As I said in the last post, I am currently introducing four of my friends to Star Trek; however, each one of them are going at different rates and are watching them in different orders. As a reminder, Star Trek has a habit of going back in time and messing with its own timeline. Because of that piece of storytelling, that sometimes makes it difficult to explain to newcomers where they are in the Star Trek timeline. It also leads to many fan theories about whether or not the last two Star Trek television series (Enterprise [Note 1] and DIS) are in the Prime Timeline or not. But therein lies a new problem: defining what is the PRIME TIMELINE. As I stated last time, in my opinion, the Prime Timeline begins with “The Cage” (TOS 0x01), the original pilot episode that started it all. Also, in my opinion, the proper order for TOS is the production order - there are 4 ways to watch TOS: the production order, the original air-date order, the remastered air-date order, and the Netflix order. I am going to stick with production order.
This post is going to be broken down by year, and will have the stardate (if known) by the episode title. Except for certain instances, I will only be expanding on the episodes & movies that have to do with time travel that didn't get mentioned in the previous post. This post will only have the episodes/movies that my friends have seen so far, and as I take them through Star Trek, I will continue make updated posts to talk about what new has happened.
20TH CENTURY
CE1930
“The City on the Edge of Forever” (TOS 1x28)
CE1968
“Assignment: Earth” (TOS 2x26)
CE1969
“Tomorrow is Yesterday” (TOS 1x21)
CE1986
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home [Note 2].
23RD CENTURY
2330s
CE2233
Star Trek (2009) Stardate 2233.04 [Note 3]- This is the 11th of 13 Star Trek films.
2350s
PRIME UNIVERSE
CE2254
TOS 0x01: “The Cage” - This is where I start my timeline calculations, as this was the first episode of Star Trek to ever be produced.
CE2256
DIS 1x01: “The Vulcan Hello” Stardate 1207.3 (May 11th, 2256)
DIS 1x02: “Battle at the Binary Stars” Stardate 1207.3 (May 11th, 2256)
DIS 1x03: "Context Is For Kings" (November 2256)
DIS 1x04: "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry"
DIS 1x05 "Choose Your Pain" (December 2256)
DIS 1x06 "Lethe" - There is a fan theory that this episode is named after the character Lethe from "The Dagger of the Mind," as Lethe looks like Admiral Cornwell, and both of them are either a psychiatrist or psychologist by training.
DIS 1x07 "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" Stardates 2136.8-2137.2 - Harry Mudd puts the crew of Discovery in a time loop, repeating the same 30 minutes over and again. This is done at least 56 times, according to the dialogue. Also, the stardate is a continuity error, being a date that should be sometime in 2266 or 2267 (depending on the calculator used [Note 3]).
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
CE2255
Star Trek (2009)
CE2258
Star Trek (2009) Stardate 2258.42
CE2259
Star Trek Into Darkness Stardate 2259.55 - This is the 12th of 13 Star Trek films.
Early 2360s
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
CE2260
Star Trek Into Darkness - The end of this movie takes place in this year.
CE2263
Star Trek Beyond Stardate 2263.2 - This is the 13th of 13 Star Trek films. In my opinion, the best of the Star Trek reboot films.
Late 2360s
PRIME UNIVERSE
CE2265
TOS 1x01: “Where No Man Has Gone Before” Stardate 1312.4
CE2266
TOS 1x02: “The Corbomite Maneuver” Stardates 1512.2 - 1514.1
TOS 1x03: “Mudd's Women” Stardates 1329.8 - 1330.1
TOS 1x04: “The Enemy Within” Stardates 1672.1 - 1673.1 - Content Warning for this episode: attempted rape.
TOS 1x05: “The Man Trap” Stardates 1513.1 - 1513.8
TOS 1x06: “The Naked Time” Stardates 1704.2 - 1704.4
TOS 1x07: “Charlie X” Stardates 1533.6 - 1535.8
TOS 1x08: “Balance of Terror” Stardates 1709.2 - 1709.6
TOS 1x09: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” Stardate 2712.4
TOS 1x10: “Dagger of the Mind” Stardates 2715.1 - 2715.2
TOS 1x11: “Miri” Stardates 2713.5 - 2713.3
TOS 1x12: “The Conscience of the King” Stardates 2817.6 - 2819.8
CE2267
TOS 1x13: “The Galileo Seven” Stardates 2821.5 - 2823.8
TOS 1x14: “Court Martial” Stardates 2947.3 - 2950.1
TOS 1x15: “The Menagerie, Part I” Stardates 3012.4 - 3012.6 - Much of this two-parter shows us the events during “The Cage.”
TOX 1x16: “The Menagerie, Part II” Stardates 3013.1 - 3013.2 - Much of this two-parter shows us the events during “The Cage.”
TOS 1x17: “Shore Leave” Stardates 3025.3 - 3025.8
TOS 1x18: “The Squire of Gothos” Stardates 2124.5 - 2126.3
TOS 1x19: “Arena” Stardates 3045.6 - 3046.2
TOS 1x20: “The Alternative Factor” Stardates 3087.6 - 3088.7
TOS 1x21: “Tomorrow is Yesterday” Stardates 3113.2 - 3114.1
TOS 1x22: “The Return of the Archons” Stardates 3156.2 - 3158.7
TOS 1x23: “A Taste of Armageddon” Stardates 3192.1 - 3193.0
TOS 1x24: “Space Seed” Stardates 3141.9 - 3143.3 - Content Warning for this episode: abuse, coercion.
TOS 1x25: “This Side of Paradise” Stardates 3417.3 - 3417.7
TOS 1x26: “The Devil in the Dark” Stardate 3196.1
TOS 1x27: “Errand of Mercy” Stardates 3198.4 - 3201.7
TOS 1x28: “The City on the Edge of Forever”
TOS 1x29: “Operation -- Annihilate!” Stardates 3287.2 - 3289.8
TOS 2x01: “Catspaw” Stardate 3018.2
TOS 2x02: “Metamorphosis” Stardates 3219.8 - 3220.3
TOS 2x03: “Friday's Child” Stardates 3497.2 - 3499.1
TOS 2x04: “Who Mourns for Adonais?” Stardate 3468.1
TOS 2x05: “Amok Time” Stardate 3372.7
TOS 2x06: “The Doomsday Machine” Stardate 4202.9
TOS 2x07: “Wolf in the Fold” Stardates 3614.9 - 3615.4
TOS 2x08: “The Changeling” Stardate 3541.9
TOS 2x09: “The Apple” Stardates 3715.0 - 3715.6
TOS 2x10: “Mirror, Mirror” - A jaunt into the Mirror Universe (not to be confused with the Alternate Universe). Here we see that there are more possibilities as to how the universe could play out, as there is a whole multiverse out there (although, as this episode was produced in 1967, we really only know of the two universes).
TOS 2x11: “The Deadly Years” Stardates 3478.2 - 3479.4
CE2268
TOS 2x12: “I, Mudd” Stardate 4513.3
TOS 2x13: “The Trouble with Tribbles” Stardates 4523.3 - 4525.6
TOS 2x14: “Bread and Circuses” Stardates 4040.7 - 4041.7
TOS 2x15: “Journey to Babel” Stardates 3842.3 - 3843.4
TOS 2x16: “A Private Little War” Stardates 4211.4 - 4211.8
TOS 2x17: “The Gamesters of Triskelion” Stardates 3211.7 - 3259.2
TOS 2x18: “Obsession” Stardates 3619.2 - 3620.7
TOS 2x19: “The Immunity Syndrome” Stardates 4307.1 - 4309.4
TOS 2x20: “A Piece of the Action”
TOS 2x21: “By Any Other Name” Stardates 4657.5 - 4658.9
TOS 2x22: “Return to Tomorrow” Stardates 4768.3 - 4770.3
TOS 2x23: “Patterns of Force” - A reminder that Nazis are bad.
TOS 2x24: “The Ultimate Computer” Stardates 4729.4 - 4731.3
TOS 2x24: “The Omega Glory” - This episode is hella racist.
TOS 2x25: “Assignment: Earth” - Supposed to be a pilot episode for another television series that never happened. Takes place entirely in 1968, and seems like a predestination paradox (though not as much as Star Trek IV was).
TOS 3x01: “Spectre of the Gun” Stardate 4385.3
TOS 3x02: “Elaan of Troyius” Stardate 4372.5
TOS 3x03: “The Paradise Syndrome” Stardates 4842.6 - 4843.6 - This episode is hella racist.
TOS 3x04: “The Enterprise Incident” Stardates 5027.3 - 5027.4
TOS 3x05: “And the Children Shall Lead Stardate 5029.5
TOS 3x06: “Spock's Brain” Stardates 5431.4 - 5432.3
TOS 3x07: “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” Stardates 5630.7 - 5630.8
TOS 3x08: “The Empath” Stardate 5121.5
TOS 3x09: “The Tholian Web” Stardate 5693.2 - This episode messes with the Mirror Universe’s timeline. But we won’t see how until I add Enterprise into the mix.
TOS 3x10: “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” Stardates 5476.3 - 5476.4
TOS 3x11: “Day of the Dove”
TOS 3x12: “Plato's Stepchildren” Stardates 5784.2 - 5784.3
TOS 3x13: “Wink of an Eye” Stardates 5710.5 - 5710.9
TOS 3x14: “That Which Survives
TOS 3x15: “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” Stardates 5730.2 - 5730.7
TOS 3x16: “Whom Gods Destroy” Stardate 5718.3
TOS 3x17: “The Mark of Gideon” Stardates 5423.4 - 5423.8
CE2269
TOS 3x18: “The Lights of Zetar” Stardates 5725.3 - 5725.6
TOS 3x19: “The Cloud Minders” Stardates 5818.4 - 5819.3
TOS 3x20: “The Way to Eden” Stardates 5832.3 - 5832.6
TOS 3x21: “Requiem for Methuselah” Stardates 5843.7 - 5843.8
TOS 3x22: “The Savage Curtain” Stardates 5906.4 - 5906.5
TOS 3x23: “All Our Yesterdays” Stardates 5943.7 - 5943.9
TOS 3x24: “Turnabout Intruder” Stardates 5928.5 - 5930.3
TAS 1x01: "Beyond the Farthest Star" Stardates 5221.3 – 5221.8 - Pilot episode for Star Trek: The Animated Series. Also has a stardate that puts it during the early third season of TOS, but it is generally accepted that TAS takes place after TOS.
CE2273
Star Trek: The Motion Picture Stardates 7410.2 - 7414.1 [Note 4] - This is the 1st of 13 Star Trek films.
CE2285
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Stardates 8130.3 - 8141.6
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Stardate 8210.3
CE2286
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Stardate 8390.0
CE2287
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Stardate 8454.1
CE2293
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Stardates 9521.6 - 9529.1
Star Trek Generations Stardate 9717.5 - This is the 7th of 13 Star Trek films. The first part of the film takes place here.
24TH CENTURY
CE 2371
Star Trek Generations Stardates 48632.4 - 48650.1 - I discount the parts that take place in The Nexus, because, as Kirk said, "it isn't real."
CE2387
Star Trek (2009) Stardate 2387 [Note 5]
NOTES
The 6th (of at least 7) Star Trek television series was called Enterprise for its first two seasons, before the name was changed to Star Trek: Enterprise.
As I said in the previous post, there is some major damage to the timeline here - Dr. Gillian Taylor and two humpback whales are abducted, a Russian spy is captured by the MarDet on board the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) (which is played by the USS Ranger (CV-61) in this movie), the crew of a whaling ship see a UFO, garbage men see said UFO, joggers get knocked over by a freak windstorm caused by said UFO, Kirk sells his glasses to an antique shop (possibly creating a predestination paradox), and the formula for transparent aluminium is given to Dr. Nichols by Captain Montgomery Scott (creating a predestination paradox). THIS MOVIE IS NOTHING BUT ONE HUGE FUCK-YOU TO TEMPORAL STABILITY.
nuTrek uses a different version of Stardates than what was used in any of the shows or movies - using the system as it originally was, stardate 2233.04 would have been Feb 28, 2266 (according to this calculator) or April 16, 2267 (according to this calculator), not Jan 04, 2233.
It is actually technically possible that TMP takes place as late as 2278, because there is an episode of TNG where we see the earliest that the Monster Maroon uniforms are being worn (2278), and TWOK, taking place in 2284, has a stardate of 7130.4 included in it. However, I discount that stardate, believing it to be a scripting error, as the other stardates in that movie all start with an 8 instead of a 7.
The future that the Narada and the Jellyfish come from use a stardate system that does not match with the stardate system from the prime timeline, which is evidence that they came from an alternate timeline, went back in time, and altered that alternate timeline into yet another new alternate timeline. Also, the technology used on the Kelvin, most noticeably the viewscreen/window, does not mesh with the technology used in either ENT or TOS (let alone any other series).
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