Policy:Canon

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Gineipaedia's canon policy is the standard that contributors must follow with regards to what is considered 'canon' (sources of information accepted as the official interpretation) on this Web site. It is not intended to suggest that other sources are inherently invalid or untrue — merely that they are inappropriate in the context of the scope and goals of this wiki.

Since this wiki is still relatively new and has few contributors, many of these policies are not yet set in stone. If you find you disagree with anything, please bring it up on this article's Talk page.

Contents

Summary

For the purposes of this wiki, the 'primary canon' can be considered anything seen or heard in the official anime-based LOGH media, whilst official novels and manga can be considered 'secondary canon'. The reason for the distinction is that the different forms of media are often contradictory and/or contain different accounts of events, and from a practical standpoint there are two reasons for preferring the anime over the others:

Primary sources

The following anime works are considered sources of primary canon:

Anything seen or heard in these media is considered valid canon material and can be included in the main body of any 'in-universe' article (see below) where appropriate. Conversely, any information in the main body of an 'in-universe' article must be taken from the anime. Anything else should go in a separate manga, novel, or 'Background information' section.

It may go without saying, but one exception to the above is that opening and ending titles, credits, background music, and subtitles are not considered to have actually 'occurred' within the events of the anime; they are simply for our (the viewers') benefit. Additionally, changes in animation style/quality and voice actors are not intended to be canon events and should be ignored in 'in-universe' writing.

Order of precedence amongst primary sources

Occasionally, there will be small conflicts even amongst primary sources; in these cases, there is an order of precedence that should be followed. Gineipaedia policy in general has a 'newest-first' standard — the most recent source trumps earlier sources. For clarity, the following list shows this order, with 1 being 'more' canon, 2 being slightly 'less' canon, and so on:

  1. Legend of Galactic Heroes Gaiden (OVA)
  2. Overture to a New War
  3. Golden Wings
  4. Legend of Galactic Heroes (OVA)
  5. My Conquest Is the Sea of Stars

There is also an order of precedence for different versions of each film/series:

  1. Sentai Filmworks' Translation
  2. Blu-ray
  3. DVD — remastered (e.g., CentralAnime rips)
  4. DVD — original (e.g., Nemesis rips)
  5. LaserDisc

So, for example, a Blu-ray LOGH Gaiden OVA would be the 'most' canon source, followed by the DVD LOGH Gaiden OVA, then the LaserDisc LOGH OVA, and so on.

Secondary sources

The following printed works are considered sources of secondary canon:

Anything visible (written or drawn) in these media is considered valid secondary canon material, and can be included only in separate sections below the main body of the article. Do not mix information from the novels/manga in with information from the anime.

Characters and other topics specific to secondary sources may have their own articles created. However, no such articles currently exist, and the format is therefore undecided.

Valid non-canon sources

The following sources are considered non-canon:

Information from these sources can be used in articles, but they should only appear in 'real-life' articles (such as articles about the series itself) or in the 'Apocrypha' or 'Background information' sections of 'in-universe' articles. Usage of these sources within 'in-universe' articles should be limited to interesting facts relevant to the topic at hand or to data that fills in gaps of understanding.

An exception to the above is data related to vessel dimensions and crew derived from Fleet File Collections. This data may be used in the infoboxes of in-universe vessel articles.

Unlike with secondary sources, in-universe subjects from non-canon sources may not have their own articles created. For example, if a character appears only in a video game but never in any other source, this character should not have his own article. However, he may be mentioned in the 'real-life' article which discusses the game itself.

Invalid sources

The following sources are considered invalid for all purposes:

Information from these sources should not be used in any capacity in articles on Gineipaedia, nor should they be linked to or even referred to.

Names

Gineipaedia's policy for names of characters, vessels, &c., typically follows the guidelines laid out above; however, there are some differences.

Source of names

Although most subjects with officially provided names have had those names indicated in primary sources (animated works), some have not. Examples include Admiral (Julian's cat) and the Grendel (Mittermeyer's ship from MCISS). When primary sources fail to provide names for these subjects, it is acceptable to derive them from secondary and non-canon sources. This exception is made to prevent the site from being filled with dozens of confusing articles and references to 'unnamed ship' and 'unnamed character'.

Precedence of romanised names

The romanised spelling is given in the animated works for the names of most characters. However, the romanisation is often different, sometimes significantly, across each version or release of the media.

As with other aspects of canon, Gineipaedia's romanisation policy follows the general 'newest-first' metric listed above. This means that the most recent romanisation trumps older romanisations, even when they appear to be misspelt or have other problems. This method does have its flaws, but it was chosen for consistency in the absence of official English names.

It should be noted that fan-sub groups often remove or supplement the official subtitles with their own subtitles — this can be observed, for example, in CentralAnime's rips of the remastered LOGH DVDs. Although the names listed in these fan subtitles can and should be included in an article's 'Name variations' section (and redirects should be created from them), they should not be considered canon.

Translation of names

Since Gineipaedia is an English-language encyclopaedia, English names are preferred for most things. In the case of proper human names, this generally doesn't apply; however, there are several place names in the series that are composed of common words which must be translated into English — for example, the Kriegsministerium.

As a rule, when a name appears like this in both German and Japanese, the English translation should be derived from the German. This is the case with the above example, which is rendered 'Ministry of War' in English. (The Japanese subtitles in the series had a slightly different meaning.)

This is not always possible, however, due to mistakes in the original German translation or other issues. In these cases, one can only use their best judgement to arrive at what they believe to be the most accurate translation.

The same judgement applies to names which are not shown translated or romanised on the screen, but only mentioned in dialogue or seen in the credits — for example, the Raigarh Starzone. Fan-sub groups and subsequent licensed LOGH video games have translated this a number of ways, but the Japanese pronunciation and spelling (confirmed from Japanese sources such as Wikipedia, or the novel if available) makes it clear that 'Raigarh' is in fact the most accurate name.

See also

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