This is real cool.
First thing I noticed on the TNG one is the premise being 'near the beginning of the 24th centrury'. (78 years after the time of Kirk and Spock)
That didn't stay true. Season 1 is in 2364, no where near the beginning of the century.
You have to realize that in real life people on Earth can and do use many different calendars. And even people who use the same calendar can and do use different calendar eras. A calendar era is the moment in time that years are counted from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_era
There are maybe hundreds of references to numbered years in various
Star Trek productions. And how many of those specify the calendar era used? In the programs and movies before the Abrams era there is one reference to BC, and about five, if I remember, correctly, references to AD. So those six or so examples use the
Anno Domini calendar era.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini
The calendar era is not mentioned in any other of the possibly hundreds of year numbers spoken and seen in various
Star Trek productions before 2009. So the many dates in
Star Trek productions might be given using many different calendar eras. There is no way for
Star Trek chronologists to know which of many historical and countless possible future calendar eras is used when any particular year number is mentioned.
But the creators of
Star Trek failed totally and completely in creating a series where the dates were consistent in a single calender era.
It is impossible to make the dates consistent if a single calendar era is used in all the dates. Therefore, the dates have to be given using two or more calendar eras. If it is impossible for any one single calendar era to be used in all the dates, it is impossimple for the
Anno Domini calender era to be used in all the dates.
In 'Encounter at Farpoint", when Riker meeets Data.
RIKER: Yes. When the captain suggested you, I looked up your record.
DATA: Yes, sir. A wise procedure, sir, always.
RIKER: Then your rank of Lieutenant Commander is honorary?
DATA: No, sir. Starfleet class of '78. Honours in probability mechanics and exobiology.
In "Datalore" they visit the planet where Data had been found:
LAFORGE: This once was rich farmland. I'd say something like twenty to thirty years ago.
DATA: I was discovered twenty six years ago.
And Data talks to Lore:
LORE: Promises he later proved to be true. Which made you and me possible, brother. Our beloved father. Will I soon have a uniform like that, brother?
DATA: If you get one the way I did, Lore, it will mean four years at the Academy, another three as ensign, ten or twelve on varied space duty in the lieutenant grades.
So this implies that Data entered the Academy about "73-"74, graduated in '78, was promoted to lt. j.g.about '81, and was promoted to lt. commander about '91-"93. So this means that the earliest possible year for the first season of TNG must be the year '91 in the calendar Data uses.
If Data graduated in '78, and enter the Academy in '73-'74, the latest possible date for Data being found on Omicorn Ceti III would be '74. If Data was found on Omicorn Theta III 26 years before "Datalore", "Datalore" can happen no later than '01 of the next century after the one when Data was found.
If the writer's guide statement about it being early in the 24th century is correct, the first season of TNG must happen during the year 2300 or 2301 of the calendar era used in the writer's guide and by Data.
So the era of kirk and Spock 78 years later would be about 2222 or 2223 in Data's calendar, but it was not specified whether it was the era of TOS or of one or more of the TOS movies.
In "The Neutral Zone" three dead humans are revived:
RALPH: What year is this?
DATA: By your calendar two thousand three hundred sixty four.
Data doesn't say that the calendar Ralph uses is the one that Data uses, and Data does not break the fourth wall and tell the audience that it is the audience's calendar.
So if the year in Data's calendar was 2300 or 2301, Ralph's calendar would have a calendar era about 63 or 64 years before the calendar era of Data's calendar.
Suppose that the year in Data's calendar was sometime between 2391 and 2400. Then the calendar era of Data's calendar would be 27 to 36 years before the calendar era of Ralph's calendar.
And if the date in Data's calendar was not during the 24th century, the calendar eras could have been separated by centuries.
Aftrer Clare sees Worf and faints, Picard says:
PICARD: Welcome to the twenty fourth century.
People who don't want to suppose that Pcard was using a third calendar era will suppose that he was using Data's calendar era, which thus must be either 27 to 36 years before the calendar era of Ralph's calendar or 63 to 64 years after the calendar era of Ralph's calendar..
And Ralph's calendar era became the calendar era used in other dates in the next few seasons.
Naturallry I decided that there are various groups on Earth who try to get the United Earth government to change various practical measures, and also try to change various symbolic measures. For example, they could lobby the United Earth government to aodpt the thecalendar they perfer as theoffiical UNited Earth calendar, and sometimes such a group succeedes in getting the Unitid Earth calendar changed.
So sometimes the official United Earth calendar changes, and the United Earth year number changes, and people joke that they have instantly become older or younger.
And if there was a group on Earth trying to get Ralph's calendar made the offical United Earth calendar, they might take advantage of the fame of the three revived pesns when they arrived back on Earth, and get Ralph' s calendar adopted by theUnited Earth government.
That seems to me to be the most simple and obvious explanation for the change in the calendar era used in TNG.
And a sufficiently intelligetnt and observent fan could have noticed the use of different clanedar eras decades earlier.
In sickbay in "Where No Man Has Gone Before":
DEHNER: Page three eighty seven.
MITCHELL: My love has wings. Slender, feathered things with grace in upswept curve and tapered tip. The Nightingale Woman, written by Phineas Tarbolde on the Canopius planet back in 1996. It's funny you picked that one, Doctor.
DEHNER: Why?
MITCHELL: That's one of the most passionate love sonnets of the past couple of centuries. How do you feel, Doctor?
So that makes the year of in what I call the Tarbolde-Mitchell calendar era to be sometime after 2000 TM.
Gary Mitchell's medical file says he was born 1087.7 and his age is 23. thus making the current date between 1110.7 and 1111.7.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Gary_Mitchell?file=Mitchell_profile_stats.jpg
Elizabeth Dehner's medical record says she was born 1089.5 and her age is 21. Thus making the current date bwtween 1110.5 and. 1111.5.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Elizabeth_Dehner?file=Dehner_profile_stats.jpg.
So the current date should be between 1110.7 and 1111.5, in what I call the Eldman-Delman calendar or ED calendar. Maybe the ages listed are the ages they joined starfleet or something, and they could be up to a decade or two older. That would still make a discrpency of about 900 years in the date.
Kirk's tompstone has an inscription:
JAMES R. KIRK
C. 1277.1 to 1313.7
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Gravestone?file=James_R_Kirk_tombstone.jpg
If either 1277.7 or 1313.7 is a year number it must be using yet a third calendar era from the Tarbolde-MItchell and the Eldman-Delman ones.
So as soon as TOS fans had access to transcripts or clear images ot what was written in Mitchell and Dehner's medical files and on Kirk's tombstone they should have realized the strong probability that there are tow or three different calendar eras used in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and looked for other evidence of different calendar eras being used in TOS episodes and later in TOS movies. .
Of course the creators of every single
Star Trek production intended that all year numbers mentioned would be using the same calendar era, and of course they intended that the calendar era used in all
Star Trek productions would be
Anno Domini.
They failed to make that happen.
