Stardate for Dummies

[Devon]

but it was accurate enough to years, and to the level where nobody ever complained about it being too confusing for the audience to understand.

In reality, most people didn't know or care enough to try to understand it. This is not the same as them understanding it. It's just jumbled numbers to most people, and ended up being jumbled numbers to the writers too when the formulas they came up with ended up being flawed. This does not in anyway signify some superior form of intelligence over those who use a real life time based system that is tried and tested for how long now?

The only flaw in Trek XI's number system is that there will be a leap year every four years. But both Starfleet and The Federation are earth centric as well, so it's not surprising and makes sense, and honestly not a big deal.

 

[BlobVanDam]

but it was accurate enough to years, and to the level where nobody ever complained about it being too confusing for the audience to understand.

In reality, most people didn't know or care enough to try to understand it. This is not the same as them understanding it. It's just jumbled numbers to most people, and ended up being jumbled numbers to the writers too when the formulas they came up with ended up being flawed. This does not in anyway signify some superior form of intelligence over those who use a real life time based system that is tried and tested for how long now?

The only flaw in Trek XI's number system is that there will be a leap year every four years. But both Starfleet and The Federation are earth centric as well, so it's not surprising and makes sense, and honestly not a big deal.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that the random garble from TNG onwards was some higher form of enigmatic intelligent system by any means
I just feel that the specific idea of Earth years for the Stardate system was wrong on several levels. I don't see why Earth's calendar system would become the dominant system of the Federation, considering how new and far behind we were in space exploration (I know ENT sort of tries to imply that we're like the cosmic glue that helped form the Federation, but I'm not buying that). Considering how Earth centric Trek XI was, I would have preferred they just do away with the pretense altogether, and just say the year. It would have zero impact for the people who don't care anyway, while not being so contrived for those who do actually care.

Anyway, I agree it's not all that big a deal. I have a habit of making a bigger deal out of things on the internet than I ever would in reality.

 

[M'Sharak]

All is well, then.

 

[Trekkie2]

I'm glad they changed the stardate, because I can't figure out the other one.