Stardate-how does it breakdown

posted on December 7th, 2010, 6:04 am

I was wondering exactly how does the stardate actually breakdown does it go by the year, the the day, the month, the hour etc.

posted on December 7th, 2010, 6:32 am

I'm not entirely sure of the correct answer. But from what I've gathered from random episodes or conversations there seem to be different stories. At one time, I thought it was all based off of seasons to some degree. For instance, somewhere in the stardate you would have maybe the year 23** or what have you and then a number for the season that would happen for TNG DS9 and Voyager. Not entirely sure. Even heard they broke it down based on which segment of the show it was, ie if it was first act the stardate would change accordingly. Just depended on where they were related to commercials and plot line.

A more realistic answer... is they just make a certain time frame a matter of degree. For instance 0.1 is a certain number of hours or days. Then star date remains the same, at least the beginning part 2345 bla bla, and then the later parts always change, 56.1 60.6.

These are just guesses though. Interesting though from a writer point of view. Writing a script 300 years in the future. Gregorian calendar might dissolve at some point, what replaces it? But I don't think I've ever figured it out entirely, never really lost sleep over it. Be interesting to see if anyone knows for sure.

posted on December 7th, 2010, 6:45 am

1 stardate is about a day, while 1000 is about a year. I cant remember for sure where I heard or read that (suspect I read it on Ex Astris Scientia.)

posted on December 7th, 2010, 10:25 am

1 stardate is about a day, while 1000 is about a year. I cant remember for sure where I heard or read that (suspect I read it on Ex Astris Scientia.)

How would that work? 

posted on December 7th, 2010, 11:30 am

Sometimes I've seen it based on the Earth year.  Other times I've seen it in the 70000's, which couldn't be the Earth year.


Here's some stuff I found from Memory Alpha:

When adopted by humans during the next hundred years, stardates began to be used in many contexts instead of Gregorian calendar dates, such as May 4, 2267. At the time of Richard Robau's murder, the digits to the left of the decimal separator were equal to the Gregorian calendar year: Robau died in 2233 on stardate 2233.04. This method was used in the alternate reality at least through 2258. By 2265 in the prime reality, a complex relationship had been established between stardates and the Gregorian calendar.

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 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.

And here's the TNG system:

Under this system, 1,000 stardate units were equal to approximately one year, since that is the normal timespan between two TV seasons. The value of the century digit nine seasons later was clarified as early as TNG: "Future Imperfect", where the imaginary Jean-Luc Riker asks the computer to display his birthday party of stardate 58416, less than sixteen years in the future according to the episode. The relation to the 24th century could only be symbolic. The writers of the Star Trek Chronology further developed the system by having a calendar year start at 000 and end at 999, although this does not fit all references in the show, such as a Diwali celebration around stardate 44390, too early in the year according to the simplified system. (TNG: "Data's Day") Stardate 41986.0 was in 2364 according to TNG: "The Neutral Zone", hence the simplified system assumes that stardates 41xxx.x covered the entire year 2364, stardates 42xxx.x the entire year 2365 and so forth.

[086gf]

posted on December 7th, 2010, 7:20 pm

Last edited by 086gf on December 7th, 2010, 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And this is how the new sytem works.

Stardates from the latest film were developed by screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. According to Orci, they "used the system where, for example, 2233.45 or whatever means 23rd century, 33rd year of that century, and the .45 indicates the day of the year out of 365 days." [4] During a Q&A session, Orci restated that a stardate is "the year, as in 2233, with the month and day expressed as a decimal point from .1 to .365 (as in the 365 days of the year)." [5] A similar reply was posted on his Twitter account: "star date=standard year, with decimal representing day of year from 1-365." [6]

Orci never said whether leap years end at .366, which would be expected if the digits before the decimal point correspond to Gregorian calendar years, and he didn't explain why stardates 2230.06 and 2233.04 were scripted if .1 is supposed to be the starting decimal. The table below shows stardates from the film.

Stardate - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki

posted on December 7th, 2010, 10:22 pm

I was always under the impression that stardates were only loosely related to the conventional Gregorian calendar as they took relativistic effects into account and could potentially even go "backwards". I always got the impression that the number after the point were related to the time of day  while the rest of it described the day and year.

posted on December 8th, 2010, 2:16 am

"The teleplay of TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint" dated April 13, 1987 contains stardates ranging from 42353.7 to 42372.5. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion CD) This was changed to 41153.7-41174.2 on the air, consistent with the following description in Star Trek: The Next Generation Writer's/Director's Guide of March 23, 1987 (page 13):

    A stardate is a five-digit number followed by a decimal point and one more digit. Example: "41254.7." The first two digits of the stardate are always "41." The 4 stands for 24th century, the 1 indicates first season. The additional three leading digits will progress unevenly during the course of the season from 000 to 999. The digit following the decimal point is generally regarded as a day counter.

Under this system, 1,000 stardate units were equal to approximately one year, since that is the normal timespan between two TV seasons. The value of the century digit nine seasons later was clarified as early as TNG: "Future Imperfect", where the imaginary Jean-Luc Riker asks the computer to display his birthday party of stardate 58416, less than sixteen years in the future according to the episode. The relation to the 24th century could only be symbolic. The writers of the Star Trek Chronology further developed the system by having a calendar year start at 000 and end at 999, although this does not fit all references in the show, such as a Diwali celebration around stardate 44390, too early in the year according to the simplified system. (TNG: "Data's Day") Stardate 41986.0 was in 2364 according to TNG: "The Neutral Zone", hence the simplified system assumes that stardates 41xxx.x covered the entire year 2364, stardates 42xxx.x the entire year 2365 and so forth.

The second digit continued to increase every TV season in other spin-offs as well, even after TNG had ended. Since DS9 premiered during the sixth season of TNG and was set in exactly the same timeframe, stardates on DS9 ranged from 46379.1 to 52861.3. Likewise, the first season of Voyager would've been the eighth season of TNG had it continued, so Voyager stardates ranged from 48315.6 to 54973.4. Star Trek Nemesis, the latest Star Trek story in the 24th century, had a stardate of 56844.9, showing that it took place approximately fifteen years after the first season of TNG. However, stardates of events prior to TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint", but not so far back as the time of TOS, do not always conform to this method of counting. For example, in TNG: "Dark Page", the stardate for an event which took place 42 years before 47254.1 is given as 30620.1, which, according to the standard method of counting used after "Encounter at Farpoint", should only be 17 years earlier.

In addition to the overall rate of approximately 1,000 units per year, many episodes confirm the 24-hour stardate unit which was first mentioned in the TOS bible, with midnight at .0 and noon at .5. It is especially noticeable when the time of day is shown next to a stardate fraction, as demonstrated in the table below: "
-part of Memory Alpha's page on stardates, as linked to by 086gf

Stardates are not really consistently determined.

How would that work? 

It's easy to use, since the decimal gives you an idea of what time of day, and you can tell with just the thousands what season it is. It wouldn't really work as an actual way of keeping track of time, but the writers didn't think too much about the stardates.