Stardates
by Shane Johnson From James Dixon’s Website
Whenever
possible I've added stardate references drawn from the episodes. Note that when
two stardates are given they do not represent the true "upper and lower
bounds" for the episode but rather the first and last stardates given.
Unaired
stardates given in this version of the Chronology need some explanation, as I
was reluctant to feature many of them in the first place. Stardates for
"The Cage" and most birthdates of the crew (excluding Kirk's stardate
of birth taken from his tombstone in "Where No Man Has Gone Before")
are from the U.S.S. "Enterprise"
Officers Manual. Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance was the source for the
additional stardates of "City On The Edge Of Forever," "A Piece
Of The Action," and "Patterns Of Force." These were never
incorporated into the episodes, as far as I know. The first two episodes'
stardates were also used in the Photo novels (providing an additional closing
stardate for "A Piece Of The Action"), and All (including the
erroneous stardate of "Beyond The Farthest Star") were used in
Asherman's Star Trek Compendiums--proof of plagiarism, rather than research, on
his part. The Photonovel of "Day Of The Dove" provided stardates for
that episode. The novelization of "Relics" was where the stardate for
the U.S.S. "Jenolen's" disappearance came from. The stardate for
"The Next Phase" comes from Ro's death certificate display screen in
sickbay. Alternate stardates for the animated episodes from Alan Dean Foster's
10 books are provided, in brackets, whenever available or not matching those in
the actual aired cartoons. They're considerably more consistent, like TNG
stardates, but the 1 stardate unit = 1 solar day rule does not hold up. All
animated episode stardates are therefore given and the only unknown stardates
for the original episodes are for "Assignment: Earth," "Mirror,
Mirror," "The Omega Glory," and "That Which Survives."
Episodes
in the original series, animated series, and novels do not follow sequentially.
If stardates were in order, then the animated episode "The Magicks of
Megas Tu" (sd. 1254.4) would precede "Where No Man Has Gone
Before" (sd. 1312.4), the first episode with Kirk in command. This simply
cannot be. Even in the latter episode, on Kirk's tombstone, his stardate of
birth reads 1277.1 (even though his middle initial is "R" instead of
"T" on the same stone). Other episodes overlap stardates.
"Miri" begins at stardate 2713.5 and goes through 2717.3.
"Dagger of the Mind" is from 2715.1 through 2715.2! In other
instances, stardates jump back and forth in individual episodes (listen
carefully to the logs in "The Enemy Within," "Spock's
Brain," "Gamesters of Triskelion," "Mudd's Women," and
many others). Either Kirk and Spock are very careless or else there's something
to stardates being nonsequential.
According
to Gene Roddenberry himself, in The Making of Star Trek: "This time system
adjusts for shifts in relative time which occur due to the vessel's speed and
space warp ability. It has little relationship to Earth's time as we know it.
One hour aboard the 'Enterprise'
at different times may equal as little as three Earth hours. The star date
specified in the log entry must be computed against the speed of the vessel,
the space warp, and it's position within our galaxy, in order to give a
meaningful reading."
"I'm
not quite sure what I meant by that explanation, but a lot of people have
indicated it makes sense," Gene later said. I wish it did make sense, it's
been bugging me since the first time I watched Star Trek. One theory is that
the U.F.P. Treaty Zone might be divided up into "time zones" where
stardates may increase and decrease. This would explain why the date crashes
down to 1254.4 in "Magicks of Megas-Tu" when the "Enterprise" is at the
galactic center. Why the dating system should be this way is beyond me. If
stardate shifting is indeed tied to warp travel, another theory is that
Cochrane's Factor (see Star Trek Maps' Intro to Navigation Manual) might play a
vital role. Anyhow, stardates are "supposed to" progress normally
outside of warp travel in a fixed place--at least all the research I've done
into it says so. Under these conditions, the numbers to the left of the decimal
point are days and the digit to the right of the decimal represents the time
(in tenths of a day). So an example would be stardate 4213.5 being noon of one day and 4214.5 being noon of the next day. For more
accuracy it may be extended to two digits after the decimal point. This was the
case in "Requiem For Methuselah," the only episode from the original
series to do so. Time was of the essence as Kirk desperately needed Ryetalyn to
combat the plague aboard ship, as you recall. Note that this timekeeping system
in use aboard ship is not necessarily in synch with the ship's own timekeeping
system of military hours, but in the case of the episodes "Contagion"
and "Identity Crisis" (regarding visual logs) they WERE. If the digit
is a true representation of the time in tenths of a solar day, then the
following table could be used:
Duty
Shift Sections
(IF Stardates are
in synch with ship's time)
.041 =
1:00 A.M.
.083 =
2:00 A.M.
.1
= 2:24 A.M.
.125 =
3:00 A.M.
.167 =
4:00 A.M.
.2
= 4:48 A.M.
.208 =
5:00 A.M.
.250 =
6:00 A.M.
.292 =
7:00 A.M.
.3
= 7:12 A.M.
.333 =
8:00 A.M. Gamma Section off/Alpha Section on
.375 =
9:00 A.M.
.4
= 9:36 A.M.
.417 = 10:00 A.M.
.458 = 11:00 A.M.
.5
= 12:00 P.M.
.542 =
1:00 P.M. [13:00]
.583 =
2:00 P.M. [14:00]
.6
= 2:24 P.M. [14:24]
.625 =
3:00 P.M. [15:00]
.667 =
4:00 P.M. [16:00] Alpha Section off/Beta Section on
.7
= 4:48 P.M. [16:48]
.708 =
5:00 P.M. [17:00]
.750 =
6:00 P.M. [18:00]
.792 =
7:00 P.M. [19:00]
.8
= 7:12 P.M. [19:12]
.833 =
8:00 P.M. [20:00]
.875 =
9:00 P.M. [21:00]
.9
= 9:36 P.M. [21:36]
.916 = 10:00 P.M. [22:00]
.958 = 11:00 P.M. [23:00]
1.000 = 12:00 A.M. [24:00] Beta Section off/Gamma Section on
(Note: Duty
shift sections rotate by 8
hours
every two weeks. Source:
Line
Officer Requirements Manual,
Vol.
I).
As if there isn't enough confusion, Star Trek III showed us
excerpts from the flight recorder of the "Enterprise" moments before Captain
Spock's death in the engine room. Admiral Kirk reviewed the following on his
monitor: Stardate 8128.76 (McCoy: "You're Not going in there.")
Stardate 8128.77 (McCoy: "No! You'll flood the whole compartment!")
Stardate 8128.78 (Spock: "Ship: Out of danger?") These also support
the sequential nature of stardates, the second place after the decimal
representing minutes. More precisely 1.666 minutes, judging by the two digits
immediately to the right on the display, which are seconds (from 00 to 99).
Assuming the "seconds counter" is indeed the stardate taken to the
4th and 5th figures then each full stardate unit is 166.666 minutes, or 2.777
hours (which naturally conflicts with the previously described stardate system
associated with the classic series). So rather than being based on tenths of
day, this variation is built upon 100 seconds. More insanity: ST II begins at
stardate 8130 as spoken by Chekov in the "Reliant's" log! Theories
abound, ranging from different stardate systems to the flow of time being
different aboard a starship (The Best of Trek #1).
Stardates
used in The Next Generation are taken much more seriously. They consist of 5
digits to the left of the decimal point. According to the Writer's Guide, the
first digit (a 4) is used to represent The Next Generation, the following digit
represents the season, and the remaining 3 digits vary. This was done strictly
for continuity, to keep the numbers within an acceptable range: 4xxxx.x. A very
reasonable range, too: stardate 7412 (STTMP) + 36500 (100 years converted to
days) = stardate 43912, or late in the year 2366--less than a year off, taking
Star Trek-The Motion Picture as taking place in mid-2267 A.D. Too bad this doesn't
work for all stardates, but the range is what matters. Even with this degree of
refining stardates, the episodes are still not in order. Stardates jumped all
over in the first season of The Next Generation. The second season episodes
were almost aired in stardate order. By TNG's third season and onwards,
episodes were almost aired in stardate order. Taking this a step further, we
know from "The Neutral Zone," a first season episode, that the year
was 2364 and all stardates of this time began with 41. Likewise, stardates of
TNG's 2nd season began with 42, and the third season 43. Therefore, to
calculate the year a TNG stardate falls in, take the first two digits of the
stardate and add 2323 (fans of R.A. Wilson & Robert Shea's "The
Illuminatus! Trilogy" should LOVE this). One may reason therefore that
1,000 stardate units equals one year and by dividing this up we can determine
exactly where in the year a specific stardate falls in relation to the old
Terran calendar. This system, while extremely logical, is flawed because Next
Generation episodes once again don't progress in stardate order and even if
sorted by stardates simply do not hold together for the various reasons stated.
Recent episodes have also almost entirely destroyed this system, such as Lwaxana
Troi's marriage on stardate 30620.1 in "Dark Page" which is seemingly
after Deanna Troi's birth. Stardate 47329.4 is also logged as being one day
after the Battle of Wolf 359's fourth anniversary in "Second
Sight"--but "The Best of Both Worlds" was set around stardate
43990 not 43328. Then there's the curious case of almost every star- date's
right-most digit lining up with the ship's time whenever displayed side-by-side
as in the logs of the "Yamato" in "Contagion" as with classic
stardates. Yet assuming there is truth to the reasoning that one year is equal
to 1,000 stardates and they progress normally, I have employed a simple
conversion program and have expressed the theoretical Earth date in braces ({})
following the given stardate(s) when- ever available. Whenever a TNG Earthdate
was given I have also provided the approximate stardate in braces. Still, let
me emphasize that these are only "computer generated approximations"
and again do not hold up 100%, especially when you examine the sequence of
stardates in TNG's first season. They are meant to serve as rough references
using our calendar system. Leap years are another factor, the program I
employed (StarDateCalc 1.02 by Afonso Infante) supposedly takes these into
account. The TNG Technical Manual gives the "Enterprise's" commissioning date in both
stardate and Terran Old Cal- endar and they match up perfectly with this
program. Wilford Nusser and other Trekkers likewise have written similar
programs and have gotten the same results. According to this system, 1 day is
equal to about 2.74 stardate units, 1 hour is 0.114, 1 minute is 0.0019, and
one second is 0.0000317.
Comparison
With Other Trek Timelines
Timeline
TOS TAS TMS
TNG Comments
--------
--- --- ---
--- --------
Blish
+260 X X
X Based on "The Squire Of
Gothos"
[700] & 'Cities In Flight'
FASA
-52 ? -65
-61 Based on "Space Seed"
[200] &
"Encounter At Farpoint" ['78]
Okuda
+5 X -2
0 Based on "Sarek"
[202] &
ST VI [27]
Roden
+10 +10 -1
0 Based on "Encounter At
Farpoint" [137]
'Cities In Flight' is a non-Trek collection by James Blish
featuring many technological elements later to be approached in "Spock
Must Die!" "Mudd's Angels" and the 12 Blish novelizations. The
FASA timeline also includes the Goldstein Spaceflight Chronology book and the
contributions of Shane Johnson. The Okuda Chronology features nothing but
live-action episodes and films. The Roden timeline is from History Of The Vessel
"Enterprise."
Where:
TOS = The Original Series TAS = The Animated Series TMS = The Movie Series TNG
= The Next Generation X = Not covered/featured ? = Unsure (Spaceflight
Chronology claims the "Enterprise" completed only 3 of her 5 years
under Kirk without the animated series although elements from TAS are touched
upon) The differential is expressed in years relative to this Chronology and
represents average values only. Specific events may vary by several years.
For
history's sake, here is a copy of the Original Trek timeline which started it
all, reproduced in its entirety and exact wording. It's certainly interesting
to compare these early dates against the ones in the Chronology, for some dates
have changed radically over the years while others haven't changed in two
decades:
Ok I have looked up and dune a lot of research about star
dates the best information that I have seen is James Dixon’s website he had an
article about stardates by Shane Johnson
If 1 year Equals 1000 Stardate Unites then 1000 Devided by
12 Equals 83.3 Then Adding the year you want to this date so if we addup June 5th 2289 the Stardate equals 2799.74
2372.3
1day=2.74 Stardate
Unites
1 Hour= 0.114 Stardate Unites
1 minute=0.0019 Stardate Unites
1 Secound=0.0000317. Stardate Units
Okay now, the article is roughly written. You mention "the following formula"
too many times.
Say it once, show the formula, THEN talk about how you've
used it. The
first thing you should write after presenting the formula is how
this is for calculating a Universal Stardate which would
appear on the clocks
at Starfleet HQ.
It doesn't take Warping into account, since warping alters
Time as well as Space.
The faster one travels, the more warped time becomes.
