Question About Star Trek

[Kion the Fiercest]

I found calculators that convert the fictional Stardates to Gregorian Calendar dates but they don't work for The Animated Series nor the original six movies, does anyone know what those Stardates come out to or where to find an article where someone else has done that?

[RobM]

They pretty much just made them up to start with. I think for TNG, DS9 and VOY they had them sort of working but they still would run out of numbers very quickly.

Although there's calculators and stuff it doesn't actually fit in with the series. Often the star dates show some episodes to be earlier than they should be which doesn't matter in TNG as the production order and broadcast order aren't the same except for the two-parters so all they had to do was show the numbers slowly ascending. Matters a lot more in DS9 but I doubt anyone except trekkies thinks its that important.
I wouldn't be surprised if the original 6 movies take place in an impossible timeframe compared to the TOS TV.

Then of course you've got shitty new ST like discovery or picard in which I suspect the morons writing it haven't even heard of star dates. Which is probably why they don't really mention them at all. Since they utterly despise anything that exists or is cherished in the franchise it's probably a good thing or they'd fuck with those too.

It's just a gimmick, some clever people have managed to make it sort of work - even if you have to ignore the fact it breaks the series canon - but you and they have put more thought into it than any show runner or producer ever did.

[Kion the Fiercest]

Originally Posted by RobM

They pretty much just made them up to start with. I think for TNG, DS9 and VOY they had them sort of working but they still would run out of numbers very quickly.

Although there's calculators and stuff it doesn't actually fit in with the series. Often the star dates show some episodes to be earlier than they should be which doesn't matter in TNG as the production order and broadcast order aren't the same except for the two-parters so all they had to do was show the numbers slowly ascending. Matters a lot more in DS9 but I doubt anyone except trekkies thinks its that important.
I wouldn't be surprised if the original 6 movies take place in an impossible timeframe compared to the TOS TV.

Then of course you've got shitty new ST like discovery or picard in which I suspect the morons writing it haven't even heard of star dates. Which is probably why they don't really mention them at all. Since they utterly despise anything that exists or is cherished in the franchise it's probably a good thing or they'd fuck with those too.

It's just a gimmick, some clever people have managed to make it sort of work - even if you have to ignore the fact it breaks the series canon - but you and they have put more thought into it than any show runner or producer ever did.

Well, the TNG era Stardates seem to check out. My confusion comes from the fact that the Gregorian Calendar date for Wrath of Kahn is firmly established as March 22nd 2285 but it gets weird after that since The Search for Spock happens shortly after, can't be more then a month and The Voyage Home is said to take place three months after that but ever source I know says the latter movie takes place the next year in 2286.

[RobM]

Originally Posted by Kion the Fiercest

Well, the TNG era Star dates seem to check out. My confusion comes from the fact that the Gregorian Calendar date for Wrath of Kahn is firmly established as March 22nd 2285 but it gets weird after that since The Search for Spock happens shortly after, can't be more then a month and The Voyage Home is said to take place three months after that but ever source I know says the latter movie takes place the next year in 2286.

Well they don't really check out, again, they're just made up by the writers in an ascending order by the date of production. This order was of course changed prior to broadcast or just shot for efficiency of sets and miniatures rather than in direct order.

In TNG Riker mentions when he was born which is famously 15 years in the future, Yar is in episodes alive with a star date higher than when she died because they filmed her death scene early in the production and filmed the prior episodes later (and nobody noticed or cared that the star dates didn't line up), both Barclay and Wesley Crusher are in episodes that chronologically are set after they left the ship to go back to Earth or starfleet academy.
There's several episodes with star dates that overlap over the course of the three acts or happen at the same time with the enterprise being in different places at the same time in other episodes with overlapping star dates.

I seem to remember that the star dates for the TOS movies are basically production numbers. They go 81xx, 82xx, 83xx, 84xx etc. It starts with an 8 because its the eighth series (I think they include the animations and comics) then the movies go up by one each movie and the last two digits were random.
Sadly it's not going to fit with the timeline because it was just made up as they went along.

TNG is exactly the same. The star dates go 41, 42, 43, 44 - because it's the first, second, third and fourth TV series. The numbers after are random but go upwards to show time passing in the order of filming and production.

As I said above it's just a gimmick. The writers never intended it to be real. With the benefit of hindsight some people have tried to force a pattern or logic onto it and just have to ignore all the canon it breaks to claim their interpretation works.