Time in "The Menagerie"
- Thread starter MAGolding
- Start date
Not sure how I'm getting into talking about this, but if you take the idea that Star Dates are thousandths of a year, then each unit is about eight hours. Allowing that to be more or less due to the extreme speeds and you have a system that works pretty well.
This makes so much sense, but the trouble is, if the dates are dates of the report and not of the events, how do we ever know when and in what order things happened in-universe? We can see that he reported this event between Court Martial and Catspaw, but did it actually occur between the two? (And don't just tell me to use the production dates/airdates, lol)
I typed that last sentence and then thought it might sound harsh. It was really just a joke. If you think that the episodes happened in production or airdate order and were just reported in Star Date order that's actually really valid.
@MAGolding, you are not understanding the difference of a stardate given in actually dialog versus the voice-over stardates given in log entries after the events occurred. The voice-over stardates are given at the time of the log entry, and not the stardate of the events being shown in episode.
In my head-canon: For the two Menagerie episodes, I have the events occurring from approximately stardates 2975.0 to 2992.0 which take 17.0 stardates. With the conversion of 2.73 stardates = 1 solar day on Earth, then the episode spanned 17/2.73 = 6.2 days. I estimated the episode to sandwich about halfway between the stardates of Court Martial (~2947.3) and Catspaw (~3018.2). Imagine the log entries being added by Kirk sitting at his desk composing the official report over stardates 3012.4 through 3013.1 (the stardates given in his voice-over log entries). His composing time frame is after the Menagerie (3012.4 - 2992 = 20.4 stardates or ~7.5 days after the event) and before Catspaw (~3018.2 - 1303.1 = ~15.1 stardates or ~5.5 days before the Catspaw episode. YMMV
This makes so much sense, but the trouble is, if the dates are dates of the report and not of the events, how do we ever know when and in what order things happened in-universe? We can see that he reported this event between Court Martial and Catspaw, but did it actually occur between the two? (And don't just tell me to use the production dates/airdates, lol)
I typed that last sentence and then thought it might sound harsh. It was really just a joke. If you think that the episodes happened in production or airdate order and were just reported in Star Date order that's actually really valid.
Thinking about Star Trek and trying to understand and explain star Trek lore and contradictions is how I relax.
But Star Trek is definitely not just a show!
Star Trek is both just a show and much more than a show.
My theory about stardate units is the opposite from a stardate being a thousandth of a year. My theory is that the length of stardate units was chosen to match some unspecified criteria and it was noticed that 1,000 stardate units were approximately the same length as an Earth year and also the years of a number of other planets. A thousand stardate would be fairly close to many planetary years - longer than a year of some planets and shorter than a year of some other planets.
Thus it became customary to speak of 1,000 stardates as a stardate year.
And there may be many times when someone says a time interval is X years, and the interval may be between X years and X plus 1 years in Earth years, and in stardate years, and in years of the character's home planet, thus making it hard to tell which type of year he used and not very important. And other times the year used by a character could make a difference.
Some characters may come from planets with very long or short years compared to Earth years.
For example, WOK is said by Kirk & Khan to be 15 years after "Space Seed" in the first season of TOS. TFF should happen less than one fictional year after WOK. TFF is said by Romulan Caitlin Dar to be 20 years after the establishment of Nimbus III, which should have happened after "Balance of terror", which was also in the first season of TOS. If Dar used shorter years than Kirk & Khan that would explain the problem.
In TSFS Admiral Morrow said that the Enterprise was 20 years old, which seems decades too few years. If Morrow came from a planet with longer years than other characters that might explain the problem.
In an episode of DS9 and admiral said that the Eugenics Wars were 200 years ago when the correct time span should have been 300 to 400 years. So the Admiral might have been thinking in terms of years about as long as the years Morrow used in TSFS, and not the shorter years usually used by Star Trek characters.
If the episodes happen in airdate order or production order, the stardates go up most of the time and sometimes go down. So a theory that episodes happen in airdate order or in production order should ideally include a theory and formula to calculate the amount of a stardate over time. Thus the episodes would not only be in order but the length of time between them would be known.
If the episodes happen in stardate order then the amount of a stardate will always go up and never down. So that makes a stardate theory somewhat simpler when the episodes happen in stardate order than when they happen in airdate order or production order.
Last edited:
Hmmm, others are pointing out that it's not just a show, but my thought was, "isn't this how a lot of us relax?"
Everyone can come up with a different order somewhat which is part of the fun, you just need to be consistent. For me, I choose to select actual stardates based on a hierarchy of rules with the last rule: "If there is no explanation for something that doesn't fit, assume it is a script error and move along." The most important rule is "have fun".
If anyone cares to have me explain the math I used to determine the stardates of episodes that don't have them, let me know and I will.
The only part that is a little hard to explain is that then Mres, Arex and the TAS Engine Room are seen before the Season Two Engine Room, which suggests the TAS Engine Room exists somewhere on the ship during almost the whole series. I refrained from mentioning that on the other thread
. I don't have a problem with this, because it would be much the same as Chekov actually remembering Khan in ST:2. I was working on sorting out this issue when I joined the forum and got my peculiar screen name for this site for that reason.Well, Engineering is supposed to be "a maze" where folks can hide indefinitely...
OTOH, it isn't much of a chore to assume that all TAS stardates lower than TOS ones are in fact higher. That is, TAS SD 1234.5 is B1234.5 while TOS SD 1234.5 is A1234.5, where B>A. Or more specifically B=A+1 - that is, "Magicks" takes place a decade after "Mudd's Women". This is inherent in a date format where the zeroes roll every ten years.
We just have to decide when enough is enough, as the TOS movies no longer support the thousand-per-year thing at all. Or, more specifically, the fail with the ten-thousand-per-decade thing.
Timo Saloniemi
OTOH, it isn't much of a chore to assume that all TAS stardates lower than TOS ones are in fact higher. That is, TAS SD 1234.5 is B1234.5 while TOS SD 1234.5 is A1234.5, where B>A. Or more specifically B=A+1 - that is, "Magicks" takes place a decade after "Mudd's Women". This is inherent in a date format where the zeroes roll every ten years.
We just have to decide when enough is enough, as the TOS movies no longer support the thousand-per-year thing at all. Or, more specifically, the fail with the ten-thousand-per-decade thing.
Timo Saloniemi
The stardate scheme of 1000 stardates = 1 year and dropping the 10,000 digit:
Space Seed = 3141.9
TWOK (end) = 8141.6
Difference = +4999.7 (5000 stardates)
One 10,000 stardates rollover = +10,000 stardates
Total Duration = 15,000 stardates.
Kirk and Khan both say it was 15 years at 1000 stardates per year = 15,000 stardates.
Other TOS movies:
ST1:TMP = stardate 7410.2. Either 1.45 years after the series (All Our Yesterdays = stardate 5943.7), or 11.45 years after the series. Odd choices, but in reality it was ~9-10 years after the series. I vote for 1.45 years because of the next item's timeline.
ST2:TWOK = stardate 8141.6. Either 10,731 stardates or 10.7 years after TMP, or 731 stardates or 9 months after TMP which looks unlikely, so, I think 10.7 years after TMP. This now resets the characters to be closer to the actor's real ages.
ST3:TSFS = stardate 8210.3. 68 stardates or 25 days after TWOK. Sounds okay.
ST4:TVH = stardate 8390.0. 180 stardates or about 67 days after TSFS. Sounds okay and Kirk says they are in the 3rd month of exile, so more than 60 days.
ST5:TFF = stardate 8454.1. 64 stardates or about 23 days after TVH. Sounds okay.
ST6:TUC = stardate 9521.6. 1070 stardates or a little over one year after TFF. Sulu says he is finishing up a 3 year mission. A three year gap between TFF and TUC is ~3000 stardates.
ST7:GEN = stardate unknown for the Enterprise-B Launch, but Kirk was retired, so, it was probably ~ 1 year after the TUC. The 30 year remark (~30,000 stardates) puts it around 31,277 (Kirk became captain a little before WNMHGB; C. 1277.1 on Kirk's tombstone) or ~750 stardates or ~9 months after TUC, but it could be anything since no stardate was given. Sounds okay.
Yes, the TOS movies are a mixed bag with the biggest issues in TMP and TUC.
Last edited:
Great work looking at this system rectifying it with the TOS system. I had am alternate idea. In the movies, they moved the decimal, either for TMP or ST:2. This way, the first digit is a decade, the second digit it a year, the next two are hundredths, and the decimal is thousandths. It is like a step closer to TNG.
TMP: 7410.2. Either old system, 2 years after "All Our Yesterdays" or new system, 9 years after "All our Yesterdays" (TMP would be 4102 on the old system).
ST:2: 8128.76 (Spock's Death, as given in Star Trek 3 playback). 7 years after TMP (81-74=7). This would make it 17-18 years after "Space Seed," but people could be rounding. Moving the decimal, for the old system, the date would be 1287.6 vs. 3141.9.
ST:3: 8210.3. About 1 year after ST:2.
ST:4 8390. About a year and a half after ST:3. (allows ST:3 to take a long time to occur.)
ST:5: 8454.1 About sixth months after ST:4. Gives plenty of time for NCC-1701-A to be painted for the end of ST:4.
ST6: 9529. About 11 years after ST:5. Gives plenty of time for the NCC-1701-A to have its own adventures, rather than be retired so new.
Generations: I'm a strong proponent of taking the "78 years later" title with a grain of salt and setting the Enterprise-B portion at some point late enough to allow Star Trek 6 to end with the Enterprise-A having served a while, and maybe even stay in service with a new crew before the Enterprise-B is launched.
TMP: 7410.2. Either old system, 2 years after "All Our Yesterdays" or new system, 9 years after "All our Yesterdays" (TMP would be 4102 on the old system).
ST:2: 8128.76 (Spock's Death, as given in Star Trek 3 playback). 7 years after TMP (81-74=7). This would make it 17-18 years after "Space Seed," but people could be rounding. Moving the decimal, for the old system, the date would be 1287.6 vs. 3141.9.
ST:3: 8210.3. About 1 year after ST:2.
ST:4 8390. About a year and a half after ST:3. (allows ST:3 to take a long time to occur.)
ST:5: 8454.1 About sixth months after ST:4. Gives plenty of time for NCC-1701-A to be painted for the end of ST:4.
ST6: 9529. About 11 years after ST:5. Gives plenty of time for the NCC-1701-A to have its own adventures, rather than be retired so new.
Generations: I'm a strong proponent of taking the "78 years later" title with a grain of salt and setting the Enterprise-B portion at some point late enough to allow Star Trek 6 to end with the Enterprise-A having served a while, and maybe even stay in service with a new crew before the Enterprise-B is launched.
Your suggestion makes ST6 happen 21 years after TMP. That does fit within the 27 years that McCoy was chief surgeon of the Enterprise by ST6 and within the 30 years since Kirk became captain of the Enterprise according to Generations.
Making TMP happen 2 years after "All Our Yesterdays" after 3 to 5 years with Kirk in command of the Enterprise adds 5 to 7 years for a total of 26 to 28 years. Making TMP happen 9 years after "All Our Yesterdays" after 3 to 5 years with Kirk in command of the Enterprise adds 12 to 14 years for a total of 30 to 35 years. So the total time span in your suggestion doesn't fit very well within 27 years or 30 years.
I have often considered that it would be desirable for different reasons that TMP happens a decade after the end of the 5 year mission, and ST:2 to ST:5 happen a decade after TMP, and ST:6 happens a decade after ST:5. But it might not be possible to fit them within the possible time frame. It might be necessary to make TMP happen just 2 or 3 years after the end of the 5 year mission, or make ST:2 happen soon after TMP, or make ST:6 happen soon after ST:5, even though any one of them would be very undesirable..
St:2 to ST:5 should all happen within one year of each other. See my post number 599 on page 30, and JonnyQuest037's post number 631, and my post number 640 on page 32 in the thread: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/whe...-or-22nd-century.297786/page-32#post-12956781
You can't take the "78 years later" title in Genrations with a grain of salt.
In the stellar cartography room in the Enterprise:
So the interval between Kirk being lost in the nexus and the conversattion between Picard and Data must be a multiple of 39.1 years.
So the interval could be 39.1 years, or 78.2 years, or or 117.3 years, or 156.4 years, etc., etc.
In "Unification Part 1":
In "Unification Part 2":
So "Unification" should be about 80 years after Star Trek VI:The Undiscovered Country. Which means that the two parts of Star Trek Generations must be 78.2 years apart.
In "Flashback" Tuvok and Janeway experience Tuvok's memory of events in ST:6.
This approximately 80 year gap reinforces that the two parts of Generations must be 78.2 years apart.
Furthermore, messing around with the time span between the two parts of Star Trek Generations can not give the Enterprise NCC-1701-A more time in service, since the Enterprise NCC-1701-A is already decommissioned and replaced by the Enterprise NCC-1701-B at the start of Star Trek Generations.
Last edited:
Thanks for running some more of those numbers for me. It sounds like a lot of it still makes sense.
I was talking about moving the beginning of Generations to allow more time for the Enterprise-A to be in service BEFORE the Enterprise-B is launched.
I thought that the mention of 30 years could mean that it was the first Enterprise that Captain Kirk did not command at some point. Meaning it could be anywhere up to thirty years after Star Trek 6, not that it would make sense for it to be that long.
If it takes 39.1 years for the ribbon to cross the galaxy, then since Veridian is somewhere other than Earth, Generations' TNG sections could occur on some other multiple of 39.1 years that is not a whole number.
There can't be eighteen months between The Search For Spock and The Voyage home!!!! They mention having been on Vulcan for three months at the beginning of the film...so that theory doesn't hold any water!
JB
JB
I agree with the Unification theory of eighty years after TUC as to when Spock first met Pardek and although Spock might be rounding it up a bit but that eighty years may not seem as long to the people of the twenty fourth century as it does to us in the here and now! 
JB
JB
There can't be eighteen months between The Search For Spock and The Voyage home!!!! They mention having been on Vulcan for three months at the beginning of the film...so that theory doesn't hold any water!
JB
If you re-read what I said, please note that I suggest that there were 18 months between the start of each film. That, as I said, allows for 18 months from the scene where Grissom arrives at the Genesis planet to the third month they were on Vulcan. I do no think that 15 months total time for Star Trek 3 is unreasonable, given all that happens. There could be long times between scenes of docking the Enterprise and meeting with Sarek, for example.
While adding a few more days to get the characters disembarked would not be out of order, were they really hanging out on the starbase for 12 months? That would mean that the Enterprise was hanging around all that time after being decomissioned, none of the crew got new assignments (except Uhura and that seemed fairly new) and up until the time that McCoy got arrested (which kicked off the final events of the film) Kirk remained oblivious to the "galactic controversy" which Genesis had sparked.
I don't buy that one bit!
JB
JB
Similar threads
