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Just had a thought - stardates in DSC?

For what it's worth, we now know the series takes place in 2256. So I'm guessing they'll do 2256.XX, a la the Kelvin movies.

Or maybe they'll do three digits like the "Early Voyages" comics centred on Captain Pike's crew.
 
For what it's worth, we now know the series takes place in 2256. So I'm guessing they'll do 2256.XX, a la the Kelvin movies.

Or maybe they'll do three digits like the "Early Voyages" comics centred on Captain Pike's crew.

Kelvin stardates aren't even stardates, they are just ordinary Earth (Western) dates writen in an inverted data format (used today in e.g. Hungary). I think they should just use random numbers like in TOS. Federation should feel like an interstellar community, not Terran Empire. With its big budget and scope Discovery really has a chance to show UFP's size and diversity.
 
I think they should just use random numbers like in TOS. Federation should feel like an interstellar community, not Terran Empire. With its big budget and scope Discovery really has a chance to show UFP's size and diversity.

Exactly this.
 
Why would multi star system alliance use an earth based date system?

The same reason most of the world today uses the same calendar, time and measurements systems. And just like today some people won't use them but there will be a standard that most planets will adhere to. In ST the Federation is the big dog and humans are the big dogs of the Federation.

I don't get why people just keep fighting that notion. That is the galaxy that Star Trek is. B5 created a galaxy where humans were small dogs and the Mimbari and centarui were more influential. Shows have a different take and at some point we just need to accept it or reject it and move on.
 
Honestly, I've never understood how stardates work. If DSC just uses a bunch of random gibberish numbers every episode, I won't know the difference.

The TNg writers bible pretty much has it where they would start with a certain number then use a 1 for season one and then the rest would slowly increase through the season.
 
Actually, English is called "Federation Standard" meaning someone considers it the default language for the Federation. Which must suck for the larger percentage of humanity that speaks Mandarin Chinese.
In the 1980s, it was all the rage for some science fiction writers to show that the Japanese (who, in the 1980s and early 1990s, were busy buying up American and western companies and American real estate, and seemed to be poised to eventually own the world) were the dominant force in the relative near future world, both commerce-wise and culturally. An example is Michael Crichton's 1987 novel Sphere, which includes a future where the Japanese control much of the global economy, and they even own that great American symbol -- Coca-Cola.

But as we all know, boom times come and boom times go (just ask the Japanese), and while it seems the Chinese are currently poised to run the world of the future, and Mandarin is the language of choice for the Chinese on the global stage, these booms are often followed by a bust, especially if that boom-time growth occurs too quickly.

It may be true that Mandarin has the largest percentage of speakers -- and more non-Mandarins are finding it advantageous in today's business world to learn it -- but it has been the largest percentage of speakers for a few decades, and English was and is still the standard language of choice for global commerce, plus things such international science (most international science conferences are held in English) and international communications (air traffic control, maritime, etc.)

That said, the Vulcans seemed to be the defacto leader of the pre-human Federation (i.e., they were looked upon as a strong leadership voice), and I would think if this were real (and, yeah -- I know it isn't real, but humor me anyway) that Vulcan would become the Federation standard language.
 
Stardate system worked for the 5 other series (I assume TAS used it), why wouldn't it work now?

The problem is that TOS started with a 4-digit system. TNG was 4<season_number>xxx. If you go ahead 80 years and the difference is about 40,000 numbers, going back 10 years would mean stardates were not set up yet. It's just something I'm curious about since in TOS, they were adamant about not using calendars like ENT did.
 
Plus "stardate" sounds like such a funky sciency-fictiony thing. It is Treklore.

If you wanted to sound like a futuristic space show in the 1960s, just add the prefix "star" or "space" to a word, and voilà!

 
Stardate system worked for the 5 other series (I assume TAS used it), why wouldn't it work now?

For the same reason they didn't use it in the Abrams movies: Because they're trying to get the casual audience interested in Star Trek, and you don't do that by spouting nonsense numbers that no one but hardcore Trekkies can translate into dates.
 
Maybe...just maybe..they should use the system started in TOS ;) (IE since it's serialized, come up with a random TOS era Stardate and go forward from that one as a base - much like what happened in individual TOS episodes. This is one 15 episode long singe story here.) :whistle::shrug:
 
^But then that would mean that CBS isn't flat-out lying to us in a pathetic attempt to get more people to watch their show by saying that DSC is a prequel to TOS in the prime universe ;)
 
Stardate system worked for the 5 other series (I assume TAS used it), why wouldn't it work now?

It was never a system. TOS stardates had nothing to do with modern Trek stardates, and the the modern formula for stardates was not more sophisticated than just using the real calendar.

So, fuck the old stardates.
 
I wouldn't be shocked if they just drop them.

Besides it doesn't even make sense that the captain should have to speak the date anyway. The computer should tag the log with the right date automatically
 
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