Help please

Ah hi i'm rafe and i just wanted to make sure i got the basic idea of this. so i can create stuff of my own idea and it dosnt have to be cannon rite? so like i could have the bsg find earth and not ram its self into the sun and go from there type thing? Any way thanks for any input and if you've read the Embervese series by S.M Stirling go to his wiki and check out some stuff there it's rather new but growing. any way thank you for any help you can give.