Retcon

Retcons are what makes Neckbeards rage the most. Beyond all else, when fluff gets retconned, especially good fluff, it makes everyone go into fits of anger, proves that the people controlling the source material are incompetent and abusive to the universe, and worst of all makes good things die.

The word "Retcon" comes from a the joining of the words "Retroactive Continuity" together. In Traditional Games, retcons usually stem from fluff that the writers and publishers decide isn't necessary or in the flavor of the setting it is being retconned from. Or when a new writer decides that certain fluff doesn't fit with his ideas and conception of how things "ought to" be, without considering the universe he is screwing with first. Or when a company wants to make money on new models and decides to wreak havoc on their pre-established setting and fluff to do so. Or Both.

Retcons come in all shapes and sizes, and while not all Retcons are bad, many of them (especially those stemming from Matt Ward) tend to remove vast amounts of depth and character from the setting.

Many people tend to use the word "retcon" inappropriately, especially here on this site. The term "Retcon" only applies to new fluff which erases the previously standing old fluff; not fluff which was conceived out of thin air and erases nothing, but sucks really bad. It also does not mean fluff which is built around old fluff and, in the process, destroys the value of the standing fluff to a point where it no longer means anything of value within the new context. That, my friends, is a Wardcon.

Also, "doublethink" from the book '1984'. In this case, an entire society has a history based on retcons.

List of Retcons

In 40k:

• SQUATS (Thanks to 6th edition, they are mentioned to exist).
• Valedictors and Rainbow Warriors being First Founding Chapters.
• Necrons being Terminators IN SPACE instead of Tomb Kings IN SPACE. They have been dubbed the Retcrons for this very reason. Also back in 2nd they were Chaos robots.
• C'tan being superdeath gods of death and Just as planned, and now being shiny space-pokemon (Well to be fair the transcedent are even more God-like than before).
• Zoats and those weird Tyranid diplomats, and Tyranids being a race of individuals with leather-strap cloathing and mechanical technology...
• The Lone Guardsman being, you know, a guardsman, the great Ollanius Pius (Though apparently Fantasy Flight Games has brought him back. They're awesome like that.), but too bad, he's retconned into Immortal by the time he's returned in 6th edition
• A metric ton of goofy Orkish stuff, which, oddly enough few people missed. Mostly because Ork canon does what it pleases.
• Sisters of Battle not sucking(since they got unique Magic System: Acts of Faith).
• Ultramarines being BRITS IN SPAAAACE.
• Hrud being RATS IN SPAAAACE. (they got cooler though)
• Asdrubael Vect's bitches.
• Space Marines being COPS IN SPAAAACE.
• Giving reasons for why Grey Knight would fight non-chaos groups.

In Crysis:

• Nanosuits are Cool Next-gen Power Armor instead of Alien Technology that works just like Spiderman's symbiote
• Aliens having human like power armor and liking warm environment, rather than flying squid and cold.

In Pokemon:

• any Nonhuman beings that aren't Pokemons in Pokemon anime
• Superpowered Humans(doesn't need to be Superpowered in Comic Book sense of the term) in Pokemon Anime are have their existence Downplayed(at best) or Retconned into non-existence(at worst) in more recent seasons of Pokemon Anime

In Final Destination:

• Precognition that one of it's main characters uses are innate ability instead of given by Grim Reaper itself

In Super Sentai:

• Sentai Seasons are all sets in their own self-contained universes instead of being sets in a single universe

In Resident Evil:

• Resident Evil Live-action Movies are Resident Evi1 Prequel instead of Mary-Sue fanfic sets in Resident Evil Alternate Universe
• T-virus giving said Mary Sue powers, rather than a failed beta of the real super power virus.
• Even more not yet released retcon games are confirmed by Capcom.

In BattleTech:

• With few exceptions, the materials from Battle Technology magazines are considered non-canon.
• Other than that, the developers try very hard not to do major and blatant 180' retcons, to the point that they try to justify/acknowledge/retool crappy stuff from that clicky game when converting them into the BattleTech proper. For anything else, they rely on the in-universe unreliability of sourcebooks to explain mini-retcons. Ex: The crappy cartoon becoming a crappy propaganda cartoon in-universe with the real events being covered in books and with few characters migrating to BattleTech proper, most notably Adam Steiner.

In Nolan Batman Trilogy:

• Batman: Gotham Knights are bridge between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight instead of Stand-alone movie
• any attempt to fit More Sci-fi and Fantasy aspects of Batman franchise(let alone DC comics in General) to Nolanverse are ends up inevitably retconned

In Ben 10:

• Gwen Tennyson are Human with Magic Powers instead of Anodite-Human hybrid (Why the heck is there a Ben 10 reference here?)

In Bioshock:

• Fink from Columbia open a portal using tear to rapture and is now working, trading, plagiarizing with Dr.Suchong and created products such as plasmid, big daddy and stuffs.

• The reason for Jack's arrive to rapture in bioshock 1 is due to Elizabeth translated the activation code to active Jack.

• rapture now is filled with salt instead of eve hypo everywhere. Even plasmids are now vigors with different name.

In Robocop:

• PG-13.

• CGI.

In The Mummy Trilogy:

• The Mummy Cartoon are bridge between The Mummy Returns and The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor instead of standalone installments of the Mummy sets in Animated Alternate universe of the Mummy

In Jojo's Bizzare Adventure:

• Made in heaven fucked up everything and now everything except Emporio are retconed.

• Hamon is now spin, a natural power that's based on golden rectangle. So spin to win guys!

• stands are now acquired by contacting with the corpse part instead of stand arrow.