Personally, if we start a new calender, I'm inclined to mark it from the start of Gandhi's nonviolent independence movement, or the date of the legalization of trade unions and strikes, or the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, or from the date of the "I Have A Dream" Speech, or the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the publication of
Nunca Más, or.... Something that marks a level of
social advancement rather than mere technological advancement.
(Probably the UDHR would be the best, since it's the most globally inclusive event.)
* * *
... do hereby proclaim Stardate 57613 as Federation Day. I urge all Federates to celebrate the anniversary of the establishment of the United Federation of Planets
With a stardate system and hundreds of planets revolving around various stars, how exactly do you "celebrate the anniversary" of a date?
Well, we already know that a stardate year seems to correspond to the same length of time as an Earth year, just divided up in units of one thousand instead of months and weeks and days -- stardate year 50xxx corresponded with Gregorian year 2373 (DS9 Season 5, VOY season 3,
Star Trek: First Contact). Whether or not the start and end of a stardate year matches up with the start and end of a Gregorian or other Earth calender year is unknown, but it seems pretty clear that stardate years equate to Earth years.
Interesting side-note: As we can see
here from today's Presidential proclamation on Mother's Day, the U.S. actually uses (at least sometimes) a system where the Gregorian year is listed alongside the year since the independence of the U.S. So this year is both 2011 and 235, and we have a proclamation that ends like this:
Barack Obama said:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 8, 2011, as Mother's Day. I urge all Americans to express their love, respect, and gratitude to mothers everywhere, and I call upon all citizens to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fifth.
BARACK OBAMA
Which opens up the question: Does the Federation use a calender year that starts from 2161? Does United Earth use a calender system that starts from 2130, the year United Earth came into existence according to
Articles of the Federation?
We might, for instance, see a Federation Day (12 August) Presidential Proclamation in Gregorian year 2380 that reads:
Nanietta Bacco said:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, NANIETTA BACCO, President of the United Federation of Planets, do hereby proclaim Stardate 57613 as Federation Day. I urge all Federates to celebrate the anniversary of the establishment of the United Federation of Planets, and I call upon all citizens to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this two hundred twenty-fourth day of Stardate Year 57000, and of the Establishment of the United Federation of Planets the two hundred nineteenth.
NANIETTA BACCO
Although the first part is interesting. The second part not so, like Starfleet isn't the US Navy (or anyother navel force) in space,
Actually, the writers have always said that Starfleet is based in part upon the United States Navy.
the UFP or a United Earth shouldn't be the US Federal Government (Or any other governing body except maybe the UN) in space.
Well, it cannot and should not be the U.N. in space, because the U.N. is not a governing body or government or state of any sort. It is an intergovernmental organization whose function it is to provide a platform for the peaceful resolution of conflicts, launching of joint ventures, and the negotiation and establishment of international law between sovereign states; it has no sovereignty in its own right the way the Federation does.
And the Federation
is heavily influenced by how the American and British governmental systems work (or, rather, by how they're
supposed to work in theory). The Federation government seen in
Articles of the Federation is essentially a combination U.S./Westminster system. The Seventh Guarantee of the Federation Constitution from "The Drumhead" is clearly based upon the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The elected Federation President is established as the commander-in-chief in DS9's "Paradise Lost." Etc.
Now, that doesn't mean that the Federation is literally America in space. Obviously it's a great deal more culturally diverse than the United States, and less centralized. A Federation of that many worlds would inherently incorporate legal concepts and traditions from more than just one planet. But that doesn't mean that one potentially useful example -- a sovereign state which uses a calender system dating back to its own creation within recent history -- should be ignored for how the Federation might function. It may well be very useful for the Federation to use, alongside indigenous calenders, an official Federation calender that counts up from the year of the Federation's establishment.
