Forum:Inclusion debate: The works of Douglas Adams

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If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.

Proposal

I was just going to create these pages myself but I realised it might cause dispute so I decided I would talk about it here first. I will be brief.

Dirk Gently

Firstly Dirk Gently. The first Dirk Gently book by Douglas Adams was released in 1987. In its first chapters we are introduced to Professor Chronotis. But this was not actually the first appearance of Chronotis. He famously originated in Shada by Douglas Adams.

Unfortunately that serial was cancelled so it does not count as the debut of Chronotis. But after its cancellation Chronotis was featured in The Legacy of Gallifrey in Doctor Who Magazine in 1985. That is two years before Dirk Gently. So Chronotis was an established Doctor Who Universe character at the time that the first Dirk Gently book was released.

For this reason the Dirk Gently series features licensed use of Doctor Who Universe elements. It belongs to the Doctor Who Universe and has belonged to the Doctor Who Universe from the very start. From its very first chapters.

Hitchhiker's

Secondly The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I recommend reading that Tardis Wiki page as helpful context for this discussion.

This is more complex because we have to pay careful attention to timing. There are two types of connection between Hitchhikers and Doctor Who in the writing of Douglas Adams. Note that the very existence of these crossovers indicates that Douglas Adam's authorial intent was that the series were set in different corners of the same universe.

The first type of connection is Doctor Who using concepts from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy radio show from 1978. The radio show predates Douglas Adams's first contribution to Doctor Who. However it introduced many concepts like Oolon Colluphid which were later used by Douglas Adams in Doctor Who. So the Hitchhikers radio show does not include licensed use of Doctor Who Universe elements.

The second type of connection is the Hitchhikers novels using concepts from Doctor Who. For instance Qualactin and Mandranite debuted in Doctor Who in the scripts of Douglas Adams. They were not mentioned in the Hitchhikers radio show. But they appeared in the first Hitchhikers novel by Douglas Adams.

For this reason it seems to me that the Hitchhikers radio show contains no use of Doctor Who Universe elements. But the novels do contain use of licensed Doctor Who Universe elements.

Conclusion

In conclusion I think some things are uncontestable.

At minimum the first Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy book is valid because it has licensed use of the Doctor Who concepts Qualactin and Mandranite.

At minimum the first Dirk Gently book is valid because it has licensed use of the Doctor Who character Chronotis.

I think these two pages could be created today. What is still left undecided is where to draw the line. The whole Dirk Gently series or just the ones with Chronotis? All the Hitchhikers novels or just the ones which mention those elements specifically? Because there is a third thing which is uncontestable.

The Hitchhikers Radio Show does not feature any licensed Doctor Who elements.

So where we draw the line in these series between covered and not covered is something we should be deliberate about. That is what I hope this thread will be good for. WarDocFan12 ☎ 14:57, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

Dirk Gently is one I've actually been planning to do a standalone thread about for some time, but ah well, it's been long enough without my getting a shift on that I might hand the reins to someone else… but it must be noted that under T:BOUND, as Dirk Gently was excluded from coverage in a past thread, the pages cannot be "created today" — even if that past thread's rationale didn't really make sense, either factually or in terms of policy.

Also, I must say that as both issues are complex and independent from one another I'm not sure a single thread for both is the best way to proceed (one might for example think that the minerals in the Hitchhiker's book are just "namedrops" and don't therefore demand coverage in the same way as stories prominently using a Time Lord character as an actual member of the cast), but eh, let's see where it goes. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 16:25, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I need a little bit more time to think on this. My immediate concern is that it would open the door to the coverage of **tons** of material that is truly quite immaterial to the DWU. Chronotis's use in Douglas Adams works was more a matter of reusing an (as far as he's aware) unused character from a story that got shelved. The Legacy of Gallifrey ^[+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"] isn't exactly the sort of thing that Adams would realistically have been aware of, so this feels like validity through techicality more than anything else. I don't know, I'll think more on this. Dewinter ☎ 21:19, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

More to come, but for now let me say that I think there are some interesting similarities between Chronotis and the situation at Talk:The Stranger (novel). Najawin ☎ 22:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd say to include them due to their crossover, but to properly substantiate the claim to a page, I think there would have to be more crossing over, rather than just similar characters. Gingerfool ☎ 22:25, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Alright, so, doing my dig through the forum archives, I don't believe that Dirk Gently was ever explicitly ruled against in a forum thread. What I found was that in early 2017, during the height of the "post FP wave of inclusion debates", User:Pluto2 started a thread about the series based on Professor Chronotis. (Thread:209691 at User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates 1) The thread was criticized by User:AeD and User:OttselSpy25, as being "insane" and (potentially) "bad faith" and Pluto withdrew it the next day. But it was never explicitly ruled against, afaict. The closest we get is that in the resolution to another thread 6 days later, (Thread:208414 ibid) Czech refers to AeD's characterization of these inclusion debates as "bad faith". (It would be disingenuous for me not to note that there's also an edit by Czech on that same day in the original thread by Pluto, but I have no idea what was done. There's no clear closing post, certainly.) But this thread was about Blake's 7, and contains the fun quote:

The majority of our readers are here -- let's face it -- because of the 2005 series. Which can't even be called "the new series" anymore. They are simply not going to buy [the idea that Blake's 7 and Doctor Who are the same universe].

Look, look, Forum:Rule 4 by Proxy and its ramifications: considered in the light of the forum archives still has no closing post, and we still seem no closer to a full resolution on some of these issues. I think Blake's 7 is the sort of thing that is probably better served on its own wiki. (But am fully willing to be wrong! Unlike FP, I think it largely does make sense disconnected from DW.) But the idea that calling it part of the DWU is bad faith is mindboggling.

Seriously.

Maybe there's a forum thread somewhere I'm not aware of, but it seems that Dirk Gently was just "that's stupid, shut up", without an official admin statement, and Hitchhikers didn't even have a discussion outside of Josiah Rowe saying "u do u" in Forum:In doctor who did the doctor ever state something somewhat like "they discovered a beetle that couldn't have evolved which proved god existed and since god is based on faith he must not exist". (Though see also Talk:Oolon Colluphid. People have known about the issue since 2008 and it's been a very explicit "yeah, no, unless we get more than a name drop, there's no there there", just never a formal forum thread about it.) Najawin ☎ 07:49, 11 April 2024 (UTC)