A Lit-verse based TOS chronology

[Leto_II]

^ Yeah, that's exactly where I place it, as well (February, 2268) -- going by the cues in the novel, it seems that "Obsession" was the Enterprise's most recent mission as of the opening of the story, and it's pretty clear that Purgatory's Key will continue immediately on from the ending of Book 2, probably with no interruption.

(And the Legacies novels are now connectable to the larger modern TOS-litverse as well, thanks to the references to Ganz and the Omari-Ekon in this book.)

 

[ryan123450]

Cool thanks for letting me know. I'm hoping to get to reading (or listening) to these soon but haven't had the chance yet.

I miss this project. I had a really good time working on it with all of you! Someday I'll get around to delving into the the 24th century era in depth like this again.

 

[Markonian]

Thanks for keeping it going, Ryan!

 

[Idran]

This was an amazing project, yeah, and I'd love to jump into a 24th century one at some point.

On the question of Legacy, there are a few date references across book 1 and 2 beyond just the Historian's Notes, lemme sum them up here just for the sake of completeness. Here I'm going to try and ignore any work we did before to date things and just go by Litverse references.

• Book 1's present-day events are in 2267
• Book 1's present-day events happen "several months" after Journey to Babel
  • November 2267 by Vanguard
• Book 2 happens 6 weeks after Book 1
• Book 2 happens one week after Obsession
  • January/early February 2268-ish based on Vanguard's placement of nearby episodes
• Book 2 happens "less than nine months" after the Organians ended the Federation/Klingon conflict (Chapter 2)
  • March 23 2268 by Vanguard
• Book 2 happens "a few months" after The Trouble with Tribbles (Chapter 12)
  • I don't have any specific Litverse date reference for this, but it was two episodes before Journey to Babel, so it's likely October-November-ish.
• Balance of Terror was "last year" from Book 2 (Chapter 21)
  • Around April-ish 2266 based on Vanguard

So we've got a few conflicting things if we want to fit things together. The "Errand of Mercy" and "Trouble with Tribbles" references put Book 2 around early-December 2267, so Book 1 would be late October (which also fits the "Balance of Terror" reference). But the "Obsession" connection puts Book 2 in late January/early February 2268 like you said already. I think I like your positioning of those going purely off Obsession, and it's probably where I'm going to go too, but it does mean fudging all the other episode references as well to do that. Not that there's any issue with doing that, but just to call it out.

 

[ryan123450]

A 24th century project would probably be alot less "controversial." Alot more known dates, especially when you factor in the later years of the novels. Come to think of it, there probably would be some factors that could be open to discussion and interpretation in the 2364-2386 period. But I'm guessing it wouldn't even amount to as many as in the 2265-2270 range alone.

Thanks @Idran for those added dates. That is kind of a mess. I'm not sure why but I never really noticed before that alot of these specific dates that we've established in this project are from several authors (especially David Mack and Dayton Ward) simply going by original airdate plus 300 years. As a general rule I wouldn't accept that idea for the whole series since it would leave big gaps in each summer where we have no episodic adventures. But for the few episodes which have been specifically dated as such, it gives some good anchor points to shape everything else around.

Some of the points in question here seem to operate under the assumption that Book 2 is set in mid/late December 2267. The Errand of Mercy date (which is from original airdate) lines up with that. Having Obession a week earlier would line up with it's airdate. Curiously airdate doesn't match Mack's statement about Trouble With Tribbles being " a few months" before. Nor does it match with the previous book's setting of "several months" after Journey to Babel. That's even more confusing because the original airdate plus 300 years setting of that episode was already established in Pecipice which is also by David Mack!

Now come to think of it, I remember that both that date, and the date I have for Trouble With Tribbles (which matches it's original airdate plus 300 years) originated in that very problematic letter at the end of Precipice. I think we all ended up tossing most of the info derived from that letter, but I kept those two points since they didn't conflict with anything. Perhaps @David Mack actually purposefully made reference in this book to different dates for those two episodes than he did before as a way of officially repudiating the chronology of that letter, since many of us pointed out the holes in it.

The "less than 9 months" date seems to be the most specific, so I'm going to go with that as a "locked in" point of reference and place Book 2 in mid-late Dec 67. That lines up with 2266 being "last year". If I ignore all the information derived from that letter in Vanguard: Precipice, I can place TTWT and Journey to Babel according to these new dates. Now to just decide what "a few months" and "several months" will mean, specifically. And then I have some serious rearranging to do because I just lost two of my "locked in" dates that I've molded the rest of that area of my timeline around.

When I get a chance this weekend to figure out the exact results of this new info, I'll post what I come up with. Yippee! Timeline fun!

 

[Idran]

While I was doing some 24th century stuff in my timeline, I was actually reminded that we do have one other source for "Trouble with Tribbles" that I'd completely forgotten about; we know that "Trials and Tribble-ations" was "105 years, 1 month, 12 days" after the first day of that episode, and on a Friday. By Watching the Clock, this was "a few days" before June 20, 2373.

Unfortunately, that suggests that "Trials and Tribble-ations" was on June 13, 2373 and "Trouble with Tribbles" was on May 1, 2268. Which is pretty well incompatible with everything.

(In my own timeline I "fixed" this by tweaking the "1 month" to "8 months", giving me June 16, 2373 for "Trials" and October 4, 2267 for "Trouble". )

 

[Christopher]

^That's why I hate it when they give exact dates for the intervals between any two things in Trek. It almost never works out right. Like, DS9: "Second Skin" is supposed to be the fourth anniversary of the Battle of Wolf 359, but its placement in the season was way, way off from when that should be.

 

[Idran]

Yeah, same. Sometimes you get lucky, but not often. (Though honestly, I just straight-up moved "Second Skin" in my timeline; with everything from "Jem'Hadar", now we've got a good reason why Sisko would forget the anniversary of something as big as Wolf 359, after all. And it's not like that episode tied into anything relevant where it had to go where it did based on references elsewhere. Not like "Data's Day".

Sigh, "Data's Day".)

 

[lawman]

Thanks @Idran for those added dates. That is kind of a mess. I'm not sure why but I never really noticed before that alot of these specific dates that we've established in this project are from several authors (especially David Mack and Dayton Ward) simply going by original airdate plus 300 years. As a general rule I wouldn't accept that idea for the whole series since it would leave big gaps in each summer where we have no episodic adventures....

Among other problems! I've never cared for that approach, as the exceptions quickly come to overwhelm the rule.

While I was doing some 24th century stuff in my timeline, I was actually reminded that we do have one other source for "Trouble with Tribbles" that I'd completely forgotten about; we know that "Trials and Tribble-ations" was "105 years, 1 month, 12 days" after the first day of that episode, and on a Friday. ...
(In my own timeline I "fixed" this by tweaking the "1 month" to "8 months", giving me June 16, 2373 for "Trials" and October 4, 2267 for "Trouble". )

But there's nothing about "Trials" that compels a specific placement in the sequence of DS9 episodes. The story is isolated from preceding and following episodes, it doesn't even have a star date, and (fortunately!) it precedes the uniform change a few episodes later in "Rapture." Rather than distorting a canonical time reference, why not just move "Trials" wherever necessary on the timeline to correspond to the timespan since an otherwise logical placement of "Trouble with Tribbles"?

After all...

...honestly, I just straight-up moved "Second Skin" in my timeline; with everything from "Jem'Hadar", now we've got a good reason why Sisko would forget the anniversary of something as big as Wolf 359, after all. And it's not like that episode tied into anything relevant...

...you're not averse to doing it for other episodes! :-)

Not like "Data's Day".
Sigh, "Data's Day".)

Heh! Indeed. That episode is the main reason (though by no means the only one) I reject the assumption that 1000 stardate units consistently equal one Jan-Dec calendar year, as Christopher discussed upthread...

 

[Idran]

But there's nothing about "Trials" that compels a specific placement in the sequence of DS9 episodes. The story is isolated from preceding and following episodes, it doesn't even have a star date, and (fortunately!) it precedes the uniform change a few episodes later in "Rapture." Rather than distorting a canonical time reference, why not just move "Trials" wherever necessary on the timeline to correspond to the timespan since an otherwise logical placement of "Trouble with Tribbles"?

Honestly? Because I like Watching the Clock and Vanguard better than Trials or The Trouble with Tribbles.

(Like I said, the date reference for Trials comes from Watching the Clock, not the position in air order, and the date reference for Trouble comes similarly.)

 

[ryan123450]

I'm finally getting back to this project this afternoon, and I'm wondering @Idran where you got that exact date for Trials and Tribbleations? As far as I can see in the novel itself, there is a scene which takes place at some undefined point after T&T which takes place in the span of stardates 49527 threw 50912. If you're going off of Christopher's annotations, all I see there is that the date for that chapter, June 20, 2373, is "shortly after" T&T. If the episode was only a few days before that, it would sure be far removed out of production order, and that would lead me to wonder where specifically Christopher got that date from. If on the other hand, Dulmer and Luscly are just talking about that mission which occured several months earlier and not several days, then we dont' have a set date for T&T. In that case whatever date we end up with for TTWT will give us a date for T&T, instead of the other way around. That's what I'm going to go with for now until I hear your thoughts.

 

[Idran]

The annotations, yeah. I took that reference and pulled Trials and Tribbleations out of production order according to that reference.

 

[ryan123450]

Well I just notice that the annotations specifically say "shortly after" instead of "a few days" after, like you quoted above. Assuming this chapter was months after the episode gives you alot more leeway. Although now that I look at it that way, things still don't line up. Leaving TTWT where it "should" be in episode order would end up placing T&T in late 2372 instead of early 2373. I suppose that's ok but this isn't the magic bullet I thought it might end up being.

As far as the Legacies books go, I think I've finally decided, especially after seeing the historians' note in Book 3, that the less than 9 months after Errand of Mercy data point is the main one I'm going to go with. That places Book 2 in the final weeks of December 2267, which given that Book 1 is 6 weeks before that places it in the first weeks of November 2267. The historians' note of Book 3 puts it "early in the year 2268, several months after Journey to Babel." So I would call that the first week of January 2268.

My solution to the Journey to Babel part will be to ignore the Book 1 claim of being "several months" afterwards and instead go with "several weeks." This makes the 6 weeks to a month later setting of Book 3 fit better with still being set "several months" after JTB. Obsession being a week before Book 2 will just lead me to move it out of production order if necessary and put it in mid-December 2267. And since I'm totally ignoring everything from that crazy letter in Precipice now, I can just leave TTWT in it's normal production order, which should give it a setting of "a few months" before Book 2.

When you look at it that way, changing Journey to Babel from "several months" before Book 1 to just "several weeks" makes alot of sense. If those episodes where simply in their production order, it makes little sense for an earlier episode to be called "a few months" ago versus a more recent episode being called "several months" ago. "Several months" to me implies a longer period of time than "a few". And it seems clunky for the same event to be called "several months ago" in both November and January. Making the phrase in the historians' note of Book 1 read "a few" months fixes everything.

I'm going to make all these changes to my timeline tomorrow and give a quick update to what I end up with. Deleting The Trouble With Tribbles as one of my main fixed dates is going to cause alot of shifting around, since I keep all the undated stories in my timeline evenly spaced between several specifically dated stories.

 

[ryan123450]

And now that I set down to rearrange things I realize that everything I said in the post above would result in having Book 1 set in early November, which couldn't possibly be even "a few weeks" after the definite date of Journey to Babel which is only a few days from the end of November. It seems there are just so many reasons to push J2B earlier in the timeline. The date of Sarek's birth given in Uncertain Logic combined with Sarek's exact age in J2B is what gives that very late November date. But his birthdate already causes problems canonically with the episode Sarek, set in very late 2366, in which he is already 202. I suppose I could rationalize that, as I've considered before, by assuming that 24th century Vulcans reckon their age from the time of their conception, which would give enough padding for the 202 age to be correct, but tere just seems to be no way to accept Sarek's exact age form J2B. I'm tossing it an rethinking this all over again.

 

[ryan123450]

Sorry to post three times in a row.

I decided that if I just tweaked Sarek's stated age in Journey to Babel that I could at least still get a concrete date. So in my head I ended up adding a decimal place and calling him 102.0437 years old. That puts alot of things in a better place. Now J2B takes place out of production order in very early August 2267. That is "several months" before both Books 1 and 3 of Legacies, and since it was moved to before The Trouble With Tribbles it now makes more sense that Book 2 is only "a few" months before that earlier produced episode. Giving a much bigger gap between Journey to Babel and A Private Little War now gives more breathing room for The Vulcan Academy Murders and The IDIC Epidemic to take place during.

Here's the section in question, as it will now appear on the Litverse Reading Guide's timeline.

August 2267

• 2x15- Journey to Babel (Sarek is 102.0437 years old)
• 2x11- The Deadly Years (August according to The First Peer and Precipice)
• Romulans: The Hollow Crown, Issue One
• The Vulcan Academy Murders (Amok Time being almost two years ago now almost works if you change it to two months ago)

September 2267

• The IDIC Epidemic
• 2x12- I, Mudd
• The Shocks of Adversity (17 months after Balance of Terror)

October 2267

• 2x13- The Trouble With Tribbles (A few months before Legacies: Best Defense)
• A Bad Day For Koloth
• 2x14- Bread and Circuses
• Mission to Horatius
• Twilight's End

November 2267

• Legacies: Captain to Captain (2267, several months after Journey to Babel. Six weeks before Best Defense)
• First Do No Harm
• 2x16- A Private Little War

December 2267

• 2x17- The Gamesters of Triskelion
• 2x18- Obsession (now one of my fixed dates. One week before Best Defense, which is locked in as the last mission of 2267.)
• Legacies: Best Defense (Almost 9 months after Errand of Mercy {March 23})
• Vanguard: Precipice (ends here)

January 2268

• Legacies: Purgatory's Key (Picks up where Best Defense left off, but is now in very early 2268)
• Vanguard: The Ruins of Noble Men
• 2x19- The Immunity Syndrome
• New Visions: Strange New Worlds (placed by stardate)

And just as an added note since I've kind of always kept this thread as an account of what I've changed on this timeline, I've started working on adding in the New Visions comics that connect to the other Byrne comics. And I've redone the period between TOS and TAS a bit since I somehow got off in my reckoning of that era at some point.

 

[Jinn]

August 2267

• 2x11- The Deadly Years (August according to The First Peer and Precipice)

From where in Precipice is the August date for TOS: "The Deadly Years"?

Also: You can now post again without getting banned for er.. quadruple post, I guess?

 

[ryan123450]

I remember we talked about it way upthread. The book didn't come right out and say August, but thats what I seem to remember us piecing together from details in those two stories. @Idran may recall exactly why.

 

[Jinn]

I remember we talked about it way upthread. The book didn't come right out and say August, but thats what I seem to remember us piecing together from details in those two stories. @Idran may recall exactly why.

Thanks, I shall therefor travel upthread and find the posts alluding to the August placement. *Embarks on an epic adventure*

 

[Jinn]

*returns*
I found it!

There is another datapoint that backs up both the September placement of its start and the August placement of "The Deadly Years", though, which is nice; chapter 3 makes reference to D'Tran's first meeting with Lujok from "Precipice" having just recently happened, which just happens to have occurred on September 12th 2267.

Thanks ryan and Idran!

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I was thinking about this this morning - does anyone remember which Vanguard novel that mentioned that the experiments with the Shendai (sp) technology were causing planets to explode?
Because I believe that is a reference to the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI in The Wrath of Khan.
I figure if we knew what novel/chapter that was and where it was placed in the chronology we could work backwards approximately six months and find out when Space Seed occurred.