Starfleet Starship Insignia was all supposed to be the same?

[Robert Comsol]

Probably because folks like Mike Okuda, who "came up" through fandom thought all ships had unique emblems. Until the Justman memo came to light, I think 99.9% of fandom thought that.

I concur but IIRC this concept was suggested by the various different insignias featured in TAS.

Back in the 1970's and prior to TMP, TAS had a quasi-official canon status and the amount of TAS materials Bjo Trimble covered in her Star Trek Concordance is a testament to that, IMHO.

And unless I'm mistaken Geoffrey Mandel's popular Officers Flight Manual also featured individual (conjectural) starship insignias.

Bob

 

[Christopher]

I still find it amazing that no one apparently caught the use of a separate starship patch in "The Doomsday Machine." Given Justman's reaction in the IJM, that seems really shocking.

Well, Decker was the only one seen wearing it. Maybe it was meant to be a commodore's insignia rather than the ship's insignia?

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Not to derail the thread, but I'm just wondering if there are any similar letters or memos indicating the time period in which the series is set. Something like, "I noticed a mistake in 'Space Seed' setting STAR TREK in the 22nd Century when we recently decided the show was set in the 23rd Century; no need to change anything, just be aware for future episodes."

The time frame of the series was kept intentionally vague, since they didn't want to make any firm assumptions about the rate of technological progress. That's why they invented the deliberate gibberish of stardates. But mostly the estimates did tend to hover around 2-300 years in the future, with "The Squire of Gothos" being the one outlier (placing the series in at least the early 28th century, since Trelane was 900 light-years from Earth and aware of things from the early 19th century).

However, the second-season writers' guide (the only one I have a copy of) does mention that the time frame is "actually about two hundred years from now." I wouldn't be surprised if that was added to the revised guide based on what "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and "Space Seed" had established.

I believe the earliest reference to ST being in the 23rd century was probably in The Making of Star Trek.

Also, 200 years doesn't rule out the early years of the 2200s.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

I don't know why people think that The Squire of Gothos established the time-frame as 800 or 900 years in the future. All I get from the episode is that Gothos must be 800 or 900 light-years from Earth.

Think about it for a second: If right now we built and launched a faster-than-light starship that traveled 100 times the speed of light (ignoring for a moment the Einsteinian time dilation stuff), we'd get to Gothos in 8 or 9 years. Yet, from the view of Earth from there, we'd see things from 8 or 9 centuries past. It's not about time, it's about distance.

That's my take on it, anyway!

 

[Avro Arrow]

^ Christopher explained this pretty well. The episode says explicitly that Gothos is 900 ly from Earth, so Kirk tells Trelane he's looking in on Earth from "900 years past". But since Trelane was familiar with things in either the late 18th or early 19th century, then 900 years after that would put ST in the late 27th or early 28th century, or roughly 700 years in our future.

(There may be other references, but the one I'm thinking of is that Trelane mentioned that he admired Napoleon.)

So you're right, it is about distance, but other references in the ep can be used to establish an approximate time as well!

 

[Christopher]

^That's right. Trelane not only admires Napoleon, he's aware of the death of Alexander Hamilton, which took place in 1804. Also, the Johann Strauss waltz he makes Uhura play on the harpsichord was composed in 1880.

The episode makes it clear that Trelane doesn't realize the significance of the speed-of-light lag in his observations:

JAEGER: Notice the period, Captain. Nine hundred light years from Earth. It's what might be seen through a viewing scope if it were powerful enough.
TRELANE: Ah, yes. I've been looking in on the doings on your lively little Earth.
KIRK: Then you've been looking in on the doings nine hundred years past.
TRELANE: Oh, really? Have I made an error in time? How fallible of me. Oh, I did so want to make you feel at home.

Thus, the episode explicitly establishes that the events of the 1800s -- as late as 1880 -- are 900 years before the episode, putting it in at least 2780. Although anachronistic music selections in fiction are not unheard of, and we could rationalize that maybe Trelane took the waltz from Uhura's memories, but that would still put the episode after the year 2704.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

About the only wiggle room is if Trelane were observing Earth via FTL, but not instantaneous FTL. Given his godlike powers, there's no reason to assume that he'd be limited to lightspeed observation of Earth. He catches up to the Enterprise and maneuvers Gothos at warp, after all. The blunder could simply be in Kirk and crew, Trelane's fault being not for his lack of raw power, but for allowing the crew's confusion to confuse him. Or maybe Trelane just enjoyed playing the fool. A bit of a fanwank, I admit, but there's a circle to square here.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Still, the 900 years of observational lag in Trelane's view, in my mind has nothing to do with the Enterprise's time lag.

Remember, "the time barrier's been broken!" . From any planet anywhere, looking back on Earth from there would show images relative to how many light-years distant it is. For the Enterprise also, once it arrives there, too. The ship basically comes from another time, and once there it 'abides by its rules'.

Am I missing something obvious? I still see it as the Enterprise being from whatever century it was relative to the distance and speed of its journey to get there.

 

[Christopher]

Still, the 900 years of observational lag in Trelane's view, in my mind has nothing to do with the Enterprise's time lag.

Remember, "the time barrier's been broken!" . From any planet anywhere, looking back on Earth from there would show images relative to how many light-years distant it is. For the Enterprise also, once it arrives there, too. The ship basically comes from another time, and once there it 'abides by its rules'.

Am I missing something obvious? I still see it as the Enterprise being from whatever century it was relative to the distance and speed of its journey to get there.

Err, no. Star Trek has always made it pretty clear that warp drive doesn't involve time dilation or non-simultaneity -- "now" is "now" everywhere in the galaxy. For instance, Voyager was missing seven years both in their frame of reference and the Federation's, even though they were on opposite sides of the galaxy. And physics actually backs this up; the Alcubierre warp equation shows that the flow of time inside a warp bubble is identical to that of a "stationary" observer.

The dialogue I quoted could not be more clear: Alexander Hamilton, Napoleon, and Johann Strauss were "nine hundred years in the past." The writer of the episode assumed that the show was set in the 28th century, period, because the time frame of the series had not been clearly defined yet.

 

[Robert Comsol]

And physics actually backs this up; the Alcubierre warp equation shows that the flow of time inside a warp bubble is identical to that of a "stationary" observer.

I think the stardate mentioned in the rendezvous order from Commodore Probert and the one near Earth in TMP would support that.

Same applies for the stardate mentioned in the bridge simulator and the one the Reliant recorded near Ceti Alpha V in TWOK (but since it began in a simulation we can't be exactly sure)

The time frame of the series had not been clearly defined yet.

IIRC we already had a two century timeframe mentioned in various Season One TOS episodes prior to the "Squire"?

I wouldn't put to much into Trelane's account, who knows how he had been observing Earth's past.

Bob

 

[Mysterion]

how[/I] he had been observing Earth's past.

Bob

This. Plus Trelane was just a child. A child with a lot of advanced abilities, sure, but still just a child. He might not have really understood time and spacevery completely.

 

[Stevil2001]

I'm not sure how anyone could interpret Kirk saying "Then you've been looking in on the doings nine hundred years past" when looking at stuff from the 19th century other than indicating Kirk himself coming from the 28th century. If there's an error being made, not just Trelane made it.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I don't see the need to try to handwave it away. It's just a mistake -- or rather, an inconsistency arising from the producers not having settled on a timeframe yet. Just assume they said "four hundred years" instead of "nine hundred."

 

[Harvey]

Yeah, I don't see the need to try to handwave it away. It's just a mistake -- or rather, an inconsistency arising from the producers not having settled on a timeframe yet. Just assume they said "four hundred years" instead of "nine hundred."

If only someone had read the de Forest Research notes for the episode, which included the following comment:

Then you’ve been looking in on doings nine hundred years past. Other scripts have placed Star Trek c. 200 years in the past, e.g. Shore Leave. That places this reference in the 13th century.

 

[Shawnster]

What kind of "telescope" was Trelane using? Did he hear sounds and conversations as well? Was it just visual imaging and, if so, how much magnification did he get on that thing in order to get the notes to that waltz as well as know about specific individuals by name, such as Alexander Hamilton?

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

...as well as know about specific individuals by name, such as Alexander Hamilton?

Maybe, as in The City on the Edge of Forever, he saw newspaper headlines such as 'Alexander Hamilton Killed In Duel'.

 

[Christopher]

But how would he know how the letters were pronounced?

The conceit seemed to be that he had some kind of Sufficiently Advanced Technology for observation, but one that was somehow lightspeed-limited. They didn't really think it through very well, since it was just an excuse to construct a story about an alien that could be affordably filmed by using props, costumes, and sets left over from historical productions.

 

[Warped9]

But how would he know how the letters were pronounced?

The conceit seemed to be that he had some kind of Sufficiently Advanced Technology for observation, but one that was somehow lightspeed-limited. They didn't really think it through very well, since it was just an excuse to construct a story about an alien that could be affordably filmed by using props, costumes, and sets left over from historical productions.

A lot of confusion could have been avoided by a slight change in dialogue and by just using a general reference to "centuries in the past" rather than "nine hundred years in the past" or something to that effect.