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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Star Trek Chronology Timeline


Thank You Wikipedia!
Year Stardates Enterprise-based series Deep Space Nine Voyager
2151-2152
Enterprise season 1 (2001-2002)

2152-2153
Enterprise season 2 (2002-2003)

2153-2154
Enterprise season 3 (2003-2004)

2154-2155
Enterprise season 4 (2004-2005)

2254
"The Cage" (1964)

2265 1000.0-1499.9 "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1965)

2266-2267 1500.0-3299.9 Star Trek season 1 (1966-1967)

2267-2268 3300.0-4799.9 Star Trek season 2 (1967-1968)

2268-2269 4800.0-5999.9 Star Trek season 3 (1968-1969)

2268-2269 4800.0-5999.9 Star Trek The Animated Series season 1 (1973-1974)

2270-2271 6000.0-7499.9 Star Trek The Animated Series season 2 (1974)

2271 7000.0-7499.9 The Motion Picture (1979)

2285 8100.0-8299.9 II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
III: The Search for Spock (1984)


2286 8300.0-8399.9 IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

2287 8400.0-8499.9 V: The Final Frontier (1989)

2293 9500.0-9999.9 VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Generations (Prologue) (1994)


2364 41000.0-41999.9 The Next Generation season 1 (1987-1988)

2365 42000.0-42999.9 The Next Generation season 2 (1988-1989)

2366 43000.0-43999.9 The Next Generation season 3 (1989-1990)

2367 44000.0-44999.9 The Next Generation season 4 (1990-1991)

2368 45000.0-45999.9 The Next Generation season 5 (1991-1992)

2369 46000.0-46999.9 The Next Generation season 6 (1992-1993) Deep Space Nine season 1 (1993)
2370 47000.0-47999.9 The Next Generation season 7 (1993-1994) Deep Space Nine season 2 (1993-1994)
2371 48000.0-48999.9 Generations (1994) Deep Space Nine season 3 (1994-1995) Voyager season 1 (1995)
2372 49000.0-49999.9
Deep Space Nine season 4 (1995-1996) Voyager season 2 (1995-1996)
2373 50000.0-50999.9 First Contact (1996) Deep Space Nine season 5 (1996-1997) Voyager season 3 (1996-1997)
2374 51000.0-51999.9
Deep Space Nine season 6 (1997-1998) Voyager season 4 (1997-1998)
2375 52000.0-52999.9 Insurrection (1998) Deep Space Nine season 7 (1998-1999) Voyager season 5 (1998-1999)
2376 53000.0-53999.9

Voyager season 6 (1999-2000)
2377-2378 54000.0-55999.9

Voyager season 7 (2000-2001)
2379 56000.0-56999.9 Nemesis (2002)

Timeline

This timeline is based on the Star Trek Chronology model described below, supplemented by data from startrek.com.

Note: Many of these dates are rounded-off approximations, as the dialog from which they are derived often includes qualifiers such as "over," "more than," or "less than."

Millions of years ago

  • c. 6 billion years ago
  • c. 4 billion years ago
    • A humanoid civilization seeds the oceans of many planets with genetic material, which would lead to the development of humanoids on many planets.[3]
  • c. 1 million years ago
    • Sargon's people explore the galaxy and colonise various planets, possibly including Vulcan.[4]

1st millennium

  • c. 4th century
    • The Vulcan Time of Awakening. In the midst of horrific wars on Vulcan, the philosopher Surak leads his people, teaching them to embrace logic and suppress all emotion.
    • The Dominion is founded in the Gamma Quadrant by the shapeshifting race known as the Changelings.
  • c. 9th century
    • Kahless the Unforgettable unites the Klingons by defeating the tyrant Molor in battle, and provides his people with teachings based on a philosophy of honor.

Pre-20th century

  • c. 1570
    • The ancient Bajorans use solar sail ships to explore their solar system, and at least one reaches Cardassia.
  • 18th century

20th century

21st century

  • 2002
    • The interstellar probe Nomad is launched.
  • 2004
  • 2009
    • The first successful Earth-Saturn spaceprobe mission takes place. [1][14]
  • 2012
    • The world's first self-sustaining civic environment Millennium Gate which became the model for the first habitat on Mars, completed in Portage Creek, Indiana. ("11:59", Voyager)
  • 2018
    • Sleeper ships are made obsolete.[15]
  • 2024
  • 2032
    • Ares-IV, a manned mission to Mars is launched.
  • 2037
    • The spaceship Charybdis makes an attempt to leave the solar system.
  • 2053
    • World War III ends and the Earth is left devastated by the nuclear carnage of it. Scientific advancement continues, however.
  • 2063
  • c. 2065
    • The SS Valiant is launched.
  • 2067
    • the unmanned interstellar warp probe Friendship 1 is launched
  • 2069
  • 2079
    • Earth begins to recover from its nuclear war.
  • 2088
    • Future Enterprise chief science officer T'Pol is born on Vulcan.

22nd century

23rd century

24th century

History of the chronology

There have been several efforts over the years to develop a chronology for the events depicted by the Star Trek television series and its spin-offs. This matter has been complicated by the continued additions to the Star Trek canon, and the scarcity of Gregorian calendar dates given in the show (stardates instead being used).

Original series

There are few references setting the original series in an exact timeframe, and those that exist are largely contradictory. In the episode, "Tomorrow is Yesterday", a 1960s military officer says that he's going to lock Captain Kirk up "for two hundred years", to which a bemused Kirk says, "That ought to be just about right". Likewise, in the episode "Space Seed", it is said that the 1996 warlord Khan is from "two centuries" ago. Both these references place the show in the 22nd century. However, in the episode "Miri", it is said that 1960 was around 300 years ago, pushing the show into the 23rd century. Finally, the episode "The Squire of Gothos" implied that the light cone of 19th century Earth has expanded to 900 light years, which seems to set the show in the 28th century; however, as light years are a measurement of distance and not time, this can be safely disregarded.

According to notes in The Making of Star Trek, the show is set in the 23rd century, and the Enterprise was supposed to be around 40 years old. Roddenberry says in this book that the stardate system was invented in order to avoid pinning down the show precisely in terms of timeframe.[46] Roddenberry's original pitch for the series dated it "'somewhere in the future. It could be 1995, or maybe even 2995".[47]

Early chronologies

The Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology and FASA, a publisher of the first licensed Star Trek role-playing game, chose to take the "Space Seed figure", adding a few years to make sure the events of the Original Series were in the 23rd century. This dating system is followed by other spin-off works in the 1980s, including Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise. This timeline system gives the following dates [48][49]

The Star Fleet Battles game was published in 1979, with a license only covering the original series. It has since diverged into an entirely separate fictional universe, new additions to which continue to be published. It does not tie into the Gregorian calendar, instead using a "Year 1" of the invention of Warp on earth. Its version of the original series backstory is

  • Y1 - Warp drive is developed on Earth.
  • Y4 - Federation is formed by Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, Alpha Centauri.
  • Y40-Y46 - Romulan War.
  • Y71 - Starfleet is formed.
  • Y126 - The Constitution-class is launched (an upgrade from the Republic-class).
  • Y154-159 - The events of the Original Series.

See Star Fleet Universe timeline.

TNG era and Okuda

Press materials for TNG suggested it was set in the 24th century, seventy-eight years after the existing Star Trek, although the exact timeframe had not yet been set in stone. The pilot had wording saying Data was part of the Starfleet "class of '78". The pilot episode, "Encounter at Farpoint", also has a cameo appearance by Leonard "Bones" McCoy, who is said to be 137.

In the last episode of the first season, the year is firmly established by Data, as 2364.[50] This implies McCoy was born around 2227, ruling out the Spaceflight Chronology-derived dating of the original series to the early 23rd century.

A Star Trek Chronology was published in 1993, written by production staff members Denise Okuda and Mike Okuda.[51] A second edition was issued in 1996.[1] Okuda originally drew up a timeline for internal use by writers, based on his own research and assumptions provided by Richard Arnold. The dates in the Chronology are consistent with the earlier Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual.[41]

It gives the following dates:

  • Zephram Cochrane invents warp drive around 2061 (in order that the SS Valiant can be constructed and go missing two hundred years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before", dated to 2265; the first edition gives 2061, the second edition moves this to 2063 per Star Trek: First Contact)
  • the Romulan War takes place in the 2150s (approximately a hundred years before "Balance of Terror")
  • the Federation is formed in 2161, after the Romulan War, on the basis that "Balance of Terror" says that it was an Earth-Romulan war, not a Federation-Romulan War
  • the first Constitution class starship is launched in 2244, followed by the Enterprise in 2245
  • Kirk's five year mission lasts from 2264 to 2269, based on the assumption that the original series is set exactly 300 years after its original broadcast.
    • aired live-action Star Trek episodes are dated from 2266 to 2269. The chronology does not include the events of Star Trek: The Animated Series
    • An episode of Voyager—"Q2"—aired after the Chronology was published established that Kirk's five year mission actually ended in 2270.
  • the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture take place in 2271 (Kirk has been Chief of Starfleet Operations for two-and-a-half years, according to dialog from Kirk and Decker)
    • The "Q2" dating for Kirk's five year mission, moves the first film to circa 2273.
  • a second five-year mission takes place in the 2270s (speculation)
  • the events of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock take place in 2285
    • The Wrath of Khan is a sequel to the episode Space Seed, which Okuda dates to 2267. In Okuda's timeline there is a gap of eighteen years rather than the fifteen years established in dialog. The film was released in 1982, fifteen years after the episode's broadcast in 1967.
  • the events of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home take place in 2286
  • the events of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier take place in 2287
  • the events Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country take place in 2293, based on McCoy's statement that he had served on the Enterprise for 27 years, and his absence in "Where No Man Has Gone Before"
  • Star Trek Generations is set "78 years" before 2371, thus is set in 2293 and soon after Star Trek VI

The gap between 1986's Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home (2286) and the 1987 first season of The Next Generation (2364) is 78 years by this timeline, matching early press materials.

There was a gap of 10 years between the broadcast of the last episode of TOS and the release of The Motion Picture. The film skirted round the fact the actors had aged, supposing that only two and a half years had passed since the events of the TV show. For Star Trek II, it was decided to acknowledge the reality of the ageing actors, both by setting the film some 15 years after "Space Seed", and by having Kirk worry about getting old.[52]

Within the TNG era, episodes and films are easier to date. Stardates correspond exactly with seasons, with the first two digits of the stardate representing the season number. Okuda assumes the start of a season is January 1 and the end of the season is December 31.[1] The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager television series and movies have roughly followed "real time", and are set around 377 years after their release.

Since the Chronology was published, it has been generally adhered to by the producers of the show. The film Star Trek: First Contact and prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise both revisit the early era. In First Contact, Zephram Cochrane is confirmed as having invented warp drive on Earth, but the date is moved forward slightly to 2063, and it is revealed that Earth's official first contact with an alien species, the Vulcans, took place immediately afterwards as a result of this.

Enterprise is set in the 2150s, and ties into the Cochrane backstory. The show uses the Gregorian calendar extensively, making dating easier. Its pilot, "Broken Bow", depicts first contact with the Klingons occurring much earlier than the Okuda chronology anticipated (it suggested a date of 2218, based on a line in "Day of the Dove", noting that dialog in First Contact makes this problematic). It shows the opening of the Romulan war and the start of a coalition between Earth, Vulcan, Andor and Tellar in the 2150s. The date of the founding year of the Federation, 2161, was revealed in the fifth-season TNG episode "The Outcast," based on an early draft of the Okuda timeline. The final episode of Enterprise, "These Are The Voyages...", is consistent with the establishment of 2161 as the founding year for the Federation.

No version of the Chronology or the Encyclopedia has been published since 1999. A 2006 book by Jeff Ayers contains a timeline which attempts to date all of the many Star Trek novels.[53] This timeline has The Motion Picture in 2273, to account for the two-and-a-half-year gap between the end-date of 2270 established in "Q2" and the events of the movie. The official website, StarTrek.com, still gives the date of that movie as 2271.[54]

Eugenics Wars and World War III

When the original series of Star Trek was produced, the 1990s were in the future, and so various elements of the backstory to Star Trek are set in that era, particularly the Eugenics Wars. The references to the Eugenics Wars and to a nuclear war in the 21st century are somewhat contradictory.

The episode "Space Seed" establishes the Eugenics Wars, and has them last from 1992 to 1996. Spock calls them "your last so-called World War", and McCoy identifies this with the Eugenics Wars. In the episode "Bread and Circuses" Spock gives a death toll for World War III of 37 million. The episode "The Savage Curtain" features a Colonel Green, who led a genocidal war in the 21st century. The TNG episode "Encounter at Farpoint" further establishes a "postatomic horror" on Earth in 2079.

The Star Trek Concordance identifies the "Bread and Circuses" figure as the death toll for a nuclear World War III, in the mid-21st century. Star Trek: First Contact firmly establishes World War III ended in a nuclear exchange in 2053, but with a body count of 600 million. The figure of Colonel Green is elaborated on in Star Trek: Enterprise.

Although the back-story of Star Trek contains numerous minor elements that did not occur in history, the Eugenics Wars marked a substantial deviation. The Voyager episode "Future's End" saw the Voyager crew time-travel to Los Angeles in 1996, which, as the Encyclopedia notes, seems entirely unaffected by the Eugenics Wars, which ended that year. The episode acknowledges the issue only by featuring a model of Khan's DY-100-class ship on a 1996 desk. [55] Khan's spaceship is another anomaly for the timeline, which has a variety of long-lost spaceships being launched between 1980 and 2100, with inconsistent levels of technology (caused by the increasing real life time and also decreased optimism about the pace of space exploration).

A reference in the Deep Space Nine episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" suggests that the Eugenic Wars instead took place in the 22nd century. According to writer Ronald D. Moore, this was not an attempt at a retcon, but a mistake.[56]

Greg Cox's two-book series The Eugenics Wars explains the Eugenics Wars in the context of real-life history by representing it as a secret history, and that the truth behind the various civil wars and conflicts in the 1990s was not generally known.

Cochrane

In the episode "Metamorphosis", it is stated that Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri, the inventor of warp drive, disappeared 150 years ago, at the age of 87. Given Okuda's date of 2267 for that episode, this puts Cochrane's disappearance in 2117 and birth in 2030. 1980s spin-off material such as the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology posit that Cochrane was from Alpha Centauri originally, and that a sub-warp ship the UNSS Icarus arrived at Alpha Centauri in 2048 to find he had discovered the theory behind warp drive. The Icarus then relayed its findings back to Earth, the first prototype warp ship was launched in 2055.

The Star Trek Chronology does not hold with this theory, and asserts that Cochrane was an Earth native, who moved to Alpha Centauri later in life. The first edition Chronology notes that Cochrane's invention of warp drive must have been at least 200 years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and suggests a date of 2061, noting that Cochrane would be 31 that year.

The movie Star Trek: First Contact prominently features Cochrane's first successful warp flight. The film is set in 2063, two years after the Chronology suggestions, and therefore by the timeline Cochrane is 33. The actor who played Cochrane in that movie, James Cromwell, was 56 at the time of the film's release. The Encyclopedia notes the age issue, and claims that the Cromwell Cochrane had suffered from radiation poisoning, causing his aged appearance. Enterprise pins down Cochrane's disappearance to 2119, making Cochrane instead 31 at the time of First Contact.

Ordering of episodes

The production order of original series episodes differed greatly from the original broadcast order. The Chronology assumes the correct chronological order is production order. Episodes of the original series tend to be largely standalone and rarely make references to other episodes.[1]

For later series, the Chronology follows this model, except for obvious exceptions, such as "Symbiosis", an episode shot after Tasha Yar's death in "Skin of Evil" had been filmed, but featuring her. After the debut of DS9 (and therefore the start of a period where there were two ongoing series of Star Trek), the Chronology instead adopts ordering by airdates. The latest edition of the Chronology was published in 1996, and thus does not cover Star Trek episodes or films released after then.


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