Battlestar Wiki:Canon
In science-fiction works, the term "canon" describes characters, events, and locales that are generated and recognized officially by the creators of the fictional universe.
For fans of the work, identifying canonical stories, characters and the like reduce the level of confusion in keeping track of storylines.
In contrast, a non-canonical work involves characters, events and locales that match one or more criteria:
- Are officially-licensed works, such as novels or comics, which contradict aired content of the parent show
- Are fan fiction, fanwanking or other unofficial works which are not sanctioned or approved by the copyright holder
Some science-fiction TV shows, like Babylon 5 or the Star Wars franchise have integrated much of its derivative novels, comics and other works as part of their canon. In contrast, the Star Trek franchise only considers filmed material (except for The Animated Series) canon, but not any kind of tie-in literature, like comics and novels, although those have to be consistent with the source material, and in recent years have usually been consistent among each other.
What's Canonical in Battlestar Galactica?
The Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad project article details sources that are considered official information for the Original Series and Re-imagined Series.
Generally, content from any aired episodes (including the Battlestar Galactica 2003 Miniseries) from the Original Series and Re-imagined Series, interviews and podcasts from cast and crew, and publicity information from the Sci-Fi Channel website can be considered canonical unless otherwise retconned or retracted by the official sources.
On Battlestar Wiki, we include non-canonical, officially-licensed characters, situations, events from novels, comics and the like for both Battlestar Galactica series as independent articles marked as separate continuity works.