TOS Chronology

[MAGolding]

Going by broadcast order, the eighth episode of TOS is "Miri" on October 27, 1966.

"Miri" opens as the Enterprise, following a signal, arrives in a star system:

KIRK: Earth-style distress signal. SOS.
FARRELL: I've answered it on all frequencies, sir. They don't reply.
SPOCK: Not a vessel, a ground source. The third planet in this solar system, according to my instruments.
FARRELL: Directly ahead. Definitely an Earth-style signal.
KIRK: We're hundreds of light years from Earth, Mister Spock. No colonies or vessels out this far.
SPOCK: Measuring the planet now, Captain. It's spheroid-shaped, circumference twenty four thousand eight hundred seventy four miles. Mass six times ten to the twenty first power tons. Mean density five point five one seven. Atmosphere oxygen, nitrogen.
RAND: Earth!
KIRK: Not the Earth, another Earth. Another Earth?

Captain's Log, stardate 2713.5. In the distant reaches of our galaxy, we have made an astonishing discovery. Earth type radio signals coming from a planet which apparently is an exact duplicate of the Earth. It seems impossible, but there it is.

So being "hundreds of light years from Earth" means Miri's planet is at least 100 light years, and possibly at least 200 light years from Earth, and less than 1,000 light years from Earth. There should be about 4,188,786,667 cubic light years within 1,000 light years of earth, and with a stellar density of about 0.004 stars per cubic light year, about 16,755,146 stars within that volume. So the stars system would hardly be identifiable. If there are no colonies that far out, they might be farther from Earth than the Rigel colonies mentioned in "The Doomsday Machine", and thus farther than the 780 to 940 light years that Rigel is distant from Earth.

Beaming down near the source of the signal, they appear in a deserted urban landscape.

KIRK: Identical. Earth, as it was in the early 1900s.
SPOCK: More the, er, mid-1900s I would say, Captain, approximately 1960.
RAND: But where is everybody?
SPOCK: Readings indicate that natural deterioration has been taking place on this planet for at least several centuries.

Entering a house, they see an old piano:

KIRK: How old is this thing?
SPOCK: About three hundred years.

Spock may calculate that the wood in the piano has been cut for about 300 years, or that there is about 300 years worth of dust on it.

But some fans speculate that Spock identifies the piano as similar to a model made on Earth 300 years ago, and thus they calculate the date of "Miri" is about 300 years after about AD 1960, or about AD 2260.

But if TOS happens in an alternate universe which diverged from ours before TOS was produced, it is possible that Earth was a little more or less advanced in AD 1960 in the TOS timeline. And it is possible that Spock was using a different calendar and year count. So the town in "Miri" might have looked about as advanced as Earth looked in about 1960 in the Miri calendar, or 1960 MC. And Spock says "approximately 1960", so sometime between about 1950 MC and 1970 MC s is indicated. And if Spock's "About three hundred years" could be anywhere between 200 and 400 years, the date of "Miri" could be sometime between 2150 MC and 2370 MC.

And as I said, it is not certain that happening sometime 2150 MC and 2370 MC is the same thing as happening sometime between AD 2150 and AD 2370.

If "Where No Man Has Gone Before" should probably happen sometime between 2096 TM and 2196 TM, and "Miri" should happen sometime between about 2150 MC and 2370 MC, the epoch or year one of the Tarbolde-Mitchell calendar (TM calendar) could be as many as 274 years after the epoch and year one of the MC calendar. But on the other hand, the epoch of the TM calendar could be as many as 46 years after the epoch or year one of the TM calendar. So it is possible that the TM and MC calendars are the same, and also possible that their epochs are decades or centuries apart.

In that house they meet a girl named Miri, who they persuade to take them to an old medical building..

Captain's Log, stardate 2713.6. The building Miri led us to also housed an automatic transmission station, which sent out the signal that drew us to this planet. We also discovered something else. That the blues blotches, characteristic of the unknown disease had appeared on each of us, with the exception of Mister Spock. There was a well-equipped laboratory in the building. Doctor McCoy took tissue samples of each of us in an attempt to isolate the organism responsible.

Th e medical building was the site of a life prolongation project. They wonder how there could be children on a planet without adults for centuries.

SPOCK: This was three hundred years ago, Captain.
KIRK: All the adults are dead. Only the children are left alive.

SPOCK: It's illogical. It does not follow. All the adults on this planet died three hundred years ago, but there are children in the streets.
KIRK: Who die when they enter adolescence.
MCCOY: But how do they keep the line going?

And we don't know what that figure of three hundred years since the disaster is based on or whether it is more accurate than Spock's previous "at least several centuries", which would be between, say, two hundred and one thousand years.

FARRELL [OC]: Here are those figures you asked for. Twelve to the tenth power. Metabolic rate seventy two percent. Production of nucleic acids reduced to thirty three percent of normal. Conventional chronological progression one hundred by three point six.

SPOCK: According to their life prolongation plan, what they thought they were accomplishing, a person would age only one month for every one hundred years of real time.
RAND: One hundred years and only one month?
SPOCK: Exactly, Yeoman. Evidently through some miscalculation, this virus annihilated the entire adult population in a very short period, leaving only the children.

RAND: Do you suppose she knows?
KIRK: I don't think so.
RAND: If they're as old as Spock claims, they must have some idea of what's happening.
KIRK: There's no adult interpretation. I think we're dealing with children. Immensely old perhaps, but nonetheless children. We've got to do something about the others.

I think Kirk's interpretation is not very sensible. Miri and Jahn, the oldest two kids remaining in the community, are entering puberty. If their ages are between their 12th and 15th birthdays, and they have aged only three months in three hundred years, they must have been aged about 11 years and 9 months to 14 years and 9 months when the adults died.

And if you assume the time since the disaster was Spock's "at least several centuries" or two hundred to one thousand years, they would have aged 2 to 10 months since the disaster and have been aged about 11 years and 2 months to 14 years and 10 months during the disaster.

So they should have had a good idea of where the dividing line in size and apparent age was between those afflicted by the disease during the disaster and in the following centuries, and those who were not affected by it yet. After Kirk and Miri are attacked by Louise, who has recently changed:

KIRK: Dead. I don't understand it. My phaser wasn't set to kill.
MIRI: Her name was Louise. She was just a little bit older than I am when it happened. Oh, Jim. (she hugs him)

And I think that Miri probably sometime expected to change and die fairly soon by her time standards and tried to deny it at other times..

KIRK: What about Miri?
SPOCK: Our guess was correct. They contract the disease as they enter puberty and their metabolism changes. The notes would indicate it doesn't become acute for a month or so. I estimate she has perhaps five or six weeks left.

Miri probably wouldn't be too surprised by that estimate, though certainly not pleased.'

FARRELL [OC]: Computer indicates one hundred seventy hours, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: Verified, Captain. We have seven days.

Captain's Log, supplement. This is the second day of the seven left to us. We've found nothing. Enterprise is standing by with labs and computers ready to assist us.

Later:

KIRK: You two will have to recreate their thinking. If you can isolate that virus, we'll be able to develop a vaccine.
MCCOY: Is that all, Captain? We have five days, you know.
KIRK: I know.

The kids steal the communicators.

Captain's Log, stardate 2717.3. Three days, seven hours left to us. Investigation proves that the supply of food in the area is running dangerously low. Unless something is done, the children will starve in a few months. The disease is working on each of us according to Doctor McCoy's prediction. Our tempers are growing short, and We're no further along than we were two days ago.

Three days and seven hours are 79 hours, so that is 91 hours, or 3 days and 19 hours, after 170 hours were left, which was sometime after stardate 2713.6. So there are at least 91 hours in 3.8 stardate units, making at least 23.9, or twenty three point nine, hours in a stardate unit.

McCoy identifies the disease:

MCCOY: The disease, Captain, the one they created three hundred years ago.

When McCoy injects himself and Kirk arrives with the communicators:

KIRK: (with children and communicators) Three hours, eleven minutes left. Thank you, Lieutenant. Keep this channel open. Clear your computers. What happened to him?

So it is about 166.8 hours, or 6.9 days, since it was estimated they had 170 hours, If there are 24.5, or fewer hours in a stardate unit, the stardate should now be 2720.3 or higher.

And later:

RAND: They were just children. Simply to leave them there with a medical team
KIRK: Just children, three hundred years old and more. I've already contacted Space Central. They'll send teachers, advisers.

Earlier:

KIRK: And you? The disease doesn't seem to be interested in you.
SPOCK: I am a carrier. Whatever happens, I can't go back to the ship, and I do want to go back to the ship, Captain.

And this makes me imagine an alternate ending where Spock is alone on the planet after the others all die.

 

[Albertese]

....

But some fans speculate that Spock identifies the piano as similar to a model made on Earth 300 years ago, and thus they calculate the date of "Miri" is about 300 years after about AD 1960, or about AD 2360.
....

300 years after 1960 is 2260, not 2360.

--Alex

 

[Henoch]

And this makes me imagine an alternate ending where Spock is alone on the planet after the others all die.

Alone? On a planet of starving children. He'd end up administering the new Starfleet Food Bank.

 

[MAGolding]

300 years after 1960 is 2260, not 2360.

--Alex

oops. I corrected that.

 

[MAGolding]

"Dagger of the Mind" is the ninth TOS episode in broadcast order, on November 3, 1966.

The Enterprise beams supplies down to the Tantalus V penal colony and beams something up. Dr. Van Gender climbs out of the box and escapes into the ship.

Captain's log, stardate 2715.1. Exchanged cargo with penal colony on Tantalus V. I've departed without going ashore

On the Bridge, Kirk and McCoy discuss Adams's contributions to penology before the Tantalus colony calls about an escaped inmate.

KIRK: I would like to have met Doctor Adams. Have you ever been to a penal colony since they started following his theories?
MCCOY: A cage is a cage, Jim.
KIRK: You're behind the times, Bones. They're more like resort colonies now.

After being warned than an escaped inmate might be aboard:

KIRK: Enterprise acknowledging. Stand by. Security alert three.
UHURA: Security alert, condition three. All sections go to alert condition three. We may have an intruder aboard.

Which is different from "The Corbomite Maneuver":

SPOCK: Quite unnecessary to raise your voice, Mister Bailey. All engines stop. Sound the alert.
SULU: Bridge to all decks. Condition alert. All decks, condition alert. Captain Kirk to the Bridge.

And there is this discussion about Earth history:

SPOCK: Interesting. Your Earth people glorify organised violence for forty centuries, but you imprison those who employ it privately.
MCCOY: And, of course, your people found an answer.
SPOCK: We disposed of emotion, Doctor. Where there is no emotion there is no motive for violence.

Unfortunately, Earth's recorded history began about 3000 BC, give or take a few centuries, and thus about 49.95 (forty nine point nine five) centuries before "Dagger of the Mind" was written, and humans didn't become noticeably more or less warlike during that period.

After Van Gelder is captured, they take turn the ship around to go back to the Tantalus colony.

KIRK: Estimated arrival at Tantalus?
SPOCK: Fifty seven minutes, thirty seconds, Captain.

So if the Enterprise travels at the same speed in both directions, the time is now at least 115 minutes, or 1.9 (one point nine) hours since stardate 2715.1.

When McCoy suspects there is something rotten in the state of Tantalus V, they discuss Adams's contributions to penology again.

KIRK: You don't believe him, and you can't explain it. Bones, are you aware that in the last twenty years Doctor Adams has done more to revolutionise, to humanise prisons and the treatment of prisoners than all the rest of humanity had done in forty centuries? I've been to those penal colonies since they've begun following his methods, and they're not cages anymore.
MCCOY: Jim
KIRK: They're clean, decent hospitals for sick minds.

So Kirk also underestimates the length of recorded Earth history. I tis possible in the era of TOS historians believe that Earth's history is much shorter than historians i the year 2020 do, beginning sometime after 2000 BC. Perhaps TOS era historians believe in some of the chronological discontinuities suggested by Timo in his post number 33.

Kirk decides to beam down to Tantalus V to investigate.

Captain's log, stardate 2715.2. Standard orbit, planet Tantalus V.

[Bridge]

KIRK: Mission, routine investigation and report as per ship surgeon's medical log. As for my last entry, it seems I will get to meet Doctor Adams at last. However, I would have preferred other circumstances. Sickbay. Report, Doctor.

So 0.1 stardate units between 2715.1 and 2715.2 equals at least 120 minutes or two hours, meaning that in this episode 1 stardate unit should equal at least 20 hours.

In the transporter room Kirk meets the pyschiatrist with penal experience assigned to assist him, Dr. Helen Noel.

NOEL: Doctor Helen Noel, Captain. We've met. Don't you remember the science lab Christmas party?
KIRK: Yes, I remember.
NOEL: You dropped in
KIRK: Yes, yes, I remember.

Later, in the treatment chair Dr. Noel puts ideas into Kirk's head:

NOEL: (light turns) At the Christmas party, we met, we danced, you talked about the stars. I suggest now that it happened in a different way. You swept me off my feet and carried me to your cabin.

[Kirk's quarters]

KIRK: Merry Christmas.
NOEL: Captain, if your crew saw you carry me here.
KIRK: My crew is sworn to secrecy.
NOEL: But my reputation. I mean, just having met like this. Of course, it would be different if you cared for me.
KIRK: You want me to manufacture a lie, wrap it up as a Christmas present for you?
NOEL: No, I prefer honesty. (they kiss)

And Noel's fantasy suggests that the Christmas party was actually on Christmas Day, December 25, or very close to it.

The time since the Christmas party is not specified. So it is possible that "Dagger of the Mind" in d late December of that year or sometime in the next year. And it seems almost certain that their could not be two episodes happening in the week between the Christmas party and the New Year.

So if a Star Trek chronologist puts the TOS episodes in broadcast order, or stardate order, or production order,or some other order, "Dagger of the Mind" might happen in the last week of the year of the Christmas party, or in the next year, but the next episode in that order almmost certainly happens in the next year, the year after the Christmas party.

In "Charlie X" Kirk says "On Earth today it is Thanksgiving" sometime between stardate 1533.7 and stardate 1535.8. Canadian Thanksgiving day is always between October 10 and October 16, while US Thanksgiving day is always. between November 21 and November 28. So there are 70 to 76 days, or 1,680 to 1,824 hours, between Canadian Thanksgiving and Christmas, and 27 to 32 days, or 648 to 768 hours, between US thanksgiving and Christmas.

If one stardate unit equals at least 20 hours in "Dagger of the Mind" Canadian Thanksgiving should be no more than 84 to 91.2 stardate units before Christmas and US Thanksgiving should be no more than 32.4 to 38.4 stardate units before Christmas. Since there are 1179.3 to 1181.4 stardate units between Thanksgiving and the beginning of "Dagger of the Mind", there should be at least 23,586.to 23,628 hours or 928.7 to 984.5 days, or 2.6 years between "Charlie X": and "Dagger of the Mind", if there are at least 20 hours per stardate unit during the entire period. If there are at least 20 hours per stardate unit, exactly five years would be 43,830 hours, and thus no more than 2,191.5 stardate units long. So it seems unlikely that the rate of over 20 hours per stardate unit could last for the entire five year mission.

Three possibilities:

One) Kirk's five year mission is stretched considerably to allow for the many more than 2,191.5 stardate units it covers.

Two) the relationship between stardate units and time units changes and varies over time.

Three) different stardate systems, with different lengths of stardate units are used in different episodes, perhaps due to changes in the system, or else to Starfleet using different stardate systems in different alternate universes the episodes happen in.

Kirk decides to spend the night at Tantalus V.

KIRK: I think we'll spend the night here, Mister Spock.

So presumably night is approaching at the colony and/or on the Enterprise.

Spock makes a log:

SPOCK [OC]: Enterprise log. First officer Spock, acting captain. I must now use an ancient Vulcan technique to probe into Van Gelder's tortured mind.

This hows that Spock is the first officer oin "Daggerof the Mind", and that he is the acting captain when Kirk is not aboard (or at least when Kirk is believed to be in danger when off the ship)..

 

[MAGolding]

"The Corbomite Maneuver" is the tenth episode of TOS in broadcast order, from 10 November 1966.

The Enterprise is mapping stars for the third day:

BAILEY: Three days of this now, sir. Other ships must have made star maps of some of this.
SPOCK: Negative, Lieutenant. We are the first to reach this far.

The cube is detected approaching the Enterprise:

SPOCK: Quite unnecessary to raise your voice, Mister Bailey. All engines stop. Sound the alert.
SULU: Bridge to all decks. Condition alert. All decks, condition alert. Captain Kirk to the Bridge.

But in "Dagger of the Mind":

KIRK: Enterprise acknowledging. Stand by. Security alert three.
UHURA: Security alert, condition three. All sections go to alert condition three. We may have an intruder aboard.
.

A noticeable difference in procedure.

Captain's Log, star date 1512.2. On our third day of star mapping, an unexplained cubical object blocked our vessel's path. On the Bridge, Mister Spock immediately ordered general alert. My location, Sickbay. Quarterly physical check.

Since McCoy says:

MCCOY: Finally finished a physical on you, didn't I.

They may have served together for a number of quarters.

The Enterprise waits for a while for the cube to do something.

Captain's Log, star date 1513.8. Star maps reveal no indication of habitable planets nearby. Origin and purpose of the cube still unknown. We've been here, held motionless, for eighteen hours.

So there are 1.6 stardate units and 18 hours between 1512.2 and 1513.8. Thus in "The Corbomite Maneuver" a stardate unit seems to be approximately eleven and a quarter (eleven point two five) hours long, considerably shorter than it seems to be in "Dagger of the Mind".

In a meeting which might begin right after Kirk gives stardate 1513.8 in his log, they decide to evade the cube. The cube pursues them and they are forced to destroy it.

Captain's Log, star date 1514.0. The cube has been destroyed. Ship's damage minor but my next decision, major. Probe on ahead or turn back.

This stardate should be made about two and quarter hours after the preivious one, according to the ratio above.

Kirk decides to probe ahead. In the Turbolift to Kirk's quarters:

MCCOY: I'm especially worried about Bailey. Navigator's position's rough enough for a seasoned man.
KIRK: I think he'll cut it.
MCCOY: Oh? How so sure? Because you spotted something you liked in him, something familiar, like yourself say about, oh, eleven years ago?
BAILEY [OC]: On the double, deck five! Give me a green light.
KIRK: Why, Doctor, you've been reading your textbooks again?
MCCOY: I don't need textbooks to know you could've promoted him too fast. Listen to that voice.

So Bailey may have recently been assigned as navigator, and maybe recently promoted to lieutenant, and possibly Kirk was in a similar situation about eleven years earlier..

In Kirk's quarters Yeoman Rand brings him an overdue meal, but the Fesarius approaches before he can finish it.

After Balok threatens to destroy the Enterprise, Kirk makes the corbomite maneuver:

KIRK: This is the Captain of the Enterprise. Our respect for other lifeforms requires that we give you this warning. One critical item of information that has never been incorporated into the memory banks of any Earth ship. Since the early years of space exploration, Earth vessels have had incorporated into them a substance known as corbomite. It is a material and a device which prevents attack on us. If any destructive energy touches our vessel, a reverse reaction of equal strength is created, destroying
BALOK [OC]: You now have two minutes.
KIRK: Destroying the attacker! It may interest you to know that since the initial use of corbomite more than two of our centuries ago, no attacking vessel has survived the attempt. Death has little meaning to us. If it has none to you then attack us now. We grow annoyed at your foolishness.

So Kirk claims - truthfully or not - that Earth has exploring space, presumably interstellar space, more than two centuries ago. That does agree with the S.S. Valiant being missing for over two centuries in "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

So that is evidence that sometime after AD 1966 Earth discovers warp drive and "The Corbomite Maneuver" is over two centuries after that, and so sometime after AD 2166.

SPOCK: However, it was well played. I regret not having learned more about this Balok. In some manner he was reminiscent of my father.
SCOTT: Then may heaven have helped your mother.
SPOCK: Quite the contrary. She considered herself a very fortunate Earth woman.

This, like Spock's words in "The Naked Time", indicates that Spock's mother is dead, though it may merely indicate that Spock hasn't seen her for a few years and hasn't been updated on the state of their marriage, and doesn't want to make any claims he is not certain of. So possibly "The Naked Times" and "The Corbomite Maneuver" happen in alternate universes to the one of "Journey to Babel" .

Later:

Captain's Log, star date 1514.1. The Enterprise is in tow. To this point, no resistance has been offered. My plan? A show of resignation. Balok's tractor beam has to be a heavy drain of power on his small ship. Question. Will he grow careless?

This stardate should be made about 1.125 (one and one eighth) hours after the third one, and 21.3 hours after the first one, according to the ratio established by the first two logs.

 

[MAGolding]

In Broadcast order "Mudd's Women" is the sixth TOS episode, on October 13. 1966.

Captain's log, Stardate 1329.8. The U.S.S. Enterprise in pursuit of an unidentified vessel.

Captain's log, Stardate 1329.1. We've taken aboard from unregistered transport vessel its captain and, and three unusual females. These women have a mysterious magnetic effect on the male members of my crew, including myself. Explanation unknown at present.

The stardate has decreased by 0.7 since the last log, if the transcript is correct. So if the transcript is correct, stardates don't always increase over time, sometimes they decrease.

Mudd tries to justify running from the Enterprise:

MUDD: Well, how the devil am I supposed to know this is a starship, Captain? Here I am with a cargo of young lovelies. A strange ship comes up alongside. Well. naturally I did my best to evade you. And starship Captain or no, you exceeded your authority when you drove me and mine into a shower of asteroids.

But I suspect that Mudd fled because he wasn't really headed to Ophiuchus Three to take the women to future husbands, but to another planet to be sold into sexual slavery at a much higher price.

The last lithium - presumably dilithium -crystal left: isn't going to last long.

SPOCK: There's a lithium mining operation on Rigel 12. High-grade ore, I've heard.
KIRK: Location and distance.
SPOCK: Mister Farrell has the course. Less than two day's travel.
KIRK: Make for Rigel 12, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: Rigel 12, Mister Farrell. You have the course.

So the travel time indicates that the Enterprise was a lot closer to Rigel than when it got the distress call from Talos IV. If they are the same Rigel. Note that Rigel II in "Shore Leave" and "Rigel IV" in "Wolf in the Fold" seem to behighly advanced planets open to Federation business.

If a day is a 24 hour period, the trip will take 24 to 48 hours, while if a day is a workday or watch, it should be about 8 hours and the trip would take 8 to 16 hours.

Captain's log, Stardate 1329.2. On board the U.S.S. Enterprise, a ship's hearing is being convened against the transport vessel's captain. I'm becoming concerned about the almost-hypnotic effect produced by the women.

[Briefing room]

KIRK: This hearing is convened. Stardate 1329.2, on board starship U.S.S. Enterprise. Formal hearings against transport captain Leo Walsh. Start computer.

KIRK: Mister Mudd, you're charged with galaxy travel without a flight plan, without an identification beam, and failure to answer a starship's signal, thus effecting a menace to navigation.
MUDD: What? My tiny ship in this immense galaxy a menace to navigation?
KIRK: You're also charged with operation of a vessel without a master's license.
MUDD: Untrue! I have a master's ticket.
COMPUTER: Incorrect. Master's license revoked Stardate 1116.4.

Stardate 1116.4 would be about 212 or 213 stardate units earlier. But it is possible that stardates climb from 0000 to 9999, reset at 0000, and climb back up to 9999, over and over again. Or possibly the four digit TOS stardates are "actually" the last four digits of longer stardates. In either case it would be possible that tthere are 10,000 or 20,000 additional stardate units between 1116.8 and 1329.2.

Captain's log-- Stardate 1330.1. Position, fourteen hours out of Rigel 12. We're on auxiliary impulse engines. Fuel low, barely sufficient to achieve orbit over the planet. Lithium replacements are now imperative. The effect of Mudd's women on my crew continues to grow, still totally unexplained. Harry Mudd is confined to his quarters under guard.

If the trip to Rigel would be less than two work days or watches, it should take 8 to 16 hours, and with 14 hours still to go 1330.1 would be less than 2 hours after the voyage began between 1329.1 and 1329.2. So less than 2 hours in 0.9 to 1 stardate units would mean that there are less than two point two two two two hours in a stardate unit.

If the trip to Rigel would be less than two 24 hour days, it should take 24 to 48 hours, and with 14 hours still to go 1330.1 would be between 10 and 34 hours after the voyage began between 1329.1 and 1329.2. So 10 to 34 hours in 0.9 to 1 stardate units would mean that there are 10 to over 37 (thirty seven point seven seven seven) hours in a stardate unit.

Later Mudd and the girls learn there are three lonely miners on Rigel XII.

MUDD: And they've been there?
RUTH: Almost three years now, alone!
MUDD: Perfect. Perfect. Three of them and three lovely ladies has Harry Mudd. And lithium crystals, my dear, are worth three hundred times their weight in diamonds, thousands of times their weight in gold.

So according to Mudd, diamonds are very expensive and valuable, seeming to agree with "Arena" and seeming to disagree with "Catspaw".

When they reach Rigel XII:

SULU: Power curve still dropping, Captain.
FARRELL: We'll make orbit, sir. A temporary one.
KIRK: Lay in. Computer?
SPOCK: We can sustain this orbit for three days, seven hours.
KIRK: More than enough time. Communications, have a representative of the Rigel 12 miners meet us here to discuss our needs. Beam him up first pass over their camp.

Three days seven hours is about 79 hours or about 4,740 minutes.

The miners refuse to sell the crystals until Mudd is released, because the girls refuse to become their wives until Mudd is released because they are addicted to the Venus drug.

Captain's log. Transporting down to surface of planet Rigel 12 to acquire replacement lithium crystals. Expect further difficulty from miners.

Eve runs away into a Rigellian storm.

Captain's log. Have transported aboard the Enterprise to implement search with infrared scanners and sensing system. Magnetic storms on the planet's surface are cutting down speed and efficiency of our equipment. Search now in progress for three hours, eighteen minutes.

Three hours and 18 minutes is 198 minutes.

Some time after that log, possibly immediately after:

KIRK: Sorry, Scotty. How much power do we have left?
SCOTT: About five hours, sir.

If the rate of power loss is steady, this should be about 74 hours, or 3 days and 2 hours, after 79 hours were left, when the Enterprise arrived at Rigel XII.

Captain's log. Have expended all but forty three minutes of power. Ship's condition, critical. Search now in progress seven hours, thirty one minutes. Magnetic storms are easing.

So this is seven hours and thirty one minutes, or 451 minutes, after the search began, and 4 hours and 13 minutes, or 271 minutes, after the previous log entry.. With 43 minutes of ships power left, it should be about 4 hours and 17 minutes, or 257 minutes, after Scott said there were about five hours left, and about 78 hours and 17 minutes, or about 4,697 minutes, or about three days, 6 hours and 13 minutes, since the Enterprise arrived at Rigel XII.

So about 4,697 minutes after the Enterprise arrived at Rigel XII minus 451 minutes after the search began, means that the search began about 4,246 minutes, or about 70 hours and 46 minutes after The Enterprise arrived at Rigel XII. So unless the power was fading faster than originally estimated, Kirk seemed to waste a lot of precious time before beaming down to try to get the crystals. A possible theory is that the power drained a lot faster because Kirk hypothetically used a lot of energy beaming most of the crew down to the garden spot of Rigel XII, a place where stranded people could survive well, thousands of miles from where the miners were mining in a hellish wilderness.

 

[MAGolding]

"The Conscience of the King" is the 13th episode of TOS in broadcast order, aired on December 8, 1966.

Captain's log, star date 2817.6. Starship Enterprise diverted from scheduled course. Purpose, to confirm discover by Doctor Thomas Leighton of an extraordinary new synthetic food which would totally end the threat of famine on Cygnia Minor, a nearby Earth colony.

KIRK: You mean to tell me you've called me three light years off my course just to accuse an actor of being Kodos?
LEIGHTON: He is Kodos. I'm sure of it.
KIRK: You said you discovered a new food concentrate. What am I supposed to put in my log, that you lied? That you diverted a starship with false information? You're not only in trouble, you've put me in trouble, too.

LEIGHTON: Jim, Jim, I need your help. There were only eight or nine of us who actually saw Kodos. I was one, you were another. If he's to be exposed,

Returning to the Enterprise, Kirk asks the computer questions:

KIRK: History files. Subject, former Governor Kodos of Tarsus Four, also known as Kodos the Executioner. After that, background on actor Anton Karidian.
COMPUTER: Working. Kodos the Executioner, summary. Governor of Tarsus Four twenty Earth years ago. Invoked martial law. Slaughtered fifty percent of population Earth colony, that planet. Burned body found when Earth forces arrived. No positive identification. Case closed. Detailed information follows. On stardate 2794.7,
KIRK: Stop. Information on Anton Karidian.
COMPUTER: Director and star of travelling company of actors sponsored by galactic cultural exchange project, touring official installations last nine years. Has daughter, Lenore, nineteen years old,

Presumably the computer gives accurate and precise time spaces. Thus the Karidian Company began touring the stars between 9 and 10 years earlier, Lenore Karidian was born between 19 and 20 years earlier, and the Tarsus IV si disaster was between 20 and 21 years earlier.

The event on stardate 2794.7 coudld have been a recent event like closing the Kodos case. But if it was an event during the Tarsus IV disaster, there would be 20 to 21 years in only 22.9 stardate units, making each stardate unit almost a year long, and making the voyage to Benecia take up all the five year mission.

Maybe the stardate system was drastically changed in those 20 years.

It could be that after stardates reach 9999 the next stardate is 0000, and the stardate 2794.7 mentioned could have been one or more of those cycles ago. Or maybe the four digit stardates in TOS are the parts that are mentioned of the "actual" longer complete stardates. Either possibility would mean that there would be ten thousand more stardates for each time that the last four digits passed 9999 between the Tarsus IV massacre and the episode. Thus stardate units could be only a few hours long.

Lenore Karidian and Kirk agree for the Enterprise to take the Karidian Company to Benecia.

SPOCK: May I inquire as to our course, Captain?
KIRK: Benecia Colony.
SPOCK: Benecia Colony is eight light years off our course.
KIRK: If my memory needs refreshing, Mister Spock, I'll ask you for it. In the meantime, follow my orders.
Captain's log, stardate 2818.9. There are many questions in my mind, too many, perhaps, about the actor Karidian and his daughter. For personal reasons, I'm almost afraid to learn the answers.

KIRK: Mister Spock, ETA the Benecia Colony.
SPOCK: We'll arrive stardate 2825.3, Captain, approximately fifteen hundred Benecia time.

So the voyage will take 6.4 stardate units.

Kirk questions the computer:

KIRK: Data on question submitted to personnel files.
COMPUTER: Data being received. Kodos file of all survivors. There are nine actual eye witnesses who can identify Kodos.
KIRK: Stop. Give list.
COMPUTER: Kirk, J., presently Enterprise Captain, Leighton, T., Moulton, E., Riley, K., Eames, D.,
KIRK: Stop. Is that star service Lieutenant Kevin Riley?
COMPUTER: Affirmative. Riley, Kevin. Presently assigned U.S.S. Enterprise communications section.

Kirk has Lt. Riley transferred back to engineering.

Later Kirk gives Lenore a tour of the ship. On the observation deck:

LENORE: Did you order the soft lights especially for the occasion?
KIRK: If I had ordered soft lights, I'd also have arranged for music and flowers. Unfortunately, it isn't so. On the Enterprise, we try to duplicate earth conditions of night and day as closely as possible.

Spock questions the computer:

SPOCK: Full personal dossiers on the following names. Doctor Thomas Leighton, Anton Karidian, Lieutenant Kevin Riley, and Captain James T. Kirk.
COMPUTER: Accomplished. Standing by.
SPOCK: Correlate. Check their past histories. Report any item, any past episode or experience they all have in common.

Later, Spock tells McCoy about the Tarsus IV Massacre:

SPOCK: I will continue, Doctor. According to our library banks, it started on the Earth colony of Tarsus Four, when the food supply was attacked by an exotic fungus and largely destroyed. There were over eight thousand colonists and virtually no food. And that was when Governor Kodos seized full power and declared emergency martial law.
MCCOY: I've heard of it.
SPOCK: You may not have heard it all. Kodos began to separate the colonists. Some would live, be rationed whatever food was left. The remainder would be immediately put to death. Apparently he had his own theories of eugenics.
MCCOY: Unfortunately, he wasn't the first.
SPOCK: Perhaps not. But he was certainly among the most ruthless, to decide arbitrarily who would survive and who would not, using his own personal standards, and then to implement his decision without mercy. Children watching their parents die. Whole families destroyed. Over four thousand people. They died quickly, without pain, but they died. Relief arrived, but too late to prevent the executions. And Kodos? There never was a positive identification of his body.
MCCOY: What has Karidian to do with it?
SPOCK: His history begins almost to the day where Kodos disappeared.
MCCOY: You think Jim suspects he's Kodos?
SPOCK: He'd better. There were nine eye witnesses who survived the massacre, who'd actually seen Kodos with their own eyes. Jim Kirk was one of them. With the exception of Riley and Captain Kirk, every other eye witness is dead. And my library computer shows that wherever they were, on Earth, on a colony, or aboard ship, the Karidian Company of Players was somewhere near when they died.

Later Riley is alone in Engineering during a night shift, either the same night that Kirk & Lenore were in the observation deck or a later night, and someone poisons him.

Captain's log, stardate 2819.1. Ship's officer Riley's condition worsening. Doctor McCoy making lab analysis to determine cause and antidote. Entire crew deeply concerned.

Later, in Kirk's cabin, Kirk Spock, & McCoy discuss the situation.

KIRK: You sound certain. I wish I could be. Before I accuse a man of that, I've got to be. I saw him once, twenty years ago. Men change. Memory changes. Look at him now, he's an actor. He can change his appearance. No. Logic is not enough. I've got to feel my way, make absolutely sure.

Later, Spock and Kirk are in Kirk's cabin when an attempt is made to kill Kirk with an overloaded phaser.

SPOCK: Logic, Captain. Doctor Leighton was murdered while the Karidian Company was on Planet Q. Now an attempt has been made against Riley while the company is on board the Enterprise.

Later, in the cabin of Karidian:

KIRK: A moment ago, we narrowly averted an explosion which would have destroyed several decks of this ship. Before that, someone tried to poison one of my crewmen.

KIRK: You're an actor now. What were you twenty years ago?
KARIDIAN: Younger, Captain. Much younger.
KIRK: So was I. But I remember. Let's see if you do. Read this into that communicator on the wall. It will be recorded and compared to a piece of Kodos' voice film we have in our files. The test is virtually infallible. It will tell us whether you're Karidian, or Kodos the Executioner. (switches on comm.) Ready for voice test. Disguising your voice will make no difference.
KARIDIAN: (reading) The revolution is successful, but survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. (stops looking at the paper) Your lives means slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered. Signed, Kodos, governor of Tarsus Four.
KIRK: I remember the words. I wrote them down. You said them like you knew them. You hardly glanced at the paper.

KARIDIAN: Or is. Kodos made a decision of life and death. Some had to die that others might live. You're a man of decision, Captain. You ought to understand that.
KIRK: All I understand is that four thousand people were needlessly butchered.
KARIDIAN: In order to save four thousand others. And if the supply ships hadn't come earlier than expected, this Kodos of yours might have gone down in history as a great hero.
KIRK: But he didn't. And history has made its judgment.

Later, McCoy makes a medical log which Riley overhears.

MCCOY: Medical log. Lieutenant Riley's sufficiently recovered to be discharged, but the Captain's ordered him restricted to Sickbay to prevent contact with the passenger who calls himself Karidian and who's suspected of being Kodos the Executioner and of murdering the Lieutenant's family.

Captain's log, stardate 2819.8. Suspect under surveillance. Strategic areas under double guard. Performance of the Karidian Players taking place as scheduled.

Apparently the other Karidian players are not under surveillance, so I guess nobody suspects that any of them might possibly be accomplices of Anton Karidian despite knowing him for years.

Lenore says:

LENORE: (on stage) Tonight, the Karidian Players present Hamlet, another in a series of living plays presented in space, dedicated to the tradition of classic theatre. Hamlet is a violent play about violent times when life was cheap and ambition was God.

Hamlet is being performed during ship's night. Kirk & Lenore were in the observation deck at night, and Riley was poisoned at night. Those might be one, two or three nights.

RILEY: He murdered my father, and my mother.

RILEY: I know that voice, that face, I know it. I saw it. He murdered them.

At the end of the episode Spock says:

SPOCK: Ready to leave Benecia orbit, Captain.

So they have reached Benecia and landed the remaining Karidian Players and the stardate should be after 2528.3.

There may be about half a day between 2818.9 and 2819.8 if the play is performed on the night of the day the Enterprise left Planet Q. About 12 hours in 0.9 stardate units equals about 13 and a third hours per stardate unit, making a voyage of 6.4 stardate units last for 85 and a third hours or 3 days and 13 hours.

There may be about a day and a half between 2818.9 and 2819.8 if the play is performed on the night of the second day of the voyage. About 36 hours in 0.9 stardate units equals about 40 hours per stardate unit, making a voyage of 6.4 stardate units last for 256 hours, 10 and two thirds days..

There may be about two and a half days between 2818.9 and 2819.8 if the play is performed on the night of the third day of the voyage. About 50 hours in 0.9 stardate units equals about 66 and two thirds hours per stardate unit, making a voyage of 6.4 stardate units last for 426 and two thirds hours or 17 days and 18 and two thirds d hours.

Lines dropped from the script of "The Conscience of the King" would be important for Kirk's biography if they were canon.

After Leighton is found dead his wife Martha says:

MARTHA
It was different for you, Jim.
A young midshipman, no family there...

KIRK
I know. Tom's parents were
there, two brothers...

When Spock and McCoy confront Kirk"

KIRK
No! Because somebody else won't
care the way I do. I was there!
I saw it happen!

McCOY
You're the commander of a Star Ship...

KIRK
Now yes... but what about before?
Fresh out of the Academy. Young,
inexperienced, a midshipman...
stationed on a colony which was
disintegrating before my eyes!
Starvation! Rioting! Disaster!
I saw men, women and children
forced into an anti-matter chamber
... and a self-appointed messiah
named Kodos threw a switch, and
there wasn't anyone inside anymore!
Four thousand people! Dead!
(distraught)
And you know something funny? I was one
of those Kodos spared! He ordered me left alive!
I was one of the fittest!
(incredulous)
And you want me to forget that?
I'm sorry, doctor. I'm a human
being... and there are some things
human beings simply do not forget.

http://www.orionpressfanzines.com/articles/conscience_of_the_king.htm

This would have make Kirk in his early 40s in TOS, but "The Deadly Years" established Kirk's age as 34, thus making Kirk about 13 when he was on Tarsus IV, the reason for him being there unexplained.

Maybe Kirk actually was in Starfleet aged 13 when at Tarsus IV, but but the age requirements were later raised and he was discharged and had to reenter Starfleet later when he was older.

 

[Henoch]

So they have reached Benecia and landed the remaining Karidian Players and the stardate should be after 2528.3.

Typo: 2825.3

Also, the next episode The Galileo Seven repetitively gives Stardate 2823.8 as the hard deadline to stop the search for the Galileo. This could suggest that right after Anton's death, the Enterprise got detoured before reaching Benecia, completed its mission for Galactic High Commissioner Ferris to Makus Three, then resumed its course back to Benecia. The Benecia stardate could be much later than the original scheduled ETA of 2825.3 since getting there is now not important once Anton is dead and due to the emergency mission that popped up. It was an episode inside another episode.

Unless these are two different timelines , then we must assume that log entry stardates can be made after the audio/visual/video events as the mission report is compiled by Kirk at his desk. I put the stardates 2817.6 and 2819.8 log entries in TCOK as made after Anton's death (~2812 actual), and inserted to explain the visuals in the mission record. Kirk could be recording his first log in route to Makus Three after picking up Ferris, and his second log after the Galileo launch (~2818.3 actual) and during the two day search by the Enterprise. He also starts the stardate 2821.5 log entries for TGS during this same period after he completed the mission report for TCOK. The only thing we know for sure is that the TGS episode ends right around Stardate 2823.8. After Makus Three, I see the Enterprise head back to Benecia to drop off the rest of actors in the stardate 2840 or later range. YMMV .

 

[1001001]

@MAGolding

Just a reminder this is a discussion board. If you want to make massive posts with no replies then start a blog.

The general rules is no more than 2 posts in a row. Give others a chance to reply (i.e. "discuss").

Thanks

 

[ChallengerHK]

@MAGolding

Just a reminder this is a discussion board. If you want to make massive posts with no replies then start a blog.

The general rules is no more than 2 posts in a row. Give others a chance to reply (i.e. "discuss").

Thanks

If you look at the first post and then MAGolding's subsequent posts, he's engaging in a bit of research and then publishing his findings here. I would guess that the reason for that rule is to keep from shutting people out of discussion, but people have every opportunity to discuss MAG's findings. My guess is that comparatively few people are interested in doing so, but I'm following this with great interest.

 

[Albertese]

If you look at the first post and then MAGolding's subsequent posts, he's engaging in a bit of research and then publishing his findings here. I would guess that the reason for that rule is to keep from shutting people out of discussion, but people have every opportunity to discuss MAG's findings. My guess is that comparatively few people are interested in doing so, but I'm following this with great interest.

As am I.

--Alex

 

[1001001]

If you look at the first post and then MAGolding's subsequent posts, he's engaging in a bit of research and then publishing his findings here. I would guess that the reason for that rule is to keep from shutting people out of discussion

Partially, but also to prevent people from rambling on about something no one else is interested in. As I said, this is a discussion board, not a blog.

but people have every opportunity to discuss MAG's findings. My guess is that comparatively few people are interested in doing so,

Precisely

but I'm following this with great interest.

Great. Then by all means, discuss and enjoy.

 

[Albertese]

... "Mudd's Women" ....

The stardate has decreased by 0.7 since the last log, if the transcript is correct. So if the transcript is correct, stardates don't always increase over time, sometimes they decrease....

Or, Kirk could have just transposed the numbers when he read the stardate off the chronometer. If the first entry was actually 1328.9 and the next 1329.1, then we have an increase of just 0.2 units, which does make sense in the context of the episode. For my own stardate project, I'm assuming that Kirk very rarely slips up while citing the date, which gives some room to fudge the numbers when things just don't quite make sense. After all the computer certainly timestamps each entry automatically, so Kirk's spoken date doesn't have to be perfect.

...
But I suspect that Mudd fled because he wasn't really headed to Ophiuchus Three to take the women to future husbands, but to another planet to be sold into sexual slavery at a much higher price.

....

Wow, that's dark. I think that Mudd was running a sort of mail order bride service just as he claimed. He was just fast and loose with licensing and paperwork and had some shady morals regarding substance abuse. But the women all seem in on it. Mudd was slimy, sure, but he wasn't completely cold-blooded. And I'm sure that Leo Francis Walsh was just a fake ID, not a murder victim.

....Stardate 1116.4 would be about 212 or 213 stardate units earlier.

I agree with the shorter timeframe. With my model of a thousand stardates being around 11 months, then this gap would place Mudd's license revocation only a couple months earlier, but if we assume the stardate is from a earlier roll-over, it would have happened a decade or two earlier. Now, Mudd is old enough that it wouldn't be an impossible stretch, but if it were such a long stretch, I expect Kirk would have mentioned the long term nature of that particular infraction.

--Alex

 

[MAGolding]

In broadcast order "The Menagerie Part 1" is the 11th TOS episode, broadcast on November 17 1966.

The Enterprise arrives as Starbase 11 and is told that no message was sent to it, Kirk learns that Captain Pike has been disabled for months, and some backstory is given:

MENDEZ: You ever met Chris Pike?
KIRK: When he was promoted to Fleet Captain.
MENDEZ: About your age. Big, handsome man, vital, active.
KIRK: I took over the Enterprise from him. Spock served with him for several years.
SPOCK: Eleven years, four months, five days.

Spock is left alone with Pike:

You know why I've come, Captain. It's only six days away at maximum warp and I have it well-planned. (flash, flash) I have never disobeyed your orders before, Captain, but this time I must.

Spock commandeers the Enterprise to take Pike to Talos IV.

Kirk and Commodore Mendez pursue the Enterprise in a shuttlecraft.

On the bridge of the Enterprise, Spock orders the shuttlecraft caught in a tractor beam and Kirk and Mendez beamed aboard. Spock turns over operational command to Lt. Hansen, and surrenders himself to Dr. McCoy as the senior officer present to p be arrested for mutiny.

In the transporter room, Lieutenant Commander Scott beams Captain Kirk and Commodore Mendez aboard, & Lieutenant Hansen transfers command to Captain Kirk.

Captain's log, stardate 3012.4. Despite our best efforts to disengage computers, the Enterprise is still locked on a heading for the mysterious planet Talos Four. Meanwhile, as required by Starfleet General Orders, a preliminary hearing on Lieutenant Commander Spock is being convened. And in all the years of my service, this is the most painful moment I've ever faced.

It is uncertain how long after Kirk and Mendez board the preliminary hearing is held. Spock waves his rights to the preliminary hearing and requests and is granted an immediate court martial.

Captain's log, stardate 3012.6. General Court-Martial convened. Mister Spock has again waived counsel and has entered a plea of guilty.

So the court martial should end with a guilty verdict right after Spock pleads guilty, but instead Spock shows "videos" of the journey to Talos IV as evidence.

SPOCK: This is thirteen years ago. The Enterprise and its commander, Captain Christopher Pike.
SPOCK [on screen]: Definitely something out there, Captain, headed this way.
KIRK: Screen off. Chris, was that really you on the screen? (flash) That's impossible. Mister Spock, no vessel makes record tapes in that detail, that perfect. What were we watching?
SPOCK: I cannot tell you at this time, sir.
MENDEZ: Captain Pike, were any record tapes of this nature made during your voyage? (flash, flash) The court is not obliged to view evidence without knowing its source.
SPOCK: Unless the court asks a prisoner why, Commodore. You did ask that question.

The "video" does look a lot like a scene from a movie or tv show, but on the other hand the record tapes seen in "Court Martial" seem similar.

SPOCK: As I stated, gentlemen, this was thirteen years ago. We were on routine patrol when the ship's sensors detected something ahead. At first we were not certain what it was.

Again Spock says it was thirteen years ago, which should be somewhere between 13.0 and 14.0 years. Spock said that he served under Pike for 11 years, 4 months, and 5 days. Making that 11 and one third years, if the voyage to Talos IV was right after Spock began serving under Pike, Kirk would have taken command of the Enterprise between one and two thirds and two and two thirds years before "The Menageie". If Spock began serving under Pike some time before the voyage to Talos IV, Kirk could have begun commanding the Enterprise correspondingly earlier.

The routine patrol is new information not found in "The Cage", where the mission of the Enterprise is not explained. The "routine patrol" implies that the Enterprise is on a routine patrol between various star systems, including Rigel and Vega, and is not necessarily heading straight from Rigel to Vega.

In the "video" of 13 years ago, the Enterprise receives a distress message from the Talos star group, sent by old fashioned radio waves (and thus at light speed).

SPOCK: Their call letters check with a survey expedition. S.S. Columbia disappeared in that region approximately eighteen years ago.
TYLER: It would take that long for a radio beam to travel from there to here.

.

So Talos IV would be 18 light years from the present position of the Enterprise, a small fraction of the distance from Rigel to Vega.

Thus the S.S. Columbia should have crashed on Talos IV about 18-19 years before the message is received, and about 31 to 33 years before "The Menagerie".

Pike decides not to look for survivors on Talos IV immediately:

PIKE: Not without any indication of survivors, no. Continue to the Vega Colony and take care of our own sick and injured first. You have the helm. Maintain present course.

In Pike's cabin:

BOYCE: Sometimes a man will tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor. What's been on your mind, Chris, the fight on Rigel seven?
PIKE: Shouldn't it be? My own yeoman and two others dead, seven injured.
BOYCE: Was there anything you personally could have done to prevent it?
PIKE: Oh, I should have smelled trouble when I saw the swords and the armour. Instead of that, I let myself get trapped in that deserted fortress and attacked by one of their warriors.

When a message is received from survivors of the crash, Pike decides to divert to go to Talos IV.

PIKE: This is the captain. Our destination is the Talos star group.

[Hearing room]

PIKE [on screen]: Our time warp, factor seven.

Captain's log supplemental. Mister Spock, on trial for mutiny, has forced the court to accept unusual evidence. On our monitor screen, the voyage of Captain Pike and the Enterprise to the one forbidden world in all the galaxy.

When Pike reaches Talos IV and beams down to the encampment of the survivors:

SURVIVOR: Is Earth all right?
PIKE: The same old Earth, and you'll see it very soon.
TYLER: And you won't believe how fast you can get back. Well the time barrier's been broken. Our new ships can

Tyler's words imply that 13 years before "Menagerie", the Enterprise in "The Cage" was one of the newer and faster ships less than 18 years old.and leads to speculaton about how much faster it was than the Columbia and the interstellar ships of almost two hundred years earlier according to "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "The Corbomite Maneuver".

Fans might have wondered whether the new ships are the first faster than light ships, and if so, how many future decades, centuries, or millennia it would have taken the S.S. Columbia to have reach Talos IV, an unspecified distance from Earth, at slower than light speeds.

If Talos IV was close to Vega, 25 light years from Earth, it would take the Columbia about 25 years to reach Talos IV at the speed of light. If Talos IV was near Rigel about 860 light years from Earth, it would take about 860 years for the Columbia to reach Talos IV at the speed of light. If Talos IV was at "the other end of this galaxy" it would take the Columbia about 25,000 to 75,000 years to reach Talos IV at the speed of light. And it would take longer at slower speeds.

So fans who interpreted Tyler's statement to mean that the faster than light space drive had been invented after the Columbia left Earth would imagine that a very advanced slower than light space drive would be invented an unspecified number of years, decades, centuries, or millennia in the future, and then the Columbia would travel for decades, centuries, or millennia to reach Talos IV. Without data in other episodes, some fans might have interpreted "The Menagerie" as indicating that TOS is a hundred thousand years in the future.

Then Vina and the Talosians kidnap Pike and the transmissiion ends.

The court martial takes a recess. To be continued in "The Menagerie Part 2"

In broadcast order "The Menagerie Part 1" is the 12th TOS episode, broadcast on November 24 1966.

An introductory recap shows scenes from part 1, with Kirk's log as a voice over:

Personal log, stardate 3013.1. I find it hard to believe the events of the past twenty four hours or the plea of Mister Spock standing general court-martial

The last 24 hours probably began long before stardate 3012.4, perhaps when Spock takes the Enteprise out of orbits, or when they reached Starbase 11, or when Spock reported a mesage from Starbase 11. So the 0.7 stardate units between 3012.4 and 3013.1 should contain fewer than 24 hours, which makes fewer than 35 hours in one stardate unit.

KIRK [OC]: Why? Why does Spock want to take to that forbidden world his former captain. Mutilated by a recent space disaster, now a shell of a man, unable to speak or move? The only answer Spock would give was on the hearing-room screen. How Spock could do this he refused to explain, but there before our eyes, actual images from thirteen years ago of Captain Pike as he was when he commanded this vessel, of Spock in those days, and of how the Enterprise had become the first and only starship to visit Talos Four. They had received a distress signal from that planet and discovered there, still alive after many years, the survivors of a missing vessel, only to find it was all an illusion. No survivors, no encampment, it was all a trap set by a race of beings who could make a man believe he was seeing anything they wished him to see, and Captain Pike was gone, a prisoner for some unknown purpos

KIRK [OC]: The court-martial of Mister Spock has been convened in closed session. Despite all we can do, images continue to be transmitted to us from Talos Four.

As the transmissions from Talos IV resume, Pike meets his Talosian captors:

PIKE: Can you hear me? My name is Christopher Pike, commander of the space vehicle Enterprise from a stellar group at the other end of this galaxy. Our intentions are peaceful. Can you understand me?

Since Vega is 25 light years from Earth, Rigel is about 850 light years from Earth, and the other end of the galaxy would be beyond the galactic center which is about 26,000 light years from Earth, this indicates that the voyage from Rigel to Vega took the longer, scenic route, if Pike was telling the truth to his captors. And if the S.S. Columbia used a slower than light drive - instead of a faster than light drive which was slower than the Enterprise's - it would have taken it at least twenty six thousand years to reach Talos IV.

The first illusion the Talosians give Pike is of the fight on Rigel VII:

PIKE: This is Rigel Seven.
VINA: Please, we must hide ourselves.
PIKE: I was in a cage, a cell, in some kind of a zoo. I must still be there.
VINA: Come on.
PIKE: They've reached into my mind and taken the memory of somewhere I've been.
VINA: The Kaylar!
PIKE: It's starting just as it happened two weeks ago, except for you.

Pike wouldn't say two weeks ago unless the fight was sometime between one week and three days (10 days) and two weeks and four days (18 days) earlier. Since they haven't reached Vega yet, the speed of the Enterprise must be slower than required to travel the distance in that period.

If the Enterprise was travelling in a straight line from Rigel to Vega, the distance would be about 900 light years. Reaching Vega in 10 to 18 days would require a speed of 50 to 90 light years per day, or about 18,262 to 32,872 times the speed of light .Since the Enterprise did't get to Vega before diverting to Talos IV, its speed would have less than that. Unless of course Pike was telling his captors the truth about being from the other end of he Galaxy, making the speed about a hundred times faster.

The Talosians stop the transmission after the fight on Rigel VII to let Pike rest.. The court martial reconvenes later:

Personal log, stardate 3013.2. Reconvening court-martial of Mister Spock and the strangest trial evidence ever heard aboard a starship. From the mysterious planet now only one hour ahead of us, the story of Captain Pike's imprisonment there.

If there are fewer than 24 hours between stardates 3012.4 and 3013.1, and thus fewer than 35 hours per stardate unit, stardate 3013.2 should be less than 28 hours hours after stardate 3012.4. And at stardate 3013.2 Talos IV is less than one hour away, so there should be fewer than 29 hours between stardate 3012.4 and reaching Talos iV.

And Kirk's log at stardate 3013.1 doesn't idicate that stardate 3012.4 was a full 24hurss earlier. Instead it indicates that the entire voyage to Talos IV began less than 24 hours earlier. So all in all it seems likely that the entire voyage to Talos IV took less than 24hours, one day.

But back at Starbase 11 Spock told Captain Pike that Talos IV was six days away at maximum warp.

If Spock meant that the voyage to Talos IV would take six 24 hour days, that would be about 144 hours. If Spock meant that the voyage to Talos IV would take six watches or "days" and if there were three or four watches in 24 hours, six watches would equal 36 to 48 hours, which doesn't seem short enough.

So my theory is that the Talosians made Pike think he heard Spock say the voyage would last six days at maximum warp. Talosians illusions cold reach all teh way across interstellar space to Starbase 11, since they created an illusin there when Kirk boarded the shuttle, and they may have created illusions of a distress signal 18 light years away on the Enterprise 13 years earlier.

And I also suspect that the Talosians may have g created groundhog day illusions on the Enterprise during the voyage to Talos IV, making Kirk think that he was experiencing the same day over and over so he wouldn't feel an urgent need to regain control of the Enterprise.

So clues about the passage of time in "The Menagerie" might all be false illusions.

The Talosians show a "Video" of Vina & Pike:

PIKE: Did they ever live on the surface of this planet? Why did they go underground?
VINA: War, thousands of centuries ago.
PIKE: That's why it's so barren up there?
VINA; The planet's only now becoming able to support life again.
PIKE: So the Talosians who came underground found life limited here and they concentrated on developing their mental power.
VINA: But they found it's a trap, like a narcotic, because when dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating. You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit, living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought record.
PIKE: Or sit probing minds of zoo specimens like me.
VINA: You're better than a theatre to them. They create the illusion for you, they watch you react, feel your emotions. They have a whole collection of specimens, descendants of life brought back long ago from all over this part of the galaxy.
PIKE: Which means they had to have more than one of each animal.

So if that is accurate, the Talosians had an advanced civilization and interstellar travel, sometime before a war devastated their planet sometime between about 100,000 and 1,000,000 years earlier.

When the Enterprise reaches Talos IV and takes orbit, Spock says:

SPOCK: Talos controls the vessel now, sir, as they did thirteen years ago. You've asked me why. You'll see the answer now.

So this is the 4th time the voyage to Talos IV is said to be 13 years a earlier.

In the last scene from the "The Cage" included in "The Menagerie", Spock says:

SPOCK [OC]: All decks prepare for hyperdrive.

Which shows that "hyperdrive" was a real term in TOS.

When Spocks wheels Pike toward the transporter room, the Talosian Keeper seems to immediately call Kirk to watch the view screen showing Pike on the surface of Talos IV enjoying the illusion of good health. Unless a frame by frame analysis indicates there is actually an indication of the passage of some time in that scene, we should conclude that Pike can't possibly have reached the surface of Talos IV yet.

So the completed episode "The Menagerie", intentionally or unintentionally gives some viewers the impression that anything or everything - within known illusions or outside o fhe known illusions - seen to happen on Starbaase 11 and on the Enterprise during this episode could be an illusion, and that there is no way to be certain that anything in the episode actually happened the way it seemed to.

Is "The Cage" part of TOS canon? If it is, events on the Enterprise or on Talos IV that are not part of Talosians illusions can be real events, and not possible illusions broadcast from Talos IV 13 years later.

In the illusion of being home at Mojave, Pike says:

PIKE: It's funny. It's about twenty four hours ago I was telling the ship's doctor how much I wanted something else not very different from what we have here. An escape from reality. Life with no frustrations. No responsibilities. Now that I have it, I understand the doctor's answer.

So apparently it took less than about 24 hours for the Enterprise to travel 18 to 19 light years at time warp factor seven, indicating a speed of at least about 0.75 light years per hour, or 18 to 19 light years per day, or at least about 6,574.5 times the speed of light. At that speed it would take about one month to travel from Rigel to Vega, and at least 3.9 years to reach the far end of he galaxy, even the nearest end of the far end.

So if the Enterprise traveled to Talos IV at about 18 or 19 light years per day, and traveled from Rigel toward Vega for 10 to 18 days, if that 10 to 18 days was also at bout 18 or 19 light years per day, the Enterprise would have traveled about 180 to 342 light years, and would still be roughly 560 to 720 light years from Vega and Earth when it diverted to Talos IV.

And note this dialog from the scene where the captured Pike first meets the Talosians:

TALOSIAN: It appears, Magistrate, that the intelligence of the specimen is shockingly limited.
MAGISTRATE: This is no surprise since his vessel was baited here so easily with a simulated message. As you can read in its thoughts, it is only now beginning to suspect that the survivors and encampment were a simple illusion we placed in their minds.

So at least one, and maybe both, of the two radio messages received by the Enterprise were not sent by the Columbia crew. Did the Talosians send an actual physical radio signal, or did they create an illusion in the minds of the Enterprise crew that they received a radio signal?

If the Talosians can create illusions on a starship at a distance of 18 light years, every thing seen happening on the Enterprise could be part of a Talosian illusion, and we could not know if anything seen in "The Cage" really happened. This whole post could be a waste of time..

 

[ChallengerHK]

This implies that 13 years before "Menagerie", the Enterprise in "The Cage" was one of the newer and faster ships less than 18 years old.and leads to specualatonabout how much faster it was than the Columbia and the interstellar ships of almost two hundred years earlier according to "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "The Corbomite Maneuver".

The line about breaking the "time barrier" has been one I've found odd since I was a kid. What kind of "barrier" would time present, assuming (and this is a big assumption) that Earth/the Federation/Star Fleet has always used a similar method of faster than light travel?

 

[Tenacity]

SPOCK: Readings indicate that natural deterioration has been taking place on this planet for at least several centuries.

There was a series a few years ago called (iirc)"Earth after people." From that my understanding is the urban setting as we it see wouldn't still exist after several centuries, even three centuries. The area would have largely have been reclaimed by nature.

The building Miri led us to also housed an automatic transmission station

Why couldn't this have been use after the communicators were stolen, similar to a local radio station being used to contact the ship in A Piece of the Action?

SPOCK: All the adults on this planet died three hundred years ago, but there are children in the streets.
KIRK: Who die when they enter adolescence.
MCCOY: But how do they keep the line going?

Girls can of course conceive prior to puberty, earliest known case of a live birth was to a five year old.

KIRK:I think we're dealing with children. Immensely old perhaps, but nonetheless children.

After three hundred years of life experience , would a early teen remain "a child."

KIRK: Bones, are you aware that in the last twenty years Doctor Adams has done ... clean, decent hospitals for sick minds.

Which suggests that Earth - Federation prison systems were really bad up until about the year 2245.

BAILEY: Other ships must have made star maps of some of this.
SPOCK: Negative, Lieutenant. We are the first to reach this far.

KIRK: Star maps reveal no indication of habitable planets nearby.

What star maps are Kirk referring to? Spock indicated there aren't any.

So Kirk claims - truthfully or not - that Earth has exploring space, presumably interstellar space, more than two centuries ago. That does agree with the S.S. Valiant being missing for over two centuries in "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

But contradicts the bulk of the series Enterprise where Humans only really started exploring a single century before.

But I suspect that Mudd fled because he wasn't really headed to Ophiuchus Three to take the women to future husbands, but to another planet to be sold into sexual slavery at a much higher price.

Problem, at the hearing the computer was quick to point out whenever Mudd was lying, when Mudd said he was "wife'ing settlers" The computer remained quiet. Mudd was telling the truth.

If they are the same Rigel.

My impression is that the term Rigel does not refer to a single star system.

So according to Mudd, diamonds are very expensive and valuable, seeming to agree with "Arena" and seeming to disagree with "Catspaw".

Kirk was bullshitting Korob in Catspaw.

MENDEZ: You ever met Chris Pike?
KIRK: When he was promoted to Fleet Captain.
MENDEZ: About your age. Big, handsome man, vital, active.
KIRK: I took over the Enterprise from him.

I wonder if the date of Kirk meeting Pike and the date Kirk took over the Enterprise were the same date? Kirk could have meet Pike at a promotion ceremony, and then years late Kirk took command of the Enterprise, weeks/months after Pike had dropped it off at a starbase and moved on to his next assignment.

MENDEZ: About your age. Big, handsome man, vital, active.

Returning to this. Kirk would have been about 33 years at the time of The Menagerie, no age was given for Pike in The Cage, however Jeff Hunter was 39 years. Using that, by the time of the episode The Menagerie, Pike would have been about 52 years. How is that "about your age?"

 

[ChallengerHK]

After three hundred years of life experience , would a early teen remain "a child."

This is exactly what I've always said when I have to watch Twilight with my wife and daughter. After however long the sparkly vampire (can't recall his name) has been alive, he may look like a high school kid, but he's not. The whole storyline is essentially about pedophilia.

 

[MAGolding]

In broadcast order the 14th episode of TOS , broadcast on December 15, 1966, is "Balance of Terror".

In the Enterprise's chapel, Spock calls Kirk from the bridge:

SPOCK [OC]: Still no answer from Earth Outpost number two, Captain, and now number three's gone silent.
KIRK: Maintain course to outpost four. Keep me informed. Kirk out.

Kirk begins the wedding of Angela Martine and Robert Tomlinson, but is interrupted by the news that Earth outpost Four reports it is under attack.

Captain's Log, stardate 1709.2. Patrolling outposts guarding the neutral zone between planets Romulus and Remus and the rest of the galaxy, received emergency call from outpost 4. The U.S.S. Enterprise is moving to investigate and assist.

KIRK: Mister Spock, put this star sector on our screen. Now show our position. Signal this to all decks, Lieutenant.
UHURA: All decks standing by, sir.

[Corridor]

KIRK [OC]: This is the Captain speaking. In our next action, we can risk neither miscalculation nor error

[Bridge]

KIRK: By any man aboard. Listen carefully. Science Officer.
SPOCK: Referring to the map on your screens, you will note beyond the moving position of our vessel, a line of Earth outpost stations. Constructed on asteroids, they monitor the Neutral Zone established by treaty after the Earth-Romulan conflict a century ago.

[Sickbay]

SPOCK [OC]: As you may recall from your histories, this conflict was fought,

[Engineering]

SPOCK [OC]: By our standards today, with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels

[Bridge]

SPOCK: Which allowed no quarter, no captives. Nor was there even ship-to-ship visual communication. Therefore, no human, Romulan, or ally has ever seen the other. Earth believes the Romulans to be warlike, cruel, treacherous, and only the Romulans know what they think of Earth. The treaty, set by sub-space radio, established this Neutral Zone, entry into which by either side, would constitute an act of war. The treaty has been unbroken since that time. Captain.
KIRK: What you do not know and must be told is that my command orders on this subject are precise and inviolable. No act, no provocation

[Engineering]

KIRK [OC]: Will be considered sufficient reason to violate the zone. We may defend ourselves,

[Sickbay]

KIRK [OC]: But if necessary to avoid interspace war,

[Bridge]

KIRK: Both these outposts and this vessel will be considered expendable. Captain out.

Spock says that the Earth-Romulan War happened a century ago.

KIRK: After a whole century, what will a Romulan ship look like, Mister Stiles? I doubt they'll radio and identify themselves.

Later, in the briefing room, McCoy says:

MCCOY: Based on what? Memories of a war over a century ago? On theories about a people we've never even met face to face?

Kirk's statement indicates the war should have been sometime between 150 and 50 years early, While Mccoy's indicates it was between 150 and 100 years earier, Spock's use of "century" is likely to be the most precise, but whe don' tknow from this episode if it was 100year plus or mnus 50years, or 100 plus or minus 33, or 100 plus or minus 25, or 100 plus or minus 10. Combining all three, one might quess that the Earth-Romulan war was sometime between 125 and 100 years before "Balance of Terror".

And Earth had some form of long range interstellar travel by the time of Earth-Romulan War. So at a rough guess the Earth-Romulan War would happen an unknown number of decades or centuries after 1966, and probably between 125 and 100 years before "Balance of Terror".

KIRK: Outpost 2 was the first to go silent, Lieutenant?
UHURA: Yes, Captain, then Outpost three an hour later.

So the Romulan attacks began about two hours before the opening scene.

Kirk orders Uhura to sent quarter hour reports to the nearest command base.

Right before they go to the briefing room Styles says they are less than an hour from the Neutral Zone.

In the briefing room, Spock suggests that the Romulans are descended from Vulcans:

SPOCK: Yes, indeed we do, Mister Stiles. And if Romulans are an offshoot of my Vulcan blood, and I think this likely, then attack becomes even more imperative.
MCCOY: War is never imperative, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: It is for them, Doctor. Vulcan, like Earth, had its aggressive colonising period. Savage, even by Earth standards. And if Romulans retain this martial philosophy, then weakness is something we dare not show.

This is the original sources for the relationship between Vulcans and Romulans.

KIRK: What's our position?
UHURA [OC]: Course unchanged, sir. Estimating treaty boundary in twenty one minutes.
KIRK: Are you continuing to broadcast tactical reports?
UHURA [OC]: Affirmative, Captain.
KIRK: And at this distance?
UHURA [OC]: Approximately three hours before receiving a reply to our first message.

So Uhura has apparently sent at least two messages at quarter hour intervals, making.her first message sent at elast 15 minutes earlier, meaning that subspace radio takes at least 98 minutes to reach the nearest command base. They decide to attack as the Romulans pass through the comet.

When the Romulans fire their plasma weapon the Enterprise enters full reverse emergency warp, and it takes the plasma an estimated 2 minutes to catch the Enterprise. The Romulans resume headed for the Neutral Zone

When they are one minute from entering the Neutral Zone, Kirk decides to attack.

KIRK: Let's get them while we are. Before we enter the Neutral Zone. Full ahead, Mister Sulu. Maximum warp.

They fire blindly at the Romulans.

STILES: Twenty seconds to Neutral Zone, sir.
KIRK: Lieutenant Uhura, inform Command base, In my opinion, no option. On my responsibility, we are proceeding into the Neutral Zone. Steady as we go, Mister Sulu. Continue firing.

The Romulans eject debris and then wait silently and undetected. The Enterprise goes silent too.

CAPTAINS LOG: Captain's log, Stardate 1709.6. We are at the Neutral Zone. Have lost contact with the intruder. No reaction on our motion sensors but believe the Romulan vessel to be somewhere close by; With all engines and systems shut down, the Enterprise is also playing the silent waiting game in hope of regaining contact.

On the Romulan ship it is said they have been quiet for 20 full cycles.

Captain's log, supplemental. Now motionless for nine hours, forty seven minutes.

That is a little over nine and three quarters hours. After resting in his quarters Kirk returns to the bridge. The ships fire again and damage each other. The Enterprise is still outside the neutral Zone, the Romulans inside it. After the final battle with the Romulans, Kirk is in sickbay:

KIRK: How many men did we lose, Bones?
MCCOY: Only one. Tomlinson. The boy who was getting married this morning. His fiancée is at the chapel.
(Kirk turns to go, and Rand enters)
RAND: We finally received an answer from Command base, sir. They say they'll support whatever decision you have to make.
(Kirk leaves)

This answer is probably an answer to Kirk's message that he was going to enter the Neutral Zone, thus indicating that subspace radio messages should take about five hours to reach the command base. A response to Kirk's first message should have been received six or seven hours before the end of the episode, unless the command base could not make up their minds what to tell Kirk for those six or seven hours.

McCoy says that Tominlson was going to get married "this morning", so stardate 1709.2 should have been less than 24 hours before the end of the episodes, and thus less than 24 hours before stardate 1709.6 With fewer than 24 hours in 0.4 stardate units, there should be fewer than 60 hours per stardate unit. If there were probably ten hours between stardate 1709.6 and the end of the episode, there should have been fewer than 14 hours in 0.4 stardate units, and thus fewer than 35 hours in one stardate unit.

And it seems probable to me that all the action between stardate 1709.2 and stardate 1709.6 probably only took one or two hours. One to two hours in 0.4 of a stardate unit equals 2.5 to 5 hours in a stardate unit.

 

[BK613]

Again Spock says it was thirteen years ago, which should be somewhere between 13.0 and 14.0 years.

12 and 14. Either Spock is speaking precisely, in which case it is exactly 13 years or he speaking more generally, in which case the range would be 12 to 14. To illustrate, I will use our time.

Currently the year is 2020 which means 13 years ago would be 2007. If I am being precise, then we are talking May 25, 2007 was 13 years ago. Colloquially, any time in 2007 would be "13 years ago" which means that an event taking place earlier than May 25, 2007, would be more than 13 years ago and any event taking place after May 25, 2007, would be less than 13 years ago (even though we are referring to all of the events of 2007 as "13 years ago" ).

The extreme cases are:
An event happening in Jan 2007 and we are looking from the POV of Dec 2020 (a smidgen under 14 years.)
An event happening in Dec 2007 and we are looking from the POV of Jan 2020 (a smidgen over 12 years.)