Who else has their own chronology of Treklit?

[ryan123450]

Just out of curiosity, who else has put together their own chronology of Trek books (or books and comics)? I'm pretty sure I'm aware of who all does this out of the regular posters here, as we've talked alot about timeline details over the years and I notice the same handful of people who are really interested in those kinds of details.

Obviously I have the timeline/ reading order lists I keep on the Litverse Reading Guide. I've worked up (with alot of help from this forum) a really detailed month by month timeline of the 5 year mission, the TOS movie era, and the post-Nemesis book era.

I'm currently trying to work out all the details for my take on the TNG years, 2364-2370, which will include those years of DS9 as well. But I got distracted and started going back over the 5YM again and hope to have an even better, slightly different version of that timeline work out in the next few weeks.

My dream would be a revised new version of the Star Trek Chronology. With the new Encyclopedia last year I hope that will eventually happen.

Again I'm sure I know most of you who will reply in this thread, but who else loves the chronological details of Trek books, and keeps track of them in your own timelines?

 

[Jinn]

My "own" chronology is almost every story section on the year pages on the German Memory Beta.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

My chronology is also built out of Memory Beta, albeit the english language version. I keep it as a spreadsheet. I started it with Post-Nemesis, then started reading DS9 Relaunch. I've added 22nd and 23rd century novels that appear to be within the litverse canon for future reading. I do not include numbered novels from any of the different series. Thus, my 2364-2370 is pretty sparse, and as far as I know not all the books I have listed there are fully relaunch compatible anymore anyway.

 

[ryan123450]

Nice. Very cleanly done and informative.

 

[Garth Rockett]

I've been slowly building up my own, which will include books and comics. Mine is being built from the standpoint of placing stories along the timeline relative to the episodes/movies. In other words, it is by no means meant to be a cohesive timeline. I try to make a note of major contradictions, but I'm not overly worried about those things for my purposes. It's just a fun way to see where all the novels and comics I own fall along the timeline.

 

[JD]

@ryan123450, I tend to just use yours, I just don't have the memory skills to keep all of the books straight without a reference. I used to use Memory Beta, but after I got into a big argument with the editors there, I tend to avoid it if I can find the information I'm looking for somewhere else.

 

[Jbarney]

Memory Beta is okay, and it is really good on many things, but its not 100% correct. Still good though, I use it occasionally.

As for an update to the Chronology....I think the Okudas would probably get first run at that, if they were interested. At one point I think they were done with it. Not sure if that was representative of the sales of prior chronologies or if they were just done due to lack of interest.

Voyages of Imagination timeline was locked into many of Okuda's assumptions about dates, etc.

 

[ryan123450]

Yeah and in a way that sucks because there are several points where the Okudas dates could use tweaking IMO. But Trek books are pretty much locked into the Okudas interpretations of everything anyway, since those are the assimptions everyone has been relying on for 25 years. Its kind of too late to change anything major at this point.

One important Okuda assumption that I've totally tossed in my timeline is the exact placement of the year transitions for TOS. I just let the evidence lead me where it willwith regard to what year the episodes fall in, without regard for exactly what the Chronology states.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah and in a way that sucks because there are several points where the Okudas dates could use tweaking IMO. But Trek books are pretty much locked into the Okudas interpretations of everything anyway, since those are the assimptions everyone has been relying on for 25 years. Its kind of too late to change anything major at this point.

Well, they're only "locked in" if they haven't been superseded by later canon. For instance, the Okudas' 2271 date for TMP isn't binding on the novels because it was superseded by VGR: "Q2" dating the end of the 5-year mission as 2270. So in the novelverse, TMP took place in 2273.

 

[ryan123450]

Yes I agree of course.

 

[Jbarney]

Well, they're only "locked in" if they haven't been superseded by later canon. For instance, the Okudas' 2271 date for TMP isn't binding on the novels because it was superseded by VGR: "Q2" dating the end of the 5-year mission as 2270. So in the novelverse, TMP took place in 2273.

Good example.....the two that I always fall back on though (there are probably more) are....

1. The placement of certain episodes within certain years of the FYM. Now, I haven't actually done the breakdown on this, but probably some of the other people who have developed specific timelines have done so. I understand many people have moved things around a bit.

2. The placement of Star Trek V, if I recall correctly. I don't have my copy of the Okudacron with me, but the spacing of Star Trek II, III, IV, and V just didn't seem right. Part of it is the Kirk birthday issue, I guess, but oh well.

While Ryan's call for other time line minded folks to raise their hands is great, I'm curious if there is ANY discussion about doing another chronology at some point. I know Pocket has argued that sales just aren't good enough (at least that is what I heard), but it sold well enough for two versions of Okuda. I wonder if Pocket would ever green light another version of the chronology. Especially with another TV series just months away at this point.

 

[Garth Rockett]

While Ryan's call for other time line minded folks to raise their hands is great, I'm curious if there is ANY discussion about doing another chronology at some point. I know Pocket has argued that sales just aren't good enough (at least that is what I heard), but it sold well enough for two versions of Okuda. I wonder if Pocket would ever green light another version of the chronology. Especially with another TV series just months away at this point.

I would LOVE to see one (especially since my second edition is falling apart from so much use!), but at this point I think I'd hold off until we get a couple of seasons of DSC under our belt so whatever new information it might reveal could be included also.

The original Okuda Encyclopedia was a byproduct of the Chronology, so I would think that with the Encyclopedia update a lot of the necessary research has already been done.

 

[Leto_II]

I maintain my own personal continuity-document, and I'm currently in the process of upgrading it from one format to another (I've sent copies to several people in here, I think). My original "main" motivation was to assemble a version of the 5YM that I was happy with, using modern Litverse references and dating-assumptions, and I'm pretty satisfied with what I've got so far.

That said, would love to see another official CBS/Paramount chronology-book published, though in this new age of hot-and-cold running free wikis, I don't really see this happening any time soon, here.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Again I'm sure I know most of you who will reply in this thread, but who else loves the chronological details of Trek books, and keeps track of them in your own timelines?

I put together my own chronology which included books and comics back in the day, but it predates the current literary continuity and is thus long out of date (on a number of levels).

My Mirror Universe Chronology is (moderately) more updated than that, but it relies on a set of assumptions from the original chronology which both diverged from the Okudas and ignored the 2270 date for the end of the five-year mission.

Nevertheless, I continue to love the chronological details of Star Trek books (even if my fictional-timeline attentions are elsewhere), and I love all the work that's gone into the month-by-month breakdown of the TOS era based on information gleaned from more current material.

 

[ryan123450]

As an aside, TheAlmanac, your website is beyond amazing.

 

[Christopher]

I've just been doing some overdue updating of my own Trek chronology, and I'm running into a problem that I hope someone can help me with. Because I originally did my chronology on pencil and paper, I tend to use a pretty abbreviated date format -- for the first few entries in a given century, I'll enter the full date, like, say, 1/10/2201 (not an actual example), but then I'll just abbreviate it for later entries in that century, e.g. 3/27/65. (I use American order with the month first.) That worked fine when I used the Corel spreadsheet program, but these days I'm stuck using MS Office and Excel, and MS products tend to be "smart" in a way that assumes the users are idiots and need to be told what we meant to write. The problem is, when I enter a date like 3/27/65 to represent March 27, 2265 or 2365, Excel automatically "corrects" it to 3/27/1965. I tried setting the whole column to "general" number format, in the hope that it would just let me enter the numbers the way I want without trying to interpret them, but then it just changes entries like that to some 5-digit code and I have to re-enter them manually, whereupon it again auto-incorrects them to the wrong damn century. Even when it displays them correctly in the grid, the display bar up top shows that it still thinks they're 20th-century dates.

So is there any way to turn off this obnoxiously "helpful" function and get the damn program to do what I want? I've tried to go through and correct all the "19xx"s to the right century by entering all four digits, but it's time-consuming and I've probably missed some. Sometimes I'm tempted to go through the whole thing and rework the entire date-entry format, like maybe have one column for the month and days and another for the year, but it would take forever to make that change. (Although I'm getting tempted now that I think about it.) And I'm just irritated that I can't turn off this program's stupid autocorrect function and have it simply display what I type instead of changing it.

 

[Jinn]

I've just been doing some overdue updating of my own Trek chronology, and I'm running into a problem that I hope someone can help me with. Because I originally did my chronology on pencil and paper, I tend to use a pretty abbreviated date format -- for the first few entries in a given century, I'll enter the full date, like, say, 1/10/2201 (not an actual example), but then I'll just abbreviate it for later entries in that century, e.g. 3/27/65. (I use American order with the month first.) That worked fine when I used the Corel spreadsheet program, but these days I'm stuck using MS Office and Excel, and MS products tend to be "smart" in a way that assumes the users are idiots and need to be told what we meant to write. The problem is, when I enter a date like 3/27/65 to represent March 27, 2265 or 2365, Excel automatically "corrects" it to 3/27/1965. I tried setting the whole column to "general" number format, in the hope that it would just let me enter the numbers the way I want without trying to interpret them, but then it just changes entries like that to some 5-digit code and I have to re-enter them manually, whereupon it again auto-incorrects them to the wrong damn century. Even when it displays them correctly in the grid, the display bar up top shows that it still thinks they're 20th-century dates.

So is there any way to turn off this obnoxiously "helpful" function and get the damn program to do what I want? I've tried to go through and correct all the "19xx"s to the right century by entering all four digits, but it's time-consuming and I've probably missed some. Sometimes I'm tempted to go through the whole thing and rework the entire date-entry format, like maybe have one column for the month and days and another for the year, but it would take forever to make that change. (Although I'm getting tempted now that I think about it.) And I'm just irritated that I can't turn off this program's stupid autocorrect function and have it simply display what I type instead of changing it.

Setting all the cells to text format works, I think. Alternatively I used to enter dates as day|month|year as the system doesn't recognize those as dates and doesn't "correct" them.

 

[Christopher]

Setting all the cells to text format works, I think. Alternatively I used to enter dates as day|month|year as the system doesn't recognize those as dates and doesn't "correct" them.

I tried that, and it changed a lot of the dates to those 5-digit codes again. (It does that with a single date like 3/27/65, but not with entries like 3/18-3/22/65.) I'd have to retype them manually, and when I tried doing that earlier today with the cells set to "General" format, it nonetheless imposed a "Date" format on them when I retyped them.

 

[Garth Rockett]

Sometimes I'm tempted to go through the whole thing and rework the entire date-entry format, like maybe have one column for the month and days and another for the year, but it would take forever to make that change. (Although I'm getting tempted now that I think about it.) And I'm just irritated that I can't turn off this program's stupid autocorrect function and have it simply display what I type instead of changing it.

Although I would view this option as a last resort, making this switch might not be all that time consuming. You could add a column for the year, and copy down the year for each series of entries in a given year. You could then just convert the format of the date to m/dd, which would hide the years in that column without having to re-enter. The 19XX data would wtill be there, just not visible when looking at the sheet. Not optimal, but if you do go that route you could minimize your typing that way.

Unfortunately, I can't think of an option to turn off that autocorrect feature. I did a little looking around myself, and I can't find anything in the autocorrect options that prevents that date correct feature from happening. A Y2K aftereffect, I suppose.

 

[Jinn]

I tried that, and it changed a lot of the dates to those 5-digit codes again. (It does that with a single date like 3/27/65, but not with entries like 3/18-3/22/65.) I'd have to retype them manually, and when I tried doing that earlier today with the cells set to "General" format, it nonetheless imposed a "Date" format on them when I retyped them.

Interestingly both the "General" and the "Text" format didn't alter the 3/27/65 date. I presume that's because of differences in English and German. Writing 27/3/65 does result the same change you described while in "General" format, but in "Text" it only added a little green triangle to the upper left hand corner of the cell.