Shoud the time line for the Star Trek movies be changed. for example, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (stardate 7412.6) was 2271 but now some say it's 2273. Star Trek II (stardate 8130.4) & Star Trek III (stardate 8210.3) are both set in 2285 but both stardates are diffenet. Star Trek VI (stardate 9521.6) & Star Trek: Generations (stardate unknown) are set in 2293, but The Enterprise-B Plaque said that it was commissioned on stardate 9715.5 and the S.S. Lakul FLT started on stardate 9683.3. The stardates and the years seem to be off.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Asymptotic time relation.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Standard timeline minutiae:
TMP should be no earlier than 2273, since "Q2" establishes the ship as still being active under Kirk's command as of 2270 while Kirk has been desk-bound for 2.5 years when the movie starts - although it could be as late as 2278, by which year at least some Starfleet units adopt the new red uniforms as per TNG "Cause and Effect". The rest of the movies should come after 2283, which is the date on McCoy's bottle of Romulan ale.
Apart from that, it's all free for interpretation. The movie stardates don't make much sense, save for (mostly) being sequential. But one could always decide to follow the "1000 dates per year" scheme and discard the Chronology dates (which were guesswork to begin with) and the "78 years later" reference in Generations, and plead time dilation, asylumic time inflation or whatever.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Wasn't there a thread here that looked into the later-than-2271 issue for TMP, and so on?
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
quote:Originally posted by SwSmith: Star Trek II (stardate 8130.4) & Star Trek III (stardate 8210.3) are both set in 2285 but both stardates are diffenet.
Technically if you go by the line about Khan being stranded for 15-years, then TWoK should be set in 2282...15-years after the generally accepted date for "Space Seed" (2267). The published chronology was really sloppy in some parts and doesn't always reflect well certain parts of canon. Only problem with that date though is the Romulan Ale being dated 2283...but then why would the Romulans put an Earth Gregorian Calendar date on their alcohol? Surely it would make more sense for that to be a Romulan date.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
If bottled for the Earth market, could be an error in date conversion. Or maybe, given how hazardous the pestilential liquid is, perhaps it's not a date of bottling but a date of earliest possible safe consumption!
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lee: Wasn't there a thread here that looked into the later-than-2271 issue for TMP, and so on?
Hmm. Not sure - I thought I remembered a thread that went into the rationale for putting TMP a lot later than 2271 - something like ten years, although such a sugggestion'd be immediately nullified by the Bozeman's crew wearing TWOK-era uniforms in 2278. And being a lot older than three years like the one you link to (but of course it's three AND A HALF years ago - why, that's nearly FOUR years! See how hard it is to develop a chronology based on sopken rough-approximations of periods of time?). Maybe it was an article on EAS (or even SWDAO!) or something.
EDIT: It might be this thread.
Posted by SwSmith (Member # 1319) on :
Yes! it was me then, and me now. and I still think are dates wrong, but I could be wrong. Star Trek VI should be 2292, Star Trek Generations should stay at 2293, the Enterprise was to be commissioned in 2294 on stardate 9715.5 but in Star Trek Generations the Enterprise was launched for a test run, not yet finsh.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Eh? I've read all those past threads and the rationale eludes me for all three of the statements you've just made.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
It's 2283 proof.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
I thought I'd posted my rant that TWOK starts in March of 2285, with that arc going through the splashdown on Earth in mid-2286 (at the latest). TUC and the first part of GEN taking place in 2293. The dating referents from TWOK applied backward to TOS make "Space Seed" fifteen years previous. THis being Kirk's 50th birthday, and him being "about thirty-four" in the first season of TOS... That places TOS approximately from 2268 to 2273, with TMP in 2276. This leaves a little room before the uniforms are changed in (or before) 2277.
--Jonah
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: That places TOS approximately from 2268 to 2273
The thing is, we know from Voyager that Kirk's mission ended in 2270 (as per Icheb's pointless presentation)...so for TWoK to be set in 2285 and to be 15-years after "Space Seed", "Space Seed" needs to be set in 2270 and presumably be one of the final events in Kirk's mission. Unless TOS seasons don't flow chronologically or Kirk took NCC-1701 out for another mission in 2270, it's impossible given that "Space Seed" was a first season episode. It's either got to be that TWoK isn't set in 2285, or the 15-year line is inaccurate.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Well if you're going to be disregarding lines, why not disregard Icheb's line instead of Khan's line?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Depends whose word you'd rather take, that of a loopy stranded superman or a deBorgified nerd, I guess.
The whole thing's a set of knots in a piece of elastic. You could try to line up one with a certain point, but then any tension and the other knots will slip out of alignment. The events of the middle four TOS films all took place within a maximum period of about a year - maybe even just six months. It'd be nice to nail it down to one specific year (or spread between two consecutive years). The only real niggle with doing that and settling on 2282 is the date on the Romulan ale bottle, and while we know that date was chosen by the prop people to represent the actual year 2283, we can also guess not a lot of thought went into choosing it.
Why do I say that? Because, this is pre-Okuda after all - remember, ST2: TWOK was a last-gasp attempt at making a successful and popular Star Trek film, they had no idea of all this that would come from it, if it had flopped that'd have likely been it, no more Trek. Until a comedy version was made a la Starsky & Hutch, with Owen Wilson as Kirk, Ben Stiller as Spock, Will Ferrell as McCoy, Ricky Gervais as Scotty. . . I oculd go on but I'd lose the will to live!
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Maybe it was 15 Ceti years ago.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
That...might make some sense. But the alteration of the orbit would throw out the Ceti years as well...
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Are you sure? It might make it better.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
How many 'missions' did Kirk or the Enterprise actually have?
Is Captain April considered Canon? I think they should make it Canon.
5 years for April 2x5 years for Pike 5 years for Kirk Spacedock for Refit 5 years in TMP-style uniform? TWOK/TSFS/TVH TFF... another 5 years in the 1701-A?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Why should any of these other captains have performed a five-year mission? Kirk considered having such a mission in his CV a unique qualification for performing the TMP intercept!
quote:...it's impossible given that "Space Seed" was a first season episode. It's either got to be that TWoK isn't set in 2285, or the 15-year line is inaccurate.
Well, "15 years" means anything between 13 and 17 years (in contrast with "17 years" which means exactly 17 years). And "Space Seed" may have been a first-season episode, but it was also a 3000-range stardate episode, taking place some time after "Catspaw" where Chekov is first seen aboard.
Assuming that the final episodes of TOS (in the 5000 range of stardates) were the final sorties during Kirk's 5-year mission, and this mission ended in 2270, "Space Seed" would have taken place during Mission Year Three, in 2267-68 (or perhaps 68-69). Adding 17 to that would give 2285. (And the two-year margin to McCoy's bottle date would be dramatically preferable, because a single-year difference shouldn't elicit quite that sort of a response from Kirk.)
Assuming Mission Year Five was 2270, the 7400-range stardate for TMP would then nicely fit late 2272 or early 2273. But the 8100-range stardate for ST2 would no longer quite fit the 2285 date, and things would go downhill from there as regards the 1000 stardates per year assumption.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
I dont normally like to do "me, too" responses, but I agree with Timo.
There are still problems that have no way to rationalize (without being stupid), and entirely due to sloppy writing. Morrow's "twenty years old" line in STIII needs to be redubbed, for instance. Why attribute so much to Icheb's line, when Voyager was full of so many other little errors?
Hey, Timo. Did Kirk's first year (of the five) start with a zero or a one? Was "WNM..." a few months in, or just over a year? Hell, we still need to figure out what happened to stardates between TOS and TNG. Subtracting 41 from 2364 gives you 2323. What happened around then that would see the start of the ongoing stardate counter we have in contemporary Trek? How often did it reset in the TOS era, and what was with the crap stardate from the Enterprise flight recorder log seen in STIII?
[ADDITIONAL] Oh, and what the hell about the 1,000 units per year thing? Didn't anyone ever realize that that meant over two full units per day? It almost works, though. Sort of. With a little tweaking, that can be rounded out to one tenth of a unit per hour. If things are standardized, based on but not exactly adhering to, one planet's cycles, that would work.
So many questions yet...
--Jonah
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
2.739726 per day; 2.7322404 for leap years. Basically one stardate every 8.76 hours.
Yes, I DID work all this out in 10th grade.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
In TOS, did anyone else besides those on the Enterprise say anything about stardates? I had a funny idea that in TOS, the stardates may just be a shipboard timekeeping system related to the current mission, and that changed somewhere between TOS & TNG (possibly even before the movies). Of course, if anyone else *did* use stardates, that theory goes out the airlock.
Posted by tricky (Member # 1402) on :
I remember working out years ago 1 stardate =10 hours, seemed to work out quite well: One year = 854.4 stardates.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Of course, the only ever time we ever saw a three-watch system in use was in "Data's Day" (and someone will probably remind me it was a four-watch system), but it would work out quite well as the basis of the thousand-stardates-per-year system, more or less.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
No, always 3 shifts until Jellico came aboard & made it 4.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Ah, yes. Often wondered about that. I wonder which is really better. Would the three watch shifts split into four, or would they be combined into two watches that alternated, doing one watch on, one watch off? The latter would be harder on the crew, and therefore the kind of thing Captain Bastard would go for, but it would also mean you'd avoid diluting the command talent the way you would with a four-shift system.
Of course, the whole thing's made a nonsense by their insistence on having the whole command staff on duty at once. I thing we saw at least one shift change in "Data's Day," maybe ecen two, can anyone remember the details?
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
The other shift change I remember seeing was in "Rightful Heir". The Enterprise was lucky for having Data, because he didn't need sleep.
"Data's Day" had one at the beginning, when Riker took over from Data so he could go have his "day". The episode ended with Data taking over again from Worf.
So the Enterprise's regular shift schedule would be the day watch under Riker for eight hours, some of which with the Captain and other senior officers present, if needed. Followed my the mid watch under Worf for eight hours. And then the night watch under Data for eight hours. And whenever anything untoward was going on, the Captain and relevent personnel would be rousted out and the bridge restored to day-watch conditions for the duration of whatever.
--Jonah
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
Everyone knows that the stardate system had to be revised after the discovery of the Guardian of Forever, that it took some time to sort out a good index with such a fixed point.
I also feel compelled to explain that statements from TWOK should always take precedence over any sideways utterance from Voyager due to the moviefilm having been seen by more than 11 dorks on a Star-Trek internet forum and just being preposterously better in every way. Give me that brand of "sloppy writing" any day, please.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Can always count on you, Kurt.
--Jonah
Posted by Quest (Member # 1941) on :
All this may change after the next Trek film which essentially tells of the early years of Kirk and Spock.
Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lee:
Why do I say that? Because, this is pre-Okuda after all - remember, ST2: TWOK was a last-gasp attempt at making a successful and popular Star Trek film, they had no idea of all this that would come from it, if it had flopped that'd have likely been it, no more Trek. Until a comedy version was made a la Starsky & Hutch, with Owen Wilson as Kirk, Ben Stiller as Spock, Will Ferrell as McCoy, Ricky Gervais as Scotty. . . I oculd go on but I'd lose the will to live!
Which is basically the movie in production now, yes? With a less well know cast?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
quote:In TOS, did anyone else besides those on the Enterprise say anything about stardates? I had a funny idea that in TOS, the stardates may just be a shipboard timekeeping system related to the current mission, and that changed somewhere between TOS & TNG (possibly even before the movies). Of course, if anyone else *did* use stardates, that theory goes out the airlock.
Well, (4000-range) stardates were also used by Matt Decker for his Constellation logs. But one could easily argue that those dates were out of synch with the Enterprise stardates - and consequently that "Doomsday Machine" took place at another timeslot entirely, and not in production or airdate order.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Or it really was a system employed ship-by-ship, and not co-ordinated through a central Federation standard.
--Jonah
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Then it loses all value as a record keeping system. What sense is it to have station logs and ship logs with stardates if the stardates are all relative to the location of the ship or station?
Especially considering other people use these dates as references in researching this or that.
Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :
*deleted* Posted in the wrong place.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
It was based on the heyday of the Royal Navy. The Admiralty kept track of when ships left, and the ships' logs were written in a "day 204" format. Gene didn't think things out all the way back then. His first notion was that stardates were much the same thing, set up with the first two numbers being months into the mission and the second two being days. That went out the window pretty quickly, but he didn't replace it with anything near as well-thought-out.
--Jonah
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
quote:Or it really was a system employed ship-by-ship, and not co-ordinated through a central Federation standard.
Not "or" - "and". The 4000-range dates dictated by Decker appear in between episodes where 3000-range dates are dictated by Kirk; the two ships might thus live by different stardate systems. But there is no pressing reason to assume that they do, or that the airdate/production order is the real order of the events.
There is lots of dramatic merit to the "day 204" interpretation, I guess. But even the earliest episodes of TOS use stardates in contexts that do not involve the Enterprise or her mission. Kirk's tombstone already starts the trend, and the (admittedly nonsensical) personnel records of Mitchell and Dehner concur. History for Kodos the Executioner and Anton Karidian is given in stardate format, too. "Stardate" is something that can be understood outside any specific context.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
quote:Originally posted by Zipacna:
quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: That places TOS approximately from 2268 to 2273
The thing is, we know from Voyager that Kirk's mission ended in 2270 (as per Icheb's pointless presentation)...so for TWoK to be set in 2285 and to be 15-years after "Space Seed", "Space Seed" needs to be set in 2270 and presumably be one of the final events in Kirk's mission. Unless TOS seasons don't flow chronologically or Kirk took NCC-1701 out for another mission in 2270, it's impossible given that "Space Seed" was a first season episode. It's either got to be that TWoK isn't set in 2285, or the 15-year line is inaccurate.
What were we talking about again?
Oh yeah...
Even more interesting thoughts from "Space Seed" and TWoK regarding the timeline.
Khan was from the late 20th century (1997). Kirk told Khan he was in suspended animation for "nearly 2 centuries." Nearly would imply not quite 200 years, but we'll go with that. This statement would put TOS in the 22nd century (2197).
TWoK opens with text stating explicityly "The 23rd Century." This is the first instance a specific time frame is mentioned for Star Trek. The earliest TWoK could be is 2201. Of course we know that other events and missions took place between "Space Seed" and TWoK, pushing the date even deeper into the 2200s.
For TOS to take place in the 2260s and TWoK in 2283 Khan would have had to been in suspended animation for nearly 300 years. (2283-15 = 2268. 2268-1997 = 271 years asleep).
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Small point, but it was 1996.
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
quote:Originally posted by HerbShrump: For TOS to take place in the 2260s and TWoK in 2283 Khan would have had to been in suspended animation for nearly 300 years. (2283-15 = 2268. 2268-1997 = 271 years asleep). [/QB]
Assuming Khan was giving a date in the Gregorian Calendar, which only really makes sense if the Great Khanate was a "western" power. Makes more sense for it to either be an Indian Civil Calendar date (1996 in the Indian Civil would be roughly 2070 in Gregorian), or one from a calendar Khan invented. Fair enough, most likely the writers intended it to be AD1996...but it doesn't really make much sense for a crazed dictator controlling areas of Asia and the Middle East to use a Christian calendar.
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
Ignore...double post.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
I've always liked that, a it meshes well with the "two hundred years" comments and the whole 21st century post-atomic horror. However, how to reconcile Spock's statements regarding when the Eugenics Wars took place?
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