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Path: utzoo!utcsri!utai!utflis!brown
From: brown@utflis.UUCP (Susan Brown)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: More on Stardates
Message-ID: <261@utflis.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 12:12:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: utflis.261
Posted: Tue Sep  3 12:12:03 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Sep-85 14:49:18 EDT
References: <1801@bmcg.UUCP> <5023@mit-eddie.UUCP> <670@psivax.UUCP>
Reply-To: brown@utflis.UUCP (Susan Brown)
Organization: FLIS, University of Toronto
Lines: 29
Summary: 

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