There's no tension on my end; I'm merely clarifying that I was not assuming what you suggested I was. I don't know why you've continued to make an issue of it.
SFTM Stardates
- Thread starter Falconer
- Start date
I’m not making any issue beyond clarifying what I came up with as an explanation, which you chose to nitpick, mixing the explanation that was the ostensible purpose for the thread with the stories. I clearly was not measuring the damn explanation against the stories. If it made sense against the stories, there would never have been any doubt what the stardates were. It’s the fact they don’t fit with the stories that has caused fifty years of confusion.
I tried. Forget about it.
I tried. Forget about it.
I took another crack at deciphering FJ’s dating system on his own terms. Here are the stardates he provides:
Stardate 0965 - UFP Established
Stardate 1200.5 - Romulan Treaty
Stardate 3199.5 - Organian Treaty
Stardate 3220 - Second wave of CA construction
Stardate 4444 - Third wave of CA construction
Stardate 5930 - Fourth wave of CA construction
If 20 stardates = 1 year, and “Errand of Mercy” takes place in 2267*, then:
AD 2155 - UFP Established
AD 2167 - Romulan Treaty
AD 2267 - Organian Treaty
AD 2268 - Second wave of CA construction
AD 2329 - Third wave of CA construction
AD 2403 - Fourth wave of CA construction
Indeed the Romulan War was “a century ago” per “Balance of Terror.”
Hence the Defiant (part of the second wave) is constructed after “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” and before “The Tholian Web” (we know from The Making of Star Trek that it was not one of the original 14).
* - I use the canonical 2267 date because it’s as good as any other.
Stardate 0965 - UFP Established
Stardate 1200.5 - Romulan Treaty
Stardate 3199.5 - Organian Treaty
Stardate 3220 - Second wave of CA construction
Stardate 4444 - Third wave of CA construction
Stardate 5930 - Fourth wave of CA construction
If 20 stardates = 1 year, and “Errand of Mercy” takes place in 2267*, then:
AD 2155 - UFP Established
AD 2167 - Romulan Treaty
AD 2267 - Organian Treaty
AD 2268 - Second wave of CA construction
AD 2329 - Third wave of CA construction
AD 2403 - Fourth wave of CA construction
Indeed the Romulan War was “a century ago” per “Balance of Terror.”
Hence the Defiant (part of the second wave) is constructed after “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” and before “The Tholian Web” (we know from The Making of Star Trek that it was not one of the original 14).
* - I use the canonical 2267 date because it’s as good as any other.
I converted FJ’s dates to the “Writer’s Guide” Stardate system which I am using (1 day = 1 stardate), keeping the Organian Treaty as a constant:
AD 2155 - Articles of Federation; first wave of DDs/SCs/CAs/Tugs authorized
AD 2167 - Federation-Romulan Treaty
Stardate 0000 - AD 2258
Stardate 0104 - Second wave of DDs authorized
Stardate 3199.5 - Organian Treaty
Stardate 3573.8 - Second wave of CAs authorized
Stardate 11243.9 - Second wave of Tugs authorized
Stardate 11773.5 - Second wave of SCs authorized
Stardate 25926.6 - Four replacement CAs authorized
Stardate 30583.5 - Third wave of DDs authorized
Stardate 35897.8 - Third wave of Tugs authorized
Stardate 37888.3 - Third wave of SCs authorized
Stardate 53064.1 - Third wave of CAs authorized
Stardate 55547.8 - First wave of DNs authorized
This helps me reckon exactly what ships are available in my tabletop RPG campaign (present Stardate 7157.1). Of course I can change it if I want, but, it’s neat to know what FJ had in mind. And I do think this more or less works for me. I tend to like a small fleet. The one change I am likely to make is to slip a Dreadnought or two (“prototypes”) into the campaign at some later point. Great fun!
AD 2155 - Articles of Federation; first wave of DDs/SCs/CAs/Tugs authorized
AD 2167 - Federation-Romulan Treaty
Stardate 0000 - AD 2258
Stardate 0104 - Second wave of DDs authorized
Stardate 3199.5 - Organian Treaty
Stardate 3573.8 - Second wave of CAs authorized
Stardate 11243.9 - Second wave of Tugs authorized
Stardate 11773.5 - Second wave of SCs authorized
Stardate 25926.6 - Four replacement CAs authorized
Stardate 30583.5 - Third wave of DDs authorized
Stardate 35897.8 - Third wave of Tugs authorized
Stardate 37888.3 - Third wave of SCs authorized
Stardate 53064.1 - Third wave of CAs authorized
Stardate 55547.8 - First wave of DNs authorized
This helps me reckon exactly what ships are available in my tabletop RPG campaign (present Stardate 7157.1). Of course I can change it if I want, but, it’s neat to know what FJ had in mind. And I do think this more or less works for me. I tend to like a small fleet. The one change I am likely to make is to slip a Dreadnought or two (“prototypes”) into the campaign at some later point. Great fun!
Can you explain your conversion process to "Writer's Guide" dates? Other than your stardate for the Organian Treaty, I'm not sure how you derive any of those numbers.
--Alex
See, but there have probably been hundreds of stardate pet theories, all of which start with a peculiar notion of the day before the inevitable rejection of so much other data in order to make the personal approach work, which is when other fans dismiss it until the next pet theory shows up. Let’s break that cycle and not bother.
Pick any four digits that seem right without trying to prop them up with personal notions, then try to remain consistent at one unit per day within a single campaign. If you need to track time between campaigns, just say that one is “five months” after the previous one or so. If you need to go back hundreds of years, either use calendar years or four digits again with no explanation of how they tie into the present: that’s what years and centuries are for.
The spirit of TOS is maintained and there is no pet theory for other fans to reject, which is critical to maintaining immersion in the roleplay. You don’t want people taken out of the game by something as obvious as a custom stardate rule if there are proven in-universe ways of avoiding it.
Pick any four digits that seem right without trying to prop them up with personal notions, then try to remain consistent at one unit per day within a single campaign. If you need to track time between campaigns, just say that one is “five months” after the previous one or so. If you need to go back hundreds of years, either use calendar years or four digits again with no explanation of how they tie into the present: that’s what years and centuries are for.
The spirit of TOS is maintained and there is no pet theory for other fans to reject, which is critical to maintaining immersion in the roleplay. You don’t want people taken out of the game by something as obvious as a custom stardate rule if there are proven in-universe ways of avoiding it.
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Sure. First I subtracted 3199.5 from all stardates in order to set the Organian Treaty to 0.
Next, I figured there were 365.2422 “Writer’s Guide” stardates for every 20 “Technical Manual” stardates. So, I multiplied all stardates by that ratio.
Then I added 3199.5 again in order to keep the Organian Treaty date constant.
That’s exactly what I am doing!
My personal notions help me imagine a persistent universe, and don’t do anyone else any harm. Trust me, my players have no problem accepting my word as gospel within the campaign — especially when I am consistent with myself.
I regret the tendency in the later series to make stardates conform to Earth calendar dates in any way, e.g. the TNG-era approach of having 1000 stardate units per Earth year, not to mention the lazy Kelvin version of having stardates just be (Gregorian year).(number of days elapsed in year). I mean, what is the point of calling them stardates if they're still based on Earth time? That's a failure of imagination. They should be some completely different system, some universal time standard that isn't specific to one planet. They should be calculated based on some multiple of pulsar periods or some fraction of a galactic rotation or something actually star-based.
Not if you quote the second part of the sentence immediately rather than later:
You’re looking for meaning in FJ’s stardates despite the fact that he was mixing numbers based on actual TOS episodes (3113, 3199) with his YYMM.DD format, which made it seem like the book was written some years later despite the unusual two decimals and limited digit ranges. One might speculate that 1200.5 was based on 1277.1 from Kirk’s gravestone and the assumption that it was his birthdate, and similar for 0965, but he’d have known readers would interpret 4444 and 5930 as simply the TOS era, not the distant future.
I’m just pointing out that every time I see a mere stardate assumption being used to adjust the official timeline by a few years, let alone generate highly unusual calculations for hundreds of years in the future, the proponent has already lost me regardless of whatever else they’re trying to do, which in your case is creating RPG campaigns. If the focus is on providing an immersive experience, unpredictable stardates should be a part of that. Let the player feel like they’re at the mercy of a computer displaying stardates that mean little to them over the long run, with only the temporary safety of the once-a-day increase within a campaign.
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While it may not matter so much on a TV show, in a RPG it behooves the gamesmaster to keep strict time records across adventures. If I agreed with you that it would actually add to the verisimilitude (it’s scientific!) and fun (it’s winkingly TOSish!) for the stardate to skip around and sometimes jump backward, I would still have to keep “real” time lapse records on my side of the screen, which seems to me unwieldy. It would be one more thing to keep track of, and that thing you mention about the players being “at the mercy of the computer” simply means I would be saddled with providing them with “calculations”. I would prefer they be able to figure things out themselves whenever possible.
tldr; I prefer to just have one timekeeping method which always advances sequentially and predictably.
And I prefer a relatively small Starfleet, so I’m happy with the SFTM’s later constructions (past the second wave of Heavy Cruisers) never happening within the timeframe of my campaign.
tldr; I prefer to just have one timekeeping method which always advances sequentially and predictably.
And I prefer a relatively small Starfleet, so I’m happy with the SFTM’s later constructions (past the second wave of Heavy Cruisers) never happening within the timeframe of my campaign.
You wouldn’t be saddled with it; if anything, you’d have fun calling out four-digit numbers which would be correct “because you said so”, and then you’d be “extremely” strict about everyone increasing them once a day.
That’s what the Vulcan in the game would be responsible for: keeping track of elapsed time in Vulcan Years as established in “Yesteryear”. The present of that episode is c. 8907 Vulcan Years, and as long as one of the months is Tasmeen, with twenty days or more, the remainder is basically up to you or that player (and could be adjusted should we ever uncover more about that calendar). The obscure chronology of TOS/TAS would be preserved and you’d have your in-game calendar.
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Hey, Alex, I’m running a lite/homebrew/old school game, taking bits and pieces from various different rulesets:
- Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier (1978, Michael Scott Kurtick)
- Starships & Spacemen (1978, Capt. Leonard H. Kanterman, M.D.)
- Where No Man Has Gone Before 2.0 (2009, Mike Berkey)
All very interesting points. I wanted to discuss some of them in detail, but my main comment is at the bottom.
That is fascinating. I'm impressed it worked that closely. Any thoughts on the length of time between ST:4 and ST:5?
I'm not aware on "unknown" being used on the show except in strange circumstances like being in the mirror universe or in "Turnabout Intruder when a character is separated from clocks."
This seems to e an inconsistency that I can explain, but in "The Enterprise Incident," Scotty did not recognize them but Spock did.
I'll address this one in a comment below.*
I can overlook most of these like the color of Spock's scanner, nylon vs. velour uniforms, use of pilot stock footage in TOS.
*Even if looking at stardates as being more-or-less in order, the rate at which they pass does not always seem constant in TOS, espcailly between episodes. The two-month long journey in front of the asteroid is between "I Mudd," and "Mudd's Passion," so even though it is only seven episodes, and not a huge amount of stardate units, there is some time in between. Stardates sometimes go down in one episode, and that either has to be an error or a part of the system. I presently favor a "robust," but not "perfect" way of implement stardates so that episodes are in Stardate order, but that the stardates are not constant and could go down a little.
That is fascinating. I'm impressed it worked that closely. Any thoughts on the length of time between ST:4 and ST:5?
I'm not aware on "unknown" being used on the show except in strange circumstances like being in the mirror universe or in "Turnabout Intruder when a character is separated from clocks."
I feel just the opposite. We get three episodes in a row that test Spock heavily. He is taken over by parasites and nearly blinded. Then he ends out having to break things off with his wife/ fiancee and almost kills his best friend. Then he meets an old friend whom he could have loved but did not let himself, finally lets himself enjoy her affections, and the three-episode saga ends with him saying that for the first time in his life, he was happy. Three types of pain that Spock faces are explored, and then he finds acceptance.
Perhaps it does seem like a twist of fate but nobody really understand the Guardian after all
This seems to e an inconsistency that I can explain, but in "The Enterprise Incident," Scotty did not recognize them but Spock did.
I'll address this one in a comment below.*
I can overlook most of these like the color of Spock's scanner, nylon vs. velour uniforms, use of pilot stock footage in TOS.
*Even if looking at stardates as being more-or-less in order, the rate at which they pass does not always seem constant in TOS, espcailly between episodes. The two-month long journey in front of the asteroid is between "I Mudd," and "Mudd's Passion," so even though it is only seven episodes, and not a huge amount of stardate units, there is some time in between. Stardates sometimes go down in one episode, and that either has to be an error or a part of the system. I presently favor a "robust," but not "perfect" way of implement stardates so that episodes are in Stardate order, but that the stardates are not constant and could go down a little.
My scheme wouldn't work there, since it was based on comparing stardates at the same location (following Roddenberry's assertion that they proceed differently in different places). The stardate in TVH is given at Vulcan and the one in TFF is at Earth.
It seems easier just to overlook the stardates. That's just one inconsistency you have to ignore, instead of having to ignore a whole bunch of different inconsistencies just to justify a bunch of numbers being in order. That seems like letting the tail wag the dog.
Even several months isn't nearly enough time to account for all of Harry's escapades recounted in "Passion."
Interesting thoughts. Then in your view is production order the only way to go, since little inconsistencies might creep in even in air date order?
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