Re: Retcon

> From: Stewart Eyres [email removed]
> Subject: Retcon?
>
> Echoing Bruce, what does retcon mean?

  Retcon, short for Retroconceive(?) is a word that was was invented by
persons unknown on the rec.arts.comics newsgroup on Usenet.

  It means changing something that has already been established.

  For example (since it was invented on rec.arts.comics I'll use a comics
example:), Chris Claremont want to do an Xmen/AD&D crossover, and to get
a lead-in to the story he decides that Storm is a half-Drow, that is a retcon,
because it has previously been established that she isn't.

  Revealing things that has previously been hidden (like Norris right hand,
and the Aslan engigma) isn't retcons. Neither is providing more detail on
a subject that previously been undefined.

  But saying that 99% of the commerce of the commerce of the Imperium was
transported in unmanned unpowered barges with a hull grid, that was launched
from space stations that held the powerplant and actual jump drive, and
claiming that the players somehow never noticed all those big barges with
'Tukera' lables on them, that's a retcon.

- -bertil-
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