Cecil claims in this article that
“During the original series star dates
ranged from 1312.4 to 5943.7–a span of
4,600 days, or about twelve and a half
years. We know from the opening voiceover
that the Enterprise was on a five-year
mission.”
That was true in the beginning, since the show was planned for 5 years. But later, when the show became a success, that plan changed and so did the voiceover (the starship Enterprise is on an “ongoing” or “continuous” mission - can’t remember exactly).
So, “This means either that (1) Kirk and friends were running up some serious overtime, (2) there’s more to star dates than meets the eye, or (3) nobody in the show gave the matter a moment’s thought.”,
option (1) is most accurate actually.
Especially since the Earth was late in joining the Federation!
I personally would assume a stardate “unit” would be the length of a Vulcan day, which is approximately 25.3 hours. Weren’t the Vulcans the founders of the United Federation of Planets?
“Ongoing” is from ST:TNG, just like the change from “man” to “one” (which, like so many other “translations” from English into Femspeak, actually changed the meaning to something stupid and false; but I digress).
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Arnold, IIRC the UFOP was co-founded by Earth and Vulcan. The seat of government is Earth. That would likely be the driver for the 24 hr day on starships. Besides, humans seem to make up a large percentage of Star Fleet crews.
My understanding was that the “Stardate” was based (but not exactly) on the Julian date often used by astronomers. For more information look at
“http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/mjd.html”.
Star Trek (the original show from the 60’s) was full of inconsistencies. Why are phasers beams of light, but ship phasers originally were flashing explosions (the same special effect later used for ‘photon torpedos’)? How come all graphic representations of space are two-dimensional, including the so-called ‘neutral zone’, and why is it that sometimes the ‘neutral zone’ exists between the Federation and the Klingons, and yet Klingons obviously show up in Federation space regularly? Why is it that at some times, the ship can be made to travel as high as warp 12, when other times the ship almost tears apart at warp 9? And what the hell do those numbers mean, anyway?
The answer to all these questions is simple: the producers of the original show weren’t that interested in consistency. Get over it.
For anyone who wants to delve deeper into such silliness, I recommend reading The Nitpicker’s Guide to Star Trek, a book chock full of inconsistencies and mistakes from the original series.
I must inform you that you are mostly wrong
in accordance to stardates…
the truth of the fact is, 1000.0 stardate is 1 year.
I forget the actual year but according to Star Trek, the stardete “was” started around the year 2320.
If you divide that out, 1 stardate ends up being 8 hours 45 minutes and 36 seconds
(they used 365 days in a year as opposed to 365.24)
Like you said, the original Star Trek was totally screwed up stardate wise and they finally got their act together in ST:TNG
More info: Warp 10 is impossible because according to the exponential nature of it’s speed, Warp 10 is infinity. Warp one = speed of light.
ALSO… that ship date thing is totally wrong as well. When the Enterprise goes into Warp, a “warp field” is produced around the ship, warping the space around it
(stretch space behind, compress space in front…) but protecting inside the field from the effects of relativity.
Otherwise, according to Einstein, time would stop (for those on board) if they ever got to the speed of light.
[think of it as being in a pool, at the end, and instead of swimming, you fill in half of the pool with concrete blocks, (not the half you are in) then get a construction crew to rebuild a new half a pool on the other side… that’s all you do, YOU never moved, however the spaces between you and other objects changed.]
An interesting fact… Did you know that there is actually a group of people who do scientific research for TNG, DSN, and voyager who are paid to make sure the ideas presented can be theoretically proved. (Stuff like transporters and stuff can be proven… thoretically)
I am the most brilliant person in the world, well, maybe
While I’ve heard that said as the explanation, that does nothing to explain the several instances in the original series where the Enterprise is hurled at Warp 12 or Warp 13. How do they go faster than infinity? And wouldn’t infinity be instantaneous arrival whereever they want?
Um, not quite. Yes, ST does hire people to provide technical content, and the technical researchers do try to find real science theories and such, but it is a stretch to say it all can be “theoretically proven”. Given that what passes for scientific “theories” used includes the multiple universe conjecture of cosmology, tachyons, “metaphasic shielding”, etc, that are purely in the realm of philosophy, without any way to validate the models, they hardly count as proven.
Another example: the “Heisenberg compensators” on the transporters. I don’t think anyone even has a clue what that could be, nor any theoretical models for it, it’s just a catchy phrase needed to explain away a fairly commonly known aspect of quantum physics (there’s something commonly known about quantum physics?) - the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. So yes, they are playing with real physics when they bring up Heisenberg and uncertainty and the need to compensate for it when trying to track down the minutest details about a person in order to disassemble and reassemble elsewhere, but no they are not playing with real physics by saying anything about that device, or that such a device might even be possible.
In short, they make it all up. It is, after all, science fiction.
Between the two series Warp speed naming was redefined. I can’t remember where my Tech manual is at the moment, so I can’t give actual numbers, but the above is correct - Warp Factors increase exponentially as of TNG. They had no real meaning in TOS - which, after all, didn’t give much thought to continuity.
I asked my friend Louis the Star Trek expert, and here’s what he told me.