Trek Books Set in TOS Movie Era?

[Christopher]

^Yeah, but that Nimbus III dating is based on the assumption that the speakers meant exactly 20 Earth years, rather than rounding up or using alien years. It's contradictory that they assumed ST V's "20 years" reference had to be exact but ignored ST II's "15 years" reference. It would've made more sense to do it the other way, or struck a compromise in between them.

 

[Mysterion]

^^^ And it would need to take into account the Organian intervention/treaty. I think the Klingons are more likely to have bought into the Nimbus idea after Organia, than before.

 

[ryan123450]

Is strange how the Chronology ended up being more ‘canonical’ in this regard than the films themselves. Everyone accepted the Chronology’s dating framework after it was published, in contradiction of the films, if you see what I mean.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Honestly, I've often suspected that the only reason the 2364 date was given in "The Neutral Zone" was because that episode was made during the '88 writers' strike and had to be shot from an unrevised first draft script. Roddenberry preferred to keep the date vague, so I suspect that that date might've been dropped if the script had been revised, and may have just been a placeholder anyway.

On the other hand, I look at it as a point of reference Data have to Offenhouse and the others; something they could understand, to show how long they’d been asleep and all that. Data wouldn’t be imprecise, the way - for example - Kirk was with Khan in “Space Seed.”

But that’s just me.

 

[Christopher]

On the other hand, I look at it as a point of reference Data have to Offenhouse and the others; something they could understand, to show how long they’d been asleep and all that. Data wouldn’t be imprecise, the way - for example - Kirk was with Khan in “Space Seed.”

I'm not saying it doesn't make objective sense; I'm just saying that, given Roddenberry's preference to keep the date vague, I wonder if the reference would've survived if the script had gone through the normal rewrite process. It's a procedural question, not a value judgment. For instance, if Roddenberry had wanted to avoid a precise mention of the date, he could've reassigned the line to someone other than Data. But since the strike kept the script from being revised, we'll never know what parts would've been kept and what would've been changed. (Heaven knows there's a lot that should have been changed. Like the ridiculous ease with which Crusher resurrects the dead, or the crew's profound lack of scientific curiosity about the 20th-century people they've just met, or the unanswered question of how their capsule got from Earth orbit to the Romulan Neutral Zone, or Offenhouse's rather useless contribution to the climactic bridge scene.)

 

[Damian]

I'm just saying that, given Roddenberry's preference to keep the date vague, I wonder if the reference would've survived if the script had gone through the normal rewrite process.

It's possible maybe Roddenberry would have been fine with the year. By then we already knew TVH (and by inference the rest of Star Trek, took place in the late 23rd century. And a lot of Star Trek had been produced and the reasons for keeping the timeframe vague by the time TNG probably had mostly disappeared. They already said it was in the 24th century and it was 78 years after Kirk and Spock (which we would later deduce was likely 78 years after the then most recent film TVH--which make sense in a way, if you say 78 years after Kirk and Spock, it makes some sense that it would be 78 years after the last time we saw them). I think maybe the producers, considering all that, may have decided to finally give the fans a year it takes place in. Nowadays, with a better chronology, it all works within the canon now...for the most part. It's not perfect, and people will find exceptions. But as a general overall storyline, it all works, and it's nice at least IMHO to finally have Star Trek placed in a sort of historical context.

Offenhouse's rather useless contribution to the climactic bridge scen

I actually like that scene. The Enterprise crew had no contact with the Romulans up to that point..in fact they go to great lengths to point out it's been so long since there's been contact that they really don't know what to expect anymore. And here's a guy out of history that gets to the crux of the matter. The Enterprise crew was trying to apply what little they knew about the Romulans along with their experience with other civilizations to the situation. But Offenhouse has not experience and simply states the most obvious, which had escaped the rest of the crew. Sometimes we don't see the answer right in front of our face and it takes someone with no previous knowledge or prejudices to point it out for us. That's how I took it anyway. That and I think it's sort of a signaling that these people out of time may still be able to make a contribution.

The episode has it's flaws, I agree. You bring up some good points that had they been fixed, would have made a better episode. But I thought Offenhouse's comment was pretty good. The rest of the crew sort of got lost in the woods, simply overthinking things which happens to the best of us. He had the luxury of just stating what he saw and it happened to be true. A lucky guess? Sure, but sometimes that's what it takes. He probably saw something also that reminded him of his business dealings that helped him see what the others missed as well.

 

[Damian]

I think it's interesting--and amusing--that such a pivotal part of the ST Chronology turned on something so arbitrary.

I'm not sold that it was necessarily arbitrary. I thought maybe the writers were picking a date that was reasonable considering they pointed out in production materials that it was 78 years later, and that TVH had Kirk telling Gillian that he came from the late 23rd century. I'd imagine they probably put those two together and picked a date that could reasonably fall into that time frame.

Like I noted earlier, thinking back it sort of makes sense that 78 years would likely be after the last time we saw Kirk and Spock. I'm not necessarily saying that's what they were thinking when they originally cited 78 years later (I do find it interesting they picked the number 78, why not 100 years, or 75 years...but I guess they wanted to try to add a random element). What I'm thinking is when they wrote The Neutral Zone, maybe they were thinking they needed to account for 78 years and the last time we saw Kirk and Spock was the late 23rd century so lets pick a year that would fit those criteria. So I don't think it was completely arbitrary...lets just pick any year in the 24th century. I think a little thought went into it at least.

 

[Christopher]

So I don't think it was completely arbitrary...lets just pick any year in the 24th century. I think a little thought went into it at least.

I'm not saying there wasn't. It's just that there was a comment or two earlier in the thread suggesting that the 2364 date was calculated based on a known date for TOS, and that's getting the cause and effect backward, because the date of TOS wasn't settled on until maybe 5 years later, using a mix of the "Neutral Zone" date and the "Journey to Babel" and "Sarek" references to Sarek's age. Even if TNZ's date was based on some logical estimates of a general date range that would make sense, it was still the first exact calendar date given for any Trek production (not counting time travel episodes), and thus all other exact dates are derived from it as the starting point.

 

[Leto_II]

I'm not sold that it was necessarily arbitrary. I thought maybe the writers were picking a date that was reasonable considering they pointed out in production materials that it was 78 years later, and that TVH had Kirk telling Gillian that he came from the late 23rd century. I'd imagine they probably put those two together and picked a date that could reasonably fall into that time frame.

Like I noted earlier, thinking back it sort of makes sense that 78 years would likely be after the last time we saw Kirk and Spock. I'm not necessarily saying that's what they were thinking when they originally cited 78 years later (I do find it interesting they picked the number 78, why not 100 years, or 75 years...but I guess they wanted to try to add a random element). What I'm thinking is when they wrote The Neutral Zone, maybe they were thinking they needed to account for 78 years and the last time we saw Kirk and Spock was the late 23rd century so lets pick a year that would fit those criteria. So I don't think it was completely arbitrary...lets just pick any year in the 24th century. I think a little thought went into it at least.

Also, 2364-78 = 2286 for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which seems pretty consistent with the Okudas' known predilection for placing future-era dates exactly 300 or 400 years after real-world broadcast/release-dates.

 

[Damian]

I'm not saying there wasn't. It's just that there was a comment or two earlier in the thread suggesting that the 2364 date was calculated based on a known date for TOS, and that's getting the cause and effect backward, because the date of TOS wasn't settled on until maybe 5 years later, using a mix of the "Neutral Zone" date and the "Journey to Babel" and "Sarek" references to Sarek's age. Even if TNZ's date was based on some logical estimates of a general date range that would make sense, it was still the first exact calendar date given for any Trek production (not counting time travel episodes), and thus all other exact dates are derived from it as the starting point.

Yeah, I know. It was more a response to another comment about it being arbitrary earlier. I figure it's probably more a middle ground. They used some parameters to figures something reasonable, but I agree the specific 2364 was likely just a guess within those parameters.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I'm not sold that it was necessarily arbitrary. I thought maybe the writers were picking a date that was reasonable considering they pointed out in production materials that it was 78 years later, and that TVH had Kirk telling Gillian that he came from the late 23rd century. I'd imagine they probably put those two together and picked a date that could reasonably fall into that time frame.

I was talking about the fact that the date only ended up in the final episode to begin with because of the 1988 writers' strike. If they'd legally been able to rewrite the episode, the specific year likely would've been dropped from subsequent drafts so as to continue leaving Trek as a vague future with only the century nailed down. But it wasn't, and from that one specific reference, the entire Star Trek Chronology was written.

That was what I meant by "arbitrary," not the date itself.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

^Yeah, but that Nimbus III dating is based on the assumption that the speakers meant exactly 20 Earth years, rather than rounding up or using alien years.

Yeah, they certainly could've been rounding up, but a "20 years" figure definitively puts Nimbus III's founding into the TOS years. It doesn't make a great deal of difference if it was 2267 or 2269, as long it was sometime after the Romulans reemerged in "Balance of Terror." Heck, the film First Contact adjusted the date of Cochrane's first warp flight from the Chronology's date of 2065 to 2063, and it didn't make a great deal of difference either way. The Okudas were smart enough to realize that it more or less amounted to the same thing if they took every round figure literally or if they didn't.

And I'm not a big fan of the "Oh, but they were using alien years" chronology theories. That just seems to be a convenient excuse to ignore numbers whenever an alien is speaking. If their dialogue is translated into English for us, I see no reason why the units of time shouldn't be as well.

It's contradictory that they assumed ST V's "20 years" reference had to be exact but ignored ST II's "15 years" reference. It would've made more sense to do it the other way, or struck a compromise in between them.

Yeah, changing the time gap in TWOK from 15 years to 18 really makes no sense, especially since it had been 15 years in real life (1967 to 1982) and both Khan and Kirk confirm that it had been 15 years since Khan was exiled to Ceti Alpha V. I can see Kirk not remembering how long it had been, but Khan? Obsessive, super-smart, maniacal Khan, who had next to nothing to do for 15 years but obsess over James T. Kirk and how he was responsible for all of Khan's ills? No way.

 

[Leto_II]

^ Yeah, and Greg took the extra step of stating outright that all time from Khan's perspective once the Enterprise departs Ceti Alpha V in 2267 are "planetary years" (i.e., Ceti Alphan years):

"Good Lord, Jim!" McCoy exclaimed, his shocked voice emanating from the headset in Kirk's helmet. A medkit was slung over the doctor's shoulder, in case of accident. "How could anyone live in this hellhole, let alone for eighteen years!"

"Fifteen years, by Khan's reckoning," Spock observed calmly, "given Ceti Alpha V's altered orbit."

 

[Damian]

I was talking about the fact that the date only ended up in the final episode to begin with because of the 1988 writers' strike. If they'd legally been able to rewrite the episode, the specific year likely would've been dropped from subsequent drafts so as to continue leaving Trek as a vague future with only the century nailed down. But it wasn't, and from that one specific reference, the entire Star Trek Chronology was written.

That was what I meant by "arbitrary," not the date itself.

Ok, gotcha.

I'm not so sure it would have been dropped. They may have decided it was time to set a timeframe (plus it's reasonable to assume Offenhouse and the others would want to know what year it was, it'd be pretty hard to ignore that--personally I was actually waiting for the moment someone asked the year because I knew it was coming and I was curious how they would answer it). It was being narrowed down further and further. Keeping it a mystery worked for the original series, they wanted to keep their options open I'm sure. But by the time TNG came out I think the novelty as to the mystery may have been wearing off. I'm just not as sure keeping it vague was all that important anymore.

After all it's still far enough in the future that we're not really in danger of present history running into future history, at least for a long time (I mean outside of 'historical' references like the Eugenics Wars, the Saturn probe and so forth). There are some technical incongruities like communicators but that would be the case no matter what year they said it took place in.

 

[Damian]

^ Yeah, and Greg took the extra step of stating outright that all time from Khan's perspective once the Enterprise departs Ceti Alpha V in 2267 are "planetary years" (i.e., Ceti Alphan years):

One of the reasons I loved that novel. He addressed some things that I didn't even realize were inconsistencies (and I found it an excellent story overall--correcting inconsistencies between Space Seed and TWOK was a bonus).

That particular inconsistency I just assumed was an educated guess by Khan, at least before the book came out. I figured he guessed it was at least 15 years, but maybe they didn't have Earth calibrated time devices to tell him exactly and maybe lost track of time or something.

But Greg Cox's explanation works for me too.

 

[ryan123450]

^ Yeah, and Greg took the extra step of stating outright that all time from Khan's perspective once the Enterprise departs Ceti Alpha V in 2267 are "planetary years" (i.e., Ceti Alphan years):

Cool tidbit. I’ve not read it and that’s interesting to know.

 

[Damian]

Cool tidbit. I’ve not read it and that’s interesting to know.

If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it (and the two Eugenics Wars books before it, though it's not necessary to read them to enjoy this book).

It is a great novel. And it even explains some of the issues with TWOK's plot, like why Khan is singularly focused on vengeance, and even things like how the Reliant lost track of an entire planet and why Khan's crew suddenly looks like an 80's hair band.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

^ Yeah, and Greg took the extra step of stating outright that all time from Khan's perspective once the Enterprise departs Ceti Alpha V in 2267 are "planetary years" (i.e., Ceti Alphan years):

To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh said:

"Good Lord, Jim!" McCoy exclaimed, his shocked voice emanating from the headset in Kirk's helmet. A medkit was slung over the doctor's shoulder, in case of accident. "How could anyone live in this hellhole, let alone for eighteen years!"

"Fifteen years, by Khan's reckoning," Spock observed calmly, "given Ceti Alpha V's altered orbit."

Okay. So then why did Kirk also say that it had been 15 years?

KIRK: There's a man out there I haven't seen in fifteen years who's trying to kill me. You show me a son that'd be happy to help him. My son. ...My life that could have been, ...and wasn't. And what am I feeling? ...Old. ...Worn out.

Since two different characters in the movie say that it's been 15 years, we have to go with the simplest possible explanation and assume that it's been 15 years. I can buy that Ceti Alpha V had an altered orbit and that it's year was different from an Earth year, or a stardate year, or whatever the standard is. But as Spock noted, Khan was quite intelligent. I can buy that Khan could figure out a means to convert the time differential.