Fandom - Where do we draw the line on what is and isn't?

[GloomCookie]

So I had this thought as I was in the shower (best place to come up with questions) and I was thinking about Star Trek because I'm a giant nerd. Specifically, it has to do with some of the poor ideas that float around in a franchise that's 50 years old and how some of those ideas should probably be put to rest, others should be implemented, and then it all sort of coalesced into a single question: At what point would changes to a fandom for our own benefit cross the line into a different IP?

Let's take for example a few of the ideas I'd love to implement. Starfleet, still the same organization as before on the surface, but slightly restructured with things like a dedicated logistics corps, ships beginning with the prefix for United Federation of Planets Starship (UFPS) such as the U.F.P.S. Enterprise. A naming convention for starships based on roles/duties such as frigates being named for famous Starfleet personnel, and ship numbering prefixes that hint to the type of vessel, such as a Heavy Frigate (FH), so that a ship could be the UFPS James T. Kirk, FH-1052. My question is... does this cross that line above? On the surface, other than an organizational change and a different naming convention, they still have more or less the same history, same technology, same bad guys?

Or does it need to go deeper than that?

[Azy]

I'm kind of wondering what you mean by crossing a line.  Star Trek is a TV show that someone basically made up and wrote.  So if you're writing a story for your own enjoyment, what does it matter if you change some things?  Hell, that's half the reason I write fan fiction.  For better or worse, my brain likes to go, well what if this happened instead of that?  What if I expand the story and give a few characters a deeper background to explain why they behave the way they do?  What would could have happened to make a character act like that?  My brain never shuts up. 

If you're doing a role play with another person, then it's probably a good idea to have a conversation and be on the same page.  Some people don't like to color outside the lines and write things outside of what the original author already wrote.  For me, if I'm doing a cannon character, I wouldn't like it if the character did a complete 180 and acted the exact opposite of what they normally would.  Like in Harry Potter if Draco Malfoy started handing out baskets of cookies he baked and was suddenly very cheerful, that would be a little awkward.  But playing around with the character and expanding a bit, that's fun to me. 

[aqua]

I think improving obviously dated lingo or tech talk is fine. It's still the same show its just improved. Like I enjoy the new series quite a bit despite some of the changes. But I agree with Azy. Changing a character or organization without good justification feels wrong.