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A (potentially) unpopular opinion

J

jctechwizard

Ensign
Red Shirt
I'm going to start by saying that I know that there will be some disagreement about this.

Here goes:

I believe that TOS covered all 5 years of James Kirk's 5 year mission on the Enterprise (NOT just the first 3 years). Hear me out: going by the stardates given in most episodes, the stardates at the beginning of the series are in the 1xxx/x range, at the end of the series they are in the upper 5xxx.x range. Theory (mine): the first digit corresponds to which year of the 5 year mission. Therefore we have actually seen all 5 years of Kirk's famous tenure.

Here I have listed all 79 episodes in stardate order, broken down by year:

First Year (2265)
1312.4 Where No Man Has Gone Before
1329.1 Mudd's Women
1512.2 The Corbomite Maneuver
1513.1 The Man Trap
1533.6 Charlie X
1672.1 The Enemy Within
1704.2 The Naked Time
1709.1 Balance of Terror

Second Year (2266)
2124.5 The Squire of Gothos
2534.0 Patterns of Force
2712.4 What Are Little Girls Made Of?
2713.5 Miri
2715.1 Dagger of the Mind
2817.6 Conscience of the King
2821.5 The Galileo Seven
2947.3 Court Martial

Third Year (2267)
3012.4 The Menagerie, Part I
3013.0 The Menagerie, Part II
3018.2 Catspaw
3025.3 Shore Leave
3045.6 Arena
3087.6 The Alternative Factor
3113.2 Tomorrow is Yesterday
3134.0 City on the Edge of Forever
3141.9 Space Seed
3156.2 Return of the Archons
3192.1 A Taste of Armageddon
3196.1 Devil in the Dark
3198.4 Errand of Mercy
3211.7 Gamesters of Triskelion
3219.8 Metamorphosis
3287.2 Operation: Annihilate!
3372.7* Day of the Dove
3372.7 Amok Time
3417.3 This Side of Paradise
3468.1 Who Mourns for Adonais?
3478.2 The Deadly Years
3497.2 Friday's Child
3541.9 The Changeling
3614.9 Wolf in the Fold
3619.2 Obsession
3715.3 The Apple
3823.7* Mirror, Mirror
3842.3 Journey to Babel

Fourth Year (2268)
4040.7 Bread and Circuses
4202.9 The Doomsday Machine
4211.4 A Private Little War
4272.5 Elaan of Troyius
4307.1 The Immunity Syndrome
4385.3 Spectre of the Gun
4513.3 I, Mudd
4523.3 The Trouble with Tribbles
4598.0 A Piece of the Action
4657.5 By Any Other Name
4729.4 The Ultimate Computer
4768.3 Return to Tomorrow
4842.6 The Paradise Syndrome
Year 2268 The Omega Glory
Year 2268 Assignment: Earth

Fifth Year (2269)
5027.3 And the Children Shall Lead
5031.3 The Enterprise Incident
5121.0 The Empath
5423.4 The Mark of Gideon
5431.4 Spock's Brain
5476.3 For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
5630.7 Is There in Truth No Beauty?
5693.4 The Tholian Web
5710.5 Wink of an Eye
5718.3 Whom Gods Destroy
5725.3 The Lights of Zetar
5730.2 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
5784.2 Plato's Stepchildren
5818.4 The Cloud Minders
5832.3 Way to Eden
5843.7 Requiem for Methuselah
5906.4 The Savage Curtain
5928.5 Turnabout Intruder
5943.7 All Our Yesterdays
5978.2* That Which Survives

*The stardates with asterisks were gathered from beta canon sources


Also the highest stardate being in the mid 59xx range fits with Star Trek: The Motion Picture being set on stardate 74xx and Scotty saying in the movie "we have just spent 18 months redesigning and refitting the Enterprise". And before anyone says anything, yes, I know that Stardates are used differently in the movies.

Having seen all 5 years of Kirk's mission in the 3 seasons of TOS makes more sense to me then the common opinion that we only saw 3 years. Why even have a two year gap there in the first place.

Your thoughts?
 
As I understand it, TNG and the subsequent series of DS9 and VOY actually use this particular Stardate system. Stardates in TOS, on the other hand, were somewhat random. Not terribly so, as I think there are only about a dozen or so actual episodes- not even including the debatably-canon TAS- which had an offsetting stardate compared to the ones that came before it. The creators had explained this by saying the dates of different systems were not in fact the same; that the 'Federation', if you will, had no exact central clock from which to determine time. Thus you could theoretically travel from one system to the next and have a Stardate that predated the one from the system you just left.

Speaking personally, such a concept makes me want to dig my brain out of my skull and put it in a blender, so I do like using a re-adjusted kind of Stardate system like yours. It's just worth pointing out that it can't really match the TNG system, since they started with a date in the 41000's, making their starting date of this system in 2323. It miiiiight work if TOS was in fact established in, say, 2223 and the system just resets every 100 years, otherwise the reset is... screw it, where's my blender?
 
Apparently the TNG system does not reset, since DSC season 3-5 in the 32nd century has stardates in the 8xxxxx.x range. Also I was intentionally ignoring TAS since it is mostly agreed to be non canon.
 
Nice ordering! I'd forgotten that TOS started out with 1xxx and 2xxx numbering. But it does mean those first two mission years went by really quick, or comparatively uneventfully, or the episodes were longer with elapsed time? Or there's room for more.

TOS didn't have that continuity as such, and - correct me if I'm wrong - a couple episodes' stardate mentions may have been out of order*. The fact it wasn't so obvious is fairly impressive.

I still prefer the idea that the five-year mission wasn't shown because it leaves room to explore. Plus, had season 4 been commissioned, Margaret Armen would have been main script editor and she knew "the big three" almost as much as DC Fontana and would have been an inspired successor. But I dig her stories and other contributions to the show.


* no worries either way, for a real example of sloppiness, check out "Space 1999" season 2 and how inconsistent they got with their equivalent of captain's logs (number of days since the moon left Earth orbit)
 
Grant said:
Chekov was on the Enterprise during Space Seed because they recognize each other. The end.
Click to expand...

Fanon says that Khan needed to use the bathroom and was annoyed when Chekov took too long. When Chekov exited the bathroom, Khan fixed him with a glare and said, "I shall remember your face."

Because the only other bathroom on the ship is in Uhura's quarters and she doesn't share it, there's usually a long line for the other one. No wonder Khan was annoyed.

And in a series where continuity sometimes makes no sense whatsoever, this is good enough for me.


As for the 4th and 5th seasons, Star Trek Continues has that nicely covered, thankyouverymuch.

Oh, and TAS' canon status? There is no way that "Yesteryear" is not canon. It's too good not to be.
 
Interesting theory, I had never noticed the stardates matched it so well.
I prefer the usual explanation though: each season is a year of the mission, and TAS fills the fourth and a bit of the fifth years. TAS has been generally considered canon, except for a while when Roddenberry got really weird about a lot of things. But I don't see any sensible reason to consider it non-canon now.
Also, iirc the initial plans were for TOS to last five seasons.
 
Laura Cynthia Chambers said:
What if Lucien is actually Q (or at least a Q)? He claimed to be God to Picard once.
Click to expand...
There has to be some kind of connection to the God-entity from Star Trek V. They are both in the center of the galaxy.

I don't remember what TNG race, but I've heard speculation that we have seen others of its race in a TNG episode.
 
Phoenix219 said:
There has to be some kind of connection to the God-entity from Star Trek V. They are both in the center of the galaxy.

I don't remember what TNG race, but I've heard speculation that we have seen others of its race in a TNG episode.
Click to expand...
The Cytherians from THG "The Nth Degree". They were near the center of the galaxy
 
Airin said:
Interesting theory, I had never noticed the stardates matched it so well.
I prefer the usual explanation though: each season is a year of the mission, and TAS fills the fourth and a bit of the fifth years. TAS has been generally considered canon, except for a while when Roddenberry got really weird about a lot of things. But I don't see any sensible reason to consider it non-canon now.
Also, iirc the initial plans were for TOS to last five seasons.
Click to expand...
I was leaving TAS out as non-canon partly because the stardates are all over the place.

Yes some parts of TAS (like Yesteryear) may be considered canon now, but the stardates still make it hard to reconcile here.
 
Timewalker said:
Fanon says that Khan needed to use the bathroom and was annoyed when Chekov took too long. When Chekov exited the bathroom, Khan fixed him with a glare and said, "I shall remember your face."

Because the only other bathroom on the ship is in Uhura's quarters and she doesn't share it, there's usually a long line for the other one. No wonder Khan was annoyed.

And in a series where continuity sometimes makes no sense whatsoever, this is good enough for me.


As for the 4th and 5th seasons, Star Trek Continues has that nicely covered, thankyouverymuch.

Oh, and TAS' canon status? There is no way that "Yesteryear" is not canon. It's too good not to be.
Click to expand...
And Star Trek Continues is by definition NOT canon, thankyouverymuch.
 
jctechwizard said:
Apparently the TNG system does not reset, since DSC season 3-5 in the 32nd century has stardates in the 8xxxxx.x range. Also I was intentionally ignoring TAS since it is mostly agreed to be non canon.
Click to expand...
To your last point, nope sorry TAS had been re-canonized.

It was only decanonized because Filmation claimed rights and told Paramount if any unique elements to it, or any story threads it started were used in TNG or the later Berman era series they wanted royalties.

Once Filmation went belly up, the TAS rights reverted to Paramount so yeah at that point, it's canon again <-- No question.
 
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