Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Centauran

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was keep. moink 11:40, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Centauran

The entire article is non-canonical Fanon, later completely disproved by Star Trek: Enterprise

Delete - The entire Centauran concept was started as a fan theory based on one line in the Original Series episode "Metamorphosis" where Zephram Cochrane, the inventor of Warp Drive was referred to as "Zephram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri". For three decades of Star Trek, that was the only official reference to Alpha Centauri and its inhabitants. Star Trek: First Contact in 1998 established that Mr. Cochrane was originally from Earth, and presumably moved to Alpha Centauri after inventing Warp Drive, since the entire plot of the movie was about his first warp flight, launched from Earth, and he'd never been in space before.

Then, Star Trek: Enterprise comes along, as a series set only a century after Cochrane's flight, and spaceflight takes place much closer to the worlds of the Original Series, and even focuses on the founding of the Federation. Presumably the Centauran race would show up even once, instead they are never mentioned. Instead the episode "Twilight" it is explicitly stated that Alpha Centauri was one of the few Earth colony worlds that existed in the Enterprise era. "Terra Nova" established that the more distant Terra Nova colony was the first Earth colony to be built on an inhabitable world (instead of presumably having pressure domes), so at least originally and in the Enterprise era all the worlds of Alpha Centauri cannot sustain native humanoid life (without later terraforming). In the episode "Zero Hour" where we actually see the founding of the United Federation of Planets, the founding worlds were explictly stated to be Earth, Tellar, Andor and Vulcan. By this point the Centaurans have been explictly shown not to exist.

The Centauran race was a popular matter of Fanon, and typically used widely in the FASA and Last Unicorn Games Role Playing Games, and in many of the novels, but they don't have a shred of evidence making them anything canonical, instead evidence points very strongly to their nonexistence.

• Keep, as per unsigned nominator: "The Centauran race was a popular matter of Fanon, and typically used widely in the FASA and Last Unicorn Games Role Playing Games, and in many of the novels...." Add a section to the article about how it's fanon-only. FreplySpang (talk) 16:44, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. As this race has appeared in non-canonical published sources, they are a legitimate subject. However, I do feel that someone with some knowledge of the subject should separate out fan speculation from published fact. Despite how the Star Trek wikiproject may feel, fanon does not belong in wikipedia as it is bereft of actual, verifiable facts. If pruning such material would render the article too small to stand on its own, the remaining material should be merged someplace else. Indrian 19:31, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as per Indrian. Anilocra 23:10, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Give it a rest guys, no non-Trekkie cares whether an imaginary race is "canonical" or not. If there's a lot of fan fiction and other unauthorized stuff about the Centaurans, then they're notable. For accuracy's sake, the fact that they were invented by fans instead of by a Paramount studio hack needs to be mentioned. But that's a pretty minor detail. ---Isaac R 23:20, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as long as it has been in published works however I think the article needs to mention what those works are and that it's not actually ST canon. I suppose what I mean is that it's canon for various novels and RPGs, just not Star Trek itself. -- Lochaber 00:36, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup. Legitimate entry. Megan1967 03:50, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.