That was my thinking as well.
when did TOS take place, 23rd century or 22nd century
- Thread starter Gabriel
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That was my thinking as well.
Maybe Spock just gave up at that point? Figuring it was useless correcting humans on their own history?
Maybe.
But I think that even Spock would calculate more quickly whether Scott's "three hundred years ago" or "hundreds of light years away" was correct than he could calculate the direction to Earth at that moment, so Spock should have been aware of any such errors before he notice that Scott was wrong about the direction to Earth. And Spock would be much more likely to assume that it was worth correcting someone about simple facts like the number of years since Lincoln died or the distance to Earth than about something complex and rapidly changing like the current direction to Earth.
PS I may add that TOS certainly happens during the 22nd century of some Earth calendars and in the 23rd century of some other Earth calendars. What is uncertain is which century TOS happens in the Anno Domini dating system.
The big issue I have is accepting the round figure of 200 or 300 as exactly 200 or 300 years. When we talk of events that far in the past, few are terribly accurate. TOS is all over the place and it has been pointed out how many times the 300 years in the future time would work and is pretty average for the wide range of given times in the future it was supposed to be set. I would say 250 years minimum, but 300 fits better. Few time periods that come up in conversation are really that round. Most are messy and we shorten them all the time. We celebrated the 50th anniversary of Star Trek on the date it was first broadcast, but by the The Cage was nearly 2 years old and the series went on for 3 more years. Taking dates from TOS as gospel is assuming they mean something that I don't think the writers or producers intended. And as for Spock not correcting his crewmates, he would have to have the information in his head to do so and Earth history does not seem to be one of the areas he has studied. Plus he is from Vulcan and the Vulcan year is different. Not that the calculation would be hard, but he would need a reason to do it and his specialty is science, not history. He corrects people for time and distance but not history.
DAYS! [Romulans don't wait long for ANYTHING!]
DAYS! [Romulans don't wait long for ANYTHING!]
They are the one race that will wait. Only they seem, of the major races, to take the long view.
Yeah they’re always willing play the long game and they’re always willing to pull the strings. Even if it takes a little bit longer
Well, Star Trek Chronology The History of the Future (1996) page vii, discusses the assumptions made for the chronology project:
How well does such an assumption work for the dates in the chronology?
In TNG "The Royalle":
Pierre de Fermat died 12 January 1665, and exactly 800 years later would be between 12 January 2465 and 11 January 2466. The official date of "The Royalle" is in 2365, about 100 years earlier.
TOS "The Savage Curtain":
Lincoln died 15 April 1865 so "The Savage Curtain" should be about 15 April 2165 to 14 April 2166. The official date is in 2269, 102 or 103 years later.
In "Tomorrow is Yesterday" when they are in the late 1960s according to the dating system used in that episode:
So "Tomorrow is Yesterday" should happen about 2166 to 2169. The official date is in 2267, about 100 years later.
And so on and so on. If anyone believes in the official dates of the Star Trek episodes and movies, they must assume that when a character says something was (X) hundred years earlier, they mean sometime between (X minus 1) hundred years and (X plus 1) hundred years. And even then the official date of "The Savage Curtain" falls outside of the possible date range.
"Miri":
"The Galileo Seven":
"Space Seed":
"The Trouble with Tribbles":
"Bread and Circuses":
"Specter of the Gun":
"Requiem for Methuselah":
Spock may specialize in science, mathematics, and computer science, but he clearly has considerable knowledge of Earth culture and history, which may be one of his lesser interests.
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I never gave this episode much though in the chronology of Star Trek, but currently I'm doing a remastered original series rewatch in production order and just watched "Miri".
In that episode Spock stated that the timeframe that everything went to hell on Earth II was equivalent to about 1960 Earth, and that 300 years had passed since then.
That would place Miri at the 2260's. Now, that is of course assuming that 1960 on Earth II happened at the same time as Earth I.
I think it's probably safe to assume that they wanted the time frame on both Earth's to match. Based on that it's probably safe to assume they wanted to place Star Trek in the 23rd century. At the time you could argue what part of the 23rd century. We now know the exact timeframe of course, but it does seem to match up with the original intent mostly.
In that episode Spock stated that the timeframe that everything went to hell on Earth II was equivalent to about 1960 Earth, and that 300 years had passed since then.
That would place Miri at the 2260's. Now, that is of course assuming that 1960 on Earth II happened at the same time as Earth I.
I think it's probably safe to assume that they wanted the time frame on both Earth's to match. Based on that it's probably safe to assume they wanted to place Star Trek in the 23rd century. At the time you could argue what part of the 23rd century. We now know the exact timeframe of course, but it does seem to match up with the original intent mostly.
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That's ridiculous, why would the storytellers plant identical timelines where Earth II would be far away from Earth??? Does anyone here even understand our timeline is based around the Earth's revolution to the Sun? Please, folks, use your brain instead of bending over backwards to make the chronology fit. The 23rd timeline doesn't fit nor makes sense to Star Trek.
It does to me. Hey bones was still alive in the next generation and Spock was still an active ambassador. And sarek was alive even though he was a hundred in TOS. If tos took place in 22nd century then he would be too old to be ambassador even for Vulcans. Vulcans can’t like for That long.
And plus the enterprise seems to advanced for only the 22nd century. I see no reason to change times just because of a few writing errors (to me that is) during a show that really created the Star Trek universe as it progressed
The second Miri Earth was never explained. To be so identical and exact in land masses, technology, language, etc., it couldn't be natural or even constructed. Most likely it was pulled into our universe from a parallel dimension due to some sort of spacial rift. If so, then the timeline may not be the same as our Earth; + or - centuries.
I don't think Miri is relevant to the discussion. Consider the other planets that were Earth parallels, like the Romans of the "20 century" or the US Constitution that's over a thousand years old. Just because the culture had an Earth analog doesn't mean the timelines matched.
One of Christopher Bennett's 'Department of Temporal Investigations' stories used that idea for the explanation of the 2nd Earth, that it was swapped with another planet and Earth 2 was from a different universe (I forget which one it was exactly).
Sure that's true. But there's no reason to assume they didn't match either. I was making the assumption that it was a parallel development in every sense, and that the 2nd Earth was also in it's 23rd century. It seems reasonable, at least IMO, that they wanted the 2nd Earth to match ours in every sense. It matched in every other way, it seems reasonable it would match in time as well.
Plus, of course, with current information it just happens to match the right timeline of when we now know the original series takes place.
Yeah, I agree. Early in the show they kept it intentionally vague and only gave a few hints here and there. Part of that was to keep a mystique about the show, and part of it was probably they wanted to keep their options open. As time went on it probably became more necessary to narrow down the time frame more. TMP was probably the first time we actually heard something definitive on screen that said the timeframe, and of course TWOK confirmed it being in the late 23rd century. And then later shows fine tuned it further. I think Icheb's comment on Voyager was the first time an actual year was stated for the original 5 year mission (though you could extrapolate it taking into account the year of TNG stated in 'The Neutral Zone' and that TNG started 78 years after TVH, and later in the 2 part Voyager episode where they go back to 1996 Earth and a year is given there as well).
But the few little hints early on the show weren't always consistent. I dismiss Kirk's comment in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" as a joke. When he's told he's going to be locked up for 200 years I didn't take that as a serious comment, but more the joke it was. After all it's not like he's going to tell a 20th century security guard "No, you'd actually have to lock me up for 300 years because I'm from the 23rd century".
My "Miri" observation is just that. Since it's not canonically stated people will have to interpret it as they see fit. For me it seemed reasonable that they matched Earth 2 in every way with Earth 1, it might as well match in time as well. It would seem odd that they matched it in every way except one. But since it's not canon, but just an observation, I can't say it's definitely so.
Well, in "Miri", the one thing that was specified as 300 years old was the grand(ish) piano. Since pianos in bourgeois homes tend to be 1-100 years old, both the prominent models for the timeline are equally valid. 
Duplicate Earths are an intriguing phenomenon, but not a phenomenon difficult to explain in half a dozen ways. After all, Trek is rife with cultures or individuals who can shape planets, and shaping a planet in the image of a preexisting template is just as possible as creating a unique shape. Installing an ersatz civilization on the planet is a breeze in comparison: we again know of half a dozen ways to manufacture people, to give people false histories, to outright fake the presence of a civilization... Our heroes later encounter several of the less extreme ways of making planets or peoples, which may make "Miri" easier for them to swallow.
Timo Saloniemi
Duplicate Earths are an intriguing phenomenon, but not a phenomenon difficult to explain in half a dozen ways. After all, Trek is rife with cultures or individuals who can shape planets, and shaping a planet in the image of a preexisting template is just as possible as creating a unique shape. Installing an ersatz civilization on the planet is a breeze in comparison: we again know of half a dozen ways to manufacture people, to give people false histories, to outright fake the presence of a civilization... Our heroes later encounter several of the less extreme ways of making planets or peoples, which may make "Miri" easier for them to swallow.
Timo Saloniemi
I think the @Damian's "Miri" example is quite relevant to the discussion. It isn't a data point relevant for hard continuity concerns for the reasons stated by @BK613. But by going to quite a bit of trouble to set the story 300 years after an apocalypse on a planet that otherwise exactly matched up with the viewers' contemporary existence, it implies that the story is taking place 300 years in the future in ways that the later, more refined instances of the parallel Earth device do not imply correspondence. "Miri" was the first parallel Earth, and they hit the parallel Earth beats with a sledgehammer.
That line was the first thing that made me think. And if that was all there was it would be easier to think it could be 300 to 400 years in the past. But it was stated a few more times that the plague was 300 years prior their arrival there, at least twice more I think.
It's one of the reasons I'm inclined to accept the timeframe. It just seems odd to me at least that it would parallel to our Earth in every way but one.
True - but this was all on the basis of Spock's single-point assessment, in turn based on the piano. If Spock was in error about that one, all the other bits are in error as well. The separate biochemical analysis of the aging rate doesn't independently establish the 300-year figure as such.
Timo Saloniemi
They spent days on the planet's surface with equipment beamed down from the ship. The fact that Spock dated events multiple times in the episode really indicates that the timeline was supported by all of their in-universe scientific analysis.
