Chronologies and Timelines

[F. King Daniel]

I’ve wondered about this for years. Then I realised some of you might know the answer…

In the late 80’s the ‘Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology’ was released. It put dates to Trek events and filled in loads of blanks in Star Trek’s future history (I don’t actually have the book, but I’ve seen several online timelines based on it. Apologies if I get anything wrong). It’s emphasis was on the stuff that happened between now and Star Trek TOS.
Its dating scheme was used in several novels including ‘Final Frontier’ as well as stuff full of pretty diagrams like ‘Mr. Scott’s Guide to the Enterprise’ and RPG gaming stuff.

In the 90’s the ‘Star Trek Chronology’ was released. Rather than an updated version of SFC, it used a different dating scheme (SFC set TOS at the start of the 23rd century. STC set each episode exactly 300 years after their original airdate, thus bumping things up by about 60 years). Star Trek Chronology didn’t feature as much ‘made up’ (I hate using terms like that for a TV show! It’s ALL made up!!) stuff as SFC did, but it did arbitrarily pick dates for certain events, such as when the Federation was formed, the Romulan War and how long it lasted, birthdates of the main characters and when they went to space academy.
Intended as a guideline for Star Trek writers, the Chronology has since been taken far too seriously by Trek fans everywhere (does it matter if events are bumped around a bit for the sake of a good story?). Used by every Trek writer since release.

The latest ‘official’ timeline is in ‘Voyages of Imagination’. It’s an updated version of the Star Trek Chronology with the novels slotted in around the episodes, and a million footnotes explaining that nothing quite fits together properly.

Hundreds of online versions and variations of these timelines exist to ensure no one forgets things that never really happened.

My question is: Why was the chronology completely rewritten in the 90’s? Why not just update Spaceflight Chronology and remove anything that has since been contradicted? It seems strange that two licensed chronologies would appear less than a decade apart with such different interpretations of Star Trek’s future history.

 

[Paris]

Probably because everything changed when Data said that the first season of TNG took place in 2364. From this we could extrapolate when McCoy was born (137 in Farpoint) and when the original series took place. But that's just an educated guess

 

[F. King Daniel]

But then why didn't they just go with whatever date SFC gave McCoy's birth and work forward from there to come up with the TNG date? It seems a waste to release a book just to 'invalidate' it a few years later.

 

[Timo]

One might argue that the SFC ideas on when TOS took place were always a bit suspect, and were dumped already when making ST:TMP. After all, that first movie already states that the Voyager VI space probe was "over 300 years old" when Kirk and pals met it. That's a good match for the simple and elegant idea that that TOS took place exactly 300 years after it aired, and that TMP took place exactly 300 years after it premiered, too.

Of course, later developments have made us rather believe that TMP was in the early rather than late 2270s, so the simplicity and elegance is gone. But the Okuda take on it is still consistent with the general idea, and appears to be what the makers of Trek were thinking during the first movie already.

But then why didn't they just go with whatever date SFC gave McCoy's birth and work forward from there to come up with the TNG date? It seems a waste to release a book just to 'invalidate' it a few years later.

Apparently because they thought the "300 years in the future" idea was cool and consistent, while the "just 250 years or less in the future" idea from SFC was neither cool nor particularly consistent with what they intended to do with Star Trek. I can certainly see the appeal of "moving Trek forward" when real life is in danger of catching up with it, although I believe it's a futile exercise in the end...

Of course, Roddenberry and pals also had every incentive to discredit the old books, which were bringing money to all the wrong people, and to promote a new set of books tailored to feed the right people.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Paris]

But then why didn't they just go with whatever date SFC gave McCoy's birth and work forward from there to come up with the TNG date? It seems a waste to release a book just to 'invalidate' it a few years later.

No one ever said that the writers on TNG actually used the SFC or cared what it said. Was the SFC released by Paramount? It's possible that the PTB on TNG either knew nothing about the SFC or they decided to follow there own series bible instead. There could be lots of reasons. This could be as simple as the left hand (TNG writers) not knowing what the right hand (SFC publishers) was doing...

 

[Paris]

...Of course, Roddenberry and pals also had every incentive to discredit the old books, which were bringing money to all the wrong people, and to promote a new set of books tailored to feed the right people.

Timo Saloniemi

Unfortunately, from what i've read in William Shatner's bio, and in Bob Justman/Herb Solow's Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, this sounds like something Mr. Roddenberry would do.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I remember reading that Gene had a falling out with Franz Joseph, and told the TNG people to contradict the old Tech Manual with their new TNG one. Maybe this is something similar?

 

[Paris]

Most likely. From what i've read, Roddenberry didn't always play nice with those who pissed him off.

 

[Christopher]

Intended as a guideline for Star Trek writers, the Chronology has since been taken far too seriously by Trek fans everywhere (does it matter if events are bumped around a bit for the sake of a good story?). Used by every Trek writer since release.

Since the Okudas' Chronology was written by staffers of the actual TV shows, it has long been the policy of Paramount Licensing (now CBS Consumer Products) that tie-in material is expected to conform to the Chronology's assertions unless they are contradicted by later canonical information.

My question is: Why was the chronology completely rewritten in the 90’s? Why not just update Spaceflight Chronology and remove anything that has since been contradicted? It seems strange that two licensed chronologies would appear less than a decade apart with such different interpretations of Star Trek’s future history.

The SFC was a work of conjecture by people not directly involved with any ST production. It was never the "official timeline" of the Trek universe -- just something that some folks who liked ST put together and sold to Pocket Books.

The makers of TOS consciously avoided establishing when the series took place. There were a couple of vague references to it being two centuries or so in the future, but other references contradicted that, such as Zefram Cochrane having disappeared 150 years before at the age of 85 (meaning that warp drive would've probably been invented at least 200 years before) and "The Squire of Gothos" implying that it was 900 years after Napoleon and Alexander Hamilton had lived and died, i.e. the early 28th century.

The authors of the Spaceflight Chronology took the "200 years" references from "Space Seed" and "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and the "23rd century" reference from The Wrath of Khan and tried to reconcile them by putting TOS in the first decade of the 23rd century, which would be slightly more than 200 years after the late 20th century. This required ignoring Decker's TMP reference to Voyager 6 launching "over 300 years ago" and was hard to reconcile with "Metamorphosis"; if that episode took place in 2207, then Cochrane would've been born in 1972 and invented warp drive somewhere in the early 2000s. (I'm not sure what date the SFC gave for the invention of warp drive, but I think it was somewhat later than that.) But it was, in their opinion, the best way to reconcile the bulk of the inconsistent chronological information we had.

But that was just one school of thought. Even back then, there were other fans who chose to believe that TOS took place exactly 300 years ahead of its airdates, in 2266-69. This model was a better fit for "Metamorphosis" and TMP, and the "200 years" references could just be rationalized as approximations or computational errors. Both chronological models existed in fandom, and there was debate over which one worked better, but only one got published in a licensed tie-in book. Tie-ins, however, are not definitive references and are not binding on the producers of new filmed material.

When TNG: "The Neutral Zone" aired, it established the "current" date as 2364, evidently going by the later of the two fan chronologies. Since that reference was canonical, it definitively disproved the SFC's conjectural chronology and required TOS to be in the 2260s or thereabouts. So when the Okuda Chronology was compiled a few years later, it was based on that now-canonical dating scheme.

 

[Jbarney]

My question is: Why was the chronology completely rewritten in the 90’s? Why not just update Spaceflight Chronology and remove anything that has since been contradicted? It seems strange that two licensed chronologies would appear less than a decade apart with such different interpretations of Star Trek’s future history.

Christopher has hit it right on the head. I don't think the writers of the original show were ever intent on establishing exactly when TOS happens in the future. It has pretty much been fan interest which has driven most of the related timeline discussions.

Aside from the freaky looks such interests garner (even from some trek fans) the truth is a good timeline discussion about what fits and what doesn't is usually pretty fun.

What you see in "Voyages of Imagination" is actually something that goes through up grades and changes based on "on-screen" trek and the timeline that Okuda published. It is an incredible work, but there are and always will be holes.

One date that has not been talked about here and probably for me is the one that became the most important as far as "dating" goes was the line from the Voyager episode "Q2" about Kirk returning from the FYM in 2270. Okuda and most fans had guessed the end of the FYM happened sometime in 2269....but that line cleared up an awful lot.

There is always significant debate about just how much can fit into one timeline. Some of us like to believe it all happens in the same universe, others are pretty solid in arguing the specifics and accept different versions of the trek's future.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Why was the chronology completely rewritten in the 90’s? Why not just update Spaceflight Chronology and remove anything that has since been contradicted? It seems strange that two licensed chronologies would appear less than a decade apart with such different interpretations of Star Trek’s future history.

Because the Okudas would have had to be content to halve their royalty with the Goldsteins.

 

[Christopher]

^And more importantly, because the core chronological assumptions of the Goldsteins' book had been rendered non-canonical by "The Neutral Zone" -- and were arguably irreconcilable with TMP and "Metamorphosis." Given what TNG established, it was impossible to update the SFC.

 

[Paris]

I am in the midst of watching Star Trek IV, and in Kirk's first "captain's log" while on Vulcan, he says that the mutiny on the HMS Bounty had happened 500 years earlier. The Mutiny happened in 1789, and the movie takes place 497 years later in 2286. This seems to imply that TPTB had decided that the TOS did take place in the 2260's and the movies (TWOK-TFF) happened in the 2280's. The movie was made in 1986; about 1.5 year's before Data said that TNG's first season was in 2364.

Couple this with the 2283 (?) Romulan Ale that McCoy got for Kirk's b-day in TWOK, and it seems like they knew from the early 1980's when the TOS and the Original Movies took place.

 

[Christopher]

^Approximately, but not definitively. After all, if the producers of TWOK had placed TOS the same place it's assumed to go now, then 15 years after "Space Seed" would've had to be 2282, a year before the vintage of the Romulan ale. And McCoy's line about taking a while to ferment, although it can perhaps be taken ironically, may well have been meant literally to suggest that the film took place some time later (though it couldn't be more than 17 years later given the "In the 23rd century" opening caption of the film).

As for the Bounty reference, "five hundred years" in casual speech could be rounded off of anything from 450 to 549 years. It can't be taken too literally.

So I wouldn't say "they knew," especially since there were at least a couple of different, independent "theys" involved (the producers of the movies and the totally different group of people producing TNG). I'd say, rather, that the makers of the movies had a rough set of assumptions about timing and the makers of TNG ended up making a compatible set of assumptions. And "knew" is kind of a disingenuous word to use for something they were making up as they went.

 

[Paris]

^Of course...not definitively. By that same rational, the "15 years later" comment could mean 12-18 or so years. The casual "500 years", even if it wasn't on purpose, ended up working out just fine...and I guess the term "knew" was the wrong term to use. I thought that the people behind the movies and the people behind the TNG series were at least comparing notes. Were they two completely seperate groups? I know that Mr. Roddenberry was only a consultant on Star Trek II-VI, but didn't he have a big hand in TNG's first season? We're the two groups working independently from each other? It was Bennett/Nimoy/Meyer for the movies and Roddenberry/Berman for TNG, and they didn't really mesh? Is this the case?

 

[Christopher]

I thought that the people behind the movies and the people behind the TNG series were at least comparing notes. Were they two completely seperate groups? I know that Mr. Roddenberry was only a consultant on Star Trek II-VI, but didn't he have a big hand in TNG's first season? We're the two groups working independently from each other? It was Bennett/Nimoy/Meyer for the movies and Roddenberry/Berman for TNG, and they didn't really mesh? Is this the case?

I'm sure the TV producers were trying to follow the movies' lead, but I don't think either group was making a great effort to keep track of chronology or actively comparing notes on the subject. Keep in mind that "The Neutral Zone" was filmed from a first-draft script during the 1988 writers' strike. So the inclusion of the 2364 date probably didn't come about through careful consideration on the part of the writing staff. Personally, I suspect that if the script had been through more drafts, the explicit date reference would've been expunged. After all, Roddenberry and the TOS staff always made a careful effort to avoid pinning down when ST took place. Stardates were used precisely because they were meaningless numbers. Futurism is a risky business; real progress sometimes happens a lot faster than science fiction assumes, and sometimes a lot slower. Roddenberry knew this, so he wanted to avoid getting pinned down to a particular date. So I figure the "Neutral Zone" date reference only got through as kind of an accident, because the strike required them to film the draft script as it was. (Which was why the episode was so generally weak.)

At the time, there were two schools of chronological thought in fandom. One put TOS in 2206-9 (to reconcile TWOK's "23rd century" reference with the "200 years" references in "Space Seed" and "Tomorrow is Yesterday"), which by extension would've put TNG shortly after 2300, and one put TOS in 2266-9 (which works better with "Metamorphosis," TMP, and TWOK), which would've put TNG somewhere around the 2360s. Clearly Maurice Hurley, in writing "The Neutral Zone," decided to go with the latter timeline model. But I doubt profoundly that he called up Harve Bennett or Nicholas Meyer and had a conversation about it. Like the fans, he probably just remembered the chronological hints from the movies and drew his own conclusions based upon them. Or he called up Sternbach and Okuda and asked them what they thought. Obviously Okuda was a proponent of the later model.

 

[Paris]

I'm sure someone has posted them before, but as I don't know where to look, does anyone know the other times that the actual gregorian calendar date was mentioned? I know that Janeway said that it was 2371 during the second season opener "The 37's" (the 37's was filmed for the first season, but didn't show until the next year. It was the last episode of 2371). Are there any others? Enterprise established that it took place from 2151-2155 (2161 with the last episode), as it was before stardates, but was the date ever mentioned in TNG again?...or DS9?...or Voyager?... or the movies?

 

[Mysterion]

I'm sure someone has posted them before, but as I don't know where to look, does anyone know the other times that the actual gregorian calendar date was mentioned? I know that Janeway said that it was 2371 during the second season opener "The 37's" (the 37's was filmed for the first season, but didn't show until the next year. It was the last episode of 2371). Are there any others? Enterprise established that it took place from 2151-2155 (2161 with the last episode), as it was before stardates, but was the date ever mentioned in TNG again?...or DS9?...or Voyager?... or the movies?

Another episode of Voyager established Kirk's five-year-mission ending in 2270, IIRC.

 

[Timo]

There are two other fixing points in VOY, but both unfortunately work against the greater good of timelines...

In "Future's End", Henry Starling discovers that the Voyager was launched (would be launched) in 2371, meaning that "Caretaker" had to take place in that year or later; in terms of stardate continuity with DS9 and TNG, it should probably have been 2370 instead. In "Homestead", Neelix says it's the 315th anniversary of First Contact, an event that took place in 2063, suggesting the year is 2378 rather than the more desirable 2377.

Both of those represent a nudge factor of just one year at most, though. They also reflect the confusion that the writers had between two models: one where each season represents a single year from January to December, and another where each season represents, well, a season, from something like August to July. The latter fits the data better for the most part, but the conflict between the two models is what causes this uncertainty over whether Janeway's mission was a seven- or eight-year one...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SicOne]

Timo, though it is "canon", I tend to throw out the "Homestead" references, as well as the "Q2" line...they are not consistent with the rest of the Star Trek Chronology (which, I think, we must accept as "canon" as it is based on the episodes), as well as those lines not being consistent with the January-through-December stardating method or the method of stardating in the more recent novels. If I'm not mistaken, isn't there something in the "Voyages Of Imagination" book that also discusses this? I do not have that particular book.

I don't know what the powers-that-be were trying to do there with those two Voyager episodes, whether an innocent mistake that slipped through the cracks or an intentional attempt to mess with the heads a la Deck 29 comments in "Nemesis" (not to get all James Dixon, here...)