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TOS Timeline Questions

Before The Corbomite Maneuver. I personally don’t prefer that, for the uniform inconsistency, but there are no flawless versions of the TOS timeline…

Yeah, I wouldn't like shifting it to before TCM, either. I might be willing to accept it as the next episode after "Mudd's Women," but that uniform change is too significant an indicator of the order of things for me to completely ignore it.

So what are the downsides to moving episodes from "The Corbomite Maneuver" through "Charlie X" to late 2265? I think "Balance of Terror" would be the first major event that might need to be in 2266, since the year's been pretty heavily referenced as "the first Romulan incursion across the Neutral Zone," etc...

Another question, while I'm thinking of it. I was looking through my notes, and have "February?" down as a date for "The Menagerie," but for the life of me, I cannot figure out where I might have pulled that from. Any ideas? It's gotta be 2267 for the "thirteen years ago" references to 2254, but February, specifically?

I just wish there weren't about 15 episodes (plus who knows how many novels/comics) stuffed into the first three months of 2267. I don't think there's a more overcrowded stretch of the 5YM.

EDIT: I saw Christopher mention that he'd modified his dating for Forgotten History versus the published version. Since that book is kind of a lynchpin in dating certain episodes, how much would that shift things?
 
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For what it's worth, I deal with "Charlie X" by bumping it to later in the season and putting it in November '66.

EDIT: I saw Christopher mention that he'd modified his dating for Forgotten History versus the published version. Since that book is kind of a lynchpin in dating certain episodes, how much would that shift things?

I don't recall doing that, and my chronology doesn't indicate any change. Some bits of the 24th-century DTI material have pretty much been rendered apocryphal by the Picard continuity, or have to be treated as an alternate timeline, but that's the only reinterpretation I recall.
 
I look forward to seeing this!
I also day counted all of pre-Ent Trek a while ago, but my documents are written in weird half-German/half-English and I didn't have the time to fully translate everything to English yet ^^

For what it's worth, I deal with "Charlie X" by bumping it to later in the season and putting it in November '66.
Ohhh, I like that solution!

EDIT: I saw Christopher mention that he'd modified his dating for Forgotten History versus the published version. Since that book is kind of a lynchpin in dating certain episodes, how much would that shift things?
Not really the same thing, but I vaguely recall some timeline discrepancies between Forgotten History and maybe The Higher Frontier, that were discussed in the Timeliners group?
 
Oh? Like what?
Sorry, I seem to have misremembered that. I thought it was something in regards to a reference in The Higher Frontier putting "In Truth There Is No Beauty" shortly after "Assignment: Earth", thus squishing half of season 3 in a month, but looking at the post it all worked out. We even used this reference and another to triangulate a reasonable start date for the novel and for the episode (although the latter didn't quite work for unrelated timeline reasons, I think?)
 
Sorry, I seem to have misremembered that. I thought it was something in regards to a reference in The Higher Frontier putting "In Truth There Is No Beauty" shortly after "Assignment: Earth", thus squishing half of season 3 in a month, but looking at the post it all worked out.

I've got them 6 months apart in my chronology.
 
For what it's worth, I deal with "Charlie X" by bumping it to later in the season and putting it in November '66.

That would work too. I can't think of anything that would be lost by putting "Charlie X" between "Miri" and "The Conscience of the King" or even after "Conscience," unless we wanted to "preserve" that as Rand's final appearance in production order.

I don't recall doing that, and my chronology doesn't indicate any change. Some bits of the 24th-century DTI material have pretty much been rendered apocryphal by the Picard continuity, or have to be treated as an alternate timeline, but that's the only reinterpretation I recall.

This is the post I was recalling, from Ryan's "TOS Litverse-Based Chronology" thread:

Personally, I put Assignment: Eternity right after TI (as specified therein) and First Frontier right after that, followed by The Face of the Unknown, The Latter Fire, and then TAS. As for "Yesteryear," it's actually third in production order, but there's no single unambiguous order for TAS. I tend to go with production order, but I make adjustments where it seems reasonable for various reasons (for instance, I follow "Beyond the Farthest Star," set on the edge of the galaxy, with "One of Our Planets is Missing," set on the far fringes of the UFP, since it makes the most sense in terms of travel time). My placement of "Yesteryear" in FH was based on the chronological assumptions I made at the time, and I think I've rearranged some things since then in response to Seekers, so I've had to put Yy a bit out of order.

The last sentence there is what made me think you meant you'd moved things around since writing Forgotten History. I was wondering what you might have shifted, but maybe you didn't change anything after all? Thinking about the date FH gives for "Yesteryear", not for FH itself, sorry if I was unclear.
 
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That would work too. I can't think of anything that would be lost by putting "Charlie X" between "Miri" and "The Conscience of the King" or even after "Conscience," unless we wanted to "preserve" that as Rand's final appearance in production order.

As I remarked in a recent discussion, Rand never officially left; she just stopped showing up, like DeSalle or Riley, or like Sulu for much of season 2. So she could've just been offscreen in episodes where she didn't appear. That's why some early novelists had her still on board in season 3 or after.



The last sentence there is what made me think you meant you'd moved things around since writing Forgotten History. I was wondering what you might have shifted, but maybe you didn't change anything after all? Thinking about the date FH gives for "Yesteryear", not for FH itself, sorry if I was unclear.

What I meant was that I had to move the other TAS dates in my chronology slightly to reconcile with Seekers while keeping the date for "Yesteryear" that I explicitly gave in FH, thereby requiring me to change the order in which I had the TAS episodes occur. The only dates I changed in my personal chronology were those that have not appeared in a published work and thus remain unfixed.
 
As I remarked in a recent discussion, Rand never officially left; she just stopped showing up, like DeSalle or Riley, or like Sulu for much of season 2. So she could've just been offscreen in episodes where she didn't appear. That's why some early novelists had her still on board in season 3 or after.

Sure, but, as with Riley and DeSalle, there's also references to her transferring off the Enterprise or taking a leave of absence from Starfleet entirely. And given that those early novels take place later, it's easy for Rand to be gone from early 2267 to late 2269, at least.

What I meant was that I had to move the other TAS dates in my chronology slightly to reconcile with Seekers while keeping the date for "Yesteryear" that I explicitly gave in FH, thereby requiring me to change the order in which I had the TAS episodes occur. The only dates I changed in my personal chronology were those that have not appeared in a published work and thus remain unfixed.

Good to know, thanks. :)
 
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Sure, but, as with Riley and DeSalle, there's also references to her transferring off the Enterprise or taking a leave of absence from Starfleet entirely.

Yeah, but the exact time of that isn't specified, so there's wiggle room. It doesn't have to be immediately after her last episode.
 
How long a gap does everyone have between "Court Martial" and "The Menagerie"? Could be almost immediately back to back, or there could be at least a few weeks between to allow for the handover from Commodore Stone to Commodore Mendez.

I'm trying to keep "The Menagerie" in 2267 ("thirteen years" after "The Cage"), but following the dates in Vanguard and Forgotten Destiny means moving it out of production order to do so, so I'm trying to figure out which episodes to flip around. "Arena" and "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" both need to be in 2266, apparently, but I'm not sure about the rest.
 
How long a gap does everyone have between "Court Martial" and "The Menagerie"? Could be almost immediately back to back, or there could be at least a few weeks between to allow for the handover from Commodore Stone to Commodore Mendez.

I have them about 6 weeks apart. In between is the star charting mission mentioned as "last year" in "The Doomsday Machine."

I'm trying to keep "The Menagerie" in 2267 ("thirteen years" after "The Cage"), but following the dates in Vanguard and Forgotten Destiny means moving it out of production order to do so, so I'm trying to figure out which episodes to flip around. "Arena" and "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" both need to be in 2266, apparently, but I'm not sure about the rest.

I have "The Cage" in April '54 and "The Menagerie" in November '66. That's 12 years and 7 months, which rounds up to 13.
 
This inspires me to tweak that area of my timeline, as I knew it currently didn’t align with the multiple references in Burning Dreams to The Menagerie being in 2267, but I hadn’t noticed how easy it would be to make the ‘13 years ago’ reference work, just by pushing it back two months from my current placement.
 
I don't think Burning Dreams is consistent with Discovery season 2, with regard to Pike's father, his return to Talos, and the details of his accident.
 
but the line feels more appropriate from Spock if the calendar years match up.

Only if you use the Gregorian calendar. Where the year begins or ends is arbitrary. I would expect Spock to be as picky and literalistic about numbers as I am, and I always favor using the actual interval between two dates over the much rougher standard of treating entire calendar years as monolithic units.

Of course, by the same token, Spock would be more likely to say "twelve-point-five-eight years," but reconciling an inconsistent canon is always an imperfect exercise. Compromises have to be made. Then again, I suppose I could just move "The Cage" back a few months. I'm not sure why I put it in April.
 
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