FASA did there numbers before the end of season one of TNG, when the year 2364 was mentioned for the first time.
when did TOS take place, 23rd century or 22nd century
- Thread starter Gabriel
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FASA did there numbers before the end of season one of TNG, when the year 2364 was mentioned for the first time.
And I find it amazing that that one specific calendar reference, the one that the official ST Chronology turns on, only made it into the aired show because the 1988 Writers' Strike had started and they couldn't rewrite any more before they started shooting "The Neutral Zone." According to Wikipedia, what went before the cameras was a first draft script that was written in a day and a half.
So if "The Neutral Zone" had been rewritten some more before it was shot, would that specific year of 2364 have been written out? And if so, what would the official Star Trek timeline look like today?
Yeah. This is one of my problems with the Okuda Chronology (which I generally like, BTW). Because of two rather arbitrary numbers in the first season of TNG ("McCoy has to be really old here! ...Let's say he's 137!" "What year is it in TNG by our calendar? Ummm... 2364! That sounds good!"), we suddenly have to believe that McCoy is only 39-40 year old during the first season of TOS, when DeForest Kelley was 46 in real life, and looked it. TOS seemed to consistently imply that McCoy had at least 10 years on the 34-year old Captain Kirk, and I'm not too fond of the basic assumptions behind TOS being rewritten by other creatives who had nothing to do with the series 20-30 years after the fact.If Kirk was born in 2234 then he's only seven years younger than Bones? I don't think so!
And it's really weird how everyone has NO problem completely throwing out Data's "Class of '78" line, but McCoy's age being 137 in the pilot is somehow carved in stone. I personally prefer to throw both of them out, say that Data was having a really bad day with numbers, and leave it at that.
Yeah. I find it an interesting exercise to try and reconstruct what the history of the ST Universe looked like before TNG and the other modern shows started rewritting that history, bit by bit. (An unavoidable problem, to be sure.)
Yeah, exactly.
I'm definitely in the "Even so, it's fun try to reconcile everything" camp. I find trying to write chronologies that make sense an interesting exercise in logic and creativity. And it helps me see connections between two different parts of the Trek Universe that I might not have seen otherwise. ("Hmm... Could a young Christopher Pike have been involved with the battle of Donatu V?")
Nicholas Meyer has said that he put the "In the 23rd Century..." title card in at the start of TWOK for the benefit of his dad, who was a Star Trek novice. He didn't want his father to be unnecessarily confused when he saw the movie.
My basic feeling is that yeah, TOS did put in several references to it being 200 years since the then-present day of the 1960s, but there's such a preponderance of references to the 23rd Century/the 2260s at this point that it's kind of silly to go against that. I certainly believe that the timeline for the TOS era can be fine-tuned a bit, though. My own attempt at that can be seen here. I'd love to hear any feedback folks here might have, and I'd be happy to explain my reasoning wherever it's not clear. I consider my timeline a constant work in progress. I still have yet to see more than the first episode of Discovery, so I don't know if I'm going to try and incorporate it or not at this point.
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Yeah but I take Star Trek the franchise as a whole so that book dates to me is irrelevant. To me TOS was 2260s TNG 2364 to 2370 DS nine 2369 to 2376 voyager was from 71 to 78. The original movie is 2270s the wrath of Khan is 2285 as well as the search for Spock The voyage home is 2286 the final frontier is 2287 and the undiscovered country is in 2293 period no exceptions but that just me.
Don't mention Donatu V and Pike in the same breath as the writers of DSC might include it!!! One of the main reasons that TOS didn't have an official date back when it was made was the idea that humanity had given up the Gregorian calender! Maybe because of it's joining with other races to create the Federation or not but it was probably their kind of events dating and it seemed more practical to adapt to that chronology or it could just have been for Starships travelling in the void?
JB
JB
Include what? Donatu V was mentioned in the pilot already. Did Pike fight there? Perhaps as a Cabin Boy, 2nd Rate?
Timo Saloniemi
I've seen the pilot but it was easily forgettable!
JB
JB
...In a universe where humans flew to Saturn a couple of years ago, and were doing interstellar two decades ago. Perhaps their Voyager 1 was launched in 1963 and Voyager 47 in 1971, all the orbital elevators being quite busy in the years in between?
But yes, the idea that Star Trek takes place 300 years after its air date had been firmly adopted by the time the show first went to the silver screen.
Timo Saloniemi
But yes, the idea that Star Trek takes place 300 years after its air date had been firmly adopted by the time the show first went to the silver screen.
Timo Saloniemi
"Miri" was in Blish's first volume, whereas both of the two "200 years" episodes, "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and "Space Seed," were in his second volume. So he did "Miri" before he had any indication from the scripts of when the show took place. Once he got the later scripts, naturally he adapted them more or less as written, because that was his job.
Do we have any idea who put 2364 in "The Neutral Zone"? Hurley, Roddenbery, someone else? And how it came about? Did they pick it out of a hat? Or did they spend time trying to make sense of the vague and conflicting dates and times given in earlier productions? I wonder...
Due to the 1988 writers' strike, "The Neutral Zone" had to be hastily scripted by Maurice Hurley with no chance for the staff to make revisions before filming. So probably the date either came from Hurley or was suggested by Sternbach & Okuda, who often filled in the technical details in the scripts.
I am under the impression that the original idea for 2364 came from Gene Roddenberry and/or Richard Arnold.
I believe the introduction to the Okuda's chronology says that Richard Arnold helped them with many of the assumptions the dates were based on.
And I believe that the list of assumptions include assumptions that TOS episodes happen 300 years after being broadcast, and thus in 2266-2269. That requires that TOS episodes happen in broadcast order instead of production order or stardate order -many fans consider one those orders superior to broadcast order.
And another assumption is that each season of the TNG shows occupies a calendar year, starting with the year 2364 because 2364 is exactly 400 years after "The Cage" was produced.
So the official dates of Star Trek productions are based more on arbitrary assumptions than on calculations to find the possible date ranges for those productions.
So I suspect that the idea for making the first season of TNG happen in 2364 goes back ultimately to Gene Roddenberry and/or Richard Arnold.
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The correct answer (not listed in your poll) is: YES!
If McCoy was born in 2227 then he looked much older than his forty years in 2268!!!
JB
Kelley himself would have been 46 in 1966. So, only 5 years off the mark. And if Bones was 41, Kirk would have been 34, which I believe is correct.
I don’t see the point there are two answer choices 23rd or 22nd can’t get any more simple than that.
Now I know who to thank for that 2364. Thank you Maurice Hurley. Or thank you okuda and sternbach
And the 2371 reference in voyager could confirm this because voyager is 7 years after TNG so we know they were consistent.
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That seems unlikely. In TOS, Roddenberry intentionally tried to be vague about the exact date, because he knew that science fiction tended to be overly optimistic or pessimistic over how rapidly technology advanced, so he didn't want to get pinned down to a specific future date -- which is why the title question of this thread even exists to be asked. So I doubt he would've changed his mind and pinned it down exactly.
Indeed, I've always assumed that the exact date in "The Neutral Zone" only got through because of the writers' strike. I suspect that if there had been time to revise the script, the date reference would probably have been cut out.
Yes, but the chronology came out five years after "The Neutral Zone," well after the date for TNG had been locked down. And Arnold was only credited as a "Research Consultant" on seasons 3 & 4 of TNG. So there's no evidence that he would've been doing the same kind of thing way back in season 1.
It doesn't require anything of the sort. The Chronology does assume the seasons take place exactly 300 years after they aired, but the specific episodes are arranged in production order, not broadcast order. It's not as granular as an episode-by-episode date correspondence -- indeed, that's not even possible, because there are a number of episodes that span more than one week ("The Paradise Syndrome" alone takes two months).
I've never heard that suggested as an explanation for the 2364 date, but there's a certain logic to it. Still, there's no reason to attribute it to Arnold.
No, I'm just guessing. It's a semi-educated guess, but far from a proven fact.
I have lost the will to live.
I hope you're all happy.
It could be worse.
Someone could resurrect the thread about the name of the 12/13 original Constitution class ships in TOS
