Different Star Trek Chronologies

[MAGolding]

On another forum I posted this:

I have seen more Star Trek chronologies than I can remember, starting with one published in 1968 in Star Trek: an Analysis of a phenomenon in Science Fiction. I was trying to list all the ones I could remember, but I kept accidentally erasing all my work and gave up.

I think it might be a good idea to list the chronologies such as the Star Trek technical fandom chronology, Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology, Star Trek II Biographies, History of the Vessel Enterprise, Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future, etc. etc. etc. with the dates they give for TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, the movies, etc.

So would anyone want to mention chronologies they have seen and the dates those chronologies give for main periods of Star Trek?

 

[USS Triumphant]

I think that if you're wanting people to list published Star Trek chronologies that haven't previously been listed in this thread (including the ones you just mentioned), that is doable.

I think if you'd like to name a specific handful of events that seem to vary in when they are supposed to have occurred from chronology to chronology (WWIII, for instance), and discuss them, then that is doable.

What it sounds like you're actually asking, though, which I'm sure was not your intent, is for people to actually list out *the full contents* of any published chronologies they are familiar with. That... is also technically *doable*, in the same sense that building the Great Wall of China without electric motor powered equipment was doable (obviously) - but I don't think you're going to find much of anyone here motivated to do so.

 

[Tenacity]

Would the OP also be interested in the isolated "historical" events mentioned in various novels?

 

[MAGolding]

What it sounds like you're actually asking, though, which I'm sure was not your intent, is for people to actually list out *the full contents* of any published chronologies they are familiar with. That... is also technically *doable*, in the same sense that building the Great Wall of China without electric motor powered equipment was doable (obviously) - but I don't think you're going to find much of anyone here motivated to do so.

I would like those who respond to list the fictional dates of the major eras of Star Trek movies and TV shows.

For example, as I remember, Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology puts TOS in the 2200s, counting forward from "The Cage" and backward from TMP in 2208 I think.

As I remember, Star Trek II Biographies puts WOK in 2222, and thus "Space Seed" about 2207.

As I remember, Star Trek: an Analysis of a phenomenon in Science Fiction (1968) has the first 2 TOS seasons in the late 2250s.

As I remember, Star Trek technical fandom chronologies put TOS in the early 2260s, and some include the movies and TNG. They are originally based on a timeline by Chuck Graham from Menagerie V and The Starfleet Handbook circa 1975.

The official Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future lists "The Cage " in 2254, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" in 2265, TOS in 2266-2269 (300 years after the episodes were broadcast), The Motion Picture in 2271, WOK & SFS in 2285, TVH in 2286, TFF in 2287, TUK in 2293, STNG, DS9, & Voyager in 2364 to 2271 which is as late as it goes.

Memory Alpha continues with the rest of DS9 and Voyager until their last episodes and dates the TNG movies. It also changes some of the dates with Kirk's five year mission ending in 2270 and TMP in 2273.

As I remember, History of the Vessel Enterprise, has TNG start in 2364, but TOS later than the official chronology, in the 2270s I think.

There were a number of chronologies in the Best of Trek books in the 1980s, dating TOS and TOS movies and the early seasons of TNG but I forget what dates they gave.

A website by James Dixon has a table of comparison between the Star Trek technical fandom chronology and other chronologies: James Blish, FASA including Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology, the Okudas' official chronology, and the chronology in History of the Vessel Enterprise.

It states that the Blish adapation dates for TOS are 260 years later than his chronology; the FASA including Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology dates are 52 years early for TOS, 65 years early for the movies, and 61 years early for TNG; the officcal Okuda dates are 5 years later for TOS and 2 years early for the movies; and History of the Vessel Enterprise dates are 10 years later for TOS and TAS.

http://stng.36el.com/st-tng/trivia/timeline/trek7-notes.html#13

No doubt a much larger table could be compiled with many more chronologies and several more eras.

 

[MAGolding]

Would the OP also be interested in the isolated "historical" events mentioned in various novels?

Not especially for the purpose of htis thread, though not doubt there can be interesting discussions of the chronologies of various novel events.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

@1001001 this goes in trek literature, right, as it's essentially a comparison of various dates given by chronology books...

 

[The Old Mixer]

@1001001 this goes in trek literature, right, as it's essentially a comparison of various dates given by chronology books...

I'd tend to agree at this point...though I considered closing the thread before this post:

I would like those who respond to list the fictional dates of the major eras of Star Trek movies and TV shows.

For example, as I remember, Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology puts TOS in the 2200s, counting forward from "The Cage" and backward from TMP in 2208 I think.

As I remember, Star Trek II Biographies puts WOK in 2222, and thus "Space Seed" about 2207.

As I remember, Star Trek: an Analysis of a phenomenon in Science Fiction (1968) has the first 2 TOS seasons in the late 2250s.

As I remember, Star Trek technical fandom chronologies put TOS in the early 2260s, and some include the movies and TNG. They are originally based on a timeline by Chuck Graham from Menagerie V and The Starfleet Handbook circa 1975.

The official Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future lists "The Cage " in 2254, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" in 2265, TOS in 2266-2269 (300 years after the episodes were broadcast), The Motion Picture in 2271, WOK & SFS in 2285, TVH in 2286, TFF in 2287, TUK in 2293, STNG, DS9, & Voyager in 2364 to 2271 which is as late as it goes.

Memory Alpha continues with the rest of DS9 and Voyager until their last episodes and dates the TNG movies. It also changes some of the dates with Kirk's five year mission ending in 2270 and TMP in 2273.

As I remember, History of the Vessel Enterprise, has TNG start in 2364, but TOS later than the official chronology, in the 2270s I think.

There were a number of chronologies in the Best of Trek books in the 1980s, dating TOS and TOS movies and the early seasons of TNG but I forget what dates they gave.

A website by James Dixon has a table of comparison between the Star Trek technical fandom chronology and other chronologies: James Blish, FASA including Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology, the Okudas' official chronology, and the chronology in History of the Vessel Enterprise.

It states that the Blish adapation dates for TOS are 260 years later than his chronology; the FASA including Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology dates are 52 years early for TOS, 65 years early for the movies, and 61 years early for TNG; the officcal Okuda dates are 5 years later for TOS and 2 years early for the movies; and History of the Vessel Enterprise dates are 10 years later for TOS and TAS.

http://stng.36el.com/st-tng/trivia/timeline/trek7-notes.html#13

No doubt a much larger table could be compiled with many more chronologies and several more eras.

This would have been a better way to start the thread...provide something for discussion yourself, and ask others to contribute.

Thread moved to Trek Lit.

 

[Leto_II]

Memory Alpha continues with the rest of DS9 and Voyager until their last episodes and dates the TNG movies. It also changes some of the dates with Kirk's five year mission ending in 2270 and TMP in 2273.

Actually, Memory Alpha only places ST:TMP during an extremely vague, "2270s" timeframe-window, not in 2273 specifically, since it refuses to commit to an exact dating, despite the film clearly taking place no later than that year (and no earlier than 2272).

 

[Idran]

Also technically Memory Alpha didn't change the date of Kirk's mission; canon did, when "Q2" established that 2270 date as the end of the 5YM.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Obligatory mention of the James Dixon Fandom Star Trek Chronology[/i], based on and massively expanded from a timeline in an old fan publication.

And the annotations about Enterprise are hilarious.

 

[Leto_II]

^ Did doctors ever finally diagnose what crawled up Dixon's butt about that show?

 

[Dayton Ward]

[Obi-Wan]

"James Dixon. That's a name I've not heard in a long time."

[/Obi-Wan]

 

[Leto_II]

Apart from his utter disdain for the majority of latter-day Trek productions (such as ENT and the Kelvin-verse films), what always drove me up the wall about James Dixon's chronologies -- as massively-detailed, voluminous, and chock-full of rare information you simply couldn't find anywhere else as they truly were -- was his absolute scorn for any and every last Star Trek comic book tale ever produced. Quite simply, if it came from a comic book, he didn't want to know from it. Comics were illegitimate as an art form, only read by little kiddies. Only TV episodes, films, novels, RPG products, and "tech fandom" were allowed in his universe, and some of the latter came from unofficial fanon sources.

Very strange bird, though, again, the sheer amount of work he put into his documents is still absolutely staggering to this very day. I remember first happening across a copy of one of his Timeline editions on the old FidoNET (must've been back in 1992 or early 1993), and just being blown away.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

^ Did doctors ever finally diagnose what crawled up Dixon's butt about that show?

It contradicted his fanon.

 

[Leto_II]

^ Right, yeah, I knew he pretty much held "his" version of events (and basically anything that was established in '70s fandom) as more sacred and holy than Michael and Denise's official version, but man, he could get pathological at times, even going so far as to stubbornly re-date the entire TOS 5YM from 2260-2265 and place the Enterprise TV series in an entire alternate continuity in his chronology.

And it just hit me a few minutes ago that Dixon actually did include one comic book tale in his timeline that I can remember -- Star Trek/X-Men, of all random fucking things, despite that storyline clearly stepping over into a different fictional reality. Just a strange, strange set of personal criteria he operated by most of the time.

 

[publiusr]

You can always say that these timelines came from different universes--have the crew of the Relativity argue for a unified history of starfleet with lots of footnotes from how nearby other timelines are--and how certain things recur..

 

[Tenacity]

Obligatory mention of the James Dixon Fandom Star Trek Chronology

Now that Dixon has been mentioned, does this mean that this thread will be taken over by dozens of new posters, all of whom are Dixon?

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Well I'm not James Dixon but I do have this to say about that:
Ah the infamous James Dixon. I was a lurker before I became a member and I remember the exchanges/tirades he would go on if he disagreed with someone.

When I first found his Star Trek Chronology, Vol. 17, as it turns out the last one, I was initially overjoyed by the sheer wealth of material included in the timeline that was not found in the Okuda chronology. But as I began to more closely examine the document I discovered that his ‘everything but the kitchen sink (i.e. the comics)’ often led to conflicting and confusing dates as well as his hatred for anything Okuda derived (even though he ended up using them far more than he would admit) lessened my initial enthusiasm towards it.

Some minor and major examples of conflicting data:

He has the USS Bonhomme Richard, the lead ship of the Bonhomme Richard class participating in the ‘Four Years War’ on June 5, 2246, yet has it laid down the following day on June 6, 2246 and launched in 2248.

He uses an Okuda derived date of 2242 (from the Genesis Wave Book One) for the birth of Carol Marcus, however since he has placed the original five year mission in 2260-65 and has Kirk’s birth in 2229 and taking command of the Enterprise in 2258, that means he has Kirk meeting Carol Marcus when he enters the Academy in 2246, when she would be only 4 years old, then giving birth to David Marcus in 2258 when she’s 16. Which is just eewww no matter how you try to work the dates.

Speaking of the five year mission – placing it in 2260-2265 based on one single line of dialogue from ‘Miri’ where Spock says ‘. . . circa 1960’, when he gives numerous examples in his notes of equally other valid dates for placement of the five year mission is odd. To me Circa 1960 could mean anything plus or minus 5 years and anyway the studio backlot looks more like the 1940-50’s than the 1960’s.

In that same vein he takes Admiral Morrow’s line from Star Trek III, ‘the Enterprise is 20 years old’ to mean that the refitted Enterprise seen in ‘The Motion Picture’ is 20 years old and that ‘TMP’ took place in 2267 and that there were 3 other five year missions between 2267 and 2287 and that ‘The Wrath of Khan’, ‘The Search for Spock’ and ‘The Voyage Home’ all take place in 2287 with ‘The Final Frontier’ in 2288, ‘The Undiscovered Country’ in 2291 and ‘Generations’ in 2293. This completely ignores the 15 years that Khan and Kirk say they last saw each other mentioned in ‘The Wrath of Khan’. He has ‘Space Seed’ taking place in 2261. Add 15 years and you get 2276. That’s an 11 year difference.

One final example I found when constructing my own timeline was that he accidently omitted a Voyager episode from chronology and then switched the production order/dates of the following two episodes. Forgive I can’t remember which ones this happened to but I believe it was somewhere in the third season. As an example let’s say he omitted the entry for ‘Basics Part 2’ (because he combined it with ‘Basics Part 1’) then switched the production numbers for episodes 159 (Unity) and 160 (Rise). So this meant that all the entries for ‘Unity’ had the production number for ‘Rise’ and vice versa. Coupled with the missing episode this had the unfortunate effect which propagated up and down the timeline in that all the subsequent Voyager entries and production numbers were off by one and any chorological information therein was also off.

I had to make an Excel spreadsheet with the Memory Alpha production numbers and episode names and one with his then compare them side by side until I found the missing episode and the switched production numbers. Then I had to go back into his chronology and pull out every single Voyager entry and create a separate document for it, reinserting the missing episode and realigning the switched production numbers.

I got the feeling that by the time he reached Volume 17 of his timeline that he was fighting an uphill battle against the Okuda-accepted version of the chronology and that he just didn’t care anymore and was placing things without regard as to whether or not it made any sense to previous entries.

To use one of my father’s construction metaphors – It’s a solid foundation but structurally it’s pretty weak.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Well if that doesn't summon him, I don't know what will.
He claimed to have a v18 of his chronology complete but wasn't releasing it (LINK, it should he easy to tell which are him), maybe he addressed some of the other issues too.

 

[jaime]

Wasn't the revised okuda timeline basically made canon though? Things like the champagne bottle in generations and whatnot basically cladding it.