Load The Canon !

As one can load a cannon, the word canon has become a loaded term, to define its usage for the case of literature and mixed-form literature we must review its history and slowly reintroduce the term to get an understanding of what all is being said by the wider power scaling community when they use the term

an origin of the etymology of canon is the ancient Greek word κανών or kanṓn, meaning measuring rod, a measuring rod is a tool used to test the authenticity of the length of things measured against it

if an object claims to be 12 inches long, and the measuring rod is 12 inches long than if the object is measured against the rod, only then can the claim be proven. it is by the authority of the length of the rod that the object is 12 inches long, to be 12 inches long is defined by the rod

the modern use of the word canon when applied to literary works was in the 18th century by David Ruhnken in his book Historia Critica Oratorum Graecorum referring to religious scripture, which after this became the popular usage of the word particularly in its use in biblical studies to refer to the many separate and debated " biblical Canons".

the process of things entering and exiting these "Canons" becomes known as canonization and decanonization, which was a process that occurred historically before the use of the term in reference to literature

Many biblical traditions had their own collections of the books and texts they accepted, which would be their " Bible " and books and texts that they didn't which they designated as "Apocrypha" meaning not accepted there were also books pseudo-accepted given less weight called "Deuterocanonical" books or secondary canon, the separation between becoming Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical really is a combination of how much the people behind biblical traditions dislikes a book and how much the book contradicts the group behind the biblical traditions doctrinal beliefs

so, defining "a Canon" and "canon" for this case usage of literature would be

a "Canon" is the body of accepted works by an authority

and

a thing is "canon" if it is within the "Canon" of an authority

as an example

"Bob's Super Adventure Anthology" is a Canon it is written and self-published by Bob

"Bob's Super Adventure Chapter 53" is canon to "Bob's Super Adventure Anthology" as it is within "Bob's Super Adventure Anthology"

who has authority over a work and to what extent is a subjective determination, which has many competing beliefs ranging from no one has interpretative rights over a work after is created " death of the author" all the way to it is the author that informs the meaning and the use of the work " Textual Structuralism"

for our purposes, the creator or creators of a "Canon" will be the authority over the canon unless the authority has been advocated

the reason canon is important to power scaling is to answer the question,

" Does what happened in "Bob's Super Adventure Chapter 24" connect to what happened in "Bob's Super Adventure Chapter 53" ?"

and if "Bob's Super Adventure Chapter 53" isn't even canon, it is generally accepted that non-canon material can not be used and so canonicity answers that question, chapter 24 and chapter 53 are both canon they can both be used together..... but it does not as they do not connect to each other, as the name implies "Bob's Super Adventure Anthology" is an anthology a type of story where none of the installments of the series connect to each other

the state of being connected to each other is called continuity, in a 1970 article in CAPA-alpha, comics historian Don Markstein created a criterion meant to clarify the concept of fictional continuities, but as a comics historian, his five criteria are deeply ingrained by Comic book's cliches and tendencies and is not well suited or rigorous enough for power scaling which need to engulf all of fiction but is a good indication that this problem has been recognized before

The Criterion of Continuity for Works of Fiction within a Shared Canon

(work in-progress )

1, Principle of multitudes: a continuity is made out of 2 or more connected works (A->B)

2, Principle of intransitivity: if one work connects to another work, it does not necessarily follow that the other work connects back to the first ( A -> B ≠ A<-B)

3 Principle of reciprocation: if one work connects to another and the other connects back, they are synonymized under one name for simplicity ( A->B and A<-B = C )

3 Principle of bifurcation: if one work connects to more than one other work and does not connect back, the two combinations of outputs make for two different continuities ( A->B and A->C are  ≠ if Either B<-C or B->C are not true )

4, Principle of conjunction: if one work connects to another work that connects to another work sequentially in a serialized manner , the whole of the sequence can be considered as one linear work ( A ->B->C = D )