Forum:Validity: The Airzone Solution

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Opening post

Now that my validity proposal has concluded has concluded, I have another BBV Rule 4 by proxy case that I would like to discuss. This one deals with The Airzone Solution, which I think could have a case for R4bp because the Airzone Corporation is mentioned in Jay Eales' subsection of Burning with Optimism's Flames' Contributors section, which is treated as a valid source by this wiki. Now, I'm aware that the original Airzone Solution film isn't covered on this wiki do to having no official connection to the DWU, however, the novelization of it is, albeit as an invalid source, due to containing officially licensed references to DWU elements. I think it would make sense to validate the novelization of TAZ by R4bp because of this reference. Cgl1999 ☎ 05:44, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

IIRC the original film isn't covered because it has no licensed connection to Who, not authorial intent; so the film, like Cyberon, isn't covered because of a rule two reason, not a rule four reason, so R4BP applies. Even hypothetically, if the original film was covered but as invalid... I still wouldn't believe R4BP applies. Contributors is a very very silly story. I believe it should be valid, but not anything we take so literally. The namedrop about the AirZone Corporation is a joke, amongst others like "saggy arsed Cybermen", it's all very tongue in cheek and on the nose. I don't feel that this story intended to bring the film "into DWU continuity", I think it was just a joke.

And the coverage of the novelisation is ancillary to this, as the novelisation came out after the BWOF short story... so R4BP cannot apply to that, surely? Also, IIRC, I do believe that novelisation definitely isn't meant to take place in the DWU given the only licensed concepts it uses being depicted as in-universe fiction.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

13:07, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

I couldn't comment on the rest, but I think we should be very skeptical of reading any R4bp implications out of Contributors, even on the most maximally charitable reading of the policy. It's very tongue in cheek and I can't imagine that it intends to seriously "bring [things] into continuity", since it itself is only vaguely "in continuity". Najawin ☎ 21:13, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

I think the novelisation should be a valid source we already know that a fictional version of BBV exists with in Universe. An in Universe Doctor Who also exists. It may not be valid as a part of the main universe but as an alternate universe, much in the vain of Daft Dimensions or that one unbound audio that is set in a universe in which Doctor Who was never made and only stars an alternate reality version of the in universe Doctor Who. I do not think Arizona should be valid but possibly covered in much the way Cyberon used to be covered before the Cwej crossover? Anastasia Cousins ☎ 15:54, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, Anastasia, but I'm having some difficulty parsing your last message. You seem to go from "it should be valid because BBV stuff existing in-universe has precedent in the main universe" to "it should be valid as an alternate universe"? Which is it? Worth remembering that the purported R4BP source treats the Airzone Corp. as existing in the main universe, as far as can be determined. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 20:09, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I read somewhere on-wiki that Airzone Solution novelisation features a licenced appearance of Doctor X. Can't remember where. Aquanafrahudy 📢 20:21, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm also not sure what Anastasia is suggesting here, because iirc, prior to the Cwej/PROBE stuff, we just outright didn't cover Cyberons in any valid sources - just DYHALTSTP, and to this day we don't cover Cyberon. There's nothing here that's transferrable to the case of Airzone. (I also, of course, strongly reject any comparisons to Unbound. This isn't even slightly analogous.)

As for Aquana's latest comment, this isn't proof. Often people can reference the term "Doctor Who" but don't do so, and just use a franchise instead. Dr. X is a common one to use. It doesn't indicate intent. Najawin ☎ 20:41, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

What's Cyberon got to do with it? Aquanafrahudy 📢 20:53, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Nothing, I'd say, but Anastasia brought it up. I think she just meant that we'd "cover" Airzone in the same sense as we discussed the Cyberon franchise in the BTS section of our in-universe page on the Cyberons — i.e. our pages on the Airzone characters (based on the novelisation alone) would discuss, in brief, who played them and what their role was in the original movie, even if we don't have a page on the movie itself. That's a somewhat improper usage of "covered" in terms of Wiki-lingo, but the idea itself is sound. But it's also got little to do with this thread - we already cover the novelisation as invalid, so we can already do this. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:03, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

But Najawin, what reasoning would someone have for choosing to reference an in-universe franchise that they know exists in the Doctor Who universe over referencing the actual franchise itself, apart from the obvious? Aquanafrahudy 📢 21:08, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Just so everyone is on the same page, this is the excerpt from The Airzone Solution which mentions PROBE:

Arnie and Stanwick got into the car. An old green coat in dire need of a wash was crammed on the back and so Arnie squeezed into a front seat. Once they had their masks off, Stanwick was giving an insincere smile that wouldn't fool a soul and showed him his phone, like a clumsy drunk would show a funny meme.

It was a message board, of all things, for the old horror show PROBE. A fanfiction board. Was Stanwick really going to show him PatLiz shipping at a time like this?

"My flat's being watched and I think my phone has been bugged. Thus, a 'drop box' with Rachel nobody's ever going to understand. Global Concern's been using this for years." He gave a sly grin. "Let some poor bastard at MI5 try to work out why I’m talking about Demon Headmaster and PROBE crossovers."

On the current evidence The Airzone Solution remaining invalid is the right call in my opinion. There's nothing within the text which suggests it's set in a universe someone like the Doctor could hypothetically travel to and I agree with Epsilon that the R4BP argument using Contributors is rather weak. I think it would take a statement of authorial intent à la Jonathan Morris and The Thief of Sherwood for me to be supportive of validity. Borisashton ☎ 21:22, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

This is all deep in the weeds of untested edge-cases. I think the basic argument is: if we covered the original movie, then Contributors would validate it — as part of N-Space, not as some weird meta-verse — under ordinary R4BP. And presumably if we validated the movie we'd validate the novelisation as well as a matter of course, in the same sense that validating Scream of the Shalka naturally carried over to validating the book that really ought to have been called Doctor Who and the Scream of the Shalka.

I dunno whether I'd support that argument in an easy case. But here we have a much odder situation where the novelisation is explicitly not in the DWU, not just ‘assumedly not’. It's got an extra layer of non-DWU-ness that the movie didn't. The novelisation's intent runs contrary to the apparent light in which the short story casts the movie.

Suppose that in 2013 when Contributors came out, we'd had R4BP already, and had, hitherto, covered The Airzone Solution-the-movie as {{invalid}}. Suppose that we had validated the movie by R4BP in 2013, on the basis of Contributors. In this counterfactual universe, once the Airzone novelisation came out in 2021, would we have covered it as valid, or as invalid? That's the question we must ask ourselves — not because a "as valid" would definitely mean validation in the real world (there are a lot of untested assumptions here), but because if the answer is already "as invalid" in that hypothetical, then it certainly doesn't mean we should validate it now.

Personally I think in that alt-2021 we would still have created the novelisation as invalid. It's an adaption which explicitly takes its material out of the DWU. Obviously the Cushing movies are valid now, but the mere fact that it's an adaptation of The Daleks didn't automatically validate Dr. Who and the Daleks, to say the least. So being an adaptation of a hypothetically-valid-by-R4BP Airzone Solution doesn't, I think, automatically validate its separately-Rule-4-failing novelisation. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:50, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand this question Aquana? It's a bit of a running motif in DWU related works to use a few different "Doctor Who" stand-ins. These stand-ins do not themselves constitute the implication that the work is in the DWU to my knowledge. (Else any work that uses the term "Doctor Who" would suggest that it's either in the DWU or in our world, which I think by now we all agree is a nonstarter, yes?) Some other works intentionally create their own stand-ins for other reasons. They are all differently reflecting the same underlying idea, and for your particular work you need to choose the one you think fits best, given the relevant aesthetics, licensing, plot coherency, etc etc. Could they have thought that referencing Doctor X showed that they were really in the DWU the entire time? Sure. But it doesn't guarantee that. And and I think we have sufficient reason outside of that reference to be highly skeptical. Najawin ☎ 21:56, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

This Doctor X line of questioning might be irrelevant because I'm fairly sure it isn't mentioned in The Airzone Solution. Could you perhaps be confusing it with Republica, Aquana? Borisashton ☎ 22:06, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

See Airzone Corporation. I dunno if it's right, but Aquana said that she saw it on wiki. I assume she's read the work, since she started a validity debate about it - and that's required by the rules (:P) so perhaps she can point out the passage? Najawin ☎ 22:18, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Whoops. It's Cgl1999 who did it. Nevermind. Apologies Aquana. Editing the bit below means you forget who started these when they don't ever respond. Najawin ☎ 22:20, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Right, I've figured out what happened. I had completely forgotten I made the pages for The Airzone Solution and the first few Novelisations in Time & Space, but when I did I mistakenly stated that Doctor X was mentioned in Airzone so maybe I was the one to confuse it with Republica? I corrected this just two days later but by then Airzone Corporation had been edited to include the Doctor X "fact" and nobody caught it until now.

FWIW, although the point is kinda off-topic for this discussion, OncomingStorm12th concurred with Najawin when he placed an {{invalid}} tag on the page with the following edit summary: "Airzone" might contain a passing reference to the Doctor X series, but I'm not entirely convinced it's enough to bring it a validity status. A page to highlight the mention, but at least it should be {{invalid}}. Borisashton ☎ 20:35, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

So I think the entire thing just comes down to Contributors then, no? Which, uh, lol. Najawin ☎ 20:40, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I apologise for the delay in my reply but Scrooge was right what I was saying. However it seems to point is moot. I was raising a few possible suggestions early on when the thread was quiet. In regards I would like to say their is enough evidence to cover it as invalid with a behind the scenes section on the movie on the novelisations page (or franchises page should they ever release a sequel with more obvious links which is unlikely). the licensed mention in Contributor and the licensed mention of PROBE in the story itself I think gives it enough credibility to at the very least have the novelisation cover if not the movie itself. Anastasia Cousins ☎ 16:22, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Sure, and we already cover it as invalid, for precisely that reason. Najawin ☎ 18:59, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Conclusion

This thread's been dead for a year, and it is hard to tell where it could go from here, anyway. It seems to have been created based on a misunderstanding. There is currently no policy by which The Airzone Solution ought to be covered, whether as valid or invalid, although the film probably deserves a page under Category:Real world media with DWU connections. The novelisation is covered by a hair, but only as {{invalid}}, and even if it were valid, there is not currently any policy background for the idea that it could lead to valid coverage of its non-DWU-licensed progenitor. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 14:35, 25 August 2024 (UTC)