Dear Boris (and everyone else),
My post was only intended to help CuttingEdge100 get started. Having looked at the whole subject in far too much detail, I can tell you with certainty that there was no system to onscreen, offscreen, initial or finalized stardates. There was the guidance in the various writers’ guides, and some rules of thumb that changed over time, and stardates were never calculated on anything more precise than what numbers looked OK. The only way stardates could really work is if they had been calculated accurately and consistently right from the start. You can get surprisingly close some of the time with some of the dates, but there is no way you could ever convert all of the stardates used in the stories into a conventional chronology without making the system so nebulous and arbitrary it’s pointless using it. Not only have I tried and failed myself, I’ve looked long and often at other people’s approaches.
I don’t think the “new” stardates are any big improvement over the old ones. That’s a personal opinion, and I don’t expect everyone to automatically share it.
To be specific, I think that having the calendar year as the base unit is odd, since it can’t be a consistent length. Sometimes it’ll be 365 days long, others 366. In reality, astronomers deliberately don’t use conventional dates in their calculations, they use a day count called the Julian Period instead, so I just think it’s a poor choice for a fictional space calendar.
I’m also not that taken with the “elapsed days” aspect either. If the system counted from say 2266.001 to 2233.365, it would possibly work. As it’s used, people will have to be very careful not to confuse 2266.3, 2266.30 and 2266.300. And what about 2266.04? Is that 4th January, or April? If it’s a month, what would 2266.12 indicate?
I’m afraid I have difficulty seeing what advantages there would be to changing to this system, which again is a personal opinion, not a factual argument against it.
It’s also absolutely no help whatsoever in making any kind of interpretation of previous stardates. If you’re trying to relate your new stories to existing ones, it’ll mean a load of guesswork in any case, and re-stardating.
Everyone should have a few impossible dreams, one of mine happens to be a stardated timeline. I’m a lot further forward with it than I ever thought I’d get, and if anyone wants to use it as a source of inspiration for their own work, they’re more than welcome. As far as I’m aware, it’s the only detailed timeline that offers a direct conversion between stardates and conventional dates, and points out where my ideas work and where they don’t, along with as many chronological clues (apart from stardates) I’ve been able to find.
My own guess at the chronology of the original and animated series is that the first season stories all happened before the second season ones, they were before the third season, and the animated shows came last. Beyond that it’s a matter of personal preference. Broadcast order pretty much randomises the stardates, although there’s a vague upward trend with time. It also puts “Where No Man Has Gone Before” in an odd place, assuming you stick to it absolutely. Production order has a similar effect on stardates, and it’s more likely to reflect the availability of scripts and other production factors, rather than an intentional chronological sequence. Stardate order still doesn’t reflect what “ought” to be the order of stories, and creates continuity problems, most notably by mixing the animated shows through the run of live action stories, but also in other ways, like how Scotty’s hair is styled. In the end, I went for “semi-stardate order within each season”, as the least-worst solution for my own purposes.
CuttingEdge100, you’ll probably have spotted without me having to point it out that the answer to your original question is that there isn’t an agreed system for stardates, or anything particularly close. Pick something that works for you. The accuracy of the stardate shouldn’t be the main point of interest in the story, which I suspect is the main reason they were never worked out much.
Best wishes with your writing, CuttingEdge100. I’ve found that getting something started (like a “Star Trek” timeline in my case) is the important thing. If it works, great, but if not it’s still a starting point for going back and making improvements until you’re happier with it. If a fanfic is what you want to work on, I suggest you go with it. Bad writing is bad whatever it’s about, and that goes just the same for good writing, too. Since I’m definitely somewhere in “average”, then just having fun is what it’s all about for me.
Timon
