A (potentially) unpopular opinion

[jctechwizard]

Regardless, mainly due to the Stargate being all over the place, I'm still not including TAS in this list

 

[jctechwizard]

*Stardate not stargate

 

[Nerys Myk]

Most of TAS fits in fine with Five year Stardate order

First Year (2265)
1254.4 The Magicks of Megas-Tu
1312.4 Where No Man Has Gone Before
1329.1 Mudd's Women
1512.2 The Corbomite Maneuver
1513.1 The Man Trap
1533.6 Charlie X
1672.1 The Enemy Within
1704.2 The Naked Time
1709.1 Balance of Terror

Second Year (2266)
2124.5 The Squire of Gothos
2534.0 Patterns of Force
2712.4 What Are Little Girls Made Of?
2713.5 Miri
2715.1 Dagger of the Mind
2817.6 Conscience of the King
2821.5 The Galileo Seven
2947.3 Court Martial

Third Year (2267)
3012.4 The Menagerie, Part I
3013.0 The Menagerie, Part II
3018.2 Catspaw
3025.3 Shore Leave
3045.6 Arena
3087.6 The Alternative Factor
3113.2 Tomorrow is Yesterday
3134.0 City on the Edge of Forever
3141.9 Space Seed
3156.2 Return of the Archons
3183.3 The Practical Joker
3192.1 A Taste of Armageddon
3196.1 Devil in the Dark
3198.4 Errand of Mercy
3211.7 Gamesters of Triskelion
3219.8 Metamorphosis
3287.2 Operation: Annihilate!
3372.7* Day of the Dove
3372.7 Amok Time
3417.3 This Side of Paradise
3468.1 Who Mourns for Adonais?
3478.2 The Deadly Years
3497.2 Friday's Child
3541.9 The Changeling
3614.9 Wolf in the Fold
3619.2 Obsession
3715.3 The Apple
3823.7* Mirror, Mirror
3842.3 Journey to Babel

Fourth Year (2268)
4040.7 Bread and Circuses
4187.3 The Slaver Weapon
4202.9 The Doomsday Machine
4211.4 A Private Little War
4272.5 Elaan of Troyius
4307.1 The Immunity Syndrome
4385.3 Spectre of the Gun
4513.3 I, Mudd
4523.3 The Trouble with Tribbles
4598.0 A Piece of the Action
4657.5 By Any Other Name
4729.4 The Ultimate Computer
4768.3 Return to Tomorrow
4842.6 The Paradise Syndrome
4978.5 Mudd's Passion
Year 2268 The Omega Glory
Year 2268 Assignment: Earth

Fifth Year (2269)
5027.3 And the Children Shall Lead
5031.3 The Enterprise Incident
5121.0 The Empath
5275.6 Albatross
51453.3 The Survivor
5267.2 The Time Trap
5329.4 More Tribbles, More Troubles
5371.3 One of Our Planets is Missing
5373.4 Yesteryear
5423.4 The Mark of Gideon
5431.4 Spock's Brain
5476.3 For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
5483.7 The Lorelei Signal
5499.9 The Ambergris Element
5501.2 The Eye of the Beholder
5521.3 Beyond the Farthest Star
5554.4 The Infinite Vulcan
5577.3 The Terratin Incident
5591.2 Once Upon a Planet
5630.7 Is There in Truth No Beauty?
5683.1 The Jihad
5693.4 The Tholian Web
5710.5 Wink of an Eye
5718.3 Whom Gods Destroy
5725.3 The Lights of Zetar
5730.2 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
5784.2 Plato's Stepchildren
5818.4 The Cloud Minders
5832.3 Way to Eden
5843.7 Requiem for Methuselah
5906.4 The Savage Curtain
5928.5 Turnabout Intruder
5943.7 All Our Yesterdays
5978.2* That Which Survives
6063.4 How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth?
6334.1 The Pirates of Orion
6770.3 The Counter-Clock Incident
7403.1 Bem

 

[T'Bonz]

Eh. It aired, it's canon. One can always "decanonize" any Trek that one doesn't like, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. It was just fun entertainment that has lasted a surprisingly long time.

 

[blssdwlf]

Shouldn't "Errand of Mercy" and "Day of the Dove" be further apart?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

These are stardates, not Earth time.

 

[Airin]

Eh. It aired, it's canon. One can always "decanonize" any Trek that one doesn't like, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. It was just fun entertainment that has lasted a surprisingly long time.

Not to mention that authors count when defining canon. TAS was perceived as a continuation of TOS because it was largely created by the same team, and Roddenberry was involved. So its perception was different than, say, that of the Gold Key comics. Paramount could come out and say that all pre-Kurtzman series are non-canon now. But if nobody perceived this as true, what difference would it make?

 

[Warped9]

Not to dampen enthusiasm, but this is not a new idea. I’ve heard it floated years ago.

I also think it’s a fair idea because it addresses a few things. One is the obvious aging of the characters over the course of the series. It also allows more believable time between events.

I have also long held the notion that the three seasons were actually showing us the bulk of the 5-year mission if not exactly all of it given occasionally we hear references to events we never actually see. You could include TAS and it still works.

My one exception would be to place WNMHGB outside of this framework. My reasoning is the different look of the uniforms, the ship, different cast and the tidbit of no narration at the beginning of the episode declaring the 5-year mission. I’m reasoning WNMHGB happened not too long after Kirk takes over from Pike and several months to a year before the ship is refit and embarks on the 5-year mission we see depicted in TOS.

 

[blssdwlf]

These are stardates, not Earth time.

LOL. I was commenting "Errand of Mercy" and "Day of the Dove" are in the same year in the OP's list. There should be at least a 3 year gap between the two.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

LOL. I was commenting "Errand of Mercy" and "Day of the Dove" are in the same year in the OP's list. There should be at least a 3 year gap between the two.

Oh, right. But the year assignment is non-canonical. They're getting assigned to the same year, because whoever made that list assumes a certain correspondence between calendar year on Earth and episode stardates.

 

[Henoch]

I assume that stardates are a Starfleet common dating system linked to an Earth standard time frame; where 1000 stardates = 1 Earth solar year. Figuring out when is the zero date and when they change it is the trick. I have WNMHGB using United Earth (UE) stardates, so, zero is Jan.1 of the Earth calendar. I have Kirk newly becoming the Captain of Enterprise taking over Pike's exploration mission due to his promotion. Based on the tombstone which I assume C. 1277.1 to 1313.7 is Kirk's start and supposed end of his Captainship (4/10/2265 to 4/24/2265).<My selection of the year 2265 was based on the 300 years in future method where Star Trek was first pitched and WNMHGB was filmed in 1965. An argument can be made for 2266 where WNMHGB was shown to Studio and approved for production in Jan 1966. YMMV>

After WNMHGB, the ship is sent back for repairs, modifications, crew re-assignments for Kirk's 5YM. Near the beginning of this layover, Starfleet was merged under the Federation and the stardate clock reset along with uniform changes, etc. Based on Charlie X being Thanksgiving, I back-calculated the new zero date to May 11, 2265. The first episode of the 5YM is Mudd's Women on stardate 1329.1 or 9/10/2266. <Note: TOS season one started 9/8/1966, so, +300 years is maintained. The start date for Kirk's 5YM can be a little fluid but it must be between stardate ~1000 (plus 5000 for 5 years so that the last stardate, ~5944, is under 6000) and stardate ~1307 (9/1/2266 to reflect the beginning of the fall TV season plus 300 years, and be before Mudd's Women, ~1329).

Key to making most of the stardates work for TOS: voice-over stardates are given at the time of the log entry, and not the stardate of the events being shown in episode. For me, I calculate the event stardates based on a hierarchy of rules:

1. 1000 stardates = one Earth year or 365.25 days or 8766 hours; or ~2.74 stardates = 1 day;
2. Stardates start on 0000 on May 11, 2265; the date as back calculated from Charlie X and the year Star Trek was first pitched.
3. Scene or actor delivered stardates are actual stardates of the event and cannot be changed;
4. Log entries are always spoken in the present tense narrative;
5. "Log" entries can be minutes, hours, days, weeks, months after actual events as-recorded in the ship's records during the episode or as-edited in the mission report after the event;
6. I try to assume the least amount of lapsed time of log entries (report while still fresh in memory) but you can also assume any length of time prior to the inserted log stardates, even several months on rare occasion.
7. Episode durations and time between episodes must be estimated based on episode dialog or action; as a rule of thumb, one to two weeks (20-40 stardates) should be allowed between episodes, 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);
8. Several unknown stardate episodes must be estimated; as a rule of thumb, try to stick to production order if possible, i.e. put episode 39 as close to 38 or 40 as possible;
9. I put in additional time to complete the unaired parts of each mission (x days scanning before episode, deliver x to y after episode) or for ship repairs, interior ship updates (i.e. set changes) and starbase visits; serious ship repairs can take one or two weeks; major upgrades maybe longer.
10. If there is no explanation for something that doesn't fit, assume it is a script error and move along. (This possibly occurs in four episodes: The Gamesters of Triskelion; The Deadly Years; And the Children Shall Lead; Spock's Brain which I rule have stardate script errors.)
11. Have fun is the most important rule.

 

[Forbin]

Not to dampen enthusiasm, but this is not a new idea. I’ve heard it floated years ago.

I also think it’s a fair idea because it addresses a few things. One is the obvious aging of the characters over the course of the series. It also allows more believable time between events.

I have also long held the notion that the three seasons were actually showing us the bulk of the 5-year mission if not exactly all of it given occasionally we hear references to events we never actually see. You could include TAS and it still works.

My one exception would be to place WNMHGB outside of this framework. My reasoning is the different look of the uniforms, the ship, different cast and the tidbit of no narration at the beginning of the episode declaring the 5-year mission. I’m reasoning WNMHGB happened not too long after Kirk takes over from Pike and several months to a year before the ship is refit and embarks on the 5-year mission we see depicted in TOS.

I agree with this. Given the look, I always place it in 2264 (even tho it was filmed in 1965).

 

[ZapBrannigan]

In my head canon, the stardate is just a kind of page number, an index point, in the ship's navigation log. A stardate pertains only to the logs of the specific ship, base, or colony that is citing it.

If you open the Enterprise's log and scroll to page 1709, you're going to find the actual date, the ship's location, speed, and direction, and some dictated verbiage about the "Balance of Terror" mission.

Thus there is no useful information in the stardate number itself, except maybe "this episode happened before that one." I'm sure there are bits of dialogue here and there that go against me, especially franchise-wide, but I can't think of a better reason to say "stardate" (which implies both place and time), instead of just noting the time.

 

[Warped9]

In my head canon, the stardate is just a kind of page number, an index point, in the ship's navigation log. A stardate pertains only to the logs of the specific ship, base, or colony that is citing it.

If you open the Enterprise's log and scroll to page 1709, you're going to find the actual date, the ship's location, speed, and direction, and some dictated verbiage about the "Balance of Terror" mission.

Thus there is no useful information in the stardate number itself, except maybe "this episode happened before that one." I'm sure there are bits of dialogue here and there that go against me, especially franchise-wide, but I can't think of a better reason to say "stardate" (which implies both place and time), instead of just noting the time.

Interesting idea. My version of this was the date referred time passage aboard ship since it set out on the 5-year voyage. But like your idea if you referred to the actual log entry by Stardate the actual corresponding Earth date would be there as well.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I assume that stardates are a Starfleet common dating system linked to an Earth standard time frame; where 1000 stardates

I'm just going to stop you right there. I'd assumed when I wrote my earlier posts that it was common knowledge that when TOS was written and produced, the view was that what you wrote there was decidedly not the case. Memory Alpha's article on stardates quotes several passages, including one from the series bible and another by Gene Roddenberry for The Making of Star Trek, which I'll quote from below.

One of the important practical issues that needed to be addressed was that they could not control the order that episodes were filmed in, much less delivered and aired in, with enough precision to write for a time-keeping system that could be guaranteed to be always increasing. The stardate system was designed specifically to allow for later events to be numbered by lesser stardates, except within each episode, when they weren't travelling too far in the galaxy, and except when time travel was known to be occurring, like in "The Naked Time."

From The Star Trek Guide (a.k.a., "the series bible," for prospective writers for the show):

The progression of stardates in your script should remain constant but don't worry about whether or not there is a progression from other scripts. Stardates are a mathematical formula which varies depending on location in the galaxy, velocity of travel, and other factors, can vary widely from episode to episode."​

Gene Roddenberry for The Making of Star Trek [boldfacing mine]:

In answering these questions, I came up with the statement that "this time system adjusts for shifts in relative time which occur due to the vessel's speed and space warp capability. It has little relationship to Earth's time as we know it. One hour aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise at different times may equal as little as three Earth hours. The star dates specified in the log entry must be computed against the speed of the vessel, the space warp, and its position within our galaxy, in order to give a meaningful reading." Therefore star date would be one thing at one point in the galaxy and something else again at another point in the galaxy.​

​

The Memory Alpha article goes on to describe how this view would change for TNG. But the TNG system was developed too late, far too late to retroactively apply to the seemingly more random stardates of TOS. If one must headcanon something, I'd say that, like the warp scale, the TOS-era stardate system was just different from what it was for the TNG-era.

The proximity of the stardates in "Errand of Mercy" and assigned to "The Day of the Dove" in the above list must be filtered through these caveats. These episodes could occur in two completely different parts of the galaxy, "Dove" can occur two years after "Mercy", ship time, and it can still be assigned a proximate stardate. Of course, in the episode "The Day of the Dove" itself, no stardate is mentioned (besides "stardate Armageddon").

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I believe that TOS covered all 5 years of James Kirk's 5 year mission on the Enterprise (NOT just the first 3 years). Hear me out: going by the stardates given in most episodes, the stardates at the beginning of the series are in the 1xxx/x range, at the end of the series they are in the upper 5xxx.x range. Theory (mine): the first digit corresponds to which year of the 5 year mission. Therefore we have actually seen all 5 years of Kirk's famous tenure.

Yep, I believe the same thing and it's one of the main guidelines I've used for my Star Trek Chronology. I mean, c'mon, the Stardates on TOS start in the 1000s and end in the high 5000s. This isn't rocket science.

The only big thing I disagree with you about is that I have the episodes taking place in production order instead of Stardate order. The show just makes more sense to me that way.

Also the highest stardate being in the mid 59xx range fits with Star Trek: The Motion Picture being set on stardate 74xx and Scotty saying in the movie "we have just spent 18 months redesigning and refitting the Enterprise". And before anyone says anything, yes, I know that Stardates are used differently in the movies.

Yes. Here's what I wrote in the intro for my Chronology:

On Stardates: Much like in the TNG era, I am assuming that 1000 stardate units in the TOS era are roughly equivalent to one Earth calendar year. Thus, the Five-Year Mission depicted on Star Trek: The Original Series spans from around Stardate 1000.0 to Stardate 6000.0. The first digit of a stardate tells us which year of the 5YM a particular adventure took place in. So when the majority of stardates have shifted from the 2000s up to the 3000s, we've moved forward in time from the second year of the 5YM to the third. Similarly, I assume that stardates in the 23rd Century "reset" about once a decade, which explains why the adventures in the movie era spanning from 2 & 1/2 to 27 years after TOS have stardates ranging from the low 7000s up to the mid-9000s.

This is admittedly not a perfect system, as TOS stardates only roughly proceed upward in a non-sequential order and even overlap between some episodes. But I try to keep in mind what stardates actually were from a real world perspective: A futuristic method of timekeeping devised to keep the exact year in which Star Trek takes place vague. As Gene Roddenberry once wrote in the Star Trek Writers' Guide: "Stardates are a mathematical formula which varies depending on location in the galaxy, velocity of travel, and other factors, can vary widely from episode to episode." In other words, we folks here in the 21st Century don't have all of the information to fully understand them, so don't worry about it.

Not to dampen enthusiasm, but this is not a new idea. I’ve heard it floated years ago.

I also think it’s a fair idea because it addresses a few things. One is the obvious aging of the characters over the course of the series. It also allows more believable time between events.

I have also long held the notion that the three seasons were actually showing us the bulk of the 5-year mission if not exactly all of it given occasionally we hear references to events we never actually see.

Yep, I've been using this idea in my Chronology for at least 15 years.

And yeah, I think there were some adventures Kirk & Co. had that we didn't see on the show, either from the comics, the novels, or my own headcanon. I don't really include much of TAS, either, because I find the show pretty underwhelming for the most part. But I incorporate small bits of backstory from TAS, like Spock's childhood adventures in "Yesteryear," McCoy leading the mass inoculation on Dramia II from "Albatross," and McCoy's daughter Joanna. But overall, I consider including most episodes of TAS to be more trouble than they're worth.

I assume that stardates are a Starfleet common dating system linked to an Earth standard time frame; where 1000 stardates = 1 Earth solar year.

Yep, same.

After WNMHGB, the ship is sent back for repairs, modifications, crew re-assignments for Kirk's 5YM.

Yeah, I think there's undeniably a refit & crew rotation between WNMHGB and the series proper, although I have WNM as a part of the 5YM for simplicity's sake.

(I get all the arguments against it being a part of the 5YM involving the lack of narration & interplanetary distances and the like, but since the Enterprise always moved at the speed of plot anyway, that's not a dealbreaker for me. But hey, if you put it outside of the 5YM, that's fine by me, too.)

 

[JcarlA]

I believe that TOS has great continuity when viewed in ascending Stardate order, however I would include TAS for sure. I also believe that to consider each season of any star trek show to represent the beginning and end of a year to be ridiculous!! For instance BOBW pt1 December, BOBW pt2 January the following year??!! FOLLY.

 

[jctechwizard]

I believe that TOS has great continuity when viewed in ascending Stardate order, however I would include TAS for sure. I also believe that to consider each season of any star trek show to represent the beginning and end of a year to be ridiculous!! For instance BOBW pt1 December, BOBW pt2 January the following year??!! FOLLY.

Not Folly. Canon has essentially agreed that the Events of Best of Both Worlds take place in 2366-2367.

 

[Will_Carter]

To your last point, nope sorry TAS had been re-canonized.

Considering the collector in Lower Decks has that giant Spock skeleton? Yep. Canonized.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Lower Decks has definitely brought some of it firmly into canon, things that aren't wildly contradicted by other shows. The movies got there first actually, by giving us live action Caitians.

But Lower Decks also canonised the Spock helmet and that doesn't mean the character ever wore it himself, just like elements of a TAS story showing up doesn't mean that it all happened. Lower Decks itself is in a weird "This pretty much all happened, but it's blatantly exaggerated for comedy" zone where you can't take it entirely literally.