Canon

Canon is the fictional material of a particular work of fiction that is accepted as the "official" content of that work. It comes from Christian ecclesiastical regulations made for the government of its members. Canon material may be used for sources for claims.
In Vs. Debates on SB, the general rule is that only canon material is permissible as a reference to support an argument. That said, it is standard Vs. debate policy that the person who starts a specific thread may decide what material is acceptable canon, and they may allow things that would not normally be allowed and disallow things that might otherwise be allowed.
In general, canon does not include fan works, works that have been disavowed by their creators, or (in some situations) works that use the same intellectual property as the "original" works, but do so in a way that is inconsistent with the "original" works, which are considered highest canon. For example, DOA Beach Volleyball would not be considered canon for the DOA fighting game series. Some expansive works of fiction have multiple tiers of canon. For example, the Star Wars franchise has G-Canon, which originated with George Lucas, followed by many other tiers of canon, in order of decreasing validity.
Discovering what is canon and what is not canon for a franchise is often a very difficult task. Many franchises, not anticipating the hordes of overly precise Vs Debaters, do not publish or have not considered what may or may not be canon. Others have a huge amount of material, some of which may have been adopted into the 'official' storyline, or some of which may only have been adopted in part. This is made often more complicated by the fact that in franchises with multiple official authors, official material may contradict other official material.
==Franchise Canon Policies==
*Star Trek: Nothing but the movies and live action TV shows are canon
*Star Wars:
*Mass Effect: If the visuals and Codex are in conflict with regards to things like space combat, go with the Codex.
*Warhammer 40,000: The canon policy as described by Marc Gascoigne can best be described as "it's all official, but that doesn't make it an accurate depiction of what actually happened."
Category:Vs. Debates