Stardates - ANOTHER attempt at a system

[jimcat]

Hello everyone,

It's been a long time since I last posted, although I hadn't realised quite how long! One reason I've been away is that I wanted to work out some ideas I had in more detail and see if I could end up with something worth sharing. It's up to you whether this is any good, but it will help to explain why it's taken years when I say I've been thinking about stardates and their application to “Star Trek” chronology.

There are two points I need to emphasise right away: Stardates don't really work at all; and any attempt to retrospectively work out some sort of system requires so many assumptions and guesses that exactly the same data will result in an almost infinite number of possible half-solutions. My ideas aren't in any way right answers, or the only possible solutions.

After a lot of false starts, I have joined up several ideas that have been around for a while in a way I've not seen anywhere else. Again, this isn't the right or only possible way to interpret stardates, but it is the closest I've been able to get to a way of calculating the passage of time in a way that resembles the stardates used in “Star Trek”:
The base unit of stardates is a 24-hour earth day. “1000” of these units in a stardate is equivalent to 400 days. I'm afraid I can't explain in huge detail how that works, partly because no one yet understands exactly the advanced physics which allows warp drive, but mainly because I need absolutely every bit of flexibility to the system I can get. The very vague in-universe explanation I have come up with is that stardates follow the individual “world line” of something moving through a more complicated space-time than we currently understand (even when they're effectively motionless on the surface of a planet, as far as I can see). Stardate 48168 is genuinely different to stardate 48188, even when they both represent 14th January 2371. My assumption is that the “tens” number in a stardate represents the passage of both time and through space (including currently unknown space and time dimensions), in which a potentially infinite range of values are “smoothed” into a whole number between 0 and 9. This sounds complicated, and a bit pointless from our point of view. It resolves the main problem facing any stardate system though, and it does it in a way that's at least slightly similar to the various explanations of stardates put forward over the years, without the result being so random as to be incomprehensible (never a terribly good thing in real dating systems, but extremely useful if you don't want to be tied down). More importantly, it advances the date in a way similar to the way we see stardates work in “reality”. In practice, it explains how the USS São Paulo can be launched on S.D. 52889.3, and yet Captain Sisko can take command and change the name on S.D. 52861.3; or how the last log entry by Professor Starnes can be on S.D. 5038.3 and yet Captain Kirk arrives just too late to save them on S.D. 5029.5 (in case you're wondering, the first example can allow the second stardate to be two days after the first, whilst the second example allows the Enterprise to arrive the day after the last log entry).

I've already made a long post out of this, so I'll point out that the link in the sig will take you to my go at a timeline. Since none of this is “canon”, I've taken it all as far as I felt like doing. The end result may be entirely too personal, but I hope it is mildly entertaining, and demonstrates why I think stardates shouldn't just be quietly ignored in examinations of “Star Trek” chronology, even if there may be still quite a way to go in interpreting them. I haven't bothered “releasing” this until I'd got something worked out from start to finish, but changes have been continuing right up to the end, and I see the timeline as a work still in progress, not a final and definitive version. Please don't think I in any way think that this is the only solution, or that I expect anyone to instantly accept it. Any comments are more than welcome, especially if they let me go back to the drawing board. I've been working on this for so long, I quite miss not struggling to balance dates and time references in spare moments.

Timon. (Who may possibly need to vanish for another few years till the flames die down...)

 

[Bill Morris]

Actually, it's much simpler than that:

int CalcStardate(int M, int D, double Y, int Hr, int Mn)
{
int SD;
SD = (Y*1000)+((((1461*(Y+4800+(M-14)/12))/4+(367*(M-2-12*((M-14)/12)))/12
-(3*((Y+4900+(M-14)/12)/100))/4+D-32075)+1
-((1461*(Y+4800+(1-14)/12))/4+(367*(1-2-12*((1-14)/12)))/12
-(3*((Y+4900+(1-14)/12)/100))/4+1-32075))*2.7378)-2323001.5;
return SD;
}
void GetStarDate()
{
time_t x;
struct tm *t;
char Temp[10];
int M,D,Hr,Mn;
double Y;
int raw;
float Startime;
unsigned int ch;
time(&x);
t = localtime(&x);
M = t->tm_mon+1;
D = t->tm_mday;
Y = t->tm_year+1900;
Hr = t->tm_hour;
Mn = t->tm_min;
raw=CalcStardate(M, D, Y, Hr, Mn);
sprintf(Temp, "%d", raw);
memcpy(StarDate, Temp, 7);
Startime = (((Hr*60)+Mn)*.0006944444);
sprintf(Temp,"%f\n", Startime);
ch='.';
StarDate[7]=(ch);
ch=Temp[2];
StarDate[8]=(ch);
}

 

[Captain Robert April]

How 'bout just make up a four or five digit number with a decimal at the end, depending on which era you're working in.

 

[Albertese]

My current operating theory on stardates is that it is fixed to Earth time but in a somewhat arbitrary way. The whole point of using stardates is so fleet actions can be coordinated, Since they are coordinated from Starfleet Command which is on earth, earth time is the basis for the stardates. But they're not derived from earth years, but rather, earth hours. Most ships break the day into three eight hour shifts, let's assume that's basically standard throughout the fleet (though individual captains have discretion over that). So one whole stardate is equal to one eight hour shift on earth.

So:
1533.0 = 11/29/2266 08:00
1533.2 = 11/29/2266 09:12
1533.5 = 11/29/2266 12:00
1533.9 = 11/29/2266 15:12

In this way, 1000 stardates equals around a year, but not really. (Actually 333 days and one shift.)

This doesn't mean that ship-board time is experienced at one SD decimal = 48 minutes though. In fact, it usually wouldn't be except on earth. Relativistic effects of the ship's speed and position in the galaxy would all subtly (sometimes drastically) alter the speed of local shipboard time as compared to earth time. This is why ship time is often displayed as both a stardate and time of day; the time of day is local to just the ship, counting hours and minutes as experienced by the crew. The stardate is the time the whole fleet is using to coordinate their efforts and would not consistently scale with relative local ship time. As to some stardates having backtracked a few for later events, I chalk that up to writer error.

--Alex

 

[T'Girl]

In this way, 1000 stardates equals around a year

Yes ... but whose year? Vulcan's perhaps.



T'Girl

 

[Bill Morris]

Before VOY started they worked out a system for calculating stardates. Stardates before that system went into effect were inconsistent. That new formula was fairly simple, and the source code I posted above uses it to convert the date on one's computer to a stardate, which is a negative value (but positive to the right of decimal point), since we're still in the 21st century, unless the time and date set are in the 24th century or later, in which case it would give the same stardate and regular date quoted together in an episode, not that that actually ever happened. The Earth year was mentioned a few times, though.

The value before the decimal point is thousands of Earth sidereal years elapsed since the beginning of 2323, and the one digit after the decimal point is the elapsed 10th of the current day. It's that simple. To explain that to a computer requires what I posted above plus its accompanying .h file that merely declares this function and the character array that receives the output. The same routine could be called differently to give the Trekiverse stardate, meaning what we would hear today at the beginniing of a new episode based on the DS9/VOY continuum.

So 8:37, March 20, 2011, would be stardate -311784.8. And there are actually thousands of computers around the world today that display the stardate according to this formula.

 

[jimcat]

Dear LCARS 24,
(or Bill, if you're not that formal)


I'm not persuaded that your information about the stardates in Voyager being calculated to a formula is entirely accurate. If you have a source, I'm quite prepared to admit I'm wrong, but looking at the stardates in the show, I'm doubtful:


In “Homestead”, some of the early action takes place on the 315th anniversary of First Contact. We know from the film of that title that the date is going to be 5th April 2378, or very soon after. My calculation is that the formula you give would say the stardate is 55259. My system gives a date of 547c6 (using a letter of the alphabet to avoid all the hassle of assigning a random and confusing number. The letter c represents a whole number between 2 and 8). The actual show uses a stardate of 54868.6. My system converts that to an earth date of 7th May, 2378, which isn't great, but could mean that the action has been “telescoped” for dramatic purposes. The formula puts the date at 13th November, 2377, which is more difficult to rationalise.


In “Non Sequitur”, there are signs up advertising the San Francisco Mission District Old Town Festival on 14th August. Given the stardate in the episode is 49011.0, the formula gives 4th January 2372, and I get 23rd December 2371. My point is that both these stardate conversions fail pretty badly, implying that there was no original, underlying calculation being done.


In “Timeless”, it's four years, two months and eleven days since Voyager was thrown into the Delta Quadrant, and stardate 52143. The formula converts that to 21 February 2375, placing “Caretaker” around 10th December 2370, stardate 47940, rather than the stardate of 48308 given in “Projections”. My system places 48308 as 15 March 2371, and “Timeless” opening on 26th May 2375, stardate 521c1, two days before the log entry, unfortunately.


I'll stop with these three examples, since I know the formula you quoted is in wide use and I'm not trying to pick fights with anyone, just make a point: I don't think that the “real” stardates were ever calculated with anything like that amount of detail, just a few semi-random guesses and vague rules of thumb. I do appreciate anyone taking the time to make a comment, and I accept that my system is less than straightforward, given that any conventional date can have one of seven stardate values, and any given stardate can represent up to four conventional dates, which doesn't suit a computer clock very well at all.


I hope my reply here sort of addresses Captain Robert April's comment, and maybe Albertese's. I'm not just trying to generate some random numbers that look like stardates, a bit. My idea is to generate numbers according to some kind of system that can actually be applied to the stardates used on screen, at least some of the time. It's something that requires a very forgiving nature and an acceptance that there will be an awful lot of times when the stardates just don't fit. The advantage is that new stardates can be less completely random, and fitted to both a conventional timeline and to at least some of the stardates used already.


Whilst the benefits of that may seem minimal, once there's a firmer basis for stardates, then you can start trying to apply that information to the structure of things like the Bajoran or Vulcan calendars. I admit that Star Trek has managed very well so far without all that, but I just can't seem to shake the feeling that the right combination of vagueness and precision could add some extra depth to Star Trek chronology. Of course, like a lot of the technical background developed by fans, it would be there for those that want it, and off in the background and easily ignored for those that don't.


Timon

 

[Bill Morris]

When trying to check VOY dates, I think you have to convert from Julian date for them to come out right. Otherwise leap years throw it off. I don't remember the details, since it was years ago that I worked out the code above, but startrek.com used to show stardates that were consistent with what I have already desccribed, and I have seen one or two Web sites that spit out the same results as my LCARS computers. There's probably a java Julian-date function that makes that fairly easy to implement on a Web site. And it's likely that some of the stardate applets for Windows or whatever out there use my code, since it's in my source-code package at SourceForge, which has been downloaded many thousands of times.

For TOS and TNG, they're definitely inconsistent.

 

[Captain Robert April]

For TOS, there was a modest attempt to show a progression of stardates as the show unfolded, but slip ups happened. The fact remains that the process consisted of picking a four digit number, adding a decimal on the end, and moving on.

For TNG, it got a little more sophisticated, but not much. To differentiate the show from TOS, they decided to go with a five digit number and a decimal, with the first digit being a 4 (because it's the 24th Century; no logic behind this decision whatsoever, just a Roddenberry edict), and the second digit corresponding to whatever season the show was currently in. The remaining digits were completely arbitrary, although a much stronger effort was made to keep the stardates straight and make sure they always went up as the show went along. DS9 and VOY were stuck with this system, so their stardates, along with those in the TNG movies, were determined by how far the given episode or movie is from where TNG was at the time, or in the case of those that happened post "All Good Things..." where TNG left off.

 

[jimcat]

Dear Captain Robert April (and then everyone else),

Your summary pretty much covers the real story behind stardates. As you say, things got slightly less random after TNG started, and the dates follow some kind of order from the 2nd season of TNG on. Given that there are some thirteen years' worth of sequential stardates, my suggestion is that it could be possible to fit them to a timescale. Not just an approximate one, where stardates “sort of work” as long as you don't push it, but one where the dates convert back and forth.


I've been very aware that it's bad form to pop up after years to shill a website, so I'll make this a long post by quoting the section I've written on the year 2373 as an example:

2373 (S.D. 499c6 to 508d0)
January 2373 (S.D. 499c6 to 500b6)

It's around now that the Cardassians abandon Empok Nor. (DS9 “Empok Nor”.)

VOY “Basics, Part I”.

Fourday 38th Sixthmonth, 9384: S.D. 49962.4 (Sunday 7th January, 2373)
DS9 “Broken Link”. Odo gets turned into a normal, non-shape-changing person. Garak is sent to spend six months in a holding cell. I'm assuming he's let out early for good behaviour. The Klingons declare war on the Federation. Again, this story seems to take a really long time, both before and after the log entry.

Mid to late January 2373

DS9 “Apocalypse Rising”. The actual events seem to take something between three days and a week, but Siko and Dax also visit Earth before the story starts.

Saturday 27th January, 2373: S.D. 50032.7
VOY “Basics, Part II”. When time splits in VOY “Shattered,” part of the ship experiences this time.

February 2373 (S.D. 500b7 to 501a4)

Dathan's uncle and his family are sent for “resettlement”. (VOY “Remember”.)

Around now, the NCC 1701-E begins its first deep-space mission. (“Star Trek: First Contact”. I'm cheating, because I think the intent was that the launch date on the dedication plaque would be the starting point. Alas, that doesn't work for me.)

Fiveday 22nd Sevenmonth, 9384: S.D. 50049.3 (Saturday 3rd February, 2373)
DS9 “The Ship”. The story can't take less than six days, up to Twoday 27th Sevenmonth, 9384: S.D. 500c4 (Thursday 8th February, 2373).

Wednesday 7th February, 2373: S.D. 50063.2
VOY “Sacred Ground”. The story seems to take around five days.

Mid February 2373

DS9 “Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places”. Worf and Dax begin their relationship. The story lasts four days.

Sunday 18th February, 2373: S.D. 50074.3 and 50074.5
VOY “False Profits”. By astronomical coincidence, Voyager discovers the other end of the Barzan wormhole, from TNG “The Price”. It's supposed to be around seven years since the Ferengi got lost, and by the biggest convenient coincidence of all, I'm right!

Fiveday 38th Sevenmonth, 9384: S.D. 500c5 (Monday 19th February, 2373)
Ha'mara, according to my calculations anyway. (DS9 “The Emissary” and DS9 “Starship Down”.)

Late February 2373

Just before DS9 “Nor the Battle to the Strong” Jake and Dr. Bashir attend a conference.

DS9 “Nor the Battle to the Strong”. I think the story takes seven days.

The Essentialists arrive on Risa. (DS9 “Let He Who is Without Sin…”)

March 2373 (S.D. 501a5 to 501d5)

Just before DS9 “The Assignment” Keiko spends five days on Bajor and is possessed by a pah-wraith.

DS9 “The Assignment”. It's Chief O'Brien's birthday, and according to DS9 “Whispers,” that means it's September. Oh dear. Trying to get that to work just isn't worth it, please believe me. Molly O'Brien's going to school, but Keiko doesn't seem to be involved in teaching any more. Rom gets to go on the day shift. The story ends at breakfast time on the morning of the fourth day.

Monday 12th March, 2373: S.D. 50126.4
VOY “Flashback”. It's approximately eighty years since “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”.

Sevenday 23rd Eightmonth, 9384: S.D. 501c3 (Monday 19th March, 2373)
DS9 “Trials and Tribble-ations”. 105 years, 1 month and 12 days after TOS “The Trouble with Tribbles”. I spent an awful lot of time trying to get the stardate cycles for 23rd and 24th century stories to match up by an exact number of cycles. It's tantalisingly close, but in the end it became obvious that it just wasn't going to work. Events in the 24th century take a fortnight, with this being the last day. Rounding up all the tribbles on Deep Space Nine will take longer.

Thursday 22nd March, 2373: S.D. 50156.2
VOY “The Chute”.

Late March 2373

DS9 “Let He Who is Without Sin…” Dr. Bashir and Leeta separate formally. The story takes at least a week, and possibly longer.

Before April 2373

The last time Dr. Zimmerman claims to have left Jupiter station, but this doesn't jibe with Haley's suggestion that he cancelled a lecture on Vulcan on S.D. 53292.

April 2373 (S.D. 501d6 to 502c5)

Last incident in the Romulan Neutral Zone before “Star Trek: First Contact”.

DS9 “Things Past”. The story seems to take five days.

Twoday 42nd Eightmonth, 9384: S.D. 502a3 (Sunday 8th April, 2373)
Another of my attempts to guess where the Gratitude Festival will fall.

Sunday 8th to Monday 16th April, 2373: S.D. 50203.1 to 50211.4
VOY “Remember”.

Mid April 2373

DS9 “The Ascent”. Nog returns to Deep Space Nine, and moves in with Jake. (Perhaps I could have phrased that better, but I somehow don't want to change it.) I'm guessing it'll take thirteen days from the start of the story to everyone being back on Deep Space Nine.

Dulmer and Lucsley's report on Captain Sisko is due. (DS9 “Trials and Tribble-ations”.)

Friday 27th April, 2373: S.D. 50252.3
VOY “The Swarm”.

Late April 2373

DS9 “Rapture”. Starfleet issues new uniforms. It's the fifth year since efforts began to get Bajor to join the Federation. A formal invitation to join is made from the Federation to Bajor. Kasidy Yates returns to Deep Space Nine after her prison term. It's nearly but not quite six months since DS9 “For the Cause”. I think the story takes five days.

The Klingon bird-of-prey Rotarran begins a long string of defeats. (DS9 “Soldiers of the Empire”.)

May 2373 (S.D. 502c6 to 503b6)

B'Elanna Torres arranges a tennis tournament just before VOY “Future's End, Part I”. Kathryn Janeway takes part and plays for the first time in nineteen years. She's beaten in straight sets in her first match.

DS9 “The Darkness and the Light”. Kira's old Resistance chums Latha Mabrin, Trentin Fala, Mobara, Furel and Lupaza are all murdered by a mad Cardassian. The story takes at least four days, and possibly a week, with the date falling towards the end of that period. I'm afraid this is one of those times the stardate goes horribly wrong. Eightday 36th Secondmonth, 9385: S.D. 50416.2 (Saturday 30th June, 2373) really doesn't fit in with Kira's pregnancy. Trying to make it so just makes everything else quite impossible. I've ignored it.

Thursday 17th May, 2373: S.D. 50312.5
VOY “Future's End, Parts I and II”. It's both the beginning and end of the story.

Late May 2373

DS9 “The Begotten”. Odo regains his shapeshifting abilities. Kirayoshi O'Brien is born. It's five months since DS9 “Body Parts” and eight months since DS9 “Accession” and it certainly took some doing. It's three weeks after DS9 “The Darkness and the Light”. The story itself seems to take eight days.

The Maquis raid the Cardassian colony on Panora. (DS9 “For the Uniform”.)

Around this time Kandra Vilk leaves Deep Space Nine to settle on a safer, neutral planet near Coridan. (DS9 “In the Cards”.)

Wednesday 23rd May to Tuesday 5th June, 2373: S.D. 50348.1 to 50361.7
VOY “Warlord”.

June 2373 (S.D. 503b7 to 504a6)

Voyager is officially declared lost. (VOY “Message in a Bottle”.)

Friday 8th to Saturday 16th June, 2373: S.D. 50384.2 to 50392.7
VOY “The Q and the Grey”. It follows very sharply from VOY “Warlord”, but it's the best I can manage.

Tuesday 26th June, 2373: S.D. 504a2
Captain Janeway and Neelix begin a trade mission to the Tak Tak. (VOY “Macrocosm”.)

Late June 2373

Around now, Julian Bashir goes to a conference, and is replaced by a Changeling. (DS9 “By Inferno's Light”.) From the uniform Bashir's wearing on the prison planet, it's before DS9 “Rapture,” but that would mean it has to be the Changeling who performs the complex operation that saves Sisko's life in that story. More particularly, Bashir spends a total of 37 days in the camp, which makes a departure for the conference before late June or early July unlikely. (DS9 “Inquisition”. Perhaps he was wearing up an old uniform for the trip, or maybe the Dominion gave him it so he wouldn't have to walk around in his jim-jams, since the Changeling will have needed his luggage.)

Friday 29th June, 2373: S.D. 50425.1
VOY “Macrocosm”. When time splits in VOY “Shattered,” part of the ship experiences this time.

July 2373 (S.D. 504a7 to 504d7)

Michael Eddington and Rebecca Sullivan get married two weeks before DS9 “For the Uniform”. (DS9 “Blaze of Glory”.)

Between VOY “Macrocosm” and VOY “Alter Ego”, Voyager investigates an inversion nebula that's referred to in both shows.

Friday 13th July, 2373: S.D. 504b9
My guess at Kes' third birthday, trying to make sense of VOY “Before and After”.

Saturday 14th to Wednesday 25th July, 2373: S.D. 50460.3 to 50471.3
VOY “Alter Ego”. Mr. Vorik begins to drop hints that he considers B'Elanna Torres a suitable mate.

Oneday 12th Threemonth, 9385: S.D. 50485.2 (Thursday 19th July, 2373)
DS9 “For the Uniform”. It's eight months since DS9 “For the Cause”. Eddington is captured. The story seems to take a week or so, with the date being the second day.

August 2373 (S.D. 504d8 to 505c8)

VOY “Fair Trade”.

DS9 “In Purgatory's Shadow”. Kirayoshi O'Brien's supposed to be less than a month old, so I'm assuming some dating “translation” problems. The story seems to take at least four days, and quite possibly longer.

DS9 “By Inferno's Light”. The Cardassians become part of the Dominion. The Khitomer Accords are reinstated, and the Changeling Julian Bashir is exposed. The story seems to last nine days, carrying straight on from the previous one.

Saturday 11th August, 2373: S.D. 50518.6
VOY “Coda”.

Monday 20th to Friday 24th August, 2373: S.D. 50537.2 to 50541.6 (8996/3/38-40 VE)
VOY “Blood Fever”. Vorik has his first pon farr. The Voyager crew discover the remains of Borg.

September 2373 (S.D. 505c9 to 506b8)

Ensign Kaplan and Chakotay conduct a scouting mission in the Nekrit Expanse, just before VOY “Unity”.
DS9 “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?” Julian Bashir's father goes to prison for two years. Dr. Bashir's genetic enhancement becomes known. It's supposed to be 200 years since the Eugenics Wars. I make it 320, even with my “fixes”. I think the story lasts a week, but it could be quite a bit longer.

This is the last time Dr. Bashir gets to work on his prion project before DS9 “In the Cards”. Bashir also gets a new secret agent holoprogram called “Queen's Gambit” in DS9 “A Simple Investigation”. He says he was promised it two months before, but can't have found out about it until after he got back from being a Dominion prisoner. I'm guessing it was an old message. Whether the Changeling replied on Bashir's behalf is impossible to know.

Wednesday 26th September to Thursday 4th October, 2373: S.D. 50614.2 to 50622.4
VOY “Unity”. The internal chronology of this episode doesn't bear close inspection. It's not supposed to last much more than three days.

October 2373 (S.D. 506b9 to 507a9)

DS9 “A Simple Investigation”. The story takes four days, and the third day is the Bajoran equivalent of Saturday.

Just before VOY “Darkling”, Voyager visits an outpost of the Mikhal Travellers.

Monday 15th October, 2373: S.D. 50693.2
VOY “Darkling”.

Mid October 2373

DS9 “Business as Usual”. The story seems to take two weeks, although it's not clear whether they're Earth or Bajoran weeks.

Saturday 20th October, 2373: S.D. 50698
Harry Kim is infected with a Tiresian retrovirus on an away mission, the vorilium-collecting mission suggested in VOY “Darkling”. (VOY “Favorite Son”.)

Late October 2373

VOY “Rise”.
November 2373 (S.D. 507b0 to 507d9)

Around this time Kandra Vilk leaves Deep Space Nine to settle on a safer, neutral planet near Coridan. (DS9 “In the Cards”.)

Sixday, 31st Fivemonth, 9385: S.D. 50712.5 (Saturday 3rd November, 2373)
DS9 “Ties of Blood and Water”. Death of Tekeny Ghemor. The story seems to take about a week, with the date being on the second day.

Saturday 3rd November, 2373: S.D. 50732.4
VOY “Favorite Son”.

Mid November 2373

DS9 “Ferengi Love Songs”. Rom and Leeta announce their engagement. It's not entirely clear, but the story seems to take at least a week.

53rd Day of the Year of Kahless 999 (2/7/999) Thursday 15th November, 2373: S.D. 507b4
DS9 “Soldiers of the Empire”. Worf joins the House of Martok.

Tuesday 20th November, 2373: S.D. 50749.5
Launch of the Prometheus. (VOY “Message in a Bottle”.)

Late November 2373

About a week before DS9 “The Children of Time”, Kira and Shakaar visit the Kenda Shrine. The Prophets say “NO!!!” and it's the end of that romance. The Defiant then sets off on a reconnaissance mission to the Gamma Quadrant.

December 2373 (S.D. 508a0 to 508d0)

Fourday 19th Sixmonth, 9385: S.D. 50814.2 (Wednesday 5th December, 2373)
DS9 “Children of Time”.

Friday 7th December, 2373: S.D. 50863.2
VOY “Real Life”.

Late December 2373

DS9 “Blaze of Glory”. Death of Michael Eddington. The Maquis cease to exist. How long the story takes is anyone's guess, but it's more likely to be weeks rather than days.

December 2373 to early January 2374

VOY “Distant Origin”.
Around this time Kellin the Remura begins hunting a runaway. (VOY “Unforgettable”.)

This is what I'm referring to as a stardate-based chronology (don't worry, I won't be quoting any more. The formatting's a nightmare), complete with a detailed model of the Bajoran calendar so that Deep Space Nine can keep Bajoran time. Put simply, is anyone out there interested enough for me to keep this stuff online, or should I just accept it is a private hobby and stop bothering you?

I hope this doesn't sound miffed, but I'm having real trouble spotting whether the replies so far indicate mild interest, or that stardates are basically as solved as they'll ever be, so thanks but no thanks. The TrekBBS has given me a lot of entertainment over the years, and I'd hate to put everyone's backs up by insisting on posting about something no-one wants to know about.

If it really is the case that stardate systems, the stardates used in the shows and the underlying chronology are three completely separate and unrelated things, and that's the way it has to be, I'll just wander happily back off into the wilderness. I already have some thoughts about moving “City on the Edge of Forever” to make the time distortions in the show the reason why there's a sudden “jump” in the stardates between “Balance of Terror” and “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” The time travel in “The Naked Time” might then be the trigger that gets the Guardian of Forever suddenly shouting for attention for the first time in allegedly billions of years...

Timon (who has been dredging around in this for so long I'd be the first to admit I have no real perspective on how interesting or relevant this could be to a casual reader)

 

[USS Fardell]

A good effort. I would say 'go for it', but that is just IMHO.

 

[Aahz]

For TOS, there was a modest attempt to show a progression of stardates as the show unfolded, but slip ups happened. The fact remains that the process consisted of picking a four digit number, adding a decimal on the end, and moving on.

And in TWOK, the Genesis project tape is dated Stardate 7130.4, while at the end of the film, Kirk gives the stardate as 8141.6 (Saavik gave the date as 8130.3 during the Kobayashi Maru, but some could argue that that was a simulation). Kirk had commented earlier that the Genesis tape had been made "about a year ago", so the 1000s-digit representing the year would be consistent.

What's REALLY get interesting is if you then consider the stardates given in the engine room recordings Kirk and Sarek viewed in TSFS. The recordings of Spock's final minutes end at 8128.78 (notice the two decimal places), and Kirk backed the recording up first to 8128.77 then to 8128.76. This places the end of TWOK before its beginning (that is, if you take Saavik's log entry as correct)! But one could calculate about how much time progresses during .01 of a stardate using these scenes, then see how it compares to the larger calculation.

 

[jimcat]

Thanks, USS Fardell, I’m not sure how often I’ll post anything, but the complete (or as complete as I can get it) timeline is in the link in my sig.


Aahz, you’ve spotted exactly the point I’m trying to make with my interpretation of stardates. My guesses as to dates are:


Wednesday 19th March, 2284: S.D. 7130.4
Carol Marcus makes her proposal to the Federation for Project Genesis. (“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”.)


Monday 13th to Friday 24th April, 2285: S.D. 8130.3 to 8141
“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”. It's James Tiberius Kirk's birthday (his 52nd) since it's still the evening of Sunday 12th in San Francisco. It has to be at least 2283 to match the label Kirk reads on his bottle of Romulan ale. The film begins on Monday, and is complete by Friday the next week. It is 18 rather than 15 years since TOS “Space Seed”, but I'm not the only one to have had problems reconciling these dates. See This is Ceti Alpha V! for my interpretation. I'm calling in some convenient “time-zone corrections” to place Spock's death at 18:15 on Tuesday 21st April, 2285: S.D. 8128.7.

8128.7 comes after 8130.3, but before 8141. My explanations are a bit vague, because I’m going by the numbers, not building up from a logical theory, but I have tried to expand a bit on what I think is happening here: http://atavachron.wikidot.com/introduction-to-stardates

You may also have spotted that I think James Kirk was born on 12th April 2233, but that's a whole different set of arguments.

Alas, I’m back at work with a lousy internet connection, and too much else to do. My absence hasn’t been me off brooding, I just haven’t had time to check back until now.

Timon.

 

[Aahz]

Monday 13th to Friday 24th April, 2285: S.D. 8130.3 to 8141
“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”. It's James Tiberius Kirk's birthday (his 52nd) since it's still the evening of Sunday 12th in San Francisco. It has to be at least 2283 to match the label Kirk reads on his bottle of Romulan ale. The film begins on Monday, and is complete by Friday the next week. It is 18 rather than 15 years since TOS “Space Seed”, but I'm not the only one to have had problems reconciling these dates. See This is Ceti Alpha V! for my interpretation. I'm calling in some convenient “time-zone corrections” to place Spock's death at 18:15 on Tuesday 21st April, 2285: S.D. 8128.7.

8128.7 comes after 8130.3, but before 8141. My explanations are a bit vague, because I’m going by the numbers, not building up from a logical theory, but I have tried to expand a bit on what I think is happening here: http://atavachron.wikidot.com/introduction-to-stardates

You may also have spotted that I think James Kirk was born on 12th April 2233, but that's a whole different set of arguments.

I have not tried to work things down to the month and day (generally speaking), but mostly just the year. Over on the STP2 forum, we had a long discussion about the Trek timeline, including births, deaths, significant events, the age of the Enterprise, and so forth. The final timeline is here:
http://forums.startreknewvoyages.com/index.php?topic=8390.msg105318#msg105318
You may be interested in reviewing the entire thread and the discussions regarding several of the points. Some of the discussions stem from the fact that I was figuring only years, not months, so that brought some confusion that was resolved when we figured months. One thing about the timeline -- when several events occur in a single year, they are in the order that they occurred (again, I didn't use months in the timeline, but I sometimes used months to calculate order).

Interestingly, I also figured Kirk's birth year as 2233, though I had figured his birthday in TWOK was his 50th, a significant milestone (explaining his brooding over it - "Why are we treating it like a funeral?"). The bottle of Romulan ale was dated 2283 as a joke ("It takes the stuff a while to ferment"), much like the Robin Williams joke about Thunderbird wine ("It was a good week"). Besides, why would ROMULAN ale be dated with an EARTH date anyway? So 2283 is most likely the actual year the events in TWOK took place. Plus, it puts the events between "Space Seed" and TWOK at 16 years apart, closer to the 15 years estimated in the movie.

Also, one observation about references to passage of time: Khan was probably a stickler for counting the time he had been marooned on Ceti Alpha V, probably even having notches in his bedpost counting the days. However, the days on Ceti Alpha V were a bit longer, explaining the discrepancy between 15 and 16 years. But we've seen that Trek people round and estimate a lot (except for Spock) -- Kirk told Khan in "Space Seed" that they estimated he had been asleep for "two centuries" when the actual number was closer to three centuries (269 years). Also, in the TNG episode "The Neutral Zone" the cryonically-frozen people were launched in their capsule "about 370 years" before the episode. Yet, in the episode, comments about the passage of time range from "three hundred years" to "four hundred years", quite a discrepancy indeed. So, general estimates about the passage of time need to be taken with a grain of salt and tempered with more accurate data from other sources.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

I'm not trying to derail this thread, but I, too, have been away for a while working on my own Stardate theory.

There have been a lot of speculative books, chronologies, and Web sites making up Stardate analogues to calendar dates, but my Grand Unified Stardate Theory™ is based on actual quotes from actual aired episodes.

Based on dates given in actual episodes, the following conclusions can be reached:
1. The Voyager episode "HOMESTEAD" (Stardate 54868.6) must have taken place in April 2378, the 315th anniversary of first contact with Vulcans on April 5, 2063.
2. TNG episode "Data's Day" (Stardate 44390.1) took place on November 7, 2366, during the Hindu Festival of Lights.
3. Stardate 00000.0 began on July 5, 2318, 12:00 hours
4. The highest possible Stardate-to-year ratio is 918.23186 Stardates per year.

To see all my mathematical calculations proving the four points above, see my Web site:
http://TrekGuide.com/Stardates.htm#TNG

The site also includes JavaScript Stardate Calculators based on the above facts, so that you can calculate any date in The Next Generation system or also The Original Series system. (I have yet to create a consistent date calculator for the movie Stardates.)

I've been working on my Stardate Calculator for close to 10 years, based (like many others) on the arbitrary assumption that there are exactly 1,000.0 Stardates in any Earth year, which was causing all sorts of irregularities and conflicts.

But then I realized that the only two episodes that mentioned both Stardates and specific holidays with known calendar dates -- "Data's Day" and "HOMESTEAD" -- could be used to establish the true Stardate-to-year ratio: 918.23186 Stardates per year.

Given these data points, basic arithmetic can be used to calculate the date for any Stardate in The Next Generation system.

http://TrekGuide.com/Stardates.htm

 

[Aahz]

Very astute observations!

About the 1000 stardates to a year: As Spock might say, "It would be arrogant presumption on our part to assume that Stardates are based solely on an Earth year."

Given that Stardates are a Federation concept, and that the Federation is made up of numerous star systems, I've always considered that the 1000 Stardate unit refers to what amounts to an average of the years of the founding Federation planets. Then, it could equate to a "year" and still be only 918 units to an Earth year. Even Kirk's quote from TWOK ("The tape was made ABOUT A YEAR ago...") could still be easily reconciled with this, regardless of which "year" he was referring to.

Here's something else I thought of. In TOS, stardates had to recycle at some point, probably prompting the Federation to eventually switch to the 5-digit stardate. In "Conscience of the King," the computer gives the date of the events of Kodos the Executioner on Tarsus IV as 2794.7, yet Kirk's log entry at the beginning of the episode is 2817.6. That is an awfully small difference, given that the two events were 20 years apart. Plus, their arrival at Benicia Colony was estimated at 2825.3, about 2 or 3 days later, so 2794.7 would be only about 10 days prior to the start of the episode. About the only explanation would be that once the stardate reached 9999.9, it recycled to 0000.0, and would probably have had to do so twice in 20 years. Gee, and we thought Y2K was bad -- imagine going through that every 10 years! But more seriously, keeping track of the rollovers would probably be a headache...

 

[TrekGuide.com]

Yes, according to my TOS Stardate Calculator, Stardate 0000.0 began on Tuesday, April 25, 2265, at 00:00 hours, just a few months before Kirk's five-year mission started:

http://TrekGuide.com/Stardates.htm#TOS-Conclusions

(Having figured out the Stardate system in TNG, I was able to use Sarek's age in TNG episode "Sarek," the ending of Kirk's five-year mission in 2270 stated in Voyager episode "Q2," and the fact that Thanksgiving was celebrated on a specific Stardate in TOS episode "CHARLIE X" to confirm actual calendar dates and a Stardate ratio for The Original Series.)

Maybe back then, famous Stardates were like repeating dates today, like saying "remember September 11" -- everyone knows when September 11 was, without specifying a year. So, even if you say the Tarsus IV holocaust was on Stardate 2794.7, everyone knows when that was, without having to specify "four Stardate cycles ago."

It is interesting that from TOS, the movies, and TNG, the Stardates, while apparently having re-started from 0000.0 at least three times, are always higher in the future.

So another possibility is that when TOS started at 0000.0, it always continued to go up, but the Stardate-to-calendar-date ratio changed several times (just before TOS, between TOS and "The Motion Picture," before "STII," between the movies and TNG, and maybe at least once in the middle of TOS.)

It's conceivable that, if you change the ratio enough times, every date reference from TOS through Voyager could fit in a single Stardate continuity. Maybe if someone plotted Stardates vs. known calendar dates, the graph would look like a few straight lines, with steps or plateaus every few years when the Stardate ratio was changed. ...

A single Stardate continuum with a changing ratio from time to time would also explain why, if you project The Motion Picture Stardates back to 0000.0, they would seem to overlap with TOS Stardates. Maybe at the end of TOS, the same Stardates continued to increase through the movies and into The Next Generation, just at a different rate.

 

[Aahz]

On the contrary, I don't think the ratio needed to be adjusted at all. 'Space Seed' started on Stardate 3141.9, while TWOK ended on Stardate 8141.6. Fifteen Federation years and one Stardate rollover cycle later, they match pretty darn closely:

15 Federation years = 15,000 Stardate units;
3141.9 + 15,000 = 18141.9;
Truncate leading digit to account for rollover = 8141.9

Works for me!

 

[Albertese]

Yeah I've always assumed a once a decade roll-over as well. I suppose that there is also a prefix of some sort that distinguishes from decades which was usually rounded off for whatever reason in normal use during the 23rd C but was later included regularly perhaps sometime in the 2320's. After all, they do seem to all be familiar with "old calendar" dates too. It seems that local calendars are still in regular use in DS9. Even Alexander Rozhinko gave his birthday using some Klingon calendar (44th day of Maktak or somesuch) on TNG. So I figure the year is kind of a gimme and having a stardate system that spans any given 8 or 9 or 10 years is good enough.

--Alex

 

[jimcat]

Hello all,


First of all, thanks for your comments, Aahz and Trekguide.com. Trying to prove anything definitive about Star Trek chronology and stardates is next to impossible. There are any number of ways to interpret the evidence, and they all lead to different conclusions. Of course, if you think I’ve made a mistake that isn’t a matter of interpretation, please point it out—the fewer huge inaccuracies I’ve managed to include, the better.

Aahz, that’s a very interesting thread. Although I do editorialise here and there, I have tried to avoid too much “between the lines” speculation and just stick to established data points in my own timeline. Naturally, trying to accommodate something as arbitrary as stardates as well as all the other contradictory references makes for some decisions that might seem a little odd.


The Star Trek movies era isn’t one that’s ever lent itself to being consistently or easily interpreted, but my take is as follows:
2270: The original 5-year mission ends. This date is given specifically in the Voyager episode “Q2”, and isn’t an approximation. Since James Kirk refers to the original mission (and his command experience on it) lasting specifically 5 years in TMP, then I assume he takes command of the ship and begins his mission no earlier than sometime in 2265.
July 2273: Star Trek: The Motion Picture. All the references in the film are to around three years. Kirk hasn’t logged a single star hour in two-and-a-half years. Gene Roddenberry’s novel has Spock on Vulcan for 2.8 years, so I think it’s 2273.
April 2285: Star Trek II. I feel uncomfortable with the idea that 2283 is some sort of gag. Kirk reads it off the bottle (although I can’t see how), so it must be what’s printed on the label. There’s no simple answer to this, but I’m assuming that Kirk approximates to 15 years, since it’s 15 years since the end of the 5-year mission. Khan says it’s 15 years because, for him on Ceti Alpha V, it has been. The years there are longer. It’s James Kirk’s birthday, and I’m assuming that 2233.04 is a reference to April 2233, rather than 4th January.
June 2285: Star Trek III: Date fixed by stardate. I don’t think that there is a huge gap between the shows, despite Lt. Saavik’s radical makeover. Even if there isn’t a lot of information, space travellers would have to be warned not to go near the Genesis Planet, so I don’t think it has to be more than a couple of months later. Admiral Morrow mis-spoke, since 20 years is approximately how long James Kirk has been associated with the Enterprise. The ship is obviously at least ten years older than that and was almost completely rebuilt 12 to 15 years before the film.
August 2285: Star Trek IV. Again, I’ve fixed the date by stardate. Even if you don’t, it’s three months between the end of Star Trek III and Star Trek IV, since dialogue at the beginning of STIV establishes it.
September 2285: Star Trek V. This date has been fixed according to the argument put forward by TOSRules at the Memory Alpha website. The moon has identifiable surface features, and they’re illuminated in a way that can only mean there’s a full moon visible on earth.
January 2293: Star Trek VI. Date fixed by stardate.
April 2293: Star Trek: Generations. The film opens a couple of days after James Kirk’s 60th birthday, just after he’s retired from Starfleet. It’s almost exactly 78.2 years before the TNG parts of the film, although how the Nexus manages to orbit anything as big as the galaxy in only 39.1 years has me totally baffled.


Moving off the movies a bit, I’d suggest that Spock is considerably older than 17 when he enters the Academy. I think he holds off on a decision until he’s sure that he’s not going to have trouble with pon farr. It occurred to me that no-one in Starfleet knows anything about it, including the ship’s doctor, until after “Amok Time”. Although it’s only shaky guesswork, I can’t help thinking that it’s what was at the back of a very old bit of “fanon”: Spock is the first Vulcan in Starfleet. (The Intrepid was being operated by the Vulcan government, of course.)

TrekGuide.com you might not believe it, but I have looked at, and got inspiration from your site. Rather than trying to pick holes in your arguments, I’d like to say I wish I was able to make nifty little calculators like that. My own ideas start from a similar set of arguments, but then drift off a little. I wanted to make sure that the overall system was as consistent as possible, particularly as far as the basic length of the stardate units was concerned. That was to make it as simple as possible for me, and for everyone else, too. I don’t think that you can get away with having a stardate unit of less than 24 hours if you’re going to use the dates given on screen. I have tried to fit the events of each story to a system very similar to yours, but the truth is that it breaks down over and over again, to the point that I’d just about given up on applying stardates to the chronology of events in Star Trek. When stardates can be made to work, I want them to work completely, right down to correctly matching the passage of time in the plotline of a story.


My own experience is that no matter what you do, you end up with a lot of near misses and a very few hits in direct conversion of known stardates to known dates. My own date system is based on stardate 49334 being the 24th (of April 2372 in my timeline) as established in “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost”, whilst 49364 is 14th (May 2372). The problem is that no matter how carefully you go at it, there’s no real definitive answer, since the dates themselves weren’t calculated, just made up as they went along.


This is the first time I’ve managed to get all the way from the Big Bang to the end of the universe using a consistent system to calculate stardates and ending up not having to give up on too many, and having everything in just about the right place. There is still a lot of tweaking to do, and some places where the stardates will have to go out of the window to get a plausible sequence of events in place. That doesn’t mean I think this is the only way a star Trek timeline can be done, or that my way is the best. I hope people will keep looking at this from as many directions as possible. As you point out Aahz, I’ve taken the chronology right down to specific dates. If I can explain most stardates consistently, then there is very little in Star Trek that isn’t fairly closely dated.


Incidentally, I sort of assumed that the stardate 2794.7 is only very approximately related to events in “Conscience of the King”, since we never find out what precisely it refers to. My stardate system says it is 2nd May 2245, and it could be the date Kodos was assigned to Tarsus IV.

Albertese, the possibility of getting all the stardates to fit to a rigorous set of “rollovers” is something I’ve tried, several times and in different ways. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of wriggle-room for the gap between “The Trouble with Tribbles” and “Trials and Tribble-ations”. I’ve never been able to get it to work well enough to persevere with. In the end, I was left with the question of why Stardates would only use the last four or five digits, when they could all be fixed accurately against each other by one or two extra ones? Recalibrations of the start-date at irregular intervals might not be pretty, but it’s the only way I’ve ever been able to reconcile the TOS and TMP stardates with each other. I have managed to whittle things down so that from the earliest start date I needed in 2231 there are only three recalibrations and one massive time distortion of the system, with another seven “rollovers” where the stardate clock hits 99d9 and rolls over to 00a0.


Sorry for the long post. These replies always take a lot more time than I anticipate, so I’m not sure how soon I’ll be back again, although any comments are genuinely appreciated. Perhaps there is a better answer to stardates out there.

Timon