Well Palgrenax exploded due to the Shedai Wanderer in Van: "Summon the Thunder". According to Memory Beta it was stated in the final Vanguard novel that experiments with Mirdonyae artifacts blew Ceti Alpha VI up, though I don't remember any reference to that. (It has been two years since I read Storming Heaven, though...) According to MB CAVI got destroyed in 2267 which is quite some time before Storming Heaven, but if Space Seed has to happen approximately six months before the planet's destruction and in 2267 we can pin it down to the first half of the year, which it is in according to the current version of the 5YM timeline.
This is an interesting line of thinking @DarrenTR1970. I want to look into the specifics of this idea and see what I think.
Well there are alot of variables and contradictory information here. In it's normal setting, Space Seed would take place in January 2267 Khan claims Ceti Alpha VI was destroyed six months later. We don't know if that is exact, nor if he was referring to 180 Ceti Alpha V days or one half a Ceti Alpha V year. To Reign in Hell places Space Seed in 2267 and seems to place the destruction of Ceti Alpha V six months later in 2268. It's hard for me to tell with a cursory glance, but Storming Heaven places the destruction somewhere around the turn of the year 2268/2269. The Vanguard date seems to me to be the most "locked in". It would be helpful if someone who had broken the chapters down would figure out when Chapters 17-20 take place. It is somewhere during Chapters 18 or 19 that Ceti Alpha VI is destroyed. I have the book ending in February 2269 according to Seekers: Second Nature, but I'm not sure when those chapters take place in relation to the end of the novel. As I type this I realize that if we moved Space Seed to 6 months before this new locked in destruction date, that would make Kirk calling it 15 years ago a bit less of a problem, helping in solving one the big issues with post-TOS chronology. It also seems to me more likely that Khan calling his time stranded on a barren planet 15 years is more likely to be exact. He would know exactly how long he spent there and be using the real number of years. So if all the time periods Khan speaks of are simply Ceti Alpha V years and the time between the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI and TWOK is 14.5 "years" instead of what we have figured out to be a bit longer than 16 years, then the "six months" would actually be a bit more as well. At any rate, after all this rambling, it seems there is no way to reconcile the 2267 To Reign in Hell date with the Vanguard date being six months later. I suppose ignoring the six months claim and chalking it up to not understanding the Ceti Alpha V year, either before or after it's orbital shift, is an option. Moving Space Seed as late in 2267 as possible and making the destruction take place about a year later seems like a good compromise. And Dec '67 instead of Jan '67 helps gloss over the TWOK '15 years' controversy a bit easier than it otherwise would be. ETA: Moving Space Seed forward also eliminates the famous Khan recognizing Chekov problem. Unless there is some Litverse story which explains Chekov meeting Khan and specifically places it before Chekov became a bridge officer, then everything falls apart.
The reference to Ceti Alpha VI in Storming Heaven is to Xiong's experiments with the earlier Mirdonyae artifacts. Those experiments happened during Precipice, which took place over the course of 2267. That lines up relatively well with "Space Seed." For what it's worth, my chronology puts the chapters in To Reign in Hell showing Ceti Alpha VI's destruction in September '67, sometime during Ch. 37-52 of Precipice. I'm not sure that lines up perfectly, though. Ex Machina alludes to the explanation from DC's Who's Who in Star Trek that Chekov worked in engineering during "Space Seed" and led the defense of the engine room against Khan's people, which was why Khan remembered him. To Reign in Hell referenced my reference in turn. But we don't need to move "Space Seed" forward, because it would've happened during Precipice, not Storming Heaven.
Ah I see. That makes everything alot easier. We are still left with figuring out when those chapters of To Reign in Hell occur in relation to the storyline of Vanguard. If anyone knows how that works it would be interesting. Also it seems To Reign in Hell places the destruction in 2268, or at the very least, the very last weeks of 2267.
Does anyone here happens to have a list of TOS episodes mentioned in VAN: Precipice and in which chapter the reference occured? So far I've only got the "Journey to Babel" and "The Trouble with Tribbles" reference. Are there any more?
I think @Idran is the man to talk to. Though I think we've all come to the conclusion that the latter at the end of Precipice that references those two episodes you mentioned isn't worth taking into account. It's not consistant with the older novels it references, nor is it consistant with future books (even by the same author) as regards the timing of those episodes.
Specifically Precipice? @ryan123450 is right overall that the letter clashes with a lot of its references, but M'Benga's letter also referenced Spock getting shot in "A Private Little War". I think that's it. Outside episodes, the older novels Ryan mentioned were the Jean Lorrah novel duology The Vulcan Academy Murders and IDIC Epidemic, but as indicated it did so in a way that doesn't work with those books and "Journey to Babel" (they strongly involve Sarek but the letter places them before "Journey to Babel"), so it's got to be handwaved fairly strongly if you want to use that at all.
Thanks Idran, unfortunatly none of these help me with me current problem placing Precipice, chapter-by-chapter. I was hoping for some "last week Kirk fought alien of the week XY" lines. Oh well, I'll just put it in the "place later!" category. Well, thanks anyway
Placing against TOS episodes you mean? Yeah, I haven't gone that far either; granted, I haven't actually started trying to place TOS episodes to dates yet at all except where it's "easy" to do so. For now I just have them approximately evenly spaced out accounting for estimated episode duration. (Most of my event dating recently has been 2370s, since there's more to work with there. )
Well if/ when either of you ever make any headway and it provides anything relevant to this thread, please share! I'm very slowly making headway on the 2360s myself. If I could get over this bug I've had for weeks it would help.
Well, in my timeline there are no TOS episodes in January and Febuary of 2267 so the Vanguard placement in that months was fairly easy. That's where the easy part stops. Maybe if pretty much every continuity reference from The IDIC Epidemic and The Vulcan Academy Murders is ignored in favor of the Crazy Letter from Precipice and those two boojs could be placed somewhere in mid 2267, at least we had a vague idea of when the surrounding Vanguard chapters are set. Anyways, if I find something relevant I'll post it here. Edit: Christopher, chapter 3 section 2 of Forgotten History, set shortly after "All Our Yesterdays", which is stardate 5943.7, the stardate is 5344.7. Can I presume that that's an editing error and you meant 5944.7 or is there any chance that the lower stardate was on purpose?
There is no rhyme or reason to TOS/TAS stardates. There's a very rough upward trend, but they rise and fall a lot along the way and it's a fool's errand to treat them as any kind of meaningful numbering system. Roddenberry himself handwaved that they had different values on different ships and planets due to relativity. I guess my main goal in that scene was to suggest a date prior to the subsequent "Yesteryear" segment, which was 5373.4. Since the numbers don't actually mean anything, all that matters is the impression they give, and it makes sense for the stardates mentioned within a given story to trend upward, regardless of how they relate to different stories.
I know, I just wandered if it was an editing mistake, as the other sections stardates reflect the placement around a certain episode, while this one didn't. Okay that makes sense. Fun Fact: My original "solution" for TAS was that it was set during the same time frame as TOS and that Chekov was just off-duty during these particular installments.
I would actually perfer that interpretation, though it seems most people (and authors) have locked us into the post-TOS idea.
Yeah, it would have avoided the "all the main characters are were the action is" cliché a bit. Also there is just a very small number of novels that would fit into the TAS timeframe, due to Chekov's absence.
Jinn how did you arrive at the idea of not having any episodes in those months (and I'm guessing in others along the way)? One thought that occurred to me was perhaps you took into account certain episodes or novels which begin with "We've spent the last six weeks charting such and such", something I haven't yet thought to take into account.
I feel TAS needs to be post-TOS, because it's not the exact same ship. In TAS, the bridge has a secondary exit just left of the main viewscreen, and main engineering is arranged significantly differently, with the main monitoring station moved back to be alongside the rear grille and with a clear vertical tube thingy in the middle of the room. So there seems to have been a minor refit between season 3 and TAS. Plus there's the very subtle detail of Kirk's hairstyle being different. I used to think it was just a simplified/stylized rendering of his TOS hairstyle, but I recently saw something Shatner appeared in around 1973 and he had the same hair/toupee style that Kirk had in TAS. So I guess they based their character model on Shatner's current look.
That only works if you order the episodes by stardate order, which as Christopher pointed out multiple times isn't exactly the most logical or intelligent or really anything good thing to do, you have "Tomorrow is Yesterday" being the immediate predecessor to "Space Seed". By chapter 1; section 1 of Forgotten History we know that "Tomorrow is Yesterday" is in December 2266. "Space Seed" happened 6 months before the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI. According to the Voyages of Imagination timeline one Ceti Alpha V year equals 1.2 Earth years, so six Ceti Alpha V months should roughly translate to 7.2 Earth months, of course under the presumption that Khan was refering to Ceti months. I don't actually recall him saying that, though I haven't watched TWoK in quite some time. Now we need to determine when exactly the destruction of CAVI takes place. Thanks to Google Books I know now that it's in chapter 13 of To Rule in Hell. Now the following is a little hard to explain: As there are quite a lot of TOS novels that have absolutely no reference to when they take place, Voyages is the only source I have for these, but as I have a different order for the episodes I can't really just copy the placement. So made a list of episodes that are in the same order, in both stardate and air date. Spoiler: long list 1x01 1x02 1x05 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 1x23 1x26 1x27 2x02 2x03 2x07 2x09 2x10 2x14 2x16 2x19 2x20 2x21 2x22 3x03 3x04 3x05 3x06 3x07 3x09 3x13 3x14 3x16 3x18 3x19 3x20 3x21 3x22 3x23 So I check between which order of events both air and stardate agree on and place the novel between those. In the case of chapter 13 of Khan 3, Voyages has it between "Journey to Babel" (2x15) and "A Private Little War" (2x16). As "Journey of Babel" is not on the list I place chapter 13 between "A Private Little War" and the episode preceeding it on my list, "Bread and Circuses". Unfortunatly I have already place two novels and another episode in that gap, so I can't pinpoint an exact date, but due to other placements, I know that it takes place in either November or December, though November is more likely. 7.2 months before November would be April, but due to the possibility of Khan rounding up and other episodes after Space Seed being in March, it was March or nothing. That leaves my timeline with a gap between "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and "Space Seed" which I have in Decemver and March, respectively. And yes I know there is little logic to all of this. I have to admit, I was always very bad at spotting such differences and I never got TOS ranks, so these things never bothered me