Canon

Canon, in the context of a fictional universe such as the BattleTech franchise, is the sum of all approved publications that together form and define the universe.

The BattleTech Wiki does not seek to define what constitues Canon and what does not; see Policy:Canon for details. Consequently, this article makes no effort to that effect. Rather, all available information pertaining to the issue of canonicity within the BattleTech universe is collected here, to enable users of the BattleTech Wiki to decide for themselves what they regard as canon.

Canonicity in the BattleTech universe

A plethora of BattleTech-related products has been released, but despite the license, the canonicity is unclear in some cases. It ultimately falls to the franchise owners to decide what is canon and what is not.

Validity of information

Information is provided in different ways. While many of the earlier products were written from an omniscient perspective, recent publications tend to take the form of documents or reports from within the universe.

Omniscient perspective

With the reader being adressed as a real person, and given information about the game universe in a real-world context, information presented directly from a omniscient perspective can be taken at face value. Obviously, this cannot validate information that is only indirectly related to the reader; for example, the report of a witness of the Phantom 'Mech incident presented in an omniscient source is validated insofar as that the report was made, but this still leaves it open to speculation wether or not the report as such is factually correct.

This style is typically found in novels and comics, computer game storylines, most of the scenario books and some older sourcebooks regarding the BattleTech universe.

In-universe perspective

Sourcebooks and other publications now usually take the form of in-universe documents, i.e. they pretend to be reports, messages etc. written by certain people or factions. As such, they exist within the universe but the information provided therein is naturally prone to inaccuracies, ignorance, bias and attempts at propaganda on the side of the alledged author. Any and all such information may thus be revealed to be misleading or outright wrong in later publications, and is not compulsory for the canonicity of the game universe.

Retcons

For a definition of the term, see Wikipedia article: Retroactive continuity

Although there have been Retcons in the BattleTech universe, they are relatively few. Much information about the game universe is presented from an in-universe point of view; if such information is later revealed to be false it is not technically a retcon.