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<blockquote data-quote="Micah Sweet" data-source="post: 8593815" data-attributes="member: 6747251">A retcon adds material to history (continuity) retroactively. It includes new events which are assumed to have happened in the past of the setting, or new motivations for existing events.&nbsp; Star Trek Discovery in its first two seasons is an example.&nbsp; It does not change the course of history, or say that previously published history didn't happen, but it may provide more context or add more nuance.&nbsp; Marvel comics, for example, has added many, many events to the past of the MU as retcons, but everything they originally published is assumed to have still happened in the core 616 universe. Sometimes allowances have to made due to the passage of real life time for long-running franchises, leading to a sliding time scale in some cases or a &quot;broad strokes&quot; depiction of older events in others.&nbsp; And sometimes mistakes are made and need to be corrected or smoothed over.&nbsp; But in all of my favorite franchises, effort is put forth to keep continuity as &quot;together&quot; as possible, and to avoid directly replacing history.I don't always like retcons (Star Trek Discovery in its first two seasons is an example), but given the (admittedly unfortunate) choice between a bad story beat that doesn't disrupt history vs. a good story beat that does, I'm going with option A every time.&nbsp; I care about worldbuilding integrity too much to do otherwise.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Micah Sweet, post: 8593815, member: 6747251"] A retcon adds material to history (continuity) retroactively. It includes new events which are assumed to have happened in the past of the setting, or new motivations for existing events. Star Trek Discovery in its first two seasons is an example. It does not change the course of history, or say that previously published history didn't happen, but it may provide more context or add more nuance. Marvel comics, for example, has added many, many events to the past of the MU as retcons, but everything they originally published is assumed to have still happened in the core 616 universe. Sometimes allowances have to made due to the passage of real life time for long-running franchises, leading to a sliding time scale in some cases or a "broad strokes" depiction of older events in others. And sometimes mistakes are made and need to be corrected or smoothed over. But in all of my favorite franchises, effort is put forth to keep continuity as "together" as possible, and to avoid directly replacing history. I don't always like retcons (Star Trek Discovery in its first two seasons is an example), but given the (admittedly unfortunate) choice between a bad story beat that doesn't disrupt history vs. a good story beat that does, I'm going with option A every time. I care about worldbuilding integrity too much to do otherwise. [/QUOTE]

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