How Do Stardates Work?
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- čas přidán 13. 07. 2024
- #startrek #space #science
Stardates are a form of time measurement used throughout the Star Trek franchise by both Starfleet and non-Starfleet spacefarers alike. But how exactly are they calculated, and how do they compare to real-world methods of measuring time?
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- CHAPTERS -
00:00 Intro
01:24 Enterprise Era
01:57 TOS Era
06:58 TNG Era
08:13 Kelvin Timeline
09:24 Picard Era
10:59 Outro - Věda a technologie
So, what do you think? Should future Trek shows stick to the stardate system (like Discovery has)? Or should they opt for a different method of measuring time that's more...consistent? Let me know down below!
They need one that's even more arbitrary.
I didn't even know DSC started using a standardized system. Back in my forum RP days, we straight-up invented a system that sounded "right" for each log entry. Truth be told, I tend to block out the stated stardate the same way I block out technobabble, I expect it to be there but I don't expect it to be on the test.
The Georgian calendar would be considered racist by at least the Andorrans and Tellerites and that’s without even considering non-founding members like the Trill or Denobulans.
How about a generally accepted centre of the galaxy as a starting point and time defined by that starting point? Seems slightly more equal than beginning around one planets spinning around a particular sun?
I believe Stardates were consistent between TNG, DS9, and Voyager.
In most fiction, dates are irrelevant. If they want to establish a real date for story purposes, they can mention it in dialogue.
Honestly, I hear it as "Captain's log, stardate blurgle-blarg gurble-garble point two."
I like Stardates a lot. Knowing precisely how they work is not the point to me. So long as they keep the Stardates internally consistent (and it seems for TOS it was a network issue, not creative) and we know bigger number means later I think it will do fine. And it adds an immersive "this is not our time" element that I find missing in a lot of modern Sci Fi
You’re right. The stardate, and specific information about actual dates isn’t as important as the captain’s log, and his/her oberservations and notations about what is going on with the story from their point of view.
Stardates don't really serve a narrative function for the audience, except to indicate that this takes place so far into the future that measurements of time are different than ours in the present. Unless the passing of time is a plot point in a story it can be done away with.
Since they have changed so much from each timeline, my suggestion (if they reboot the universe with more competent producers) is that the stardates aren't even mentioned in the crew's logs. Just display it on a screen, like a timecode embedded into the recording. This would serve another function for them, adding security to indicate any tampering with the official record.
TOS inconsistency with the stardates I came to view (maybe even writing staff), was episodic in nature. Events in the beginning of the show (episode 1 were premiered as third), and later never been connected, more like stories FROM the captains log from various no chronological order of 5 year mission.
@@MikeNobody They're not rebooting shit. It's all equally canon, deal with it.
@@greggasiorowski1326 They sometimes show long adds whiles watching a short video can press skip for some adds unless part of that video then you can fast forward.
I think having an unintelligible "stardate" at the beginning of each episode helps the viewer with that whole "suspension of disbelief" thing you talked about...I like them. :)
I think those that stress out about Star Dates miss the point that it is a literary mechanism to bring us into a universe that is different from ours. I always loose that suspension of disbelief when a Gregorian date is mentioned.
I always wondered the significance of the stardates but never placed a big deal on em meaning they weren't the most important part lol
when Kirk spits out the date, Captain's log stardate whatever it sounds official, that's the point lol
How about this for a stardate.today is Star date 2022.0323 this makes it simple. The year.the month and the day of the Gregorian calendar
@@stephenstarks874 you pulled that from your Jeffries tube, get with the program and stop winging it man.
I like stardates. I think they're *necessarily* confusing and uninformative, they serve the function of letting you kick off by telling the audience "by the way, you're not going to understand all of this, and that's fine". Star Trek's always been built on that, you as the audience don't need to know how the warp core works, you just need to know that the characters know how it works.
In my own head, I've always been happy to just accept that stardates seem confusing and inconsistent because in trying to apply a common timeframe to events taking place in multiple parts of the galaxy on ships and planets that are moving around each other at variable near-luminal speeds they're trying to do something which is the equivalent of printing a flat map of a round globe - something technically impossible to do accurately, but which you can make estimations of by various methods. I think what they do in Enterprise of just using the Earth date, or the JJ films of just using the Earth date but in a sneaky way would very quickly prove to be unworkable because you would have different ships meeting up with each other and being in complete disagreement about what date it is, and if you can't radio back to Earth to adjudicate on this, you could end up with ships arranging crew transfers where the one ship says x crewman transferred over on x date and the other ship logs that the transfer happened a week earlier. It'd be a nightmare to audit.
i thought something similar
Its also several hundred years into the future. Its likely that we'd need to use some non-earth based calender system to unify every species.
Just because YOU dont know how a warp core works doesnt mean you should assume everyone is as ignorant as you. Its a matter/antimatter drive. The ship creates a warp bubble that contains the vessel and then moves space around it. In fact, a lot of things in Star Trek are explained and make sense with our understanding of physics.
Not everyone is as dumb as you, so for smart people its nice when a show about science doesnt just throw a random, arbitrary number at you for no reason. When I watch an episode of Star Trek I already know what the ship is capable of depending on the class and by knowing federation technology.
I can predict events because I know how tech will interact with eachother or when the crew is truly in a bad way by understanding their limitations. Stardates are a cop out, when literally everything else in this show is explained rather accurately.
I agree. Once you start travelling near the speed of light, you can't even agree what order events happened in. I always thought the stairdate depended on where you are and possibly the path you took to get there. Of course it doesn't make sense, once you have warp drive you have to redefine what time is.
It has nothing to do with time. A warp drive manipulates space. The only thing you have to worry about is a universal srandard. A galactic calendar. The only way time travel would be involved is if there were tachyon radiation.
When I was a kid, watching ST:TOS for the first time, I wrote down all the star dates for all the episodes. I thought, at the time, that it was actually pretty cool that they used a more universal time rather than relying on the rotation of a single planet out of all the inhabited planets of the galaxy.
As much as I love Star Trek I always wondered about stardates how they became used for example thank you for clearing some of that up Tyler another great video.
In the book Federation: The First 150 Years, stardates are only used in space. When you're on a planet, you'd use the local calendar. In the DS9 episode Paradise Lost, when Sisko is questioning the cadet, he references "19:47 hours PST on the night of the 23rd" etc.
I like the idea of star dates instead of government used dating system for star trek because for instance a Ferengi and a Tellerite could be talking about an event that happened the Tellerite could ask the Ferengi what the stardate was and they both understand it. The human's of Earth can continue using the gregorian calendar just like the Klingon's use there own calendar but when it comes to communicating between governments utilizing stardates makes the most sense.
I always imagined that stardates were based on something tangible like a fraction of the rotation of the galaxy ( a cosmic year being 225-250 million years). It would make sense that you would have to know the movement of stars and the galaxy as whole to navigate. After all nothing is fixed in space so maps couldnt be fixed either. If you think about how an navigational map of earth works it makes sense to combine the passage of time along with a way to measure the location of stars, starting with the rotation of the galaxy. This would have the additional benefits of being something that all species could get with and understand and very non human centric.
I read in one of the novels that stardates are the space equivalent of Greenwich Mean Time in order to keep every planet on the same schedule due to the differences in how long their own days and years are (e.g. a Mars day is nearly 25 hours long and a Mars year is about 1.9 Earth years), and its passage is measured at the center of the galaxy to remain apolitical.
Rotation of cartoon galaxies AHAHAHAHA 🤦♂️
Great summary.
One old theory is that in TOS the Stardates representative months and days into the mission. So SD 1312 is 13 months, 12 days in.
This does not work so well in the larger context of the Trek franchise, but it's not bad for TOS on its own 😉
If they used 28-day months comes out to 13 months and total of 364 days for year so could have 12 with 28 days and one month with 29 days plus another extra day each leap year.
Way off-topic, but I've always loved the fact that Spock wears a World War II-era Army belt spray painted silver in the clip here featured at 6:38 .
Finally! Yet another star trek topic I have often wondered about.
Omg me too!!!
YEAH.... but I Was hoping for a bit of explanation and 'Logic' behind it. It is TOO bad that there was No consistency from TOS - NG/Voy/DS9 - Kelvin timelines.
I guess I have to accept that there is NO Value of 'Star Dates', because as mentioned ......... It's a FICTIONAL show!
Coffee ☕ and Star Trek🌟
Thanks Tyler 😎
Another great episode! I love the ideas and REALLY appreciate the research and effort you put into all of your episodes/content! 👍
Finally, someone tackles stardates.
I love your humor in all of your videos
Wasn't the TOS "Star Date" just the writer's vehicle to preface the setting of the particular episode?
Thinking about this, it does seen odd that in a federation of planets spanning light years that all measures of days, weeks and years would revolve around Earth time. Seems to me that setting those metrics based on a common celestial body or event would make the most sense instead while in space at least. It should however be something easy to convert to "local" time on any planet or moon though. This is something that was obviously not done in Trek, and likely a way to portray the fact the even in the future the entire universe doesn't revolve around the Earth.
I can recall only one time that any reference to any difference in a planet's time and a stardate was in TNG when the Enterprise was helping those people in that biodome, and Troi made reference to the fact that the reason she was still up late was that she was "...still on Enterprise time."
Yes! The "Mycelial Network " shirt 😁
Thanks for taking on this topic. Well done as always!
You read my mind. I was just looking for a video about this very topic. It is indeed confusing, but you did a great job at breaking it down. Thanks.
I would think a stardate reflects time passage in space relative to the ship. Between gravity and jumping into and out of warp, differences in time would accumulate, and this lets a ship track the passage of time on the ship, but when contacting Starfleet, they can synchronize with planet-side time/calendars.
Excellent, informative video. You have a new subscriber.
Awesome! Thanks for putting this together.
I always wondered about stardates... thanks for another video of top notch quality!
Thanks for this video. Trying to figure out stardates drive me insane.
Tyler I've watched about a dozen or more of your videos over the last month or two I think you are more intelligent than most you tubers thanks brother note my name
I've been watching Star Trek since the premiere of TNG, and I never knew how stardates worked. Thank you for such an informative video!
My local Star Trek fan club, Starfleet Command's Seventh Fleet mostly based in Utah with Ships/Chapters in Idaho and Vermont as well as Shuttles/Chapters-in-Training in Nevada and England has its own Stardate system.
It picks up from the TNG/DS9/VOY Era for the start. The Stardate Year starts in September (when the shows usually started seasons) and ends in August. And the last 4 digits are MMD.D. September 2021 to August 2022 starts with 75. So for example today is Stardate: 75032.3 in our system.
When did TOS' century get definitively placed?
During TNG. But that is only the century. In Voyager they claim that Kirk’s 5 year mission ended in 2270. So based on that TOS is sometime between 2265 and 2270.
The Wrath of Khan specified the century in the opening (“In the 23rd century…”), but nothing more. There’s some promotional material for early TNG which supposed it was in the 2330s rather than the 2360s, made before _The Neutral Zone_ stated the Gregorian year for the frozen guys. Later TNG-era stuff confirmed it such as Voyager S1 giving a Gregorian year in _Eye of the Needle_ and had some of the most references in dialogue to living in “the 24th century” besides that.
😂 Starts 30 yrs after the British Invasion 😂😂 You are a treasure Tyler!!! I appreciate the shit out of you!! 🖖🏻
The stardate system is, as you explain, kinda vague and doesnt really line up with anything all that well, but with a tiny bit of effort it could be clarified into something that makes logical sense going forward, and we could keep a classic bit of treknobabble.
I like stardates as a part of in depth *world building.* I appreciate that someone took the time to figure out how everyone can agree on terms like "yesterday," "today," and "tomorrow" without too much confusion.
6:31 While there was a magnificent job later of folding real science into the date designation, that was not initially part of the plan. The "star date" was simply meant to sound futuristic and sciencey. It was because the episodes were not aired in the order they were produced that fans noticed and questioned inconsistency. The (at the time) fabricated explanation was that a Star Date was calculated based on such factors as a ship's literal and relative position, relative velocity, and even direction of movement; therefore, two ships could be meeting at the same area at the same time yet have different Star Dates to report. A very happy accident of fiction and science shaking hands but original bottom line to it was, "We're just putting cool sci-fi on TV. What do you want?!"
I was a college freshman when Star Trek first aired. I and some other “unclaimed treasures” (i.e. women who were without dates for the evening) watched the show in a dedicated area of the dorm’s basement on a small black and white TV. One woman jotted down each star date. I always wondered why and what she did with them, but whatever.
I don't suppose her name was Bjo Trimble, was it?
Another great video! I always wondered about stardates and tried to understand, but never made sense to me. Thank you!
Star dates just sound cool to start an episode. It just techno jargon. Which is what make Star Trek way cool.
Fun fact: my last employer used days since someday in some day in 1850. These should be star dates.
Just to be fair: time dilation is measurable not only around masses like black holes. But Earth itself is massive enough to have a considerable effect. It is big enough to be taken into account even for the GPS system. It is a difference of around 38ms per day between the planet's surface and the height where the geostationary satelites reside.
In my opinion, star dates are just a way of reminding the watcher that the show is in space. They're not linked, as you say, to any real date. So that's what I always presumed
Not according the the official lore keeper of Trek Michael Okuda
Finally this mysterious phenomenon has been addressed. I imagine I am not the only one who thought they were just numbers picked out of a hat and the showrunners relied on the fact that we weren't paying very close attention.
Much love!
Yet again, a beautifully researched video, insightful and done with much love. Take care. xx
I love the comedy you add to every video!. Always catches me off guard haha
YES!!! Finaly an explanation video! ........for this year.
I love to explore the minute details in these amazing universes that unfold before us.... but I'm also a firm believer in not deconstructing EVERYTHING.
Actually, the whole point of Stardates is mentioned in the 2nd pilot. “They’ve broken the time barrier.”
Stardates are meant to address the time relative to Earth reletive to the time dilation effect.
Thank You for this video - I have always wondered how they calculated Star Dates in the episodes.
You always have great thought provoking videos
Takes me back to me my college days.
I was literally just talking to my wife about this
I seem to remember when I was watching Enterprise that their star date system seemed to work out to be possibly the number of days since warp travel was discovered.
If that were the case then wouldn't each species/civilization have a different star date since they all didn't achieve warp travel at the same time?
@@TK-593 I would imagine they did. But in this era, Earth wouldn't be concerned with that and the only other possible influence would be the Vulcans. Perhaps later conventions were adopted to move away from the earth-centric basis at the beginning.
Good timing (heh) given the recent hoopla over Daylight savings
I always thought the Kelvin approach was the simplest approach which they should adopt and modify to some overarching standardized time like in Mass Effect, so you don't feel too earth chauvanist
There is an episode of Voyager where Seven was overloaded with data, causing her to become deluded and create conspiracy theories where she had long stretches of yelling out Stardates to the other characters.
Poor Jeri Ryan having to remember all that nonsense.
Great information. It’s something I always wondered about but never bothered to look up. I enjoyed the video.
IMO, stardates were most useful when dealing with concurrent shows. TNG, DS9, VOY are the prime examples.
So much more understanding of fhe universe at large i felt was gained by being able to watch episodes in "Stardate order"
To be fair, only groupings this would be useful is (TNG, DS9, YOY), (DSC, SNW, TOS), and possibly PGY/LWD groups
The CZcams algorithm knows all. I was a chubby dorky pothead in high school…I’ve been a rock climbing pothead for some time. On the surface I look like some of the jocks I use to hate. But clearly by the stuff CZcams keeps putting in my feed, I’m still a nerd at heart. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Wonderful video! Loved the breakdown and helped so much confusion on my end!
This channel is just so high quality it makes me want to squanch
Thank you for another excellent episode! I think I may have once looked up something about this topic before, but I have forgotten anything I learned before if so. Thanks for taking the time to learn and make a video on it! I've watched so many of your videos in recent months I think it's high time I subbed lol.
Stay well out there everybody, and God be with you, friends! ✝️ :)
From the original show I wondered how the star dates worked. Thanks for another informative video.
This was very entertaining! It contained more actual science than I expected. What was I thinking? We nerds like to nerd!
I like the characters referencing star dates when doing log entries. It’s a clever way to introduce exposition without alienating the viewers with an untethered monologue. The dates are just numbers to me, but thank you for talking about this.
It was Herb Solow’s idea to move the story along and make the show more believable as in the show “has already happened.” Even though it was in the future...these voyages have happened and this is the story.
Great video. I've always wondered about that.
I came up with my Stardate system for my RPG.. Mine is based on the alleged founding of the Federation, 2161 AD. I figured Stardates weren’t introduced until 2261 - the Federation centennial. So, 1313.! is roughly July. 2265. I compared it to the five digit TNG dates and it tracks
It's an interesting thing to think about. We have world time. Eventually, we're going to need solar time, then galactic time, and then even universal time.
I would use the most important pulsar within the Milkyway to develop a Stardate system. That pulsar would be seen by all civilizations.
Gene Roddenberry said Stardates are used to measure time and location of a starship. He also said that warp drive pushes a starship into subspace and in subspace the universe is smaller. Today is March 22, 2022...which is Stardate 2203.22.
Talking about time dilation, how about when using impulse drive which takes you up to 90% of light speed in normal space?
Excellent question! I'd love to see Tyler tackle it in a future video essay.
Thank you so much for this explanation. I also really like your voice and that you don't monotone 😊
Great job. You took a subject that I had no interest in and made it VERY interesting. That's why I love your channel.
While I certainly understand and respect the point of view that they're necessarily obfuscating any sort of real date, and thus kind of pointless for much of the audience, I'm the kind of nerd who loves that sort of detail. The old Starchive digs into it in a great amount of detail.
One detail I like is that, using the TOS four-digit system, if you assume it resets every 10000 units, and you roll back the clock, you get to a Stardate 0000 in January 2162, just after the Federation was founded in 2161. It's easy to imagine that the UFP was founded, and then either they found Terran-style dates inappropriate for multi-species or deep space use, or they were simply delayed with red tape, and then switched over to stardates a few months later.
I like stardates. I like that they have them in Lower Decks and they match the TNG-era formula.
I like the star dates. I never really cared or payed any attention to their exact time. It just sounds so cool and they give a sense of realism. They should keep them and not worry so much about being correct.
In you vast tales of different alien species, don't forget the Vogon's from "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy".
Part of the point of stardates was to get away from the terracentric way of looking at time. The Federation has hundreds of planets with different time measuring systems. They needed a galactic standard that took relativity and other things into account. At issue is the variation in the rate of time passage to to the relativistic velocities of space vessels when not in warp, and the effect on time measurement and consistency during and after using warp drive. I think the original trek fans were a little more open to such scientific explanations, rather than the mundane ones this video suggests.
I was so confused by that Mycelial Network clip for the longest time. The shirt is a hilarious idea though!
I think TNG was pretty close to a meaningful stardate. It could have been century, season number, episode number, and which tenth? So Stardate 4308.2 would be 24th century, 3rd season, episode 8, around the 20 minute mark. DS9 and Voyager could even continue the TNG season counter without causing too many issues. Picard could continue that with stardate 5203.1 meaning 25th century, second season, third episode, 10 minute mark. Granted Prodigy and Lower Decks might cause some complications. Anyway stardates sound cool but yeah it would be better if they contained easily accessible useful or fun information.
Problem: 4th wall problems. It would be letting in daylight into our sealed universe. It would be like saying that our reality was an adjunct of a celestial toy maker, who allows the chaos in this dimension to carry on, when he/she has been called to go to bed by its parents.
Somehow I never had an issue not understanding how stardates work. I didn't need to know the exact date, but it was nice to think that the characters knew.
The point of star dates is that every planet might have different length days and years. So that even knowing what day it is gets very complicated fast.
Enterprise and TOS were great about it. TNG, DS9 and Voyager…not so much lol! Thanks for the video Tyler!
Wow I’m strangely offended by the Kelvinverse stardate system haha. I lived in perfect ignorance before, but now every time I rewatch those films, I’ll KNOW
There is another issue to make things even more confusing with stardates from TOS to TNG and is the agganging of stardates in Star trek VI, those stardates were altered because they would already have five digits followed by a decimal, and some people involved in the production of that film wanted to make that firm distintion between TOS and TNG. Great video, thanks.
I'd suggest counting year zero, day zero being midnight GMT after the Federation charter was signed. So figure we'd be now into 1st digit being 3/4 depending on the exact year it was signed. Then after centuries, 2nd and 3rd digit being years. 10 month year and that is the 5th digit in the ones place. After the decimal number of days, hours minutes etc elapsed. Resetting every standard day. The day length can be adjusted to fit the world of registry of the ship in question. But keeping it metric and divisible by 10s. Rounded down to 20 or up to 30. What ever keeps the month metric. For worlds with shorter days the month is longer. And vice versa. For worlds like venus with days lasting standard years they could just adopt the universal standard. Same with tidally locked planets. With duty hours being assigned as a total per week you either get longer days off or more frequent days off. A win win either way. No doubt you can work out the math to figure out the proper ratios. For crew who do not need sleep or rest they can ignore the issue if a ship or base wishes to accomodate them. I admit I simply don't want to do the math but its high school level stuff. If advanced high school level.
In the Riddick series productions the person recording in a log said things like "16 days out..." giving no actual date from anywhere. The way the log was recorded, time was measured from the last launch or lift off of the ship the person recording was aboard. This was also done when a person was recording events while on a trip across the surface of a planet or moon, among other endeavors.
When one cannot determine a specific time, due to there being too many different time systems, reporting a time becomes practically useless. Thus the only time measure that works is that of the ship we are traveling aboard. It was in the Riddick series of movies, and Riddick was just one of the people that reported things in their log in that fashion. Seems that this method works best, because it gives a point in time when the endeavor began as the point from which all other moments and events are recorded, yet it keeps the record from including unimportant earlier points in time.
Nice video, I was worried it would just be a copy of my video but this is far from it. I do find your idea of the stardate being akin to a mission date. It is giving me ideas to continue my solution to the Stardate problem. If this does help me I will be sure to give you credit.
Just subscribed cos can never get enough Star Trek 🖖
I've been giving this a lot of thought and I feel like even though Star Dates are useless information it's also a ritual for Star Trek. It's like the opening, it gets you in the frame of mind for the show.
This guy is the hugest frigin nerd ever. Kool
There are multiple times during TNG where - after a run in with time travel antics - Picard commands them to "synchronize" with the closest starbase to get a bearing of "when" they are. So they at least make it clear that there is some network of time keeping across federation space to keep tract of events, with every starship, starbase, colony, and main planet linked up information wise to keep things cohesive.
The interpretation of StarDate Units [SDUs] that I prefer makes sense of most of the data given in the TOS-thru-TNG/DS9/VOY eras. Bluntly, 1,000 SDUs = 1 tropical year = 365.2422 days (rounded to the 4th decimal point).
When put into SD order, TOS has its earliest SD as "1277.1" -- the SD depicting the 1st 'date' on Kirk's tombstone, conjured up by Gary Mitchell, with SD 1313.7 representing Kirk's 'death'. This would appear to suggest that Kirk was born 36.6 SDU before his upcoming death-date, if we were to interpret 1 SDU as a single year . . . but that doesn't make sense, as the entire run of TOS goes from SD 1312.4 ["Where No Man..."] to SD 5943.7 ["All Our Yesterdays"], a total of 5943.7 - 1312.4 = 4,631.3 SDUs. They were on a "five year mission" and if Kirk were 36.6 years old during that scene with Mitchell, then he had to have been 4,666.6 years old by the time "All Our Yesterdays" happened!
But if 1,000 SDUs = 365.2422 days = 1 year, then the 4,361.3 SDUs spanned by TOS represent 4.6313 years, which is about a third of a year shy of the 5 years their mission was to elapse. I like to interpret SD 1277.1 not as Kirk's birthday, but as the beginning of the Enterprise's 5-year mission under Kirk's command. Thus, 36.6 SDUs later corresponds to 0.0366 years into the Mission: multiply 0.366 by 365.2422 to get 13.6786452 days = 13 days 8 hours 49 minutes43.5 seconds since the Launch of the Enterprise from whatever Spacedock facility it had been berthed.
If they left on SD 1277.1 and returned exactly 5 years later, their Return would have been on SD 6277.1, which is 333.4 SDUs after "All Our Yesterdays" -- i.e. 0.3334 years = 121 days 18 hours 31 minutes 19 seconds.
There are 6 TOS episodes for which I haven't been able to find a star-date: "A Piece Of The Action"; "Assignment Earth"; "Day Of The Dove"; "Patterns Of Force"; "That Which Survives"; and "The Omega Glory." In theory, one could put all the episodes into SD order and find certain stretches of dates that seem to be rather too long, and then insert episodes with unknown star-dates into those 'empty' patches of the SD timeline, with (perhaps) one or two of them occurring after "All Our Yesterdays" just to fill in some of that 121-day stretch of time before the end of the 5-year Mission. However, there's a part of me that prefers to imagine Spock -- following the events of "All Our Yesterdays" -- making the decision to eliminate the human emotional parts of his katra with the Kholinahr ritual, thus making his last 121 days until the end of that Mission rather unsettling for his friends and crewmates.
The major advantages to this 1,000 SDUs = 365.2422 days interpretation concern Chekov, Khan, and the duration between "Space Seed" [SD 3141.9] and "The Wrath Of Khan" [SD 8130.3]. Chekov first appeared in "Catspaw" (in TOS 2nd Season), which aired after "Space Seed" . . . but "Catspaw" had a SD of 3018.1 and that is 123.8 SDUs before the Khan episode = 0.1238 years = 45 days 5 hours 12 minutes 27.45 seconds. Chekov WAS on the Enterprise when Khan was there, though he may not have been assigned to the Bridge during that episode.
Also, we have to figure that if 1,000 SDUs equals 1 year, then the run of 10,000 SDUs -- from 0000.0 to 9999.9 -- represents 1 decade of time . . . following which the clock zeroes out again [SD 0000.0] to begin another decade's worth of star-date time reckoning . . . at least until the year 2323, when they added another digit, so that the 5+1 format [00000.0 to 99999.9] would cover a century (the system used in the TNG series, etc.).
Thus, after "Space Seed" [SD 3141.9] there were 6,858.1 SDUs to go until SD 9999.9 clicked over to the next decade, SD 0000.0, or 6.8581 years. Then, if we count UP from SD 0000.0 until "The Wrath Of Khan" [SD 8130.3] -- i.e. 8.1303 more years -- we have a total of 6.8581 + 8.1303 = 14.9884 years between the time when Kirk first met Khan and when he encountered him next . . . just as Kirk tells Carol Marcus, that he hasn't seen Khan in "fifteen years" and I'd say that 14.9884 years is so damn close to 15 as to be essentially on-the-nose.
Another thing: if we consider 1,000 SDUs to equal 1 year, then the digit in the "tenths" place, just to the right of the decimal point, would represent one ten-thousandth of a year. If 1 year = 365.2422 days, then that also equals 31,556,926 seconds, and 1/10,000 of that is 3,155.6926 seconds = 52 minutes 35.6926 seconds. Captain Decker, in "STAR TREK: The Motion Picture," refers to a unit of Time called a "star-hour" . . . and since this 10ths place digit would equal almost exactly the running time (without commercials) of an 'hour'-long show like a TOS episode, then it makes sense to call that 52.59487667 minute period of time a 'star-hour', there being 10 every star-date unit and 10,000 every year.
Imagine, just for fun, that the average shift on a starship was 10 star-hours. If so, then a shift that begins at SD 2485.3 would end at 2486.3. Maybe the shift-turnover time is always when it's SD XXXX.0 with each shift being 8.7658128 hours long = 8 hours 45 minutes 57 seconds = 1/0.3652422 Earth-days long. If there are 10,000 star-hours in one Earth-year, then there would be 1,000 duty-shifts aboard a starship every Earth-year. There would, of course, be synchronized clocks depicting Earth-Time as a Gregorian Calendar date plus a 'Universal Time' or 'Greenwich Mean Time' string, such as 2263-01-01 00:00:01 representing the first second after Midnight on January 1st 2263 CE, perhaps corresponding to the SD 0000.0 date which began the decade of SDUs used in TOS, as the TNG dates zeroed out c. 2323 CE (according to one source I've read).
The first use of a 10,000-SDU decade system would had to have begun in a year 2??3 CE -- perhaps retro-calculated to the year 2063 CE, when Earth became "warp capable" [see pg. 32 of STAR TREK STAR CHARTS], or perhaps in 2113 CE when Earth became "United Earth" [pg. 32 ibid]. There were 50 years = 5 decades worth of time between these two events, and it would make a "star-fleet" originating with United Earth perhaps feel the need to develop the SD system. Unless it didn't get set up until the Xindi attack on Earth c. 2153 CE, 90 years after Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight. On the other hand, they never used star-dates on-screen in the prequel series ENTERPRISE, so perhaps the instituting of the StarDate system was after the year 2161, when the NX-01 was retired, so perhaps in 2163 CE. That would make a full century between the beginnings of the SDU system and the decade when Kirk commanded the 5-year Mission, assuming that decade began at the start of 2263 CE.
Since it's Kirk's birthday on SD 8130.3, that means that IF each 1,000 SDU year's worth begins at Midnight on January 1st, then 0.1303 x 365.2422 = 47 days 14 hours 11 minutes 7.468224 seconds into the year, or you could say 8.1303 years after the start of the year 2273 CE. Keeping in mind that there were Leap Days in the years 2276 and 2280 CE, then SD 8130.3 would be 8.1303 years = 2,969.528659 days after CE 2273 January 1 (00:00:01) = 47.52865866 days into the year 2281 CE = February 17th at (12:41:16 UT).
Thus, according to this calculation, Kirk's birthday is on the 17th of February in the Gregorian Calendar system. Since it was established that Kirk was 34 years old in "The Deadly Years" [SD 3478.2], then he must have TURNED 34 (i.e. ended his 34th year and then begun his 35th year) on SD 3130.3 in the cycle that began at Midnight 1 January 2263 CE; thus, he turned 34 some 47.31765866 days into the year 2266 CE. That's 3.1303 x 365.2422 = 1,143.317659 days, then subtracting 365 [2263 CE] and 366 [2264 CE, a Leap Year] and 365 [2265 CE] leaves 47.31765866 days = 17 February 2266 CE (07:37:26 UT).
If Kirk turned 34 (i.e. began his 35th year) on 17 February 2266 CE, then he had to have been born on 17 February 2232 CE. "Space Seed" [SD 3141.9] takes place just 11.6 SDUs after his 34th birthday = 4 days 5 hours 41 minutes later. "The Wrath of Khan" -- which is 15 years after the events of "Space Seed" -- has to have begun, then, on Kirk's birthday in the year 2266 + 15 = 2281, making it Kirk's 49th birthday, the start of his last year before he turns 50 years old.
I realize that these dates don't match the 'official' dates that TREK publications (and websites like Memory Alpha) put forth, but I think they make better sense of the Star-Date information, which tends to get short-shrift in 'official' TREK circles.
You were a lot more thorough in your calculations than mine in my comment on the community tab post for this video, although we agree :) I hadn’t considered star-hour to be the decimal digit, I figured it was like flight hours, or like Geordi mentioning warp hours one time, but I like your idea. My “calculation” was 1 unit ≈ 8 hours and thus 0.1 ≈ 0.8 hours, but of course you have a lot more precision in there!
A little aspect I don’t see in your comment though is people could fairly easily tell morning, afternoon and evening solely from the units digit in the stardate, and having extra decimal places beyond just one takes you into minutes, seconds, or milliseconds territory.
I too imagine ships computers showing the local calendar and clock as well as the stardate, since so many planets have differing day and year lengths anyway. Though when Odo looks at Ibudan’s schedule, one unit is one day, and we can see all from early morning to late at night in his diary. But if it’s exactly one 26-hour Bajoran day, how could it also be one 24-hour Earth day? For that reason I prefer to think the people of each planet just kind of picks up how many units are in their own day, assisted by the local time being there at all hours, but strictly speaking the on-screen evidence does seem to contradict :(
@@kaitlyn__L I would guess that there would be 3 'shifts' per day -- i.e. per Earth-day of ~ 8 hours -- or, if the "tenths" digit (a "star-hour") = one 10,000th of a tropical year, then ten of those, one SDU [Star-Date Unit] would be 8.7658128 hours long, or a little over 1/3rd of an Earth day = 8 hours 45 minutes 57 seconds [56.92608 to be as precise as Spock would say].
I like the idea of a 'shift' being 1 SDU long in ordinary circumstances. It makes sense. There is no "morning" or "night-time" on a spaceship, since the main stations need to be manned at all times of the 'day' and 'night'. I could see the officers working 1 SDU then having the next SDU off, working every other one; they would perhaps have one meal-break during their shift, having another major meal during their off-time, and getting in a good 7 hours of sleep.
The point is, when Kirk's not on the Bridge, some other qualified officer is there manning the Conn. Maybe Kirk works 2 SDUs in a row, just a bit more than 17 and a half hours, then has 1 SDU off, feeling the need to be on the Bridge more often than other personnel man their stations. 4 SDUs roughly equals 35 hours [35h 3m 48s], and 8 SDU = ~ 70 hours = 2 days 22 hours 07 minutes 35.4 seconds, less than 2 hours shy of 3 days. Maybe an average officer works 5 out of every 8 SDUs in a near-3-day cycle: 2 on, 1 off, 1 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off . . . something like that, nice Fibonacci numbers, 3, 5, and 8.
I just checked the original ENTERPRISE blueprints, and the cutaway view includes info that the ship's crew is divided into 3 'watches', with personnel working 8 hours and being off for 16 hours; during a Yellow Alert the 2nd watch is activated, and during a Red Alert all 3 watches are on duty. This, of course, implies a 24-hour Earth-day. As the vast majority of personnel are from Earth, this does make sense, though one must also assume that Humanity has set up colonies on worlds that don't have a 24-hour rotational period.
Hmm . . . how about each shift is 8 hours, but it's a custom for there to be a little bit of crossover, so that crewmembers show up about 23 minutes before their shift officially begins, and stays on almost 23 minutes after their shift ends, during which time they've coordinated with their relief. Either that, or the crew is allotted 46 minutes to prepare for their shift -- you know: shit, shave, & shower, then 'breakfast' (for them on whichever of 3 Watches they're assigned) -- followed by 8 hours on-duty. That's 8 x 60 = 480 minutes on-duty, plus the nearly 46 minutes to prep, for a total of 526 minutes = 8.7666... hours, less 3 seconds (i.e. 8.7658128 hours, to be precise, or 1 SDU).
Yeah, that makes sense. Each crewmember allocated to themselves 1 SDU for their daily work shift -- which includes waking up, using the 'head', showering up, etc. It's not as if they need to commute to work -- they just take a turbolift to wherever their Duty Station might be, and 46 minutes should be enough time to get ready for work, right? Then 8 hours on-duty unless there's an emergency.
The only thing to 'worry' about is that each ship-day lasts, on average, 2.737909256 SDU. So, if you have a shift that starts at, say, SD 4287.6 on one day, it must be over after the passage of 0.912636418 SDU, at SD 4288.512636 (i.e. just past SD 4288.5), and the next work shift would be at SD 4290.337909. Presumably, the ship's computer would keep track of each crewmember's schedule, alerting them politely when they need to start their 46-minute prep for their 8-hour shift.
It sure would help them, though, if they had dual chronometers posted everywhere, giving both the STARDATE and the GREGORIAN CALENDAR DATE-and-TIME. In the 3rd film (at the 28-minute mark), when Kirk reviews the flight data record of Spock's looming death, the STARDATE is given as 8128.76.00 and that 4+2+2 display's last pair of digits cycles back from 99 down to 00. I'd say that the '8128' represents the Stardate, i.e. 8.128 years into a 10-year cycle, with the next 2 digits representing 00-through-99 or 100ths of a SDU, and since 1 day = 2.737909256 SDUs = the 2-digit number to the immediate right of the SD (and the decimal "point") would be one hundredth of that 2.737909256 figure = 0.027379092 SDUs = 315.5692608 seconds. The right-most set of 2-digits, which also cycles up from 00-to-99, would seemingly represent 100 units each being 3.155692608 seconds long.
Watching that scene, though, it sure seems like that last digital counter goes by slightly faster than 1 second per unit. In "The Naked Time" -- when they're going backwards through Time -- we see a set of dual clocks: a STARDATE clock reading 1705.0 and a SHIPBOARD clock reading 00:14:19 ... 18 ... 17 ... etc. It clicks backwards to 1704.8 and 22:35:57 and beyond. The displays read SD 1702.0 and 01:08:00 after their timewarp reverses and resumes forwards flow. It's apparent that the SHIPBOARD clock is a standard 24-hour one, with 60 minutes per hour and 60 seconds per minute. We also seem to see 3 SDUs clicking backwards -- from 1705.0 to 1702.0 -- during the time it takes for the SHIPBOARD clock to click backwards from 00:14:19 to 01:08:00. Forwards, from 01:08:00 to 00:00:00 would be 22 hours 52 minutes, and from 00:00:00 to 00:14:19 would be 14 minutes 19 seconds, of course, for a total SHIPBOARD time of 23 hours 06 minutes 19 seconds = 83,179 seconds. That equals (roughly) the 3 SDUs from 1702.0 to 1705.0, meaning that 1 SDU would seem to equal approximately 27,726.333... seconds = 462.10555... minutes = 7.701759259 hours.
In my 1,000 SDUs = 365.2422 days scheme -- adapted from what they eventually made 'canon' in TNG -- those 3 SDUs would be equivalent to 1.0957266 days = 26:17:51 [h:m:s]. That is, a little more than 1 day, rather than the little LESS than 1 day = 94,670.77824 seconds rather than 83,179 seconds. It would be easier if the SD displayed more than just the single digit to the right of the decimal point. My system has that "star-hour" digit remain in place over the course of 3,155.692608 seconds, so perhaps it's possible to synch up the 2 clocks so that they match up better, though that 83,179-second SHIPBOARD elapsed time should only come to 2.635839745 SDU, and not the 3 SDUs that appear on-screen. Still, it's close . . .
Man, my brain is starting to hurt! Time to call it quits for now. LLAP
@@patricktilton5377 haha thanks! And yeah I’ve always thought the clocks being everywhere in The Undiscovered Country was good.
Also I note that they regularly talk about time codes of a video or recorded message, not just in TSFS but also in some TNG-era episodes, which seem to correspond with the final few decimal place digits of the displayed stardate too :)
I don’t have the energy to respond to each of your points here but I’ve thought about them in very close ways a number of times!
I reckon their shifts are exactly one SDU long and just don’t start at the exact same time every day on a 24 hour clock. (Though how that works out when Jellico institutes a four-shift rotation is a mystery… as is when Sisko moves DS9 to a four shift as well! Perhaps as you say they just let the computer handle their scheduling and don’t bother remembering what time they’re meant to get up at…)
My more recent speculations on STARDATE time would have it synch up with the Gregorian Calendar's average year-length of 365.2425 days, rather than the Tropical Year of 365.24219878 days [i.e. 365.2422 rounded to the 4th digit to the right of the decimal point].
Also, because it can be calculated that the events of "The Cage" happened in December of 2252, I propose that Starfleet began the STARDATE time-keeping system at the stroke of Midnight, when the year 2253 began at 00:00:00. This began the first decade's worth of stardates [from 0000.00.00.00 to 9999.99.99.99 -- the 'full' version -- i.e. 0000.0 to 9999.9, the 'standard' Captain's Log version]. The 4 digits represent the STARDATE, the next three pairs of digits to the right of the stardate represent the STAR-HOUR, the STAR-MINUTE, and the STAR-SECOND. Note the difference, though, between the 'full' and the 'standard' durations. If 10,000 SDU equals 3652.425 Earth days = 315,569,520 seconds, then 1 SDU = 31556.952 seconds = 525.9492 minutes = 8.76582 hours = 8h 45m 56.952s. The single digit in the 'standard' format would be one-tenth of that = 52m 35.6952s, but the 2-digit 'star-hour' in the 'full' version would run from 00 to 99, representing a total of 100 one-hundredths of a stardate = a total of 315.56952 seconds' worth of time: from 00 to 10 would be 3,155.6952 seconds = the 'star-hour' of 52m 35.6952s noted above [the 'standard' format], with each single digit being 315.56952 seconds long = 5.259492 minutes = 5m 15.56952s.
The 'star-minute' -- again, a 2-digit number from 00 to 99 -- would be 1/100th of a star-hour, i.e. 3.1556952 seconds' worth of time, and a 'star-second' would be 1/100th of a star-minute, i.e. 0.031556952 seconds, 100 of them making a star-minute's worth [3.1556952 seconds] of time, or one-billionth of a Gregorian Calendar's average year of 365.2425 days.
The 1st decade's worth of STARDATE time, from 0000.00.00.00 to 9999.99.99.99 would run from 2253 January 1 (00:00:00) through exactly 3,652.425 days, with the next decade's worth [i.e. SD 0000.00.00.00] beginning 36,720 seconds into the year 2263, i.e. on 2263 January 1 (10:12:00), due to the fact that there were 2 leap days in the decade from 2253-to-2262 (the years 2256 and 2260), and the Gregorian Calendar's rules stretch over the course of a 400-year cycle of 146,097 days. No calendar year is ever 365.2425 days long -- it's either 365 or 366 days, depending on if it's a leap year. So, it's only after 400 years of calendar time that the STARDATE clock will begin with the Gregorian Date-and-Time having 00:00:00 for the HH:MM:SS, with the year 2653 beginning just like the year 2253 began, after 40 decades of STARDATE time have elapsed.
The TNG system, though, ADDED a digit to the STARDATE number, for a century's worth of stardate time, rather than a mere decade's worth, and this system has its epoch in the year 2323 -- i.e. after 7 decades' worth of stardate time. By my calculations, the 7 decades would be 70,000 SDU = 25,566.975 days = 2,208,986,640 seconds. But the total amount of time from 2253 through 2322 actually amounts to (70 x 365) + 16 leap days [in the years 2256, 2260, 2264, 2268, 2272, 2276, 2280, 2284, 2288, 2292, 2296, 2304, 2308, 2312, 2316, and 2320] = 25,566 days. This means that the TNG 5-digit system of STARDATE time began 0.975 days [i.e. 23 hours 24 minutes] into the year 2323, i.e. at 11:24 p.m. on 1 January 2323. That would be when the stardate 00000.00.00.00 began -- or, SD 00000.0 going by the 'standard' version, rather than the 'full' format.
This all assumes that the goal of the STARDATE system was meant to be correlated with the most commonly-used calendar on Earth, the Gregorian Calendar. If, however, the Vulcans, for scientific purposes, were to have established an Earth-based chronometric format where they made 1 Tropical Year of 365.24219878 days into 1,000 units, and if Starfleet were to adopt THAT system -- assuming that Vulcans had been using it in their own records-keeping -- then perhaps the Vulcans began this dating system back when First Contact was made on April 5, 2063.
So . . . what if the Vulcans began a 1,000-unit stardate system equaling 365.24219878 Earth days (one Tropical Year), dating from the exact moment when they detected the warp-signature of the Phoenix, Zefram Cochrane's maiden flight? Do we know the EXACT moment when that event occurred? The VOY episode "Homestead had the 315th commemoration of First Contact day [FCD], but it was when the stardate was 54868.6, which would be 54.8686 years after the beginning of the TNG system with its epoch in 2323. This would indicate a date 260.1314 Earth years after First Contact for the start of the TNG century's worth of stardate time. Could this mean that FCD happened roughly 0.1314 years before 2323 began? If so, then that would be c. 48 days before 2322 ended, when November 13th ended and the 14th began, right around Midnight.
If, then FCD was on either 11-13-2322 or 11-14-2322 -- i.e. when the 100-year TNG system of stardates begins, then assuming one of these dates commemorates the actual day of First Contact in 2063, we're talking either 11-13-2063 or 11-14-2063 . . . which doesn't make any sense if it is later commemorated on April 5th. The date 4-05-2063 (a Thursday) will be the 753,227th day, counting Saturday 1-01-0001 as 'Day 1'. Having SD 54868.6 [VOY "Homestead"] be FCD doesn't synch up with this at all, not unless SD XX868.6 falls on April 5th in the year 2377 or 2378. In a 365-day year, Noon of 5 April would be 94.5 days into the year = 0.258904109 x 365 = roughly 256.9 SDU after the beginning of a stardate year [X0000.0].
Noon of 4-05-2063 would be 753,226.5 days into the Julian-Gregorian Calendar system (i.e. the Common Era, CE), and exactly 315 tropical years later would be Day 868,277.7926 of the Common Era = 4-08-2378 (02:04:17), but as they would be using the Gregorian date of 4-05-2378 to coincide with SD 54868.6, then we could suppose that 4-05-2378 [FCD] being the 868,281st day of the CE, with Noon of that day being Day 868,280.5 (reckoning Midnight-to-Midnight UT). Subtracting 54.8686 tropical years (of 365.24219878 days) from this gets us to 20,040.32811 days earlier = CE day 848,240.1719 = 5-24-2323 (04:07:32) . . . which also doesn't work.
There's no getting around it. FC on 4-05-2063 doesn't synch with the TNG/VOY stardate 54868.6. Alas! If the stardate system were to be timed to coincide with the beginning of a stardate year -- i.e. SD X000.0 or X0000.0 -- then "Homestead" ought to have had a stardate of 55000.0 rather than 54868.6, rounding up to the next 1,000. If SD 55000.0 is on-or-near the beginning of a Gregorian Calendar year, then SD 54868.6 would represent a date around November 13-to-14 in 2378. This wouldn't make sense of the April 5th date, though.
This is all very aggravating, as they established the 1,000 SDU = 1 Earth year system beyond any doubt when they made "The Wrath of Khan" in which Carol Marcus made her PROJECT: GENESIS proposal on SD 7130.4 . . . exactly 1,000 SDU before Chekov's log entry on SD 8130.4 on approach to Ceti Alpha V, with Kirk's mention soon after of her proposal being recorded "a year ago." Ever since then, they should've been fully aware of this system, and been careful when establishing Gregorian dates to stardates. The makers of that VOY episode "Homestead" are implying that April 5, 2378 = SD 54868.6, and that epoch of the SD century used by TNG, VOY, and DS9 was roughly 5-24-2323 (at 4:07:32 GMT/UT).
In the TNG episode "Data's Day" they have the Hindu holiday Diwali being celebrated on SD 44390.1. Diwali will be on 24 October 2367 -- i.e. Day 864,465 CE. Going by 1,000 SDU = 365.2425 Gregorian days, then subtracting (44.3901 x 365.2425 =) 16,213.1511 days from 864,464.5 (i.e. Noon of 10-24-2367) gives us Day 848,251.3489 CE for the epoch of the TNG century = 6-04-2323 (08:22:25).
In other words, the stardates for the episodes "Homestead" [VOY] and "Data's Day" [TNG] don't agree with each other regarding exactly when the stardate century began, the former being May 24, 2323 and the latter being June 4, 2323, a discrepancy of 11 days. It's too bad that they were seemingly showing pinpoint accuracy, yet were actually being careless and sloppy, YEARS after "The Wrath of Khan" had established the 1,000 SDU = 1 Earth year rule.
The only thing I really knew about stardates was so they didn't have to specify a specify year on the show and I was never able to really follow them that well. Considering it tends to be Captains log or first officer etc then I would think it would make most sense for it to be a measurement of time since the ship launched, but I also agree that at this point they no longer really serve a purpose now that years have been established.
It occurred to me: if a date were to have a meaningful definition to the larger intragalactic FTL community, the date must not be exclusive to a single planet.
I figure, take the common units and sub-units of time expressed on Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, etc and take median values, attenuated by chrono-dilation caused by relativistic and supraluminal velocities, astrological and physical constants, and you have...something?
One thing I like in the TNG era is how people kept track of both stardates and Gregorian calendar dates and days of the week. I think thats just another great vision of the future where humans are able to keep track of all sorts of time movements and measurements, even if they are using the computer to do so in some cases.
I also think stardates are fair for the UFP and starfleets anti colonization mission. I thought stardates were more separate from time movement on earth, but even though they are, having a nonoffensive and bare measure of time that isnt based on the planet that just so happened to found the federation, is great, and adds to what starfleet is trying to accomplish.
I think if we want a great new and accurate stardate system in a proper TNG and TOS follow up show, we would want it to be reset perhaps, and actually following a measure of time like movement of an isotope. I think that is very possible to measure today than it was back in the 90s, so it doesn't have to be all fictional. Though I do like his a stardate digit is a production season, thats really fun.
Stardates may have served the purpose of keeping audiences in the dark as to the exact century Star Trek shows took place in for a while but ultimately it became known that TOS took place in the 23rd century and TNG took place in the 24th century. So, they could have just used the Kelvin timeline formula to begin with.
Before i start watching: i would love a date, let alone a stardate!
I jsut think that this is one of the items that looked futuristic in the 60s and then they decided to keep it AND give to it a meaning, even if it hasn't any.
Like explaining the difference betweek TOS klingons and TNG klingons, which purely made of applied makeup :-)
I’d hoped you’d uncovered a more definitive and comprehensive metric for conversion of calendar dates, but I guess it truly falls into the realm of technobabble; I’d picked up on the yearly progression through the TNG-VOY era, but had no idea how the TOS/TOSmovie era dates correlated, or even if a rhyme or reason actually existed. I hadn’t even noticed the fact that Picard had dropped them altogether, but I guess that’s a good thing, since the time element is more reflective than moment-to-moment. And the “demilitarized” nature of the main cast doesn’t necessitate it. And I’d wager that someone like Picard would cease using the convention of he’d quit himself of Starfleet. Though I do have to wonder what other species’/worlds’ conventions would be like.
My best estimate, @John Elliott , is that the system from Wrath of Khan to Undiscovered Country spans 178 or so stardates per year: assuming Wrath of Khan begins March 22nd, 2285 - Kirk's birthday - and Undiscovered Country begins circa January 2293 (six months pre Kirk's encounter with the Nexus)
In the Motion Picture it seems a much smaller figure, though. Whilst the average in TOS is 1000 a year, seemingly.
In TNG, it's 1000 units a year, on average, and 83 a month, and so on. And 2.738-ish a day.
That's the best I've got, anyway.
I figured that stardates included spacial as-well as temporal information. Integalactic versions of real world time zones and the international date line.
The TNG Stardate calendar is in fact a Metric calendar, breaking down time into multiples of ten, the same way the Metric system of measurements break down linear measures, weights, volumes, and temperatures as such. Very convenient to work with mathematically. We are told that one Terran year is equal to 1000 stardates, but the Trek writers don’t really delve into the implications of that. Characters in-universe refer to hours, minutes, and seconds, but I don’t think those are the units they would actually use in-universe. I regard that as the show’s writers translating time into terms we (the audience) use, so that we understand. Universal Translator at work. But if you do the math and drill down, things work out a little differently. *Dividing by ten, 100 SD, we get a block of time ~36½ Terran days long.* Let’s call that a “star-month” or “ship-month”. One of the things we seem to lose by dividing by 10 instead of by 12 is the ability to easily match up the four planetary seasonal mileposts (solstices and equinoxes). But actually, it IS easy. *As long as New Years Day (starting SD xx000.0) is pegged to a physically observable astrological event* (for example, Winter Solstice, December 21st or 22nd depending on year), the opposite event (Summer Solstice, June 20th or 21st) will ALWAYS line up on SD xx500, which sets Terran equinoxes at xx250 and xx750. So, we have the four quarters/seasons defined. *Dividing by ten again, 10 SD, we get an oddball duration,* a little over three and one-half Terran days. Not usable in and of itself but TWO of them come damn close to a seven day Terran week, four of these (40SD) roughly equal a fortnight, and eight (80SD) approximate a Terran month. I call this unit a “rotation”, because it is a likely point where personnel will be rotated to a different duty schedule, if a change occurs. For scheduling purposes, humans are granted a “day off” every 20th stardate, basically their work shift is replaced by a recreational and/or religious “sabbath”. Nonhumans can either follow the human custom (maybe on the rotations opposite the ones taken by humans) or arrange with their command according to their needs/preferences. If exactitude is required, 19.3846 SD equals 7 T-Days. *Divide by ten again, and we are at the unit level, the Stardate itself.* And lo and behold, it it NOT a full day, as many have supposed, but a smidge over eight and three-quarter hours. That is, however, to my mind, a solid work shift. The Federation is supposed to be almost a utopia, dare I say, a Socialist ideal? By which I mean real Socialists, not fascists, authoritarians, racists, nor nationalists who masquerade as Socialists, nor the imaginary Socialists used as an epithet by ignorant, fearful, fools. *“Equal parts of work, sleep, and time for yourself”* is what that ideal states, 1/3 of the 24-hour Terran day each. So, a Starfleet service member works for 8.77 Terran hours, sleeps (and/or takes care of personal hygeine) for the next 8.77 Terran hours, and has 8.77 Terran hours for themselves (give or take alerts). This means that three (3) Stardates equals one 26-hour “work day”. Multiplying back up means there are 333 and 1/3 work days in a Star-year. Call the extra shift a holiday. This extra shift is actually where the extra hours that would otherwise eventually have to be accounted as a Leap Day end up. It would take some adjusting to get used to, but I think humans would not only be productive, but flourish under this scheme. One 24H T-day = 2.7692 SD
We are told Picard’s tenure on the Enterprise-D begins in SD 41000, which is given as 2364CE. All we have to do is count back 41 years from 2364. This would be a convenient point to say, “that’s when Stardates switched over from four-digit format to five digit”, but I have a better idea. Read on. Others tackling the stardate issue have scrabbled around, trying to find canonical significance in 2323CE, without success. WHAT IF I TOLD YOU… there is no significance? WHAT IF 2323CE was simply the year that the five-digit counter naturally rolled over from 99999 back to 00000? And that there was a sixth digit [“1”] that “should” be present in TNG Stardates that is simply trimmed or ignored as a matter of convenience? Everyone knows what century they’re in, after all! Prior to 2323CE, the sixth significant digit of a Stardate, being a zero, would conventionally have been ignored anyway, if considered at all. But the digit is there, reserved for future use, to avoid Y2K-like problems!
“But TOS stardates only have four digits!” I hear you say. Four digits that WE SAW THEM USE. Saying the fifth digit was likewise “there, but conventionally ignored” harms nothing, and just might help us. We all know what decade we’re in, right? The record-keeping shift to include the TOS-era “ignored” fifth digit could occur at any point after 2282CE. In fact, 2283CE rolling over from SD [x]9999 to SD [x+1]0000 makes that a natural point for this notational change to occur! Failing that, the following decade rollovers at 2293CE, 2303CE, or 2313CE could also serve to spur this shift.
Heh, this is very similar to a comment I’d left on the community post announcing this video, right down to the metric time connection. Though I’d suggested getting used to what for us would be half weeks, versus clustering them in twos, but your idea works well too. Interesting that it’s a 26-hour day like they have on Bajor.