As there’s been some discussion of the nature of canon in the DS9 fandom, I wanted to chip in with my own take on the subject.
My way of looking at canon is very much informed by the bon mot that used to go around among old Doctor Who screenwriters: “the only canon is that there is no canon”. The way I take it is that canon is malleable and often in flux.
Let us use this line of Bashir’s from the episode Melora as an example:
When I was ten, my father was a Federation diplomat on Invernia Two.
So is it canon? From where I’m sitting, in 2021, having seen all of DS9 - no. It is well-established in Doctor Bashir, I Presume that Richard Bashir is not diplomat material, and that Bashir has a very complicated relationship with him, to say the least. With that in mind, the line from Melora looks like a lie, told to make childhood match the image of himself that Julian has created. However, Doctor Bashir I Presume is in series 5 - Melora is in series 2. Was that statement canon in the years until Doctor Bashir I Presume aired? Can we truly say that it isn’t canon, even now? There is no point at which Bashir says ‘my father was never a Federation diplomat’. Indeed, if you look up Richard Bashir on Memory Alpha, it says: “In 2351, Richard was a Federation diplomat on Invernia II.“ But Memory Alpha’s approach to canon is one of believing all statements that are clearly not lies. I will not say that that approach is not valid (and Memory Alpha can be a great source, and looking up random stuff on it is a favourite pastime of mine), but it is hard to follow through on it completely. Either you will end up with a picture of canon that contradicts itself and is largely unruly, or you will have to pick and choose. This picking and choosing might not even be done consciously. We tend to put aside information that directly contradicts an idea we already have, so it may be hard to think of something that you have decided to not bother with. Even Memory Alpha, due to the fact that they concentrate mainly on the dialogue and not on the visuals, pick and choose. Take for example the robe that Saavik and David Marcus find in the empty coffin in Search for Spock:
(Image description: a screencap from Search for Spock, of a black robe with silver Vulcan writing on the front, lying folded in a metal coffin.)
In the article on Vulcan language, the above image is captioned with “Spock’s burial robe”. But it’s not - it is the same robe that Spock wears in both The Motion Picture and Wrath of Khan, when he is very much alive.
(Image descriptions: two screencaps, one from Star Trek: The Motion Picture and one from Wrath of Khan. Both show Spock in the black robe with silver writing.)
So why is it described that way? Well, when they find the robe, and David Marcus asks what it is, Saavik says “Spock’s burial robe”. We must take this as “the robe Spock was buried in” - it’s supposed to give us as viewers information that the coffin they’ve found is Spock’s, and that his body is gone.
This is why I tend to see ‘canon’ as an overarching category encompassed by alpha canon and beta canon, rather than making the distinction between canon and beta canon. Beta canon is rife with contradictions, inconsistencies and downright weird stuff, but so is alpha canon.
So what do we do? Well, the only canon is that there is no canon - by which I mean, a divinely appointed set of facts that are static and constant. You choose which bits works for you. I think there might be a great story behind that line from Melora - maybe Richard was the driver at the embassy and was never a diplomat, or he was a diplomat and he was terrible at it, or maybe it is a lie, and it can lead us further insight into the fact that Julian, the man without secrets, is as good a liar as Garak. There are so many possibilities, and that’s the point. We should not let canon strangle our creativity and our enjoyment. Sometimes when I watch newly released episodes of Star Trek, I get a knot in my stomach, because what if there’s a contradiction with my headcanons, or some world-building that I don’t like…? That is when I have to stop and tell myself: canon should never hold us hostage. What is canon is in fact arbitrary. Do what works - the sky’s the limit.
(Quotes from transcripts from Chakoteya, images from Memory Alpha and Trekcore)
