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Opening Credits

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Bob Nebert

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Aug 13, 1985, 4:37:03 PM8/13/85
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Someone once posted a listing of ST episodes in the order of appearance
and in the beginning of each episode Kirk's voice-over says " star date xxx"

My question is has anybody checked it out to verify if the star dates
correspond with the order of the episodes release? In other words did they
forget about that aspect of contiguity.

Well your honor, this is the way it really was..........
Bob Nebert
sdcsvax!bmcg!bobn

Barry Margolin

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Aug 18, 1985, 4:06:00 AM8/18/85
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There is definitely no pattern to stardates between episodes (within
episodes they always increased, except when time travel was involved).
The "Star Trek Concordance" has a list of episodes ordered by stardate.
This was a common question asked of Roddenberry, and the answer he made
up even made it into "The Making of Star Trek" (I think). He explained
that stardates are a function of both time and position in the galaxy,
necessary because of the time-related effects of warp-speed travel.
Thus, stardates can decrease if you travel across the galaxy.

He admits that he had to make up this silly explanation because they
never bothered to check the continuity of stardates.
--
Barry Margolin
ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics
UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar

Rick Heli

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Aug 18, 1985, 11:46:31 PM8/18/85
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> Someone once posted a listing of ST episodes in the order of appearance
> and in the beginning of each episode Kirk's voice-over says " star date xxx"
>
> My question is has anybody checked it out to verify if the star dates
> correspond with the order of the episodes release? In other words did they
> forget about that aspect of contiguity.
>
I once read that the stardate was more than a chronological
measurement, but also took into account the ship's current galactic
location. But then, this had the sound of an after-the-fact
rationalization.
--
--rick heli
(... ucbvax!ucdavis!groucho!ccrrick)

Lord Kahless

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Aug 19, 1985, 12:23:02 AM8/19/85
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> Someone once posted a listing of ST episodes in the order of appearance
> and in the beginning of each episode Kirk's voice-over says " star date xxx"
> My question is has anybody checked it out to verify if the star dates
> correspond with the order of the episodes release? In other words did they
> forget about that aspect of contiguity.
> sdcsvax!bmcg!bobn

The series remembered, but N.B.C. didn't. The order is pretty
scrambled.

rc...@uiucuxc.uiuc.arpa

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Aug 21, 1985, 10:51:00 AM8/21/85
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No, the episodes were not released with continuing time order, but the general
stardate did increase as the show went on.


First Season:

The Man Trap
SD:1513.1

Charlie X
SD:1533.6

Where No Man Has Gone Before
SD:1312.4

The Naked Time
SD:1704.2

The Enemy Within
SD:1672.1

Mudd's Women
SD:1329.1

What Are Little Girls Are Made Of
SD:2712.4

Miri
SD:2713.5

Dagger of the Mind
SD:2715.1

The Corbomite Manuver
SD:1512.2

The Managerie (2 parts)
SD:3012.4

The Conscience of the King
SD:2817.6

Balance of Terror
SD:1709

Shore Leave
SD:3025.3

The Galileo Seven
SD:2821.5

The Squire of Gothos
SD:2124.5

Arena
SD:3045.6

Tomorrow is Yesterday
SD:3113.2

Court-Martial
SD:2947.3

The Return of the Archons
SD:3156.2

Space Seed
SD:3141.9

A Taste of Armageddon
SD:3192.1

This Side of Paradise
SD:3417.3

The Devil in the Dark
SD:3417.3

Errand of Mercy
SD:3198.4

The Alternative Factor
SD:3087.6

The City on the Edge of Forever
SD:3134.0

Operation--Annihilate!
SD:3287.2


Season 2:

Amok Time
SD:3372.7

Who Mourns for Adonais
SD:3468.1

The Changeling
SD:3451.9

Mirror, Mirror
SD:????.?

The Apple
SD:3715.0

The Doomsday Machine
SD:4202.9

Catspaw
SD:3018.2

I, Mudd
SD:4513.3

Metamorphosis
SD:3219.4

Journey to Babel
SD:3842.3

Friday's Child
SD:3497.2

The Deadly Years
SD:3478.2

Obsession
SD:3619.2

Wolf in the Fold
SD:3614.9

The Trouble With Tribbles
SD:4523.3

The Gamesters of Triskelion
SD:3211.7

A Piece of the Action
SD:4598.0

The Immunity Syndrome
SD:4307.1

A Private Little War
SD:4211.4

Return to Tomorrow
SD:4768.3

Patterns of Force
SD:2534.0

By Any Other Name
SD:4657.5

The Omega Glory
SD:????.?

The Ultimate Computer
SD:4729.4

Bread and Circuses
SD:4040.7

Assignment: Earth
SD:????.?


Third Season:

Spock's Brain
SD:5431.4

The Enterprise Incident
SD:5031.3

The Paradise Syndrome
SD:4842.6

And the Children Shall Lead
SD:5027.3

Is There in Truth No Beauty
SD:5630.7

Spectre of the Gun
SD:4385.3

Day of the Dove
SD:????.?

For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
SD:5476.3

The Tholian Web
SD:5693.4

Plato's Stepchildren
SD:5784.0

A Wink of an Eye
SD:5710.5

The Empath
SD:5121.0

Elaan of Troyius
SD:4372.5

Whom Gods Destroy
SD:5718.3

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
SD:5730.2

The Mark of Gideon
SD:5423.4

That Which Survives
SD:????.?

The Lights of Zetar
SD:5725.3

Requiem for Methuselah
SD:5843.7

The Way to Eden
SD:5832.3

The Cloud Miners
SD:5818.4

The Savage Curtain
SD:5906.4

All Our Yesterdays
SD:5943.7

Turnabout Intruder
SD:5928.5

Rob Cook

UUCP: {ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!rcook


'Life is just a cocktail party on the street'
-Mick Jagger-

Stanley Friesen

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Aug 21, 1985, 3:49:40 PM8/21/85
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In article <50...@mit-eddie.UUCP> bar...@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin) writes:
>
>He admits that he had to make up this silly explanation because they
>never bothered to check the continuity of stardates.

Well, actually it was the *network* that messed this up. The
studio actually got it right, at least as far as order was concerned.
But the network didn't *air* them in the order they were filmed.
Actually, ther *is* a continuity problem with stardates.
I sorted the first dozen or so episodes by stardate and discovered
that they didn't leave nearly enough time between episodes! In the
pilot(Where No Man Has Gone Before), a careful watching of the episode
will reveal that the number after the "point" in the stardate is
*hours*. This can be accomplished by comparing anounced ETA's with
recorded stardates. Using this interpretation there was on the average
only a day or so between each episode! Or at most about a week! I have
*never* heard of a Navy ship *that* busy, and with the enormous
distances involved it becomes even more ludicrous.
--

Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

{trwrb|allegra|cbosgd|hplabs|ihnp4|aero!uscvax!akgua}!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen
or {ttdica|quad1|bellcore|scgvaxd}!psivax!friesen

Kenneth W. Crist Jr.

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Aug 26, 1985, 7:44:40 PM8/26/85
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> This Side of Paradise
> SD:3417.3
>
> The Devil in the Dark
> SD:3417.3
>
> Rob Cook
>
These two episodes have the same stardate. Is this a typo or were
these the actual stardates? If they are right, this was some pretty rough
duty for the crew of the U.S.S. ENTERPRISE

Ken Crist
Computer Vision Lab
University of Maryland

Susan Brown

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Sep 3, 1985, 12:12:03 PM9/3/85
to
The Star Trek Writers' Guide, which was handed out to prospective
scriptwriters when the show was under production and is presumably
written by Roddenberry says, on page 25:
STARDATE
We invented "Stardate" to avoid continually mentioning Star Trek's
century (actually about two hundred years from now), and getting into
arguments about whether this or that would have developed by then. Pick
any combination of four numbers plus a percentage point, use it as your
story's stardate. For example, 1313.5 is twelve o'clock noon of one
day and 1314.5 would be noon the next day. Each percentage point is
roughly equivalent to one-tenth of a day. The progression of stardates
in your script should remain constant but don't worry about whether
or not there is a progression from other scripts. Stardates are a
mathematical formula which varies depending on location in the galaxy,
velocity of travel, and other factors, can vary widely from episode
to episode. [sic]


Now since they do tend to progress from the first program to the last,
as others have observed in recent net conversations, we could guess
that the script editors may have altered the actual numbers chosen
sometimes, while preserving the author's internal time scheme in the
stories. I have yet to read a good (i.e. both imaginative and
scientifically plausible) explanation of how this kind of stardate
would operate - what this time is *relative to* etc. - and how it would
relate to "ship time" (an artificial construct to keep beings on a
biological schedule), or "planetary standard time" upon arrival somewhere.
Comments?
sb

Tom Nadas

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Sep 4, 1985, 8:59:01 AM9/4/85
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In THE MAKING OF STAR TREK, Roddenberry notes that originally the Star
Dates were supposed to be sequential from first episode to last, but
it got screwed up very early on because the network chose to air
episodes in a different order than that in which they were filmed.
He came up with the double-talk answer in the STAR TREK WRITERS
GUIDE to explain this seeming inconsistency.
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