2375
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It's generally assumed in the novels that each season of the 24th-century Trek shows spanned January to December, so "What You Leave Behind" is presumed to be December '75. The Left Hand of Destiny, the chronologically earliest post-finale book, is in January '76, and the "relaunch" proper begins in March '76 with Avatar, three months after WYLB. There are timelines given at the start of Unity and the end of Worlds of DS9 Book 3 that spell out the timing of events in 2376 in a fair amount of detail.
That is the tricky thing about stardates, though it was generally assumed that each season covers January-December of any given year, to the extent that this is how things were depicted in the Chronologies. The matter got a bit muddled in Voyager. Specifically, the episode Homestead, which is unique since it it quite possibly the only episode of Star Trek to give both the stardate (54868.6) and calendar date (April 5, 2378). Based on that, it would seem that the stardate's year seems have April towards the end. It's possible the stardate years might start in May or June.
Of course, this contradicts DS9's You Are Cordially Invited which takes place on stardate 51247.5 and is stated in dialogue to be spring. Of course, for all we know, it could be set in the Bajoran spring.
Worth mentioning, Enterprise's seasons don't seem to follow the calendar year. Season 1 covers April 2151 to February 2152, season 2 April 2152 to April 2153. There is no date given for when season 3 starts, but it ends in February 2154. Season 4 presumably begins February 2154 and ends January 2155. From this we can assuem the seasons were not always meant to be January to December.
Of course, this contradicts DS9's You Are Cordially Invited which takes place on stardate 51247.5 and is stated in dialogue to be spring. Of course, for all we know, it could be set in the Bajoran spring.
Worth mentioning, Enterprise's seasons don't seem to follow the calendar year. Season 1 covers April 2151 to February 2152, season 2 April 2152 to April 2153. There is no date given for when season 3 starts, but it ends in February 2154. Season 4 presumably begins February 2154 and ends January 2155. From this we can assuem the seasons were not always meant to be January to December.
Mission Gamma: Cathedral mentioned that Sisko disappeared around Thanksgiving.
The Star Trek Star Charts also had had month dates in the Dominion War summary.
The Star Trek Star Charts also had had month dates in the Dominion War summary.
Only if you assume that Neelix was celebrating the anniversary of First Contact Day in Earth years. Using a different planet's calendar with years of a different length, the anniversary date could fall at any time in the calendar. I like to think (and I inserted a line to this effect in Places of Exile) that Neelix held anniversary parties based on several different calendars so that he could commemorate a given event several different times in one year.
Well, that's for ENT. The 24th-century shows always defined a season as being from the beginning to the end of a given "stardate year," XX000-XX999, so it's just a matter of how a stardate year relates to an Earth year. If a stardate year was equal in length to an Earth year, which seemed to be the case given character ages and dialogue references, then that means every season was meant to be 12 months long, and it's just a question of whether the two systems are offset from one another.
Of course, stardates were treated wildly inconsistently in all the shows; only the first two digits in the 24th-century shows followed a consistent, unvarying pattern. The remaining numbers tended to increase over the season, but not in any meaningful proportion to the time intervals indicated in the episodes; you could have an increase of dozens of stardate units between episodes taking place mere days apart or only a few units over the course of an episode spanning weeks. So it isn't really possible to derive any meaningful information from the specific numbers, and it's best to treat them simply as lorem ipsum-style placeholder text. After all, that's what stardates were created to be in the first place. Roddenberry and Herb Solow didn't want to specify when TOS took place, so they deliberately created a "dating" system whose whole purpose was to convey no actual chronological information of any kind.
Which bit? It makes sense that all current conversation about dates be collected together, because existing other examples will help to inform the answer to the OP's question.
"Belongs" or "doesn't belong"?
Since "What You Leave Behind" received a novelization, and the novelists have more time, flexibility and word count to play with stardates, it still makes sense to ask the question here.
TrekLit is also where the "Timeliners' Timeline", as featured in several Pocket products, was evolved.
I was actually just thinking about this today. I think 2376 is the "busiest" year in terms of Trek Lit. Roughly 15 books just from the DS9 Relaunch era, (give or take 2375/6 for LHoD,Lives of Dax, N-Vector, etc.), plus the New Frontier and TNG stuff that happens in that year.
I had thought Genesis Wave took place completely in in 2377, but it seems (for some reason) Books 1 & 2 are in 2376, and Book 3 and Genesis Force take place in 2377. Though, this is a little odd as a few throwaway dating lines indicate Book 3 is just a few days after the others in the series. I don't think they were written with a specific date in mind but it does seem like it was supposed to be set earlier in the Ent-E timeline but it was moved to 2376/7 because of references to the Gemworld material.
I had thought Genesis Wave took place completely in in 2377, but it seems (for some reason) Books 1 & 2 are in 2376, and Book 3 and Genesis Force take place in 2377. Though, this is a little odd as a few throwaway dating lines indicate Book 3 is just a few days after the others in the series. I don't think they were written with a specific date in mind but it does seem like it was supposed to be set earlier in the Ent-E timeline but it was moved to 2376/7 because of references to the Gemworld material.
FWIW, the stardate for "What You Leave Behind" isn't given in the episode. Does the Carey novelization give an explicit stardate?
The previous adventure began at SD 52861.3... Thus apparently in the April of the calendar year, as per the First Contact Day precedent. And it's not a long jump from "Dogs of War" to "What You Leave Behind".
In general, a stardate year that follows the Paramount season instead of the calendar year is the better match for a number of explicit calendar datapoints, such as Denali in "Data's Day". A stardate year beginning in January is in contradiction of these datapoints, and OTOH doesn't offer any obvious advantages. It's summer in France at the end/start of the stardate year (TNG "Family")! How more visually explicit can one get? (Okay, they probably do have weather control...)
If we accept the stardate year 41000 (TNG S1) as spanning 2363-2364 (because the latter year is explicit in "The Neutral Zone"), then year 52000 ought to span 2374-75, which is fine for our DS9 purposes; the series finale would take place in April or May of 2375.
But in that case, 54000 ought to go from 2376 to 2377, not from 2377 to 2378 as the 315th anniversary of the 2063 event in VOY "Homestead" would have us believe. It's unlikely Neelix would be counting in non-Earth years when celebrating this Earth event. OTOH, it's quite possible that he would be misunderstanding the idea of "anniversary", which is far from universal anyway. Is 2064 the first or second anniversary of a 2063 event? Poll English-speaking people today, and they will be split on the issue, mainly according to the culture from which they originated.
Placing the end of VOY in 2378 rather than 2377 doesn't appear well motivated in any other respect. Or are there novel events that would support this move?
Timo Saloniemi
The previous adventure began at SD 52861.3... Thus apparently in the April of the calendar year, as per the First Contact Day precedent. And it's not a long jump from "Dogs of War" to "What You Leave Behind".
In general, a stardate year that follows the Paramount season instead of the calendar year is the better match for a number of explicit calendar datapoints, such as Denali in "Data's Day". A stardate year beginning in January is in contradiction of these datapoints, and OTOH doesn't offer any obvious advantages. It's summer in France at the end/start of the stardate year (TNG "Family")! How more visually explicit can one get? (Okay, they probably do have weather control...)
If we accept the stardate year 41000 (TNG S1) as spanning 2363-2364 (because the latter year is explicit in "The Neutral Zone"), then year 52000 ought to span 2374-75, which is fine for our DS9 purposes; the series finale would take place in April or May of 2375.
But in that case, 54000 ought to go from 2376 to 2377, not from 2377 to 2378 as the 315th anniversary of the 2063 event in VOY "Homestead" would have us believe. It's unlikely Neelix would be counting in non-Earth years when celebrating this Earth event. OTOH, it's quite possible that he would be misunderstanding the idea of "anniversary", which is far from universal anyway. Is 2064 the first or second anniversary of a 2063 event? Poll English-speaking people today, and they will be split on the issue, mainly according to the culture from which they originated.
Placing the end of VOY in 2378 rather than 2377 doesn't appear well motivated in any other respect. Or are there novel events that would support this move?
Timo Saloniemi
I thought it was generally assumed that the last 5 or so episodes of Voyager took place in 2378. (At least according to Memory Beta's timeline.)
If stardates of 54700 and later are in early 2378, this would mean that SD 48315 for the beginning of the odyssey would be in late 2371, which is fine from the VOY point of view. Not so fine from the TNG and DS9 one, though - because the high 41000s still have to fall within 2364 in TNG, not 2365, and the record from there on is more or less continuous till those DS9 events that nail down "Caretaker". We're facing the Mystery of the Missing Year here if we assume the last season flipped over to 2378 at some point. But we'd be in some trouble if we assumed seasons don't flip over to the next calendar year, too!
The writers apparently got quite confused trying to reconcile the idea that SD years match calendar ones with the idea that the Star Trek Chronology is a good reference work. Yet there's an unfortunate printing error in that book in that the second season of VOY is indicated to fall on 2371...
Timo Saloniemi
The writers apparently got quite confused trying to reconcile the idea that SD years match calendar ones with the idea that the Star Trek Chronology is a good reference work. Yet there's an unfortunate printing error in that book in that the second season of VOY is indicated to fall on 2371...
Timo Saloniemi
Sounds like they're basing that on the date suggested by "Homestead." As stated above, Pocket's timeline doesn't follow that interpretation.
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