User:Epsilon the Eternal/Opening posts/TLSSSC

Opening post
Today, I want to open a validity debate for The Lethbridge-Stewart Short Story Collection, The Lethbridge-Stewart Short Story Collection 2, and The Lethbridge-Stewart Short Story Collection 3, to refute their current invalidity for a few reasons that kinda just don't make a whole lot of sense under T:VS.

I will have to preface this by saying I have read none of these books, but from the way I am attempting to validate them, I don't feel I need to have read them.

History of invalidity
On 10 September 2018, @AndyFA (um, hiya Andy Frankham-Allen) added a note to the page for the first anthology about the introduction specifying that these tales were alternate takes on the character. @Revanvolatrelundar soon after added a template to the page.

Then on 16 February 2021, @NateBumber brought up the matter on the talk page. I then found a page on the Lethbridge-Stewart website, where the book was referred to as being "out of the canon" of the LS series (more on this later). @Scrooge MacDuck then replies, first highlighting that, while normally our source for intent comes from authors, in situations like an anthology the editor may be considered higher. Maybe. He then brings up some points about canon (more about this later) and about how the stories were created-as-invalid were a different beast to just the validation of one mistakenly invalid short story.

In the same talk page, @Najawin brings up some good points: the webpage was released in 2020, while the books were invalidated in 2018, based upon the introduction to the first book. Then the talk page fizzled out because the simple fact of the matter is... nobody reads the Lethbridge-Stewart series...

Why canonicity, in this case, matters even less than usual
That brings us to today.

So, first of all, to prevent us from hitting the same roadblock we encountered on the original talk page... I went on Amazon to look at the preview of the first collection. (What did you expect, for me to purchase the book? Hell no, not after the false advertising of the expensive Downtime sequel novel!)

"With this thought, we opened the playing field somewhat. Allowed the competitors (for this was a competition) a wider birth, not tying them down to the canon Lethbridge-Stewart range, but rather letting them write any kind of short story that features Lethbridge-Stewart in some guise or another."

- Introduction to The Lethbridge-Stewart Short Story Collection

And this is the quote from the Lethbridge-Stewart website. "It is not necessary to fit within the timeline; these stories are out of the canon of the series, so feel free to let your imagination run wild!"

- Lastest News on the Lethbridge-Stewart website

So... this is a mess. Not to seem disrespectful towards @Revanvolatrelundar, but perhaps maybe they should've checked the introduction first to see the specific wording first before invalidating every single story? Or even opened up an invalidity debate so someone else who had a copy could've checked?

On Talk:The Lethbridge-Stewart Short Story Collection, working with only the quote from the LS website, @Scrooge MacDuck draws attention to it referencing canon in the context of the LS series, not the fictional multiverse of Doctor Who as a whole. The introduction to the first book... is completely in line with this; "not tying them down to the canon Lethbridge-Stewart range". Hell, Candy Jar doesn't even include the VNA Transit on their official timeline, but we're not gonna invalidate that novel!

So, these "side trips", as they are referred to in that same introduction, should be valid. Candy jar may have deemed these books to be non-canonical, but that has little bearing on us, especially as we rely on the intent of the authors over the publisher; to that end, I feel, to properly clinch this argument, we ought to ask some of the authors if their stories were meant to count towards the greater multiverse of Who. Perhaps some of these stories are in alternate timelines? Even if this is the case, it also has no bearing on the validity of the story and, to be honest at this point, it doesn't really matter considering all the story pages are stubs anyway.

I may not intend to ever cover these myself, nor even read them, but that doesn't mean I should sit idly back and let them be invalid based upon illegitimate reasons! They should be valid, to the extent of my knowledge; this is, truly, an extension of that original talk page, where I've just pulled out the quotes surrounding the books and examined them. 12:16, 17 August 2023 (UTC)