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In The 23rd Century . . .

albion432

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
Where was it first established on film that TOS took place in the 23rd century?
 
Time frames were always dodgy in the original series. I have to believe the first actual mention of the 23rd century was in TWOK.
 
If I'm not mistaken, in Where No Man Has Gone Before a reference was made suggestion that TOS was happening 800 years in the future (28th century).

It might have been another episode. Definitely early Season 1. Reference is made to something happening 800 years ago (which was actually the 20th century).

It is driving me nuts, I can't remember it now.
 
^ Squire of Gothos, perhaps.

And Space Seed makes it seem like it's only 200 years in the future.

I read somewhere that the idea was to keep things vague and not lock into an exact time frame.

Kor
 
Not Squire, because adding 800 years to Trelayne's period dress and decor would put us right about the 23rd century.

I wish I could remember the episode.

Very true about Space Seed. The Eugenics wars happened in the 1990s and Khan is told that he had been asleep for two centuries.

Stardates I think sufficed to establish a timeline vagueness in-universe but I think there should have been more consistency with situating it in relation to the viewer's present place in time.
 
I believe, in TMP, Decker says that Voyager Whatever the number was was launched "three hundred years ago."

Sir Rhosis
 
And Space Seed makes it seem like it's only 200 years in the future.

"Tomorrow is Yesterday" also implies that the timeframe for TOS is approximately 200 years after the 1960s.

Time frames were always dodgy in the original series. I have to believe the first actual mention of the 23rd century was in TWOK.

I think this is the correct answer to the OP's questions. Specifically this card at the beginning of the film.
 
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The first 100% undeniable 'onscreen' the didn't imply a date; but said:

" In The 23rd Century . . ."

Was the opening screen card with that exact wording in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn"; everything brought up by others in the thread is also correct; but as it demonstrates, during the network run, any reference to 'when' Star Trek occurred was all over the place until STII:TWoK.
 
Star Trek (66-69) left things deliberately vague, along the lines of the writers' guide, but when forced to nail down a timeline, the show usually set Star Trek 200 years in the future (the 22nd century). Some episodes flatly contradicted this figure, however.

Marketing materials for Star Trek: The Motion Picture advertised the movie as "a 23rd Century Odyssey Now," and Decker's dialogue in the movie lines up with this revised timeline.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan confirmed this in the opening title card, although it also contradicted it in dialogue ("200 years ago..."). These inconsistencies were the result of the script adopting some, but not all of the changes advised by de Forest Research (which pointed out that the series usually established itself as being set in the 22nd century; Khan's dialogue was changed but the opening title card wasn't).
 
Not Squire, because adding 800 years to Trelayne's period dress and decor would put us right about the 23rd century.

I wish I could remember the episode.

Very true about Space Seed. The Eugenics wars happened in the 1990s and Khan is told that he had been asleep for two centuries.

Stardates I think sufficed to establish a timeline vagueness in-universe but I think there should have been more consistency with situating it in relation to the viewer's present place in time.

Trelane is looking at 18th/19th century earth, and Kirk says that is "nine hundred years in the past." So that puts the setting in the 27th century.

Kor
 
The first actual dating we get from any of the series was in TNGs The Neutral Zone where it is said the year is 2364. And Kirk has been missing for 80 years in Generations which makes that year 2291 so perhaps most of TOS is in the 2260s as some of the books have theorized!
JB
 
Actually if you do the math the TNG movies end up in the 24th century.

it is indeed the wrath of khan which sets the movie in the 23rd century, and there is a caption just before it opens with saavik taking the Kobayashi Maru test.
 
I believe that most of the TOS movies are set in the mid to late 2280s while TMP was set in 2271 I've read (Three years after the original voyages ended I find hard to believe) yet there is a ten or twelve year gap between TMP and TWOK which stretches credulity as well! I count TMP as ten years after the tv series myself!
JB
 
In TWOK kirk states there is a man I haven't seen in fifteen years who is trying to kill me.

So I assume that is a direct reference to Space Seed.

And if each season of TOS represents one year of their five ear mission, then there is two years that have not been chronicled and then the enterprise spent a couple of years being refitted and would have spent more time under refitting if it had not been for the V'Ger emergency.
 
Marketing materials for Star Trek: The Motion Picture advertised the movie as "a 23rd Century Odyssey Now," and Decker's dialogue in the movie lines up with this revised timeline.

Does this represent the first reference to the 23rd century, or is does any reference material prior to TMP also place Star Trek in the 23rd century? It seems possible, based on the evidence, that TOS could have occurred at the very end of the 22nd century and TMP in the first years 23rd century.
 
In TWOK kirk states there is a man I haven't seen in fifteen years who is trying to kill me.

So I assume that is a direct reference to Space Seed.

And if each season of TOS represents one year of their five ear mission, then there is two years that have not been chronicled and then the enterprise spent a couple of years being refitted and would have spent more time under refitting if it had not been for the V'Ger emergency.


A lot of fans count TAS as seasons four and five!
JB
 
Another way of chronicling the years could be by the star dates! Maybe the first number represents the year then if so when Trek starts it is 1121.4 or something like it and it is 5326.2 or near enough at the end of the series! Also would you say that WNMHGB might be the first year with the original uniforms while the black collar comes in at the second year perhaps?
Jb
 
You know you could also look at the chronology presented in the Star Trek Encyclopedia.

That's how I figured out the TNG movies actually are in the early 24th Century, beginning with the line in Generations of the Enterprise going thirty years without Captain Kirk on the bridge.

And that's assuming that movie takes place thirty years after ST VI and then the Enterprise D scene where it says 78 years later. I'm also assuming that that caption is 78 years after the ribbon hit the Enterprise B and it doesn't include the first seven seasons of the TV show in which data was revisiting the joke Geordi tells at the Farpoint mission and he says that was seven years ago.

Which I don't understand how Geordi has that good of memory without having an eidetic memory. After all, can you remember a joke you told someone seven years ago?
 
Data specifically mentioned that Geordi had told the joke at Farpoint. Farpoint was where the pilot episode of TNG took place, which was when Geordi joined the crew and first met Data. He'd remember that.
 
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