Official timeline for the TOS crew?

[AxelFoley]

I'm a bit puzzled about this, is there an official timeline anywhere online that is not fanmade?

The show lasted for 3 years, but the mission still was 5 in Trek World, since Kirk says this to Decker in TMP about his experience with strange things. Did he get promoted to admiral right after the 5 year mission, therefore making TMP 2.5 years after the 5 year mission?

I read somewhere that it was 14 years between TMP & Wrath of Khan, is that really true? How would they account for that, and how does Kirk, Bones & Spock keep their friendship so close together if they are so far apart for so long (since Spock was promoted captain I assume he was gone a lot)

And how long is it between TFF & TUC? The popular belief is 6 years if I'm not mistaken.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Back when they made TOS they had no idea it would be under a microscope 40 years later. Some say there were two five year missions, but if we go by what is on the screen, no such mission is ever mentioned.

I see it this way...seasons 1-3 actually span the five years. Kirk is a good gage if you use this method. He changes as a person. In season one he seems more subtle, but by the end of season three, he is the scene chewer we came to know. This means, I think, he became more sure of himself and by the fifth year (last several episodes of season three) he is who he is. Not long after he got his body back from Janet Lester, they had their last mission and thats it.

They went through great pains to make Shatner/Nimoy and the others look young in TMP. This was, I believe, an attempt to show that not much time had passed between the end of TOS and TMP. And yes, I know, there are books that take place inbetween those years, and another five year mission in hinted at, but they are not canon.

So..in my mind? Season 1-3 are the five year mission

TAS..never happened. Just a dream in Balok's brain

TMP takes place 18 months after the five year mission (thus the attempt to make our crew still look younger)

This is all guess work..

Rob

 

[egonbeeblebrox]

I always count TOS and TAS as the Five Year Mission, since, combined, they have five seasons.

TMP isn't very long after the Mission. I don't really go with the 'There was another mission after TMP' thought process. I imagine they had a few more adventures on the Refit Enterprise before they split apart again, Spock got promoted, etc.

My question regarding the timeline is how long after the Khitomer Conference did Kirk "die"? If they explicitly stated it anywhere, I've missed it.

 

[AxelFoley]

I always count TOS and TAS as the Five Year Mission, since, combined, they have five seasons.

TMP isn't very long after the Mission. I don't really go with the 'There was another mission after TMP' thought process. I imagine they had a few more adventures on the Refit Enterprise before they split apart again, Spock got promoted, etc.

My question regarding the timeline is how long after the Khitomer Conference did Kirk "die"? If they explicitly stated it anywhere, I've missed it.

Actually them combined would form 4 seasons.

 

[Michael]

^ No, there are TWO seasons of TAS. It's just that the second one is very short.

 

[egonbeeblebrox]

I always count TOS and TAS as the Five Year Mission, since, combined, they have five seasons.

TMP isn't very long after the Mission. I don't really go with the 'There was another mission after TMP' thought process. I imagine they had a few more adventures on the Refit Enterprise before they split apart again, Spock got promoted, etc.

My question regarding the timeline is how long after the Khitomer Conference did Kirk "die"? If they explicitly stated it anywhere, I've missed it.

Actually them combined would form 4 seasons.

TAS ran two seasons. One was sixteen episodes long and the other was six. Short seasons, yeah, but I like to think of them as 'some of the wacky adventures we didn't see' because the show was canceled.

 

[AxelFoley]

^ No, there are TWO seasons of TAS. It's just that the second one is very short.

Oh, my bad. The complete DVD-set threw me off!

 

[Michael]

^ Don't worry.

BTW, how far are you into the second season now? What's your favorite episode?

 

[AxelFoley]

^ Don't worry.

BTW, how far are you into the second season now? What's your favorite episode?

Well, I watched The Immune Syndrom last night, so there's a good 10 eps left.

As for my favorite yet? Damn man, that's a tough one. There's like five 10/10 episodes already, so I can't say just yet. I'll get back to you after the season is finished

 

[Timo]

I'm a bit puzzled about this, is there an official timeline anywhere online that is not fanmade?

Depends on what one considers official. Several published timelines have Paramount stamps of approval on the back cover, and the writers of Trek episodes have used at least two such timelines as source material for writing further Trek timepoints: the Okuda timeline published as the Star Trek Chronology, and the earlier Goldstein timeline published as the Spaceflight Chronology.

However, such tomes quickly become outdated as new writers invent new timepoints, or establish more accurately things that were only cursorily established in previous episodes. In that sense, the fan-collected timeline of Memory Alpha should in fact be considered superior to the published books because it is slightly more up to date. But one can always argue the finer points and interpretations, and every Trek timeline makes at least some assumptions.

The life and times of the TOS heroes certainly fall in the category of "arguables", as seen above already. We know for sure that Kirk's TOS mission ended in 2270 and was completed in its five-year entirety, because those things are said on screen. But we don't know when TMP happened, we don't know when each specific TOS episode happened, and we are still free to make our own best guesses until the writers of onscreen Trek give us something new to chew on.

..Or then we can choose one of the already completed timelines and stick to it, even when we know it's not the end-all answer. After all, even though we don't know exactly when and where Scotty was born, we know he had to be born at some point, and we could just as well continue believing in a date we find acceptable, because it's pretty unlikely we could get the "right answer" any time soon. (Perhaps in the next movie after XI...?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnboy3434]

My personal timeline for the adventures of Kirk's crew is based on the stardates given in the episodes and, should one not be present, the production number of the episodes. This is what I came up with. I've indicated whether they are from the Original Series, the Animated Series, or are feature films. Do with it what you like.

The Cage [TOS]
The Magicks of Megas-Tu [TAS]
Where No Man Has Gone Before [TOS]
Mudd's Women [TOS]
The Corbomite Maneuver [TOS]
The Man Trap [TOS]
Charlie X [TOS]
The Enemy Within [TOS]
The Naked Time [TOS]
Balance of Terror [TOS]
The Squire of Gothos [TOS]
What Are Little Girls Made of? [TOS]
Miri [TOS]
Dagger of the Mind [TOS]
The Conscience of the King [TOS]
The Galileo Seven [TOS]
Court Martial [TOS]
The Menagerie, Part I [TOS]
The Menagerie, Part II [TOS]
Catspaw [TOS]
Shore Leave [TOS]
Arena [TOS]
The Alternative Factor [TOS]
Tomorrow is Yesterday [TOS]
The City on the Edge of Forever [TOS]
Space Seed [TOS]
The Return of the Archons [TOS]
The Practical Joker [TAS]
A Taste of Armageddon [TOS]
The Devil in the Dark [TOS]
Errand of Mercy [TOS]
The Gamesters of Triskelion [TOS]
Metamorphosis [TOS]
Operation – Annihilate! [TOS]
Amok Time [TOS]
This Side of Paradise [TOS]
Who Mourns for Adonais? [TOS]
Mirror, Mirror [TOS]
The Deadly Years [TOS]
Friday's Child [TOS]
The Changeling [TOS]
Wolf in the Fold [TOS]
Obsession [TOS]
The Apple [TOS]
Journey to Babel [TOS]
Bread and Circuses [TOS]
The Slaver Weapon [TAS]
The Doomsday Machine [TOS]
A Private Little War [TOS]
The Immunity Syndrome [TOS]
Elaan of Troyius [TOS]
The Omega Glory [TOS]
Assignment: Earth [TOS]
Spectre of the Gun [TOS]
I, Mudd [TOS]
The Trouble With Tribbles [TOS]
A Piece of the Action [TOS]
By Any Other Name [TOS]
Patterns of Force [TOS]
The Ultimate Computer [TOS]
Return to Tomorrow [TOS]
The Paradise Syndrome [TOS]
Mudd's Passion [TAS]
And the Children Shall Lead [TOS]
The Enterprise Incident [TOS]
The Empath [TOS]
The Survivor [TAS]
Beyond the Farthest Star [TAS]
The Time Trap [TAS]
Albatross [TAS]
One of Our Planets Is Missing [TAS]
Yesteryear [TAS]
More Tribbles, More Troubles [TAS]
The Mark of Gideon [TOS]
Spock's Brain [TOS]
For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky [TOS]
The Lorelei Signal [TAS]
The Ambergris Element [TAS]
The Eye of the Beholder [TAS]
The Infinite Vulcan [TAS]
The Terratin Incident [TAS]
Once Upon a Planet [TAS]
Is There in Truth No Beauty? [TOS]
The Jihad [TAS]
The Tholian Web [TOS]
Wink of an Eye [TOS]
Whom Gods Destroy [TOS]
The Lights of Zetar [TOS]
That Which Survives [TOS]
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield [TOS]
Day of the Dove [TOS]
Plato's Stepchildren [TOS]
The Cloud Minders [TOS]
The Way to Eden [TOS]
Requiem for Methuselah [TOS]
The Savage Curtain [TOS]
Turnabout Intruder [TOS]
All Our Yesterdays [TOS]
How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth [TAS]
The Pirates of Orion [TAS]
The Counter-Clock Incident [TAS]
Bem [TAS]
The Motion Picture [Film]
The Wrath of Khan [Film]
The Search for Spock [Film]
The Voyage Home [Film]
The Final Frontier [Film]
The Undiscovered Country [Film]

NOTE: As far as the Magicks of Megas-Tu is concerned, I've placed it before Where No Man Has Gone Before because I feel the change in the structure of the Enterprise and the uniforms is something that was clearly cosmetic and not meant to be an actual in-universe change, just like the TNG uniform switch (the extras in the latter even continued wearing the old design). Just my two credits.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

NOTE: As far as the Magicks of Megas-Tu is concerned, I've placed it before Where No Man Has Gone Before because I feel the change in the structure of the Enterprise and the uniforms is something that was clearly cosmetic

For the most part I would agree with that, but the extra turbolift door on the Enterprise bridge is hardly "cosmetic."

 

[A beaker full of death]

I'm a bit puzzled about this, is there an official timeline anywhere online that is not fanmade?

No. The show was episodic. Stardates were created so people wouldn't get bogged down in such irrelevancies.

 

[johnboy3434]

For the most part I would agree with that, but the extra turbolift door on the Enterprise bridge is hardly "cosmetic."

It's been years since I've seen TAS. Do they say anything to indicate that it's new? Like, "Hey, Mr. Spock, check out the new turbolift!"

 

[erastus25]

For the most part I would agree with that, but the extra turbolift door on the Enterprise bridge is hardly "cosmetic."

It's been years since I've seen TAS. Do they say anything to indicate that it's new? Like, "Hey, Mr. Spock, check out the new turbolift!"

None of the changes for TAS are really mentioned. It just kind of happens.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

For the most part I would agree with that, but the extra turbolift door on the Enterprise bridge is hardly "cosmetic."

It's been years since I've seen TAS. Do they say anything to indicate that it's new? Like, "Hey, Mr. Spock, check out the new turbolift!"

Well, since it doesn't exist on the TOS bridge I think its safe to assume that it was new.

 

[A beaker full of death]

For the most part I would agree with that, but the extra turbolift door on the Enterprise bridge is hardly "cosmetic."

It's been years since I've seen TAS. Do they say anything to indicate that it's new? Like, "Hey, Mr. Spock, check out the new turbolift!"

Well, since it doesn't exist on the TOS bridge I think its safe to assume that it was new.

Actually, that's not exactly so. They never showed that part of the bridge.

 

[Michael]

It's been years since I've seen TAS. Do they say anything to indicate that it's new? Like, "Hey, Mr. Spock, check out the new turbolift!"

Well, since it doesn't exist on the TOS bridge I think its safe to assume that it was new.

Actually, that's not exactly so. They never showed that part of the bridge.

 

[Dayton Ward]

^ And don't forget various episodes that track Kirk (and/or others) walking around the upper bridge deck, like "The Doomsday Machine" At the end of the episode, he and Spock walk around the front half of the bridge, past the viewer so that you see the sections/stations to either side.

 

[A beaker full of death]

I thought the 2nd tubolift was right where the camera is placed in that shot? So, to play devil's advocate, we still don't know.