when did TOS take place, 23rd century or 22nd century

Canon is bullshit, honestly. TAS wasn’t canonical until it was. Retcons happen within series and cross series. Hell, in Star Wars, the books were canonical until Disney/Lucasfilm said they weren’t.

Someone else can walk in and take over Trek, rewrite the whole thing and call “canon!!!”

Accept what makes you happiest.

 

Well they do if they decide not to accept what is being put out, Jonny! If I only watch my DVD collection and nothing else (and I've been contemplating this for quite a while) and do not watch anything after a certain date or do not buy the next set then I'm making my own canon in that way!
JB

 

Or rather, it was until it "wasn't," and it never really wasn't. The actual shows were referencing "Yesteryear" and "The Time Trap" while the so-called TAS "ban" was supposedly in effect, because Roddenberry had long since been eased back into a ceremonial position by the time he and Richard Arnold issued that memo, so they had no actual influence over the shows themselves, only over the tie-ins.

Again, they were never actually canonical, because the prequel trilogy and The Clone Wars frequently ignored and contradicted the tie-ins even while they were supposedly part of the "canon." The claim that they were canonical never meant anything more than that they were all required to be consistent with each other, while the actual screen canon was free to use or ignore them as it saw fit. Another case where an alleged canon ruling only affected the tie-ins and was irrelevant to genuine screen canon.

Now, that's true, and it's been happening continually for decades, ever since James R. Kirk became James T. Kirk, lithium became dilithium, and UESPA became Starfleet. "Canon" has never meant "perfect continuity." It just means the body of stories told by the creators or owners of the property, as opposed to those told by other people. And some such bodies of stories are more consistent than others.

 

That's not canon. That's you deciding not to watch a particular television show.

No. You've got your own personal version of Trek continuity, sure, but that's not canon. Canon is determined by the people who control the property, not by the fans. I personally didn't like VOY and I stopped watching it early in the third season, but that doesn't mean that it suddenly wasn't canon to the Star Trek Universe. All it means is that I stopped watching a particular television show.

 

Agree with everything, but minor correction: United Earth Space Probe Agency (UESPA or United Earth for short) became United Federation of Planets (UFP or Federation for short). Starfleet was associated with UESPA (in Tomorrow is Yesterday) as it became with the Federation, too:

KIRK: Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet Control. I want them alerted to the position of that black star that's in the area of Starbase 9.
...
UHURA: Captain, normal Starfleet channel has nothing but static. I'm getting something on another frequency, but it's not Starfleet.
...
KIRK: We're a combined service, Captain. Our authority is the United Earth Space Probe Agency.
CHRISTOPHER: United Earth?​

 

I always thought that Kirk said that to Christopher as to not give away too much knowledge about the future!
JB

 

No, because the Federation is an entire government and UESPA is a space agency. They're different categories of organization. UESPA was to United Earth as Starfleet is to the Federation, or as NASA is to the United States.

 

That’s what I want to believe too But that’s not the case do to another episode of tos where Kirk reports to UESPA. Also the fact that in later shows (VOY and ENT) they retcon so that UESPA was real. Which sucks because it think it’s a silly name

 

Gene Coon for me, I thought he was a great show runner and embodied what I still think of Star Trek. I can't speak much for the character who replaced him for Season 3.

THANK YOU!!!

 

Then explain "Tomorrow in Yesterday" where both organizations are in existence at the same time, but no Federation. UESPA became the Federation. Starfleet was the military arm for both.

 

Yeah he is pretty good. For me it is Ira Steven Behr. He was show runners during season 4-7 of DS9. I love those seasons because they seem more adventurous (and the fact that DS9 finally gets the steps upgrade it needed) and 6 and 7 for showing us what the federation and starfleet is like during war. I love the battle scenes and the fact that hey still try to do science missions even during war. Now sure we just got that from discovery but there wasn’t a lot of battles and just was on really one ship. I mean DS9 focus on the station/ship but it had other things. It showed several episodes on Klingon ships and one with starfleet ground troops.

 

BK613's quote from "The Squire of Gothos" doesn't show up when I quote his post, so here it is again:

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/18.htm

And here is a link to a picture of Trelane with his battle flags:

https://www.google.com/search?q=squ...AUIDigB&biw=1904&bih=921#imgrc=tqlRm0_dQknrpM:

The flags are all simple striped flags unlike the often elaborate feudal banners and standards and military colors, standards, and guidons which were carried into battle by warriors and soldiers.

The flag on the right behind Trelane is a vertical tricolor red, white and green, the same as the flag of Italy, first used by the Cisalpine Republic in 1796. Note that the flag of the kingdom of Italy from 1861-1946 had the Savoy coat of arms in the white stripe.

The next flag appears to be a vertical tricolor of red, blue, and yellow, which I haven't identified.

The next two flags appear to be vertical tricolors of blue, white and red, the same as the flag of France, used since 1794 except for 1815-1830 and briefly in 1848.

The next flag appears to be a horizontal bicolor, red above white, the same as the flags of Indonesia (official since 1949) and Monaco (since 1881).

The flag on the left appears to be a vertical tricolor, red, yellow, and green, the same as the flag of Guinea (since 1958).

Simple, plain striped flags like these are typical modern national flags of the nations that soldiers have fought for, but the actual battles flags carried into battle until about 1900 were often far more elaborate and beautiful than national flags, probably the most beautiful of all military artifacts.

Modern flags are usually rectangles, usually longer in the fly (horizontal dimension) than the hoist (vertical dimension) which are attached to cords used to hoist and lower them up and down flagpoles, or else are attached directly to lances and poles in the case of military colors, standards, and guidons.

In the time of:

Modern type flags were not used in western Eurasia. Vexilloids were used for some of the purposes of modern flags. They usually consisted of a a staff with a solid object at the top, sometimes with cloth attached such as ribbons, a "windsock" like tube, or a square of cloth hanging from a horizontal cross bar. So "Hannibal's invaders, the Grecian war galleys, and the hordes of Persia" would have used vexilloids instead of flags, and "the Crusades" were the earliest events mentioned by Trelane where real flags would have been carried into battle.

So Trelane, like many Star Trek characters, and like many users of this site, spoke with more enthusiasm than precision.

But at least his comment shows that Trelane was aware of wars more than 2,000 years before our time of AD 2019, which were thus more than 900 years plus 1,100 years before our time and thus even longer before Kirk and Jaeger's time.

I searched for AD or BC, CE or BCE, at the Star Trek script search site.

TNG "The Big Goodbye":

"The Royalle":

"Manhunt":

TOS "Requiem for Methuselah":

VOY "11:59":

These are all the Earth dates given in any series from TOS to Enterprise or movie up to Nemesis by date of production which have the year count specified. Every other date in every other Star Trek movie or episode produced between 1964 and 2005 left the year count unspecified.

Every unspecified year might possibly be in some different year count since many have been used in Earth history. Thus the United Earth government might possibly change the official calendar and/or year count from time to time for political reasons.

And what reason would there be to imagine that different dates might be given in different calendars?

As my post number 36 on page number two says, It seems pretty obvious that the official Earth Calendar was changed from that used in the beginning of the first season of TNG to the calendar which had been used when Ralph Offenhouse was alive as mentioned in "The Neutral Zone".

After seeing what can only be interpreted as a change of calendars in the early seasons of TNG I noticed that there are examples of inconsistent dates in TOS also. Therefore characters in TOS use different Earth calendars in different episodes.

Therefore, it is impossible to be certain which Earth dates in Star Trek are give in our calendar and which are not.

 

Had this spread sheet laying around on the Season 1 sponsoring organizations for the show:

Note that there is an overlap when UESPA and Federation are both in existence at the same time while in transition in Tomorrow is Yesterday (ep. 19) and Arena (ep.18), respectively; also note that Starfleet is in control/command of the Enterprise in both episodes. Prior to that, it was UESPA with Starfleet Control/Command; After that, it was Federation with Starfleet Command.

 

So wait UESPA was also a government or just a part of two governments.

 

I explain it because it was a TV show in its first season, they were making up the universe as they went along, and the terminology was still in flux. UESPA, Starfleet Control, Starfleet Command, and other such terms were being used interchangeably in season 1 before the writers settled on "Starfleet Command," in much the same way that the Vulcan mental contact was variously called mind probe, mind touch, mind fusion, mind meld, etc. before "mind meld" was finally settled on as the standard term from the movie era onward. It doesn't mean anything changed in-universe, it just means this is all made up and people who are making things up on the fly sometimes take time to nail down the terminology.

And again, "UESPA became the Federation" is a nonsensical statement. How can a Space Probe Agency become an entire nation? That's like saying the DMV became the State of Ohio, or that the British Museum became the United Kingdom. It's utterly meaningless.

 

That’s why I’m hesitant to except what is said in TOS. It just seems to flux a lot.

 

It is clearly all canon. I just have a harder and harder time seeing it all as one continuity as I'm getting older. So I see each show as basically its own universe within the Trek multiverse.

Broad strokes are the same, the details are different.

Others will see things differently.

 

Yeah with me I make it fit and discard what I don’t use. Because to me I see no reason to divide the series into there own universe. To me that’s not possible and plus after close to a decade of watching
Star Trek I feel hesitant to a lot change to how I view canon.

 

Different strokes. Go with what makes you happy.

I've been watching for four-plus decades and have no issue with dividing them up.