stardate

A stardate is a fictional system of time measurement developed for the television and film series Star Trek. In the series, use of this date system is commonly heard at the beginning of a voice-over log entry, such as "Captain's log, stardate 41153.7. Our destination is planet Deneb IV …" (Encounter at Farpoint). While the original method was inspired by the Modified Julian date system currently used by astronomers, the writers and producers have selected numbers using different methods over the years, some more arbitrary than others. This makes it impossible to convert all stardates into equivalent calendar dates, especially since stardates were originally intended to avoid specifying exactly when Star Trek takes place.

==Original stardate== The original 1967 Star Trek Guide (April 17, 1967, p. 25) instructed writers for the original Star Trek TV series on how to select stardates for their scripts. Writers could pick any combination of four numbers plus a decimal point, and aim for consistency within a single script, but not necessarily between different scripts. This was to "avoid continually mentioning Star Trek's century" and avoid "arguments about whether this or that would have developed by then". Though the guide sets the series "about two hundred years from now", the few references within the show itself were contradictory, and later productions and reference materials eventually placed the series between the years 2265 and 2269. The second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", begins on stardate 1312.4 and the last-produced episode, "Turnabout Intruder", on stardate 5928.5. Though the dating system was revised for Star Trek: The Next Generation, the pilot of Star Trek: Discovery follows the original series' dating system, starting on stardate 1207.3, which is stated precisely to be Sunday, May 11, 2256.