Stardates are probably one of the dumbest things about Star Trek. Mostly because it always ended up being that 1000 numbers was an Earth year anyways in the next gen series. So why not just use the standard Gregorian Calendar? Now with this movie, they've made the numbers even more apparent to be equivalent to our years. So why even use it? One thing I liked about Enterprise was how they still used our calendar and didn't attempt the BS. It is best to pay no mind to stardates.
We all know that things like Stardates evolve as much as they are created.
- Originally to keep exact dates "vague" to leave room for creativity down the line.
- When TNG came into things, 24th Century Stardates were made to make slightly more sense by using 4 then the season number, then random 3 digits slowly incrementing, then dot something random to give a vague impression of the passage of time.
- Trek 2009 came about, and they had the TOS style 4 digit Stardates, so they came up with a simple system that made sense.
I guess its a kind of balance that has to be maintained between making sense and respecting the past.
It also makes sense that we don't understand a Stardate today that looks like a random number, because it's an universal date that can be shared by 100+ alien civilizations, compensates for faster than light travel, etc... What doesn't make ANY sense is to base it on the Gregorian Calendar. Not every planet has 24 hours days, and doesn't take 365 Earth days to orbit around their sun. And certainly not everyone had some mythical figure born 2000 years ago.
Idealistically, if you found something big like the Federation, you'd need to settle for a universal measuring system. And that system would be defined by universal constants like a pulsar frequency, atomic mass, etc... Vulcans, Andorians, etc... have no idea how long feet or meters are, since they have their own ways of measuring distances. Even a
lightyear would have to be redefined, because... what the hell is a year? Is it the Earth year or is it the 100+ years of 100+ different civilizations?
And since Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, etc... were space faring civilizations LONG before Earth turned up on the map, it makes no sense that they'd all bow down and use to the metric system and the Gregorian Calendar. It's Star Trek, it's idealistic, they'd sit down and create a new system that can be shared by everyone.
If you retcon something, then at least please retcon it with some thought put into it. Too bad they cancelled Enterprise, they could have mentioned all that stuff in those three missing seasons.
