The Squire of Gothos timeline

[Christopher]

^^Yes, of course, but only to the same extent that "Space Seed" and "Tomorrow is Yesterday" were "close enough" to lead people to assume a timeframe of the late 22nd or early 23rd century. My point is that Decker's line was just another rough approximation like those, one that merely suggested the late 23rd century rather than definitively establishing it. It's just one more of the vague and inconsistent hints we got before TWOK locked down the century and TNG finally established a precise calendar year.

 

[cooleddie74]

Fair enough. True, we never got an exact year mentioned on screen in ANY story until TWOK...and then it was the bottling date for Kirk's Romulan Ale(2283)...which meant only that the movie was set sometime between 2283 and 2299 since the ale was treated as if it had taken at least a little while to ferment and age.

 

[Christopher]

Fair enough. True, we never got an exact year mentioned on screen in ANY story until TWOK...and then it was the bottling date for Kirk's Romulan Ale(2283)...which meant only that the movie was set sometime between 2283 and 2299 since the ale was treated as if it had taken at least a little while to ferment and age.

Which may be why the Okuda Chronology placed TWOK in 2285 despite the fact that the "fifteen years" references relative to "Space Seed" should have placed it in 2282 (going by the assumption that TOS took place precisely 300 years after it was produced/aired). Although I don't see why, in that case, they didn't just decide to set TOS a few years later, say, 2269-72. There was no canonical evidence at the time to contradict that.

 

[cooleddie74]

Fair enough. True, we never got an exact year mentioned on screen in ANY story until TWOK...and then it was the bottling date for Kirk's Romulan Ale(2283)...which meant only that the movie was set sometime between 2283 and 2299 since the ale was treated as if it had taken at least a little while to ferment and age.

Which may be why the Okuda Chronology placed TWOK in 2285 despite the fact that the "fifteen years" references relative to "Space Seed" should have placed it in 2282 (going by the assumption that TOS took place precisely 300 years after it was produced/aired). Although I don't see why, in that case, they didn't just decide to set TOS a few years later, say, 2269-72. There was no canonical evidence at the time to contradict that.

TNG's relationship to the then-recent STAR TREK IV didn't simplify matters to some when the first season of NEXT GEN was set in 2364 and some of the promotional materials for the new show said it was set "78 years after the most recent adventures of Kirk and Spock"(sic), placing the humpback whale film in 2286(coincidentally, 300 years after the release date in much the same way the original series episodes are largely assumed to take place 300 years after their initial airdates). 2286 for TVH places KHAN and SPOCK even earlier, pushing them back to 2285 even if it doesn't jibe with the "fifteen years" exile timeframe for Khan and his people.

 

[Christopher]

^^Well, no, as I said, 15 years would've put TWOK in 2282, if we assume (as the Okudachron does) that "Space Seed" was in 2267. So they actually moved it forward, not back.

But still, that's the first possible explanation I've heard for why they'd put TVH in 2286, which makes even less sense. I mean, TVH is explicitly only three months after TSFS. So it should probably still be in 2285.

 

[cooleddie74]

^
Unless TSFS happens(Earth calendar-wise)during the last two or three months of 2285, which puts the opening shots of the crew on Vulcan in TVH in January or February of 2286. That would also make Kirk's 52nd birthday in TWOK in the fall rather than the springtime as some conjecture(basing it somewhat on William Shatner's March birthdate).

 

[Christopher]

^^The problem there is, the Okudachron itself mentions the March 22 date on the entry for Kirk's birth in 2233. So by their own assumptions, TWOK should be in late March and TSFS in early April, putting TVH in July 2285. So their conjectural dates are inconsistent with each other.

Not to mention that they put TFF in 2287. Why? To all indications, it's not set very long after TVH, just long enough for a shakedown cruise that revealed the ship was a wreck and needed a full overhaul. Harve Bennett has claimed the shakedown was six months long, though it seems less than that.

 

[cooleddie74]

^^The problem there is, the Okudachron itself mentions the March 22 date on the entry for Kirk's birth in 2233. So by their own assumptions, TWOK should be in late March and TSFS in early April, putting TVH in July 2285. So their conjectural dates are inconsistent with each other.

Not to mention that they put TFF in 2287. Why? To all indications, it's not set very long after TVH, just long enough for a shakedown cruise that revealed the ship was a wreck and needed a full overhaul. Harve Bennett has claimed the shakedown was six months long, though it seems less than that.

I agree on TFF. A whole year for the shakedown tests and replacement of the 1701-A bridge module? The entire original Enterprise was overhauled and refitted in roughly 18 months' time before 2273(TMP). I think TFF can be safely set at the most a few months later into 2286, which might make the entire TWOK-TFF arc take place within barely one year's time.