Sheesh, guys!
In response to the mentioned Star Wars books - they are official. They are endorsed by LucasArts, etc etc. However, George Lucas has specifically stated that he places himself under no obligation whatsoever to make the 7,8 and 9 movies follow the books. If you want I could try and hunt up the reference; I think it's somewhere on the official Star Wars site.
Now, on to the main subject. I think that, intentionally or not, many mission/campaign writers use the Warzone/Derelict campaigns as a basis and background for their stories. However, many do not. Personally, I've made a mission that's already "compatible" with BWO, even though I have no more information on the BWO storyline than any of you. So.
A) You
cannot define canon. Period.
B) You
can propose that new campaigns be based on the same general premises, as set out in {insert_popular_campaign_name_here}. I agree that having multiple campaigns from many different people fitting together would be neat. And I am positive that everyone else does as well. As a matter of fact, it's a good idea -
if you can find the people who are willing to go along with it.
Say you have 9 different people, each heading up the writing and development of a new campaign, that are willing to make sure that their campaigns all work together and have common history references. That would (and I hope, will) be awesome. But despite of widespread acception by even the whole community, this common base cannot and will not be canon. It will be a common base. Simply because canon, by definition, is defined
solely by the originators of the idea/product/whatever. Whatever they say/said is canon. If they (Volition, in our case) decide to knight a certain campaign "canon" they can. We, however, cannot.
Now, if after all this you
still claim that Warzone/Derelict are canon by default, then you're either thick-headed, dumb, or completely misunderstanding what everyone has been saying.
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[This message has been edited by sandwich (edited 07-28-2001).]