I think it's more that the frontier has now been pushed further away from local space, so it takes more of a concerted effort to reach unexplored territory.
The first five year mission?
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
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Yeah, I've seen folks do the averaging thing, but there must be some crazy fan that's done it as granularly as possibleI have, but I rely on stardates to layout the episodes. Based on the first mission log of 1329.1 for Mudd's Women and the last mission log of 5943.9 for All Our Yesterdays, ~4615 stardates pass. At 1000 stardates per Earth year, that's 4.615 years or ~1685 days. Divide by 77 episodes (WNMHGB is not included since I have it as pre-series, and The Menagerie is one continuous two-parter) gives ~21.9 days per episode. So, on average, about three weeks pass between each episode. Makes sense.
I've noted that in several entries in my timeline. And yeah, most episodes span only a few hours, but there are a few exceptions. "I, Mudd" has nearly a week of travel time after Norman takes control of the ship, and "The Naked Time" actually backs up in time three days at the very end.
In my mind TOS covers most of the 5YM, with no need to add TAS into the mix. The first digit of the Stardate indicates the year of the mission. So the 1000 Stardates are in the first year, the 2000s in the second, and so on. TOS Stardates ended in the high 5000s, so it works out pretty well.
If the gap between TOS and TMP was just the 18-month refit of the Enterprise and not 2.5 years, the Stardates would've been air-tight. TMP with a Stardate of 7412, 18 months after "All Our Yesterdays" with a Stardate of 5943, would've fit like a glove.
If TOS and TOS Movie Stardates were strictly four digits and rolled over from 9999 to 0000 each cycle, then TWOK having a Stardate of 8130 would've perfectly lined up with "Space Seed" taking place 15 years earlier with a Stardate of 3142.
Eh, Stardates are so inconsistent in general I don't really stress about that sort of thing too much. As long as they make sense in the broad strokes, I'm good. Expecting them to be 100% consistent and logical is asking too much, I think. YMMV.
Me.Yeah, I've seen folks do the averaging thing, but there must be some crazy fan that's done it as granularly as possible
I've added time for unaired activities before and after each episode, and make sure there's time for travel between episodes/designations; one to two weeks is good rule of thumb but only a day or two is sufficient to travel several star systems if they are in a hurry like answering a distress call (speed of plot can be very fast). The trick (or fudge factor) is to figure out whether Kirk's mission logs are narrated near real time, or days/weeks/months after the events; and lastly, when to declare a script error and move along.TMP stardate is dubious, though as @Lord Garth said, TWOK 15 years lines up perfectly if you rollover the stardate's fifth digit.
- 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 with a +10,000 stardate rollover. Odd choices, but in reality it was ~10.5 years after the series. The Enterprise “just” underwent a 18 month (1.5 years) refit. Kirk hasn’t logged a single star hour in 2.5 years, so, it must be 11.45 years. Sounds off.
- ST2:TWOK = stardate 8141.6. Either 10.7 years after TMP, or 731 stardates or 9 months after TMP, so, I think something’s off with TMP. The TWOK 15 year remarks from both Kirk and Khan puts the lapse time at 15 years or 15,000 stardates from the Space Seed (3142+15,000=18,142 or 8142 with the rollover). Sounds okay.
- 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. Kirk says they are in the 3rd month of exile, so more than 60 days. Sounds okay.
- ST5:TFF = stardate 8454.1. 64 stardates or about 23 days after TVH. They got the new ship and Scott is still working out the bugs. Sounds okay <even though the actors aged 7 years since TWOK
>. - ST6:TUC = stardate 9521.6. Can't be 1070 stardates or a little over one year after TFF because Sulu says he is finishing up a 3 year mission. A three year gap between TFF and TUC is at least ~3000 stardates. So, there may be another rollover of +10,000 stardates or 11,070 stardates or ~11 years passed after TFF. A long time gap but this puts Kirk’s total time in the chair at ~29+ years. I have Kirk as Captain starting in spring of 2265 and TUC ending in late 2294. ~30 years as Captain of the Enterprise is given in GEN. Sounds okay.
- ST7:GEN = stardate unknown for the Enterprise-B Launch, but Kirk was retired, so, it was probably ~ 1 to 4 years after the TUC (4 years by production dates). Sounds okay.
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There are so many things that we've been told that the production crew wanted to make sense that we the fans have found might not line up as well as intended. So we roll up our sleeves and get to work.
But the one thing that we've been told since at least 1968, in print, by the Great Bird himself: Stardates do not make sense. There is no rhyme or reason to them. That's actually part of the "design". They're supposed to be kind of wacky to take into account all the weirdness of time and space and warp drive and what have you.
So if TWOK doesn't make "sense"? It's because we don't understand stardates.
But the one thing that we've been told since at least 1968, in print, by the Great Bird himself: Stardates do not make sense. There is no rhyme or reason to them. That's actually part of the "design". They're supposed to be kind of wacky to take into account all the weirdness of time and space and warp drive and what have you.
So if TWOK doesn't make "sense"? It's because we don't understand stardates.
Yeah, I wouldn't try to hard to have the TOS movie dates line up with anything. There was obvious hesitancy to break tradition and move to five digit dates until TNG, we are lucky they line up as well as they do, I doubt anymore thought went into them but just increasing the numbers a bit for each one.
Gene only said on the spur of the moment during fan questioning on why stardates fluctuated up and down with airdate viewing order. All he needed to say was that the events portrayed were not shown in chronological order, plus a few discrepancies were simply script errors. KISS.
Gene's intent of stardates were originally designed to let the writers indicate the passage of time, and I assume (but have no reference) that he intended that 1000 stardates was one Earth year (sort of a metric conversion for dates). As different writers and script editors (including Gene himself) quickly botched the time system, chaos ruled.
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I’m pretty sure the 1000 stardates a year thing originated when they were working on TNG, at which time they did have a producer make sure each episode was in numerical order, although I doubt they tried that hard to have the dates pass correctly for time elapsed in individual episodes.
I've decided I believe that Dr. Elizabeth Dehner is the ship's counselor, and Kirk just does not replace her. That's why she was joining the ship partway through a journey.
I have, but I rely on stardates to layout the episodes. Based on the first mission log of 1329.1 for Mudd's Women and the last mission log of 5943.9 for All Our Yesterdays, ~4615 stardates pass. At 1000 stardates per Earth year, that's 4.615 years or ~1685 days. Divide by 77 episodes (WNMHGB is not included since I have it as pre-series, and The Menagerie is one continuous two-parter) gives ~21.9 days per episode. So, on average, about three weeks pass between each episode. Makes sense.
I assumed 5 years, 1825 days for the 101 TOS and TAS episodes and got an average of 18 days for each episode, with of course some taking more and some taking less time, and travel time between. Surprisingly, that's very close to the two-weeks between episodes used by the Okudas.
However, in my view TOS and TAS might take a bit more than 5 years:
-If the 2nd pilot is before the 5-year mission, then Mudd's Women is the first in stardate order, and is about 1/3 of the way through year 1.
-Any stardate up to about 6300 might still fit the 5 year time period.
-Any stardate above about 6300 might be part of travel time back to Earth, or other brief missions.
-Many TAS episodes with these high stardates show diplomatic missions or missions of that nature.
-The highest stardate, from BEM, at 7403, is explicitly stated to have been a part of a series of short missions that the Enterprise was completing when BEM finally decided to get involved.
-This would be just under 6 years from Mudd's Women, but in a way possibly still stated in verbal speech to 5 years.
It does work well, and for the movies, I assume the decimal point was moved so:
-BEM could take place in 2270 ("Year 7" of the five-year mission), with a stardate of 7403
-TMP takes place in 2274, with a stardate of 7412.
Your post was great reading, and even though I offered my own explanation of the stardates in the movies, you make a strong case.
I like the idea of giving 1701A as much time in service as possible to justify its being decommissioned later. Of course, some fans suggest it might not have been actually new or may have gone on in service under another name.
"The Star Trek Chronology" Indicates that Micheal Okuda had a hand in selecting 9529 for ST:6. But that's all it said. I wish he would give more detail at some point.
Yeah, it really wasn't until after the first season that stardate 41xxx.x became established as being in 2364, stardate 42xxx.x was 2365, and so on. Early on, TNG likely was initially set at the dawn of the 24th-Century, with Data being a graduate of the Starfleet Academy class of 2278.
Yeah, almost all of the officially licensed material released in the 80s had set TOS at the beginning of the 23rd century, presumably so that "two hundred years" line in TWOK made sense. I'd bet some of that thinking was still in some people's heads for early TNG.
Yeah, the '4=24th Century' went out the window with the very first flashback scene to feature stardate before Season 1.
But they kept with the 1000=one year/season in all the TNG era shows and sometimes Discovery has since they went to the future.
Lower Decks is smudging the 1000 = One Year a tiny bit. Star Trek's current science advisor came up with a new stardate conversion, but I don't think she has publicly posted what it is yet, but, from what I understand 1000 isn't exactly one year in that show, it's either a little over, or a little under 1000 is one year.
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Actually as early as the late 70's (before TWOK was even an itch) there were two "competing" timelines. Late 23rd vs. early. The Spaceflight Chronology used early. FASA games wound up using the SFC as a basis and so did a lot (most?) of the Star Trek novels at the time. In the 80's it was the most prevalent timeline. The Star Trek Maps and a good number of fan publications (many who worked on the Maps) used late. Many of those fans went on to work on the Berman shows.
Assuming the Constitution class was based on the US Constitution, shouldn't there be 13 ships, similar to how there were the original 13 colonies that eventually became the 13 states?
I think it's a bold move to exclude Star Trek stories written by D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, Samuel A. Peeples, Marc Daniels, Walter Koenig, and Larry Niven (among others), produced by Roddenberry, and starring Shatner, Nimoy, and Kelley.I'm on the fence as to whether TAS is part of the five year mission, but I also fell anything before and after TOS is fiction.
But that's just me.
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