Ryan
I haven’t read ‘The Pandora Principle’ or ‘Dwellers in the Crucible’ so I don’t know where they would be placed in the timeline in regards to ‘New Earth’.
However I do have a possible solution – ‘Gateways: Challenger’ and ‘Gateways: Chainmail’ both take place a month after ‘New Earth: Challenger’ which I have in June 2281 and don’t feature the Enterprise so they can be ignored.
Memory Beta and VOTI place both ‘The Pandora Principle’ and ‘Dwellers in the Crucible’ in 2281 as per the Okuda’s chronology’s having Saavik entering Starfleet in 2281. If ‘The Pandora Principle’ is set at the beginning of the semester then it is c. September 2281. (The August 10, 2218 (2281) FASA date is just a placeholder on my part, you can choose to ignore it.) If ‘Dwellers in the Crucible’ is set sometime during Saavik’s first year at the Academy then it could be conceivably be placed at any point between say c. Sept. 2281 and c. June 2282 if it’s a standard school year; unless there is a specific date saying that it is ‘X’ number of days/weeks since the previous book. I would place it in early 2282 seeing as there are no other stories in that year except for ‘Just Another Little Training Cruise’.
If, in ‘Wagon Train to the Stars’ the characters are approximating 9 months there, 6 months back, then with a little fudging, you could have the Enterprise leaving Belle Terre in June 2281 just after ‘Challenger’ and, with a little of Scotty’s engineering magic, have the Enterprise arrive in 3-4 months just in time for the start of the Academy school year.
Hope that helps.
2279
OCTOBER – 2279
October 31, 2279
New Earth: Wagon Train To The Stars – Chapter 10 – The Captain’s Meeting
NOVEMBER – 2279
Stardate: 7969.2
Mere Anarchy: The Darkness Drops Again – Part 2: Chapters 9-13
DECEMBER – 2279
December 1, 2279
Launch of the Belle Terre expedition taking into account ‘Mere Anarchy’.
C. JANUARY? – 2280
New Earth: Wagon Train To The Stars – Chapter 5 – Note: 3 months earlier. I’ve given this one some thought. The flashback is supposed to be set shortly after ‘The Captain’s Meeting’, or during the launch of the Belle Terre mission according to the dialogue; yet the caption says, ‘Three months earlier’, which would place it one month into the expedition. Somewhere I think captions got swapped and this chapter is supposed to be 4 ½ months earlier and Chapters 1-4, 6-9, 11 are supposed to be three months later. It could be an editorial mistake or just sloppy writing.
C. MID–MARCH – 2280
New Earth: Wagon Train To The Stars – Chapters 1-4, 6-9, 11 – Note: 4½ months since the expedition launched.
APRIL – 2280
April 11, 2280
New Earth: Wagon Train To The Stars – Chapter 12 – Note: 5 months, 11 days, 16 hours since the expedition launched if the expedition launched on December 1, 2279.
April 27, 2280
New Earth: Wagon Train To The Stars – Chapters 13-18 – Note: 16 days later.
C. MAY/JUNE – 2280
New Earth: Wagon Train To The Stars – Chapter 19 – Note: ‘Weeks’ later.
C. MID–JULY – 2280
New Earth: Wagon Train To The Stars – Chapters 20-25 – Note: The next day. According to VOTI the Belle Terre expedition arrives at its destination in ‘July’. This assumes that the expedition launched on November 1, 2270 immediately after ‘The Captain’s Meeting’ in Chapter 10, and arrived July 1, 2280. However, since the start of the expedition has been moved up to December to accommodate ‘Mere Anarchy’, the earliest they can arrive is mid to-late July, which still fits the ‘July’ placement in VOTI.
C. LATE JULY/LATE–AUGUST – 2280
New Earth: Belle Terre – Note: Spans 12 days. Various characters say they arrived ‘2-4 weeks’ ago. I take that to mean the expedition arrived in orbit 4 weeks ago, spent two weeks scanning the planet for a suitable landing site and two weeks setting up the colony.
C. MID-LATE OCTOBER – 2280
New Earth: Rough Trails – Chapters 1-17 – Note: Again various characters say it’s been 6 weeks/2 months after 'Belle Terre' and runs approximately 4-5 days. It concludes 2-3 months later when Chekov’s transport is due to arrive.
C. DECEMBER – 2280
New Earth: Rough Trails – Chapter 18 – Note: 6 weeks later. VOTI places these events in 'December'; Chekov’s transport is due to arrive in a few days to take him to the Reliant.
2281
C. JANUARY – 2281
The starship Peleliu sets out for Belle Terre. Note: I’ve decided that the ‘six months’ reference must be when they set out towards Belle Terre.
C. MARCH – 2281
New Earth: The Flaming Arrow – Note: In Chapter 1 Kirk thinks to himself that Chekov has been gone 3 months and that they’ve been defending the colony for ‘nearly a year’. If Chekov left 3 months ago it’s sometime in March. If it’s ‘nearly a year’, then it’s closer to June. One possible explanation is that Kirk is rounding up and it’s closer to 9-10 months, so that fits a March date.
New Earth: Challenger – Chapters 1, 3, 5, 7-8, 10. Note: I take it to mean they’re three months into their journey and that these chapters span from this point forward to their arrival at Belle Terre in Chapter 12.
C. JUNE – 2281
New Earth: Thin Air – Note: At one point Spock says it’s been ‘3 months, 6 days’ since the events of ‘The Flaming Arrow’.
Stardates: 4662.1-6877.1
New Earth: Challenger – Note: Without any other reference points I’m setting Chapters 2, 4, 6, 9, 11-12 shortly after ‘Thin Air’.
Chapters 12-24, Epilogue – The Peleliu arrives and the chapters sync up for the rest of the story. Chapter 15 is set two days after Chapters 12-14 and Chapter 20 is set 16+ days after Chapters 15-19 during which time the Peleliu is rebuilt and renamed ‘Challenger’.
C. JULY – 2281
Gateways: Challenger and Gateways: Chainmail are set one month after the end of New Earth: Challenger.
C. SEPTEMBER – 2281
The Enterprise returns from the ‘Belle Terre’ expedition.
The Pandora Principle
C. 2282?
Dwellers in the Crucible
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