Stardate encyclopedia topics

Stardate properties


Examples of stardate decrease with time
Lwaxana Troi's diary in "Dark Page", recorded in the 2330s, refers to events of stardate 30620.1. The date of the Khitomer Massacre as observed onscreen in "Sins of the Father", however, is 23859.7. The Khitomer Massacre took place in 2346.
In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Spock's death occurs on stardate 8128, yet the previous movie begins on stardate 8130 (see external link below).

Stardate numbers generally increase with time, although locally they increase with time at different rates, both within particular episodes as well as between. Some future stardates are lower than past stardates. The occasional decrease with time was more prevalent during the original series than during Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which stardates increased with time more consistently. Stardates are rarely specified to more than a single decimal, though they have at times (see TNG episode #104 "Code of Honor"). The decimal following a stardate is usually omitted in conversation. Stardates do not replace clock time, which is still commonly used and often shown next to stardates on displays.

Relationship to the Gregorian calendar

Stardates are almost always used instead of explicit Gregorian dates such as July 6, 2367. They are used in the same fashion as Gregorian dates to identify a unique point in time. There is no evidence of special stardate units to replace the Gregorian units that are still used. Even the explicit Gregorian dates are still used, as evidenced in the TNG episode "Conundrum" where crew biographies are given in Gregorian years. Stardates are not being retroactively applied to the past: the Gregorian calendar is used to describe centuries in general (e.g., "a time traveler from the 29th century") and always used for references to time before the 23rd century.

Backstage information

Star Trek: The Original Series

Stardates were created as an abstract idea without much thought to actual implementation. They are described as follows in the writer's bible for the original series:

Furthermore, when pressed for an explanation, Roddenberry said the following for Stephen Whitfield's book The Making of Star Trek:

Roddenberry admitted that he did not really understand this, and would rather forget about the whole thing (from Whitfield's book):

Star Trek: The Next Generation and beyond

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, a slightly more systematic implementation of stardates was used. They were 5-digit numbers, initially starting with four (symbolically to represent the 24th century), and followed by the season number. Within these thousand-unit ranges, subranges were allocated to writers of episodes to use. After the first season, these increased monotonically between episodes. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager the same system was kept, incrementing to 48xxx in what would have been TNG season 8 (or actually the first season of Voyager), and wrapping round to 50xxx and beyond in season 10. The last season of Voyager takes place in stardates 54xxx.x.

Within a single episode, TNG writers have most commonly increased stardates at the rate of one unit per Earth day, contradicting the 1000 units per year used on the larger scale. Although closer to a usable system than they were in the original series, stardates remain inconsistent and often arbitrary. For example, Ron Moore has said flatly that stardates do not make sense and shouldn't be examined closely.

The following sections show the various writer's guide entries concerning stardates.