Timeline of Star Trek

Below is an abridged timeline of events established in the group of television shows and feature films set in the Star Trek universe. Many dates are estimates as the various shows and films are not consistent in their use of dates. More exhaustive timelines are available in both Star Trek reference works and in various fan websites.

Series and movie settings

This table shows each TV series and movie, its year of release or broadcast, the year it was set in according to the prevailing Okuda chronology (see below) and the stardate range for that year. The designation Enterprise-based series are the series that featured the various incarnations of the starship USS Enterprise. In universe timeline chronological order Star Trek Enterprise (ENT), Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS), Star Trek: The Animated Series (TAS), Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) and all 13 of the Star Trek feature films including the three newest J.J. Abrams alternate reality films based on the original series.

Year Stardates USS Enterprise-based television series Deep Space Nine Voyager Altered reality timeline
Birth of the Universe "Death Wish" (1996)
3.5 billion years ago "All Good Things..." [primary plotline] (1994)/primordial Earth
~2840 BC "All Our Yesterdays" [primary plotline] (1969)
1893 "Time's Arrow" [primary plotline] (1992)
1930 "The City on the Edge of Forever" [primary plotline] (1967)
1944 "Storm Front" [primary plotline] (2004)
1947 "Little Green Men" [primary plotline] (1995)
1957 "Carbon Creek" [primary plotline] (2002)
1968 "Assignment: Earth" [primary plotline] (1968)
1969 "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" [primary plotline] (1967) ("late 1960s" in dialogue, but a radio broadcast states that Apollo 11 will be launched on "Wednesday")
1986 The Voyage Home [primary plotline] (1986)
1992–1996 Eugenics Wars "Future's End" [primary plotline]
2000 "11:59" [primary plotline]
2004 "Carpenter Street" [primary plotline] (2003)
2024 "Past Tense" [primary plotline] (1995)
2032 "One Small Step" [primary plotline] (1999)
2049–2053 World War III
2054–2079 Post-atomic horror
2063 First Contact [primary plotline] (1996)
2151–2152 Enterprise season 1 (2001–2002)
2152–2153 Enterprise season 2 (2002–2003)
2153–2154 Enterprise season 3 (2003–2004)
2154–2155 Enterprise season 41 (2004–2005)
2156-2160 Earth-Romulan War
2161 Enterprise series finale: "These are the voyages..." holodeck simulation of the events2] (2005)
Founding of the United Federation of Planets
2233 2233 (Reboot Stardate) Star Trek (2009)3
2245-2250 The Constitution-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) is launched under the command of Captain Robert April and begins its first 5 year mission.
2254 "The Cage" (1964)
2258-2259 2258-2259 (Reboot Stardate) Star Trek (2009)
2259–2260 2259-2260 (Reboot Stardate) Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
2260-2261 2260-2261 (Reboot Stardate) Star Trek Beyond (2016)
2265 1000–1499 "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1965)
2266–2267 1500–3299 Star Trek season 1 (1966–1967)
2267–2268 3300–4799 Star Trek season 2 (1967–1968) "Trials and Tribble-ations" [primary plotline - taking place within TOS' "The Trouble With Tribbles"] (1996)
2268–2269 4800–5999 Star Trek season 3 (1968–1969)
2269 4800–5999 Star Trek: The Animated Series season 1 (1973–1974)
2270 6000–7409 Star Trek: The Animated Series season 2 (1974)
2273 7410–7599 The Motion Picture (1979)
2278 7818.1 USS Bozeman launched: "Cause and Effect" (1992)
2285 8100–8299 The Wrath of Khan (1982)
The Search for Spock (1984)
2286 8300–8399 The Voyage Home (1986)
2287 8400–8499 The Final Frontier (1989)
2293 9500–9999 The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Generations (Prologue) (1994)		 "Flashback" [flashback taking place within The Undiscovered Country] (1996)
2364 41000–41999 The Next Generation season 1 (1987–1988)
2365 42000–42999 The Next Generation season 2 (1988–1989)
2366 43000–43999 The Next Generation season 3 (1989–1990)
2367 44000–44999 The Next Generation season 4 (1990–1991) "Emissary" [flashback to the Battle of Wolf 359] (1993)
2368 45000–45999 The Next Generation season 5 (1991–1992)
2369 46000–46999 The Next Generation season 6 (1992–1993) Deep Space Nine season 1 (1993)
2370 47000–47999 The Next Generation season 7 (1993–1994)
Enterprise series finale4 (2005)		 Deep Space Nine season 2 (1993–1994)
2371 48000–48999 Generations (1994) Deep Space Nine season 3 (1994–1995) Voyager season 1 (1995)
2372 49000–49999 Deep Space Nine season 4 (1995–1996) Voyager season 2 (1995–1996)
2373 50000–50999 First Contact (1996) Deep Space Nine season 5 (1996–1997) Voyager season 3 (1996–1997)
2374 51000–51999 Deep Space Nine season 6 (1997–1998) Voyager season 4 (1997–1998)
2375 52000–52999 Insurrection (1998) Deep Space Nine season 7 (1998–1999) Voyager season 5 (1998–1999)
2376 53000–53999 Voyager season 6 (1999–2000)
2377–2378 54000–55999 Voyager season 7 (2000–2001)
2379 56000–56999 Nemesis (2002)
2387 64000-64999 Star Trek (film) (2009) flashback, also in the Star Trek Comic: Star Trek: Countdown
2395 72000-72999 The Next Generation series finale: "All Good Things..." (1994)
Star Trek Nemesis Star Trek: Insurrection Star Trek: First Contact Star Trek Generations Untitled 2017 Star Trek TV series Star Trek: Voyager Star Trek: Deep Space 9 Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek Beyond Star Trek Into Darkness Star Trek (film) Star Trek Generations Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Star Trek: The Motion Picture Star Trek: The Animated Series Star Trek: The Original Series The Cage (Star Trek: The Original Series) Star Trek: Enterprise

Timeline

This timeline is based on the Star Trek Chronology model described below, supplemented by data from startrek.com.[1]

Note: Many of these dates are rounded-off approximations, as the dialog from which they are derived often includes qualifiers such as "over," "more than," or "less than."

The "BC's"

1st millennium

Pre-20th century

20th century

21st century

22nd century

23rd century

24th century

26th century

29th century

31st century

History of the chronology

There have been several efforts over the years to develop a chronology for the events depicted by the Star Trek television series and its spin-offs. This matter has been complicated by the continued additions to the Star Trek canon, and the scarcity of Gregorian calendar dates given in the show (stardates instead being used).

Original series

There are few references setting the original series in an exact time frame, and those that exist are largely contradictory. In the episode, "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", a 1960s military officer says that he's going to lock Captain Kirk up "for two hundred years", to which a bemused Kirk says, "That ought to be just about right". Likewise, in the episode "Space Seed", it is said that the 1996 warlord Khan Noonian Singh is from "two centuries" ago. Both these references place the show in the 22nd century. However, in the episode "Miri", it is said that 1960 was around 300 years ago, pushing the show into the 23rd century. Finally, the episode "The Squire of Gothos" implied that the light cone of 19th century Earth has expanded to 900 light years, which seems to set the show in the 28th century, since light would take nine centuries to traverse that distance.

According to notes in The Making of Star Trek, the show is set in the 23rd century, and the Enterprise was supposed to be around 40 years old. Roddenberry says in this book that the stardate system was invented to avoid pinning down the show precisely in time frame.[49] Roddenberry's original pitch for the series dated it "'somewhere in the future. It could be 1995, or maybe even 2995".[50]

Early chronologies

The Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology and FASA, a publisher of the first licensed Star Trek role-playing game, chose to take the "Space Seed figure", adding a few years to make sure the events of the Original Series were in the 23rd century. This dating system is followed by other spin-off works in the 1980s, including Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise. This timeline system gives the following dates[51][52]

The Star Fleet Battles game was published in 1979, with a license only covering the original series. It has since diverged into an entirely separate fictional universe, new additions to which continue to be published. It does not tie into the Gregorian calendar, instead using a "Year 1" of the invention of Warp on earth. Its version of the original series backstory is

See Star Fleet Universe timeline.

TNG era and Okuda

Press materials for TNG suggested it was set in the 24th century, seventy-eight years after the existing Star Trek, although the exact time frame had not yet been set in stone. The pilot had dialogue stating Data was part of the Starfleet "class of '78".[53] The pilot episode, "Encounter at Farpoint", also has a cameo appearance by Leonard "Bones" McCoy, who is said to be 137.

In the last episode of the first season, the year is firmly established by Data, as 2364.[53] This marked the first time an explicit future calendar date had been attached to any Star Trek storyline, and allowed fans and writers to extrapolate further dates. For example, the established date implies McCoy was born around 2227, ruling out the Spaceflight Chronology-derived dating of the original series to the early 23rd century (though the dating had already been effectively overruled by Star Trek IV, which primarily takes place in 1986, where Kirk tells Gillian Taylor that he is from the late 23rd Century, though he does not give an exact date).

A Star Trek Chronology was published in 1993, written by production staff members Denise Okuda and Michael Okuda.[54] A second edition was issued in 1996.[1] Okuda originally drew up a timeline for internal use by writers, based on his own research and assumptions provided by Richard Arnold. The dates in the Chronology are consistent with the earlier Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual.[44]

It gives the following dates:

The gap between 1986's Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home (2286) and the 1987 first season of The Next Generation (2364) is 78 years by this timeline, matching early press materials.

There was a gap of 10 years between the broadcast of the last episode of TOS and the release of The Motion Picture. The film skirted round the fact the actors had aged, supposing that only two and a half years had passed since the events of the TV show. For Star Trek II, it was decided to acknowledge the reality of the ageing actors, both by setting the film some 15 years after "Space Seed", and by having Kirk worry about getting old.[55]

Within the TNG era, episodes and films are easier to date. Stardates correspond exactly with seasons, with the first two digits of the stardate representing the season number. Okuda assumes the start of a season is January 1 and the end of the season is December 31.[1] The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager television series and movies have roughly followed "real time", and are set around 377 years after their release.

Since the Chronology was published, it has been generally adhered to by the producers of the show. The film Star Trek: First Contact and prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise both revisit the early era. In First Contact, Zephram Cochrane is confirmed as having invented warp drive on Earth, but the date is moved forward slightly to 2063, and it is revealed that Earth's official first contact with an alien species, the Vulcans, took place immediately afterwards as a result of this.

The dating of the final season of Star Trek: Voyager, however, has presented controversy. The standard assumption about stardates, as well as the regular correspondence between seasons and in-universe years, would place the entire season in the year 2377—the season begins with stardate 54014.4 and ends with 54973.4. However, the episode "Homestead" features a celebration of the 315th anniversary of Zefram Cochrane's first contact with the Vulcans, which would set the episode on April 5, 2378. The fansite Memory Alpha thus places the final eight episodes of the season ("Human Error" through "Endgame") in 2378, with other sources following suit.

Enterprise is set in the 2150s, and ties into the Cochrane backstory. The show uses the Gregorian calendar instead of Stardates, making tracking the dating easier. Its pilot, "Broken Bow", depicts first contact with the Klingons occurring much earlier than the Okuda chronology anticipated (it suggested a date of 2218, based on a line in "Day of the Dove", noting that dialog in First Contact makes this problematic - though the actual line in the episode referred to hostilities between the two, and in Enterprise Human-Klingon relations, while by no means friendly, clearly do not rise to the de facto state of war shown in TOS). It shows the opening of the Romulan war and the start of a coalition between Earth, Vulcan, Andor and Tellar in the 2150s. The date of the founding year of the Federation, 2161, was revealed in the fifth-season TNG episode "The Outcast," based on an early draft of the Okuda timeline. The final episode of Enterprise, "These Are the Voyages...", is consistent with the establishment of 2161 as the founding year for the Federation.

No version of the Chronology or the Encyclopedia has been published since 1999. A 2006 book by Jeff Ayers contains a timeline which attempts to date all of the many Star Trek novels.[56] This timeline has The Motion Picture in 2273, to account for the two-and-a-half-year gap between the end-date of 2270 established in "Q2" and the events of the movie. The official website, StarTrek.com, still gives the date of that movie as 2271.[57]

Eugenics Wars and World War III

When the original series of Star Trek was produced, the 1990s were considered the distant future, and so various elements of the backstory to Star Trek are set in that era, particularly the Eugenics Wars. The references to the Eugenics Wars and to a nuclear war in the 21st century are somewhat contradictory.

The episode "Space Seed" establishes the Eugenics Wars, and has them lasting from 1992 to 1996. The Eugenics Wars are described as a global conflict in which the progeny of a human genetic engineering project, most notably Khan Noonien Singh, established themselves as supermen and attempted world domination. Spock calls them "your last so-called World War," and McCoy identifies this with the Eugenics Wars.

In the episode "Bread and Circuses" Spock gives a death toll for World War III of 37 million. The episode "The Savage Curtain" features a Colonel Green, who led a genocidal war in the 21st century. The TNG episode "Encounter at Farpoint" further establishes a "post-atomic horror" on Earth in 2079.

The Star Trek Concordance identifies the "Bread and Circuses" figure as the death toll for a nuclear World War III, in the mid-21st century. Star Trek: First Contact firmly establishes World War III ended, after a nuclear exchange, in 2053, but with a body count of 600 million. The figure of Colonel Green is elaborated on in Star Trek: Enterprise. First Contact also deliberately describes the warring parties in World War III as "factions," not nations per se.

The Voyager episode "Future's End" saw the Voyager crew time-travel to Los Angeles in 1996, which, as the Encyclopedia notes, seems entirely unaffected by the Eugenics Wars, which ended that year. The episode acknowledges the issue only by featuring a model of Khan's DY-100-class ship on a 1996 desk.[58] Khan's spaceship is another anomaly for the timeline, which has a variety of long-lost spaceships being launched between 1980 and 2100, with inconsistent levels of technology (caused by the increasing real lifetime and also decreased optimism about the pace of space exploration).

A reference in the Deep Space Nine episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" suggests that the Eugenic Wars instead took place in the 22nd century. According to writer Ronald D. Moore, this was not an attempt at a retcon, but a mistake – when writing the episode, he recalled the already questionable "two centuries ago" line from "Space Seed" and forgot that DS9 takes place over 100 years later.[59]

Season 4 of Star Trek: Enterprise involves a trilogy of episodes ("Borderland" "Cold Station 12", and "The Augments") related to scientist Doctor Arik Soong, ancestor of Doctor Noonien Soong, and his genetic augmentations of Humans. Numerous historical details of the devastating Eugenics Wars are discussed: the death of 35-37 million people; how Earth's governments could not decide on the fate of the 1,800 genetically enhanced embryos; and how Soong had infiltrated the complex and stolen and raised 19 embryos himself. Soong maintained that he himself and humanity in general had learned the lessons of the Eugenics Wars and should not continue to hide behind those events when there was progress to be made now that the technology had matured and was much more practicable. (The actions of his "children" convince him otherwise, and at the end of "The Augments" Soong declares his interest in cybernetics, beggining the work which would one day bring about Data.)

Greg Cox's two-book series The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh develops the idea of the Eugenics Wars in the context of real-life history by representing it as a secret history, and that the truth behind the various civil wars and conflicts in the 1990s was not generally known; ironically, Los Angeles, whose appearance in "Future's End" helped bring the war's existence into question, is portrayed as an EW "battlefront", the Rodney King riots being one such calamity.

Cochrane

In the episode "Metamorphosis", it is stated that Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri, the discoverer of the space warp, disappeared 150 years ago, at the age of 87. Given Okuda's date of 2267 for that episode, this puts Cochrane's disappearance in 2117 and birth in 2030. 1980s spin-off material such as the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology posit that Cochrane was from Alpha Centauri originally, and that a sub-warp ship the UNSS Icarus arrived at Alpha Centauri in 2048 to find he had discovered the theory behind warp drive. The Icarus then relayed its findings back to Earth, the first prototype warp ship was launched in 2055.

The Star Trek Chronology does not hold with this theory, and asserts that Cochrane was an Earth native, who moved to Alpha Centauri later in life (even in "Metamorphosis", before Cochrane identifying himself to the landing party, Dr. McCoy had taken a tricorder scan and determined him to be human). The first edition Chronology notes that Cochrane's invention of warp drive must have been at least 200 years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and suggests a date of 2061, noting that Cochrane would be 31 that year.

The movie Star Trek: First Contact prominently features Cochrane's first successful warp flight. The film is set in 2063, two years after the Chronology suggestions, and therefore by the timeline Cochrane is 33. The actor who played Cochrane in that movie, James Cromwell, was 56 at the time of the film's release. The Encyclopedia notes the age issue, and claims that the Cromwell Cochrane had suffered from radiation poisoning, causing his aged appearance. Enterprise pins down Cochrane's disappearance to 2119, making Cochrane instead 31 at the time of First Contact.

Notes

  1. ^ Except for the series finale - "These Are the Voyages..."
  2. ^ The events of "These are the voyages..." are displayed as a holodeck simulation. Episode itself takes place in 2370 (stardate 47457.1)
  3. ^ The film begins in the main timeline only to set up the alternate timeline.
  4. ^ Stardate 47457.1, parallel with TNG episode "Pegasus"

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Okuda, Mike; Okuda, Denise (1996). Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-53610-9.
  2. ↑ Death Wish (Star Trek: Voyager)
  3. ↑ The Guardian notes in the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" that it has existed "since before your sun burned hot in space".
  4. ↑ This event is the key plot point of "The Chase."
  5. ↑ Established in the episode "Return to Tomorrow."
  6. ↑ Weyoun states that the Dominion is approximately 10,000 years old in the seventh season episode "The Dogs of War".
  7. ↑ The seventh-season TNG episode "Gambit" says this was around 2,000 years before.
  8. ↑ Weyoun says the Dominion is 2,000 years old in the fourth-season DS9 episode "To the Death". Possibly this was a time of change or reform for the Dominion, transforming it from a previous incarnation into the version seen in the series.
  9. ↑ The sixth-season TNG episode "Rightful Heir" said this event was 1,500 years ago)
  10. ↑ 800 years before the third-season DS9 episode "Explorers"
  11. ↑ The Chronology dates this by the culture seen in the episode which features the transplant, The Paradise Syndrome
  12. ↑ Gul Dukat says this happens five centuries before the third-season DS9 episode Defiant
  13. 1 2 3 Dates are given in dialogue in "Space Seed"
  14. ↑ The Chronology speculates on the year, noting that Star Trek: The Motion Picture does not give an exact figure.
  15. ↑ The Chronology speculates on the year, noting the episode "The Changeling" does not give an exact figure.
  16. ↑ The Chronology speculates on the year, noting the episode "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" does not give an exact year.
  17. ↑ According to the episode "Space Seed". The year is clearly specified by Lt McGivers, ship's historian.
  18. ↑ Established in the episode "One Small Step".
  19. ↑ The year is stated in "The Royale"
  20. ↑ The war ends 10 years before Star Trek: First Contact, set in 2063.
  21. ↑ The Chronology dates this exactly 200 years before the episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
  22. ↑ Established in the episode "Friendship One".
  23. ↑ Established the episode "Terra Nova"
  24. ↑ "Encounter at Farpoint" features a Q-induced flashback to this era.
  25. 1 2 From a computer screen in "In a Mirror, Darkly"
  26. ↑ About 150 years before "Metamorphosis" (dated by Okuda as 2267), which is shown by Enterprise to be an approximation.
  27. ↑ "Star Trek: Enterprise: Episodes by Season". Archived from the original on November 11, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-31.
  28. ↑ The TNG episode Conundrum refers to this date, based on an early draft of the Chronology, which had proposed 2161. "These Are the Voyages..." depicts the founding ceremony and officially states the founding members.
  29. ↑ Although the season three Enterprise episode "Zero Hour" indicates the date as 2159
  30. ↑ Sarek gives his age as 102.437 in "Journey to Babel".
  31. ↑ In the episode "Power Play", Data gives the year 2196 as the retirement date of the Daedalus class starships, which had been active 200 years before the episode, in the 2160s.
  32. ↑ The episode "Relics" establishes that Scotty was born 147 years before 2369.
  33. ↑ McCoy is 137 years old in "Encounter at Farpoint", set in 2364.
  34. ↑ The Chronology dates this based on a line from an early draft script from "Journey to Babel"
  35. 1 2 Mandel, Geoffrey (1980). USS Enterprise Officer's Manual. 201W 18th St. Apt 20A, New York, NY. 10011: Interstellar Associates. p. 25.
  36. ↑ Kirk is said to be 34 in "The Deadly Years, which Okuda dates to 2267.
  37. ↑ Chekov is 22 in the episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?".
  38. ↑ In Star Trek Chekov states that he is 17 – Kirk is 25.
  39. ↑ Thirteen years before the events of "The Menagerie", according to dialogue.
  40. 1 2 3 4 A biography shown in "Conundrum" establishes the birth-year and birth-place.
  41. ↑ This incident, the last contact between the Romulans and the Federation is said to be 53 years before "The Neutral Zone"
  42. ↑ The Chronology derives this figure from working backwards from the Khitomer massacre of 2346.
  43. ↑ Bashir celebrates his 30th birthday in "Distant Voices"
  44. 1 2 3 Okuda, Michael and Sternbach, Rick (1991). Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-70427-3.
  45. ↑ This is said to occur twenty-two years before "Yesterday's Enterprise" (2366)
  46. ↑ The Chronology derives this figure by subtracting 20 years from 2366 ("Sins of the Father"). The Chronology notes an inconsistency, as the episode "Birthright", which it sets in 2369, gives a figure of 2344.
  47. ↑ "Biography: Anij". startrek.com.
  48. ↑ "Biography: Data". startrek.com.
  49. ↑ Whitfield, Stephen E and Roddenberry, Gene (1968). The Making of Star Trek. Ballatine Books.
  50. ↑ Asherman, Allan (1987). The Star Trek Compendium. Titan Books. ISBN 0-907610-99-4.
  51. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Goldstein, Stanley and Fred (1980). Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology. ISBN 0-671-79089-7.
  52. 1 2 3 4 Johnson, Shane (1987). Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise. Titan Books. ISBN 1-85286-028-6.
  53. 1 2 Nemeck, Larry (2003). Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-5798-6.
  54. ↑ Okuda, Mike; Okuda, Denise (1993). Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-79611-9.
  55. ↑ Terry Lee Rioux (2005). From Sawdust to Stardust. Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-7434-5762-0.
  56. ↑ Ayers, Jeff (2006). Voyages of the Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion. Pocket Books. ISBN 1-4165-0349-8.
  57. ↑ Ayers, Jeff. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Synopsis". startrek.com.
  58. ↑ Okuda, Mike; Denise, Okuda with Mirek, Debbie (1999). The Star Trek Encyclopedia. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-53609-5. Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)
  59. ↑ Ronald D. Moore (March 3, 1997). "Answers". Archived from the original on 2009-08-03. Retrieved 2006-12-31.

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