Nov 22 2012
Stardates
In our continuing series of Star Trek trivia, we ask:
Why are stardates so different from calendar dates?
A stardate is a timekeeping system which is used to provide a standard galactic temporal reference, compensating for relativistic time dilation, warp speed displacement, and other peculiarities of interstellar space travel. At least, that’s what it’s supposed to do.
In actuality, however, its use has been rather arbitrary among the various series. We usually hear a stardate mentioned at the beginning of a Star Trek episode, where the Captain is making an entry in the Captain’s Log describing the opening scenario. Over the years, writers and producers have selected numbers using different methods, where some methods are more arbitrary than others, and thus makes it impossible to convert all stardates into equivalent calendar dates. Stardates were originally intended to disguise the precise era of Star Trek, including the specific calendar date, although the era was clarified later on the show.
The Star Trek Guide
The following instructions to writers were transcribed from the series bible Star Trek Guide, third revision, dated April 17, 1967 (page 25). Their original date of composition and the author are unclear, but the sample stardates are consistent with the range from the second pilot.
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 of the next day. Each percentage point (sic) is roughly equivalent to one-tenth of one 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.
What is called a “percentage point” is actually the tenths digit. While this 24-hour increasing stardate with noon at .5 wasn’t always adhered to within episodes, the initial four digits weren’t selected quite as randomly as described here. An overall increase with time can be observed in the above table of stardates, from 1312.4 in the second pilot to 5928.5 in the final episode of the series.
For further information about stardates in the fictional Star Trek universe, see here.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Jun 8 2013
Face to Face
In our continuing series of Star Trek trivia, we ask:
Why do starships always (or most of the time) meet horizontally and face to face?
You must have noticed that all encounters of vessels in outer space in the Star Trek universe take place where they are all facing each other, and where up is the top of the screen. But there are no directions in outer space. There is no up and no down.
Our Star Trek characters must have used a 3-dimensional map of the galaxy, but such maps were always depicted as 2-dimensional in the TV episodes and the movies. Even the huge Stellar Cartography wraparound display screen, introduced in Star Trek Generations, was a two-dimensional affair.
Guns at my Ship!
Thus, if the Star Trek Navigation people really wanted to pinpoint a location within the Galaxy, they would first of all have to refer to a rather large 3D map (our Galaxy is a rather large place, after all), whittled down to usable sections for convenience, and then they would have to be very clever in determining the desired 3D coordinates, utilizing at least 3 sets of numbers.
But like other complicated stuff in Star Trek, this was swept under the rug. Maybe that’s why, when asked for a heading by Sulu at the end of Star Trek the Movie, Captain Kirk responded, with an indifferent wave of his hand, “Out there…that away.” In other words, whichever direction the ship happened to be pointing.
What difference did direction make? Adventure could always be found toward the second star on the right.
Staring them down
When starships meet in the vastness of outer space, isn’t it just as likely that one of the ships will be perpendicular to the other, because it came from a direction that was “below” the first ship?
The ship that is pointed upward towards a ship that is horizontal will suffer no falling or disorientation, because the artificial gravity generated in their ship will always make the ship’s floor their center of gravity.
Thus, the odds are overwhelming that ships in outer space will approach each other from completely different angles. In fact, it’s rather a neat trick to have starships meet at all in the vastness of outer space.
A Defiant approach
Still, these encounters are essential to practically every Star Trek storyline, and all starship encounters in Star Trek have them meeting where they face each other horizontally, at least as viewed on the screen. It is as though they are hovercraft-capable airplanes meeting in earth’s atmosphere, and with normal earth gravity.
So why is this so? Very simple: Because to show starships otherwise oriented in space would be disorienting to the viewer, and thus unacceptable to the producers.
By Kevin Ballard • Trek Trivia • • Tags: Star Trek