sure that I don't overly use her name of the linked pages. Then, we would just need to delete this category. Is that what we would prefer? --Browncoat Jayson 10:32, 16 January 2012 (PST)