A Lit-verse based TOS chronology

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by ryan123450, Apr 27, 2015.

  1. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    So I've been working on merging all the reading order lists on the Litverse Reading Guide into one massive chronological list. And as I've been trying to do that, I realized that I really just need to figure out a month by month chronology of the 5YM so that I will be able to place books in the chronology more definitively in the future. So I tried to take all the pieces of chronological info from all the Lit-verse books set during that time period, and put all the books and episodes in a month by month chronology.

    The problem of course being that there have always been different interpretations of the TOS chronology, and several of these differing interpretations have made their way into the books. In particular, there seemed to be different dating assumptions between the Vanguard authors and Christopher's DTI book. It would seem impossible then, to make the few dates we have from the books line up, but I gave it a try anyway.

    With a few shifts of episodes, some extrapolation, and alot of averaging, I came up with a final form. The end result, I will admit, is simply my own interpretation, and could never be claimed to be the official version the authors must be trying to give us. But it's the version I'll be going with on the Litverse Reading Guide from here on, assuming this discussion doesn't prompt any changes to it.

    I started, obviously with the book order given in the Pocket Timeline. Any changes I made to that I will point out along the way. I did, however, ignore the year dividing points, because their placement wasn't explained and didn't line up with the other data points I gathered.

    I figured I would post it in one year increments so if anyone has any comments to make or mistakes to point out, perhaps I can make this even better and more accurate. I assume there are several of you out there who have already done this project for yourselves (authors included). I would love any imput anyone can give. I would also love to talk with anyone out there who was part of the process of building the Pocket Books Timeline in Voyages of Imagination. I've never seen any of you on this board, but would love to get a better idea of why certain books were placed precisely where they were.

    So without further comment here's the first year of the 5YM:

    December 2265

    • The First Year Begins (Note 1)
    Jan- April 2266 (Note 2)


    • Alien Spotlight: Romulans II

    • VAN: Summon the Thunder

    • VAN: Reap the Whirlwind

    • VAN: Hard News
    May 2266 (Note 3) (Note 4)


    • 1x02- The Corbomite Maneuver

    • The Landing Party

    • 1x03- Mudd's Women
    June 2266

    • 1x04- The Enemy Within

    • 1x05- The Man Trap

    • 1x06- The Naked Time

    • The Captain's Table, Book 6: Where Sea Meets Sky

    • The First Artifact

    • Alien Spotlight: Romulans

    • 1x08- Balance of Terror
    July 2266

    • Shadow Lord

    • The Peril of Planet Quick Change

    • Errand of Vengeance, Book 1: The Edge of the Sword
    August 2266

    • 1x09- What Are Little Girls Made Of?

    • Errand of Vengeance, Book 2: Killing Blow

    • Errand of Vengeance, Book 3: River of Blood

    • 1x11- Miri (Note 5)
    September 2266

    • 1x12- The Conscience of the King

    • 1x13- The Galileo Seven

    • 1x14- Court Martial
    October 2266

    • Official Record

    • 1x15, 1x16- The Menagerie

    • 1x17- Shore Leave
    November 2266

    • 1x18- The Squire of Gothos

    • 1x19- Arena

    • 1x07- Charlie X (Note 6)

    • The First Year Ends (Note 7)

    1. I placed the beginning of the 5YM in December 2265. We know that it ended in 2270, and I wanted to give the most time to the post-TOS period that I could. So I assigned the end of the 5YM to the end of November 2270, then simply went back five years.
    2. The first date I could lock down was The Corbomite Maneuver in May 2266. So all the stories that took place before that must have been during the previous few months of the year.
    3. As we will end up seeing as this discussion goes, it ended up coincidentally working out that TOS seasons 2 and 3 took place over the course of exactly one year each. Season 3 actually took 14 months, but The Paradise Syndrome itself taking 2 months added to the one year. So I simply assumed Season 1 should take one year as well, and went back from the start of Season 2 to assign The Corbomite Maneuver to May 2266.
    4. The next episodes with definite dates given in the Lit-verse were Errand of Mercy and City on the Edge of Forever. I simply divided the intervening Enterprise stories on the list equally over the proceeding months (May 2266 to April 2267). I acknowledge that this is arbitrary, but without doing things like that, there simply aren't enough data points to assign dates to most episodes and books. Several episodes with vague dates given did line up in their correct spots under this plan though.
    5. 1x10 Dagger of the Mind had to be moved into the future. We can talk about that episode in the next year's post.
    6. This episode takes place at Thanksgiving. I moved it out of production order. The next episode with a definite date was Errand of Mercy in March 2267. If I hadn't moved Charlie-X out of production order, almost all of Season One would have to take place in that 4-5 month gap. That seemed like too short a period for most of the season to be crammed into.
    7. One year after the start of the 5YM.
    This took me quite a bit of quiet time thinking this out to get posted. I'll probably wait several days or so before I get the chance to add the next year, so please discuss what I've come up with so far. I'm definitely open to critiques. And I'd love any info from any authors who can shed light on how they arrived at the dates they placed in their books.

    Thanks!
     
  2. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    And here I thought I'd adjusted my own TOS chronology to reflect Vanguard dates. Maybe there were a few points where I differed, however.

    I see your reasoning about moving "Dagger of the Mind" -- that it takes place sometime after a Christmas party -- but I realized that it doesn't actually specify how long ago the party was. Indeed, given that Kirk doesn't initially remember her, it seems likely that the episode takes place months after the party. (Although now that I look at it, I realize my own chrono has the ship undergoing refits and the crew presumably on leave during Christmas '65. Maybe they had a belated Xmas party afterward?)

    My own assumptions are otherwise similar, but with a few variations. I put "Corbomite" through "The Naked Time" in March to early May, then put in about a month's gap after that, though I don't quite remember why that's there -- maybe for repairs? Anyway, we're in sync for "Balance of Terror" -- is that because of Vanguard? -- but then I have "Little Girls" through "Miri" in July and "Conscience" in August. We're in sync with "Galileo" and "Court-martial," but then I have "The Avenger" from Enterprise Logs in October and "The Menagerie" at the start of November, since I want a gap between the two Starbase 11 episodes. (The gap is also occupied by the star charting that was mentioned in "The Doomsday Machine" as having occurred the previous year.) So I put "Charlie X" (Thanksgiving) after "Shore Leave," which finishes out November. I also put "Official Record" sometime later than you, between "The Devil in the Dark" and "Errand of Mercy."

    I don't know about including Shadow Lord. I see that as part of the '80s novel continuity, since it references Vonda McIntyre's Sulu backstory. But then, I don't have "Planet Quick Change" either...
     
  3. Leto_II

    Leto_II Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I'd probably place it back even further in 2265, due to quite a few tales taking place over extended periods of time, especially late in the 5YM. There are novels like Prime Directive, which sidelines the Enterprise for at least three months due to the Talin IV incident, and which would conceivably extend out the 5YM much later into 2270 than originally expected, once the ship resumes its voyages following the events of that book.

    If we're thinking about definite timeframes, there are also several other stories which occur over extended periods that might need to be accounted for, such as this one DC Comics storyline ("The Chosen," Vol. 2, #77-80) which spans a good fourteen weeks circa 2269, and "The Paradise Syndrome," where the Enterprise takes 59 days to limp back to Miramanee's planet.

    There's also David R. George III's Allegiance in Exile, which spans the entirety of that fifth year, but also has this two-month stretch where Sulu leaves the ship before eventually returning. It leaves this weird, gaping hole in the timeline into which very few (if any) other previous stories can even fit, and which chops two months of wiggle-room off the 5YM timeframe prior to that 2270 endpoint brick wall.
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2015
  4. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^Well, there's no way to fit all the 5YM fiction into the span of five years. There's just too much of it. Heck, "Mind-Sifter" in The New Voyages takes a whole year or more by itself.

    So it's probably best just to stick to those works that reference or have been referenced as parts of the modern continuity, and maybe leave some wiggle room for individuals to pick and choose a few beyond that.
     
  5. Leto_II

    Leto_II Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Yeah, that's pretty much my own philosophy, too -- just looking at that huge Memory Beta chronology, there's no way in heck it all fits into five years, especially when you factor in all the starbase stopovers, maintenance, repair, shore leave time, and various "non-dramatic" planetary surveys, etc., in between that would never see light of day as a Star Trek tale for dramatic reasons.

    I tend to stick with including most of the "modern" stuff, since continuity-awareness is much more built into those stories, but I also try to work in "older" material ("older," in this case, referring to Pocket Books novels from the early-to-mid-'80s, Marvel and DC stories from that same period, etc.) whenever possible, or as much as can be semi-plausibly accounted for during those years.

    Like for most people, of course, material like the Gold Key comics and many of the 1970s Bantam books aren't factored in, though I still enjoy many of them as alternate "what if?" stories (and as historical documents from that era) in their own right.

    Basically, it all comes down to the quality of the story in the end, although I admit I'm slightly more biased towards the more recent than the older as a factor for inclusion, simply because of the ease-of-placement reasons I mentioned above that you tend to see more often these days.

    That said, there are undoubtedly stories that I've picked for inclusion in my own personal continuity that others have omitted, and vice versa, but that's what's so great about having so many tales to choose from -- it all comes down to personal preference.
     
  6. Idran

    Idran Commodore Commodore

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    I've been working on my own chronology for a while too, Ryan (inspired in part by your reading list, honestly; I think I might even have told you as much some time), and I do have a couple questions/suggestions/comments/whatever they are. (:p)

    I guess my first question, and I'll just post it to start since it seems like it'd throw everything else off, is where do you get the date for Corbomite Maneuver from? By my reckoning you're a few months late on it; Open Secrets' Historian's note has that work as occurring shortly after Corbomite Maneuver and three weeks after the end of Reap the Whirlwind. Reap the Whirlwind was itself 6 weeks after the end of Summon the Thunder, which was definitely near the end of 2265, around early December (it was explicitly dated in text as 2265 and implicitly through an in-text mention of the recent destruction of the Ingraham B colony, and connection with Harbinger gives the approximate month); all together, that places Corbomite Maneuver some time around January 2266, maybe February at the latest.
     
  7. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I honestly can't recall now why I had that feeling while I was starting this project. The majority of the data points I gathered came from Vanguard and Forgotten History. I remember thinking they didn't line up for some reason, but you would know better than me.

    I haven't watched that episode for years, but I just assumed Kirk didn't remember her because there was a certain amount of alcohol involved. It could work either way though.

    I assume the fact that I tried to simply space out the stories evenly is what gave us the discrepancies. I do wonder though what gave you the placement for the two short stories? I just left them next to the episodes they were placed by in the Pocket Timeline.

    I simply have those on the list because they are on my TOS reading list on my site. I do denote the fact that Shadow Lord is part of the 80's Lit-verse and not the current one.

    Exactly. But if you push the start of the 5YM farther back into 2265, then it simply ends earlier. Leaving less time for those late 5YM stories to take place in.

    I do need to think about putting that two month gap in there. I'll probably fix that before I get around to post the 5th year stuff.

    Honestly I never could figure out the exact timeframes of the Vanguard books. There are clues as to when most of them begin or end, but I never could line it all up perfectly in my figuring. I actually never could see that the story they told took place over the four years or so that it was claimed to have. Seemed like quite a bit less time to me. I would love it if one of the authors could explain the timeline situation of all the books to me. Barring that I suppose I'll have to simply push Corbomite backwards to where you suggest. The only reason I have it where it is currently is because season 2 worked out to be 12 months, and season 3 worked out to be 14 (12 plus the two month long The Paradise Syndrome). So I assigned Season 1 to be 12 months as well.

    Thanks for the input so far everybody. I really hope to hear more.
     
  8. Idran

    Idran Commodore Commodore

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    I've actually got the Vanguard timeline worked out relatively well on as granular a level as I could manage, though I don't want to take the spotlight in your thread with a huge post or something; I can post it here if you want, or I can just drop you a PM about it. They namedrop events often enough that if you look carefully, you can sort of use them as hooks to hang Vanguard's chronology off of.

    That aside, my only real other comments were either oriented around Vanguard or small quibbles around the Errand trilogies. For the latter, they kind of conflict with moving Charlie X and Dagger of the Mind, as Errand of Vengeance has Sam Fuller discuss the events of Charlie X (he was established as the same Sam as the one in the gym that was temporarily erased), and Errand of Fury mentions the neural neutralizer stuff as happening only shortly after the end of Vengeance (and being part of the basis for the Klingon mind sifter). But there's so much trouble with the dating of EoF relative to EoV that this would be a drop in the bucket compared to those anyway. :p
     
  9. Leto_II

    Leto_II Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Actually, what I meant there was that, during that three-month downtime in Prime Directive, it's clear that the Enterprise's 5YM was pretty much suspended, due to the starship's incapacity, Kirk and his command staff getting drummed out of Starfleet, etc.

    From what I can remember from the novel, the impression given was that Kirk's crew now suddenly had three months or thereabouts to "make up" on their mission-time by the story's end, which lead me to think about a slightly-earlier 2265 starting date for it in order to accommodate/account for this. It definitely gives the timeline a bit more breathing-room for sure. :)


    Yeah, there are some real vague timelines presented in a couple of them, in particular What Judgments Come, which simply provides a fairly nebulous "2268" timestamp at the very beginning, and you're left to infer that it kinda-sorta-maybe is set around one year after the February, 2267 sections of Precipice.

    (And then of course there's Precipice itself, which covers an entire calendar year, but which is also basically the reverse-What Judgments Come, with all the fine, micro-dating details given in the text. :lol:)
     
  10. Idran

    Idran Commodore Commodore

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    Building off Leto's post, there's a definite lean overall that a "five year mission" isn't literally precisely five calendar years and then they're recalled back home. Possibly that things like major repair or refit don't count towards the mission time, or even that it's potentially just a long-term mission that runs about five years but might be +/- a year or two; it's just called such because five years is around the maximum independent operating time a Constitution-class ship is rated for or something like that.
     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    As I said, I put "The Avenger" between "Court-martial" and "The Menagerie" just so there could be some space between the two Starbase 11 visits, and that story happened to be convenient for it. I don't think Constellations had come out yet at that point. As for "Official Record," it seems to be after Chekov's been aboard the ship for a little while but before he was assigned to bridge duty. I assume he came onboard while the ship was undergoing repairs in Sol System following "Tomorrow is Yesterday," as depicted in Forgotten History. I put the story about three months after that, because it seemed right. At least, I think that was my reasoning; I'm trying to reconstruct it from memory.


    Who says it has to? Is there a reason it's absolutely required to be exactly 260 weeks long to the day? After all, it's a pretty open-ended, unpredictable exercise. There are lots of things that could delay a ship or send it on unexpected paths, so there's no way you could guarantee that a ship would return to port on precisely the fifth anniversary of its launching.

    The interpretation I've offered in my books is that five years is simply the maximum recommended time for a Constitution-class ship to be in the field without a major overhaul. But there's usually some wiggle room in something like that, and a ship could probably withstand staying out even longer if it needed to, at the discretion of the captain and his superiors. Granted, I say in Forgotten History that Kirk tried to get the okay for a sixth year and didn't get it, but it's possible that there's enough flexibility to throw in a few extra months.
     
  12. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I'll have to respond to everyone's post later, but I just wanted to say Idran, go ahead and post whatever you have about Vanguard. You certainly won't be stepping on my toes. This is the exact kind of detailed discussion I was hoping for.
     
  13. Idran

    Idran Commodore Commodore

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    Okay, so, I'll stick with just 2266 for now, as it's what you've started with so far, and as was mentioned 2267's covered pretty well in Precipice in terms of precise dating. Well, mostly 2266, as will be seen later. I'm going to start off repeating myself, just for the sake of completeness.

    Okay, so, this is what we have for certain from Historian's Notes and other explicit dating references: Harbinger is from 2265 (except for the Constellation prologue which is early 2263), starting immediately after "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Summon the Thunder is also 2265. Reap the Whirlwind is in 2266, 6 weeks after Summon the Thunder and ending before "Corbomite Maneuver". Open Secrets is in 2266, starting about three weeks after Reap the Whirlwind and just after "Corbomite Maneuver". Now, immediately, this tells us that the 2265/2266 divide must be between Summon the Thunder and Reap the Whirlwind; on my timeline, I place the latter in January and the former in December, but there's leeway here. Summon the Thunder spans about 15 days, and around its 11th day is one month from the destruction of the USS Bombay, placing Harbinger in November, and thus "WNMHGB" in the same month. (For completeness, I've counted Harbinger as spanning about 21 days, and Reap the Whirlwind as spanning about 15 days, based on my readings of the two.)

    Those are the easy ones. Things get tougher for Open Secrets, as it spans a longer period, the entire rest of 2266 and a little more. From chapters 1 to 24, we have no specific references to TOS that I notice. We do have a useful dating reference in Chapter 20, however, as there we have M'Benga and Pennington leaving for what is referenced as an approximately 9 week trip to Vulcan. The events of these first chapters seem to span about a month or so; the book starts around February from my reckoning, and spans around up through March, with the trip starting in that month.

    In Chapter 25, we have our first reference to S1 TOS, with an explicit reference to "Balance of Terror" having happened about a week beforehand. In Chapter 29, M'Benga and Pennington have arrived, putting us around May at this point based on the travel time. Shortly after, in Chapter 31, we have what seems to be a sidelong reference to the Errand of Vengeance trilogy, with a reference to recent events with the Klingons at Casmus III. Now, Casmus III comes from some TOS movie-era comics as being the planet around which Starbase 42 orbits, suggesting that this is meant to be a reference to the attack featured in River of Blood, thus placing this too around May.

    The Errand of Vengeance trilogy is pretty tightly packed, with no room between or within installments for other adventures; the entire thing is one contiguous set of events. The entire run spans around 13 days by my counting, meaning that the whole thing happens over the course of early May or late April (and of course, so too does "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" as a result). This means that we can backdate Chapter 25 and Balance of Terror to likely late April, given that extra week.

    Now, we have a fairly significant timeskip that requires some backdating to work out. So we're going to have to jump to the end of Open Secrets and work backwards to fill out the rest of things. The USS Nowlan is destroyed in Chapter 52; by Precipice, we know that this happened on January 3, 2267. The rest of the book seems to take place either on that day or the day immediately following, meaning that it wraps up by January 4th. In Chapter 51, we have a reference to "Arena" as happening almost immediately beforehand, within a day or two; that puts this chapter as well as "Arena" at either late December 2266 or very early January 2267. Finally, by Chapter 47, we know that Reyes had been on the Nowlan for five weeks just before its destruction, and I count the trial itself as taking around 15 days or so, placing the entire trial (which started in chapter 32) as starting around early-to-mid November and ending mid-to-late November.

    Now, a lot of this is working under the assumption that adjacent chapters that didn't explicitly mention a long gap between events or that were in different locations happened at around the same time, which is obviously a weak assumption that could be broken if you wanted to spread things out a little more through the year without that big May-to-November jump in the middle. But that's what the dates in my own chronology for 2266 are based on. (And of course, there's "Tomorrow is Yesterday" being explicitly dated to December 2266 in Forgotten History, to throw in one last point I've got referenced in my own.)
     
  14. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I will definitely be changing things around now that I know this info. I've not read any of the 6 Errand of books. They are on my massive to read list. I know there are some internal chronology questions that I'd love to read myself and see if I can wrap my head around.

    I see now. That is a aspect of the 5YM that I never really thought through. Good insight. That is another thing I need to adjust and reevaluate.

    I like all your reasoning.

    That's something I will have to keep in mind as I'm readjusting several things.

    Wow you really dug deeper into those books than I ended up doing by skimming back through looking for timeline info. Very good job. I wish one of the authors would pop in here and confirm all your timing data. There's alot to go through there, and I will be doing that and seeing what I need to move around.

    One question though, do you feel like this May-to-November jump lines up with the events of the story? In other words do whatever events that take place during this gap seem like they take place over a 6 month period? It's been a while since I've read Vanguard.

    Thanks everybody for all the info. I really have to do some rearranging and rethinking of assumptions.
     
  15. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    We're in rough agreement up to this point, although I put Harbinger in October and Summon in late Nov/early Dec. But...

    You're overlooking the fact that in Harbinger, the Enterprise was limping slowly home from the edge of the galaxy. It was still at least eight weeks from home at the start of Harbinger, but Vanguard is substantially closer to the Federation than it is to even the nearest edge of the galaxy. So logically, WNM takes place months before Harbinger. I put it in August in my chronology, two months before, and even that's cheating.

    As for the rest of Vanguard's timing, I can't really help there. I couldn't really get all the elapsed-time references to work out with regard to TOS, so I cheated a lot of it, e.g. putting the start of Open Secrets a month after Reap rather than three weeks. I've actually had conversations with Dave where I asked all sorts of questions about how the timing worked out and his answer was basically "Don't worry about it." So I think it's permissible to be flexible with the chronological details, as long as the overall story works.
     
  16. Idran

    Idran Commodore Commodore

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    Edit: Wait, misread. That is a good point, true. I'll have to think on this.

    Edit2: On rereading that first chapter, there does seem to be an implication that it's only just after WNMHGB. But you do make a good point about the distances involved, and the implication is relatively weak in the text, so yeah, I think I'll agree with you on this point. It'd be about 3,000ly going straight perpendicular from the ecliptic, from the values I'm seeing, right? (Slightly less in one direction than the other since we're off the galactic plane, but only by like 1% or so)
     
  17. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I took me awhile to find the time to really dig deep into all the points you guys have brought up, but I spent a few hours this afternoon working on this.

    On the 5YM point, I think I will go with the assumption that Kirk begged a few extra months out of Starfleet/ they slowly worked their way back towards Earth for a few months. And tossing in the 3 months of downtime for Prime Directive, I'm calling the 5YM early July 2265 to late November 2270. Based on what Idran has figured out about the placement of the Vanguard books, I would conclude that WNMHGB is actually a part of the 5YM. I've always assumed it was a seperate mission beforehand, to go along with the fact that their is no Kirk monologue at the beginning of the episode. But the fact that you guys have brought up concerning the five year timeframe as a period that the ship can last on it's own without major starbase time, it would seem more likely that all Kirk's missions took place in the official 5YM anyway.

    So was Casmus III given as the location of this attack in River of Blood or just Starbase 42? Are you just getting that link based on this movie-era comic? If so, what comic was it specifically?

    I really like how you've dug deeply into this. I still wonder about that 6 month gap and if the story should somehow be spread out more evenly over the year. After really go through what you said I am left with one big question though. Earlier we talked about how Charlie-X has to come before EoV. And that episode is set at Thanksgiving. But how can this all work out when you've figured that EoV takes place around May?

    I had been planning on moving Charlie-X, EoV, WALGMO?, and Dagger to November/December until you mentioned what you think is a reference to EoV in Open Secrets. I'd really like to get that reference confirmed because without it, this seems alot easier.

    Now the only big issue I wish I knew more about is the chronology of EoV and EoF. I've heard several people say they don't even make sense between themselves, and if I end up moving EoV toward the end of 66 and we know EoF takes place around March 67, will that make the timeline problems between the two trilogies even worse?
     
  18. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I don't follow your logic there. Since the Enterprise evidently underwent a substantial refit both inside and out between "Where No Man" and "Corbomite," it certainly appears that it did have a fair amount of downtime at a starbase or repair facility in the interim. That's why I don't think it should be part of the 5YM. Also, it was a dedicated "probe beyond the edge of the galaxy" mission that would have taken months all by itself, so it seems contradictory to put it in the early months of a 5-year patrol and general survey tour. Those strike me as two distinct types of mission.


    Maybe it's not American Thanksgiving? Kirk said "It's Thanksgiving on Earth," so maybe 23rd-century Earth has invented a more global Thanksgiving holiday that comes in the spring (perhaps to commemorate the ending of WWIII or some such event?). And Kirk, being from Iowa, chose to toss in the more local, American custom of serving turkey.
     
  19. Idran

    Idran Commodore Commodore

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    Here's how it breaks down, and this is honestly kind of a tricky one to the point that you might disagree on how much it holds up for you. "Open Secrets" refers to a recent Klingon attack at Casmus III which, by context, happened in season 1 of TOS shortly after Balance of Terror. The only other place I know of in Trek-related stuff where Casmus III is mentioned is in the TOS comics "The Return!" and "The Sentence", where it's a planet orbitted by Starbase 42. In "River of Blood", there is a major Klingon attack on Starbase 42 in an attempt at capturing the dilithium recently discovered on the unnamed planet it orbits, days after the events of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"

    I think the intention in Open Secrets was that the mentioned attack on Casmus III was meant to be a reference to "River of Blood", but since that does require a figurative inner join of two separate and otherwise-unrelated Trek works to get to it, it wouldn't be unreasonable to just chalk it up as unrelated color grabbing from a random Trek world.

    Okay, lemme sum up the timeline problems from what I remember, though I last read them a few months ago.

    Okay, so, EoF repeatedly refers to events from EoV as happening 6 weeks prior; that specific duration comes up more than once in the text. Further, one of the key plot points is Leslie's pregnancy with Kell's child, which is still in progress as of EoF. Now, it just so happens that we canonically know Klingon gestation thanks to "Lineage" in Voyager: 30 weeks. And apparently gestation is even faster with hybrid pregnancies by that same episode. Of course, EoF is explicitly tightly tied to "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", and EoV is explicitly tied to "Errand of Mercy", which would cause problems with Leslie's situation even if it was a human 40 week gestation period, let alone less than 30. 6 weeks would fit well in either situation, however, and so it may seem like one option would be to move EoV and WALGMO to 6 weeks before "Errand of Mercy" (and "Dagger of the Mind", as EoF mentioned it having happened between the two, the neural neutralizer being an inspiration for the mind sifter that "Errand of Mercy" introduced).

    However, that has even more problems. but EoF says that "Court Martial" happened months ago, which makes sense relative to "Errand of Mercy". But Ben Finney showed up in EoV as an instructor for the new security crew in his capacity as records officer. Therefore, even if you move EoV and WALGMO to 6 weeks before "Errand of Mercy", there's literally nowhere you could place "Court Martial" that would make sense.

    My solution is to leave the episodes where they were, say some scenes (mostly the stuff with Sam's dad before actually getting aboard) were 6 weeks after and that's what the references are to, and just sort of...ignore the fact that Leslie is only leaving the ship 8 or so months after concieving.
     
  20. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
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    Woodward, OK
    I basically concluded that because of time restrictions. If Harbinger takes place in October at the earliest, and the Enterprise is still two months from home, and will then undergo a period of repair and refit, I don't see how a 5+ year period of time can elapse before the end of 2270. We know the 5 year mission has to end by Dec 31, 2270 at the latest. How do you have it worked out in your chronology?


    I suppose I will have to think of it that way and I'll probably just end up ignoring the Thanksgiving dating. That would make things alot easier.

    OK, that's what I thought you were explaining, but I wanted to make sure. I like the connection, and I'd use it to link those two comic issues to the rest of the Lit-verse (though I'm pretty sure I already have them on my list anyway).

    Ok, I'll think through that some more. Hopefully I'll be ready to get back to posting my timeline soon once I get it into a state I like again.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2015