Dominion War Timeline
- Thread starter BrentMc
- Start date
- Status
Well, according to this Stardate Calculator there's about three and a half months between Penumbra (the beginning of DS9's finale arc) and Dogs of War (last DS9 to mention the stardate).
According to the calculator, Penumbra is set on July 30, 2375 while Dogs of War is on November 11. However, they also claim Extreme Measures is on August 24, which means there's a gap of over two months between Extreme Measures and Dogs of War, but only one month between Penumbra and Extreme Measures.
According to the calculator, Penumbra is set on July 30, 2375 while Dogs of War is on November 11. However, they also claim Extreme Measures is on August 24, which means there's a gap of over two months between Extreme Measures and Dogs of War, but only one month between Penumbra and Extreme Measures.
Insurrection takes place in the lull before Breen join the war. There is a mention in DS9 about the Son'a helping the Dominion with production of the white. This would have been around the time of the film. Around the time of "It's Only a Paper Moon" This episode has very little Worf in it and takes place over period of time, thus allowing for him to be gone long enough to have visited the Enterprise.
Nemesis takes place four years after the end of the Dominion War and a year or two after Voyager gets home.
Nemesis takes place four years after the end of the Dominion War and a year or two after Voyager gets home.
I always figured INS was around It's Only A Paper Moon too because of the Worf thing... but I hadn't really thought of this. The mention of the Son'a is in Penumbra seven episodes later...
DAMAR: The Defiant is returning to Federation space. I'm ordering our ships to pursue.
WEYOUN: No. Divert them to the Son'a outpost on Devos 2.
DAMAR: Why?
WEYOUN: We need their to help protect the new Ketracel white facility. The Federation has been made aware of its location.
DAMAR: Can't the Son'a protect it?
WEYOUN: Are you questioning my orders? That would be foolish. I wonder what the Defiant was doing out there?
It's been a while since I watched INS to be fair... how many "Son'a" even were there? Weren't they basically just some Ba'ku who left with Ruafo years ago and then started calling themselves the Son'a? I mean there can't really have been that many of them, not like a whole civilization? And given the ending of the movie with Ruafo defeated and IIRC the other Son'a reuniting with their old Ba'ku families, wouldn't that essentially be the end of "the Son'a"?
Again, I haven't watched it in ages. But if so, would that DS9 line fit? Either it takes place before INS, or there are still some rogue Son'a out there
Following Ru'afo's defeat, the only Son'a we know who returned to the Ba'ku world and reunited with his family was the second in command.
The So'na have conquered at least two worlds, we see their races serving on the ships, so they likely have a stable power base. The events of Insurrection might have left them severely weakened, and perhaps that's why Weyoun wanted to provide Dominion protection to them.
Not exact number since there are not a lot of stardates give. But no more than five months and probably more like four month from the time the Breen start negotiating with the Dominion to the end of the war. Negotiations start near the end of July and beginning of August. Earth is attacked around the middle to late August. The Counter measure for the Breen weapon being introduced fleet wide is in early November. The war likely ends before the end of November. December at the lastest.
All in the year 2375.
All in the year 2375.
Stardates on specific epsiodes, the ones The Wormhole mentioned, and the Stardate calculator he linked. Those are the episodes with the events you are asking about, or very close to them.
He basically answered your question already and provided you tools to check it out. I just repeated them using the event instead of the episode title.
He basically answered your question already and provided you tools to check it out. I just repeated them using the event instead of the episode title.
How literally are we supposed to take the stardates? I thought they kind f made them ambiguous for production reasons. I want to plan my story around solid dates, so that people don't say I got it wrong later...
In TOS they were ambiguous, in TNG an actual pattern was established. Although beyond the first digit representing decade and the second digit year, I'm not sure how to figure it out beyond that.
However, the calculator I linked is what Pocket Books uses to help them figure out stardates in the 24th century novels. Or at least they follow the same principle, that the stardate year does match up with the Earth calendar year of January to December.
It is worth noting the one time in all Trek an actual date was given along side a stardate, the Voyager episode Homestead, Stardate 54868.6 was used to represent April 5, 2378 while the calculator says it should actually be November 14, 2377.
However, the Stardate calculator does actually match up with the Homefront/Paradise Lost story. That is the stardate given for the bombing on the peace conference, 49482.3 corresponds with June 25th while Paradise Lost takes place "the 14th" of an unspecified month. Assuming it is of course July 14, than this is about 17 days later.
So there really isn't a perfect answer to this, and to be honest it's likely not much thought was put into the stardates selected for the episodes. But in answer to your question, based on the calculator, the Breen joining the Dominion attacking Earth, Martok becoming chancellor, Kira stealing the Breen weapon, and Bashir capturing Sloan and finding a cure for Odo all take place within twenty-five days while the counter measures against the Breen weapon and the attack on Cardassia are over two months later.
Hi BrentMc,
I’m afraid that there isn’t any commonly-agreed “definitive” timeline for the Dominion War, or for anything else in “Star Trek”.
The stardate calculator recommended by The Wormhole is “semi-official” in that it’s been used in at least some of the Pocket Books novels to calculate stardates, so those dates might match up. It doesn’t reflect the progression of stardates actually used in the televised stories at all, though.
If you click on the link at the bottom of this message, then you’ll find that I’ve gone into this in far more detail than is really possible, if you expect anyone to agree with the conclusions. If any of it is useful to you, don’t hesitate to use it. I can guarantee that everyone will think you’ve got it wrong, though.
If dredging through the site is more work than you have any idle interest in, there’s a brief overview of the main bits of the timeline here:
http://atavachron.wdfiles.com/local--files/calendars:calendars/Trek Calendars.pdf
My go at a stardate/Klingon/Bajoran date calculating spreadsheet is here:
http://atavachron.wikidot.com/calendars:calendars
If you really want to avoid problems with chronology, I’d recommend sticking to the “screen used” stardates, any internal dating references that were mentioned (like the three months between “Call to Arms” and “A Time to Stand”) and not being in any way specific about how that links to the “conventional” calendar (or trying to be precise about what the intervals between stardates are), other than it’s probably sometime in 2374 or 2375 if the Dominion War is being fought. Ithekro’s suggestions are every bit as good as anyone else’s, and certainly reflect what consensus there is better than my ideas.
I’d be the first to admit that it’s all a bit ramshackle, but that’s the way it is.
Best wishes and good luck,
Timon
I’m afraid that there isn’t any commonly-agreed “definitive” timeline for the Dominion War, or for anything else in “Star Trek”.
The stardate calculator recommended by The Wormhole is “semi-official” in that it’s been used in at least some of the Pocket Books novels to calculate stardates, so those dates might match up. It doesn’t reflect the progression of stardates actually used in the televised stories at all, though.
If you click on the link at the bottom of this message, then you’ll find that I’ve gone into this in far more detail than is really possible, if you expect anyone to agree with the conclusions. If any of it is useful to you, don’t hesitate to use it. I can guarantee that everyone will think you’ve got it wrong, though.
If dredging through the site is more work than you have any idle interest in, there’s a brief overview of the main bits of the timeline here:
http://atavachron.wdfiles.com/local--files/calendars:calendars/Trek Calendars.pdf
My go at a stardate/Klingon/Bajoran date calculating spreadsheet is here:
http://atavachron.wikidot.com/calendars:calendars
If you really want to avoid problems with chronology, I’d recommend sticking to the “screen used” stardates, any internal dating references that were mentioned (like the three months between “Call to Arms” and “A Time to Stand”) and not being in any way specific about how that links to the “conventional” calendar (or trying to be precise about what the intervals between stardates are), other than it’s probably sometime in 2374 or 2375 if the Dominion War is being fought. Ithekro’s suggestions are every bit as good as anyone else’s, and certainly reflect what consensus there is better than my ideas.
I’d be the first to admit that it’s all a bit ramshackle, but that’s the way it is.
Best wishes and good luck,
Timon
Thank you for your reply. This is certainly interesting. You went to a lot of work to make this. I'm not sure your are right though. You have the war ending in 2376, but memory alpha has it ending in 2375. Although memory alpha let me down with the location of the Antares Shipyards, so who knows.Hi BrentMc,
I’m afraid that there isn’t any commonly-agreed “definitive” timeline for the Dominion War, or for anything else in “Star Trek”.
The stardate calculator recommended by The Wormhole is “semi-official” in that it’s been used in at least some of the Pocket Books novels to calculate stardates, so those dates might match up. It doesn’t reflect the progression of stardates actually used in the televised stories at all, though.
If you click on the link at the bottom of this message, then you’ll find that I’ve gone into this in far more detail than is really possible, if you expect anyone to agree with the conclusions. If any of it is useful to you, don’t hesitate to use it. I can guarantee that everyone will think you’ve got it wrong, though.
If dredging through the site is more work than you have any idle interest in, there’s a brief overview of the main bits of the timeline here:
http://atavachron.wdfiles.com/local--files/calendars:calendars/Trek Calendars.pdf
My go at a stardate/Klingon/Bajoran date calculating spreadsheet is here:
http://atavachron.wikidot.com/calendars:calendars
If you really want to avoid problems with chronology, I’d recommend sticking to the “screen used” stardates, any internal dating references that were mentioned (like the three months between “Call to Arms” and “A Time to Stand”) and not being in any way specific about how that links to the “conventional” calendar (or trying to be precise about what the intervals between stardates are), other than it’s probably sometime in 2374 or 2375 if the Dominion War is being fought. Ithekro’s suggestions are every bit as good as anyone else’s, and certainly reflect what consensus there is better than my ideas.
I’d be the first to admit that it’s all a bit ramshackle, but that’s the way it is.
Best wishes and good luck,
Timon
Your idea to keep to stardates is good, but the main reason I want good dates is to know the time span between events as I plan my story. Once I plan my story around major events, I can put in the occasional "It's been two weeks since the Breen attack" etc.
Thanks again to everyone who helped.
So using the stardate calculator you get the Breen attack in August, but in the Book Star charts there is a Dominion War Timeline that puts the Breen attacking earth in October.
I wonder where the author came up with October? I am trying to decide on the best dates to go with.
Thank you again to everyone who helped.
Hello BrentMc,
Now it’s the weekend, I have time to look through my bookshelves, and see if there are any licenced, published books that you could use as references, and I find that I might be able to help your decision.
If money is no object, then the prime source is Larry Nemecek’s “Stellar Cartography”, published by 47 North (Amazon) in 2013. Map IX covers the Dominion War; there’s a brief text overview in the book, and a huge folded map. Rough dates are assigned to most major events, with some events getting a precise date (Operation Return is 25th March, 2374). The war itself is said to run from December 2373 to December 2375, and the Breen attack on Earth is dated to August 2375. It seems from Ithekro’s post that the dates have been sort of fixed using the same principle as the stardate calculator suggested by The Wormhole. Mike and Denise Okuda’s “Star Trek Chronology”, published by Pocket Books in 1996, first proposed that stardates operate so that the year 2367 (for example) runs from stardate 44000.0 to 44999.9. That’s been adopted by Memory Alpha, because it’s the only system for stardates associated with any “Star Trek” production office or officially licenced publication; at least until the 2009 film came along. In spite of that, the stardates assigned to events in televised “Star Trek” really don’t reflect any system at all. That seems to have been quite deliberate, and decided on very early.
The “Stellar Cartography” dates do match up approximately (as far as I can see with a fairly quick check) with the dates in Geoffrey Mandel’s “Star Trek Star Charts”. The captions themselves are not as precise as you might think, since each one summarises the events of quite a long period, not just the individual month specified. I’m guessing that the summary of the position labelled “October 2375” covers all the major events that happened since the previous summary for “April 2375,” allowing the attack on Earth to be in August 2375 in both versions of events. This is especially clear when you compare specific events with “Stellar Cartography”, as you’ve already found out by a slightly different route.
Finally, Jeff Ayers’ “Star Trek Voyages of Imagination”, published by Pocket Books in 2006, has the most recent “official” timeline available. It’s not really a timeline, more a list of titles with copious footnotes, including all the Pocket Books fiction. It does put everything in order, assign a year to everything (although rarely more than that), and list stardates where they’re available. You might find it helpful in assigning stardate ranges.
If your available funds are anything like mine, you may decide to forgo this level of research. That really doesn’t matter too much. The fact is, although it seems that there must have been some sort of a system in the “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” production office when they say “such and such a story happened four months ago” in one story, and a story somewhere in between the first two stories implied that it was September. If there was such a system, I’ve not been able to find it. More to the point, if there had been a method beyond “reasonable guesses,” it surely would have turned up by now, and be the “official” way to do it. Having gone into all this in far too much detail, I’d be very surprised if there was even ever a rough “year planner” with events listed on it, let alone something more detailed. It’s only a personal opinion, but I do think they just guessed at things as they went along.
I’ve been playing around with this for a long time, and I don’t think I’m anywhere near finished yet. I wish you the very best of luck, and if you want to stay really true to what’s gone before, don’t get too bogged down in the details. Take a guess, and if it seems about right, there you are.
Best wishes,
Timon
Now it’s the weekend, I have time to look through my bookshelves, and see if there are any licenced, published books that you could use as references, and I find that I might be able to help your decision.
If money is no object, then the prime source is Larry Nemecek’s “Stellar Cartography”, published by 47 North (Amazon) in 2013. Map IX covers the Dominion War; there’s a brief text overview in the book, and a huge folded map. Rough dates are assigned to most major events, with some events getting a precise date (Operation Return is 25th March, 2374). The war itself is said to run from December 2373 to December 2375, and the Breen attack on Earth is dated to August 2375. It seems from Ithekro’s post that the dates have been sort of fixed using the same principle as the stardate calculator suggested by The Wormhole. Mike and Denise Okuda’s “Star Trek Chronology”, published by Pocket Books in 1996, first proposed that stardates operate so that the year 2367 (for example) runs from stardate 44000.0 to 44999.9. That’s been adopted by Memory Alpha, because it’s the only system for stardates associated with any “Star Trek” production office or officially licenced publication; at least until the 2009 film came along. In spite of that, the stardates assigned to events in televised “Star Trek” really don’t reflect any system at all. That seems to have been quite deliberate, and decided on very early.
The “Stellar Cartography” dates do match up approximately (as far as I can see with a fairly quick check) with the dates in Geoffrey Mandel’s “Star Trek Star Charts”. The captions themselves are not as precise as you might think, since each one summarises the events of quite a long period, not just the individual month specified. I’m guessing that the summary of the position labelled “October 2375” covers all the major events that happened since the previous summary for “April 2375,” allowing the attack on Earth to be in August 2375 in both versions of events. This is especially clear when you compare specific events with “Stellar Cartography”, as you’ve already found out by a slightly different route.
Finally, Jeff Ayers’ “Star Trek Voyages of Imagination”, published by Pocket Books in 2006, has the most recent “official” timeline available. It’s not really a timeline, more a list of titles with copious footnotes, including all the Pocket Books fiction. It does put everything in order, assign a year to everything (although rarely more than that), and list stardates where they’re available. You might find it helpful in assigning stardate ranges.
If your available funds are anything like mine, you may decide to forgo this level of research. That really doesn’t matter too much. The fact is, although it seems that there must have been some sort of a system in the “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” production office when they say “such and such a story happened four months ago” in one story, and a story somewhere in between the first two stories implied that it was September. If there was such a system, I’ve not been able to find it. More to the point, if there had been a method beyond “reasonable guesses,” it surely would have turned up by now, and be the “official” way to do it. Having gone into all this in far too much detail, I’d be very surprised if there was even ever a rough “year planner” with events listed on it, let alone something more detailed. It’s only a personal opinion, but I do think they just guessed at things as they went along.
I’ve been playing around with this for a long time, and I don’t think I’m anywhere near finished yet. I wish you the very best of luck, and if you want to stay really true to what’s gone before, don’t get too bogged down in the details. Take a guess, and if it seems about right, there you are.
Best wishes,
Timon
Thank you for this terrific reply. While there seems to be no certain answer, I think there is enough reason to go with August for the Breen attack and that works well for my story. I want to be about right when it comes to how much time passes between events in the story, but I am not going to be very specific about dates, to keep it vague like they did on the show to make it harder for people to point out that I got something wrong.
I am just writing this for fun and I expect no more than a few people will read it, but I still want to do a good job.
Have a nice weekend!
- Status
Similar threads
