Thoughts and observations on the Kzinti from "The Slaver Weapon”

[Marsden]

What happens on the holodeck stays on the holodeck.

I'd hate to be the guy that cleans it afterward.

 

[Kor]

The Magicks of Megas-Tu does have a Stardate set before Where No Man Has Gone Before which is ludicrous! Surely the writers would have been briefed to keep their show out of the continuity of the original series? Apparently not though!
JB

I've pointed out before that the Stardate numbering shouldn't necessarily be taken as evidence that an event took place "before" or "after" another event, from the point of view of the characters. Per the original Trek writer's guide, stardates would account for relativistic travel, physical position within the galaxy, etc., etc. So stuff that happened "later" could end up being logged with a lower star date.

Kor

 

[Maurice]

^^^Which, of course, makes them useless.

 

[Christopher]

Stardates were created to be useless -- or rather, to be useful at conveying the surface impression of meaning while revealing no useful chronological information of any kind, since the producers of TOS wanted to be vague about its exact time setting and flexible about how much time elapsed between episodes.

 

[Marsden]

Stardates were created to be useless -- or rather, to be useful at conveying the surface impression of meaning while revealing no useful chronological information of any kind, since the producers of TOS wanted to be vague about its exact time setting and flexible about how much time elapsed between episodes.

Also, in my opinion, I don't think they were meant to be "in order" but just separate log entries of different events in the Enterprise's past.

 

[Timo]

Indeed, the order of the adventures is arbitrary for the most part. Meaning one perfectly workable way to order them is by stardate.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Also, in my opinion, I don't think they were meant to be "in order" but just separate log entries of different events in the Enterprise's past.

Well, '60s shows were designed to have the episodes aired in any order, based on the network's or the producers' opinions of what were the best episodes to lead with or follow each other, and in the case of a complicated production like ST with long post-production times, which episodes were complete and available. But even in production order, the stardates don't follow a regular progression, because there was no intended "right" order. And since they jump around so much, putting them in stardate order creates inconsistencies (like putting an animated episode before the second pilot, or putting "Amok Time" immediately before "This Side of Paradise," giving Spock a weird character progression).

 

[Timo]

...Or, say, putting Chekov on the ship before Khan meets him aboard the ship. Talk about inconsistencies!

Of course, if the show goes through 5000 stardates in five years or so, we have to accept that we're missing something: the four-digit system is incapable of indicating decades, let alone centuries. If we accept the heroes drop a digit, then it isn't much of a trick to argue that TOS and TAS fall on different decades. Like, you know, they did.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Therin of Andor]

Stardates were created to be useless -- or rather, to be useful at conveying the surface impression of meaning while revealing no useful chronological information of any kind, since the producers of TOS wanted to be vague about its exact time setting and flexible about how much time elapsed between episodes.

There is a Roddenberry explanation somewhere ("Letters to Star Trek"?), about how Stardates are supposed to work. He said that they were deliberately random and were chronological only within an episode, to indicate the passing of time. However, I also remember Richard Arnold once pointing out, when denying that the Enterprise came back from its 5YM two years early (as sometimes reported in articles), that TOS Stardates started with 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5, thus representing the five years of the 5YM.

 

[Christopher]

There is a Roddenberry explanation somewhere ("Letters to Star Trek"?), about how Stardates are supposed to work. He said that they were deliberately random and were chronological only within an episode, to indicate the passing of time.

Rather, it was in The Making of Star Trek, and his explanation invoked relativistic nonsimultaneity, the fact that the flow of time is relative to one's frame of reference and so the amount of time that passes in one place doesn't necessarily equal the amount that passes in another part of the universe. So the stardates were calculated locally based on the time flow in a given part of space. Although that didn't really work as an explanation but was just a handwave to calm down nitpicky viewers. And subsequent Trek productions have ignored it and assumed time passes the same for everyone (except for Molly O'Brien, who was somehow 3 years old less than a season and a half after her birth).

 

[Therin of Andor]

Rather, it was in The Making of Star Trek...

Okay. Thanks. But it was definitely invoked somewhere else, in response to an actual viewer query. "The Making of Star Trek" came out before Season Three and TAS. Maybe also in an issue of the Lincoln Enterprises fan club newsletter, or "20 Questions About Star Trek with Answers", via the Star Trek Welcommittee?

 

[Christopher]

Okay. Thanks. But it was definitely invoked somewhere else, in response to an actual viewer query.

It was in response to "actual viewer queries" in TMoST too. The Roddenberry quote therein was talking about how he'd devised the explanation as his stock answer to all the fan letters he got asking about stardate order.