Were the calender eras specified when it was said that First Contact happened in 2063 or that Picard ancestor found possibly sentient microbial life on Europea in 2024?
If someone said "AD 2063" or "2024 AD" for one of those events that would prove that event happened in Anno Domini 2063 or 2024. If both events were specified as Anno Domini then the 2063 one would be 39 years after the 2024 one.
I know that the 2063 in First Contact was not specified as using the Anno Domini calendar era. So if the Picard 2024 is specified as 2024 AD, it would be possible for the First Contact date to more or less than 39 years after 2024 AD, or even before AD 2024.
A search of the Star Trek Transcripts site coving all of Star Trek Before 2009 found one date given as BC, and five or six dates given as AD. Every other past date mentioned in all those episodes and movies was given without the calendar era mentioned. And thus they might have been dates using several different calender eras. Thus there is not proof that the 1996 mentioned in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was the same year as the 1996 mentioned in "Space Seed". It might have been some time before or afte the other 1996.
And I believe that the only way to make sense out of the historic dates given in Star Trek productions is to assume that different events are dated using different calendar eras.
Thus I deduce that the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s in "Space Seed" must be the same event as the Third World War in the 2050s in First Contact and that the two productions use dates with calendar eras about 60 years apart.
And if you don't want to assume that the United Earth government sometimes changes the offical Earth calendar and the offical calendar era, don't blame me. I didn't write Star Trek and fail to ensure that the dates of various events made sense, I merely true to interpret in the most rational way the Star Trek that other people carelessly wrote.
Or you could say that whether or not the European microbes were intelligent, the Vulcans were the first civilized, technologicaly advanced, and space travelling group to make open contact with Earth Humans.
Added 04-13-2022
So some people doubt the use of different calendar eras in different Star Trek productions.
What does Spock say about the Eugenics Wars in "Space Seed"?
SPOCK: No such vessel listed. Records of that period are fragmentary, however. The mid=1990s was the era of your last so-called World War.
MCCOY: The Eugenics Wars.
SPOCK: Of course. Your attempt to improve the race through selective breeding.
The mid 1990s should include the period of about 1993.33 to 1966.66.
Later:
KIRK: Name, Khan, as we know him today. (Spock changes the picture) Name, Khan Noonien Singh.
SPOCK: From 1992 through 1996, absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world. From Asia through the Middle East.
MCCOY: The last of the tyrants to be overthrown.
So the Eugenics Wars seem to have ended with the overthrow of Khan Noonien Singh in 1996 according to the "Space Seed" calendar era.
And the Eugenics Wars were Earth's last so-called world war, a conflict so violent that:
SPOCK: If you're suggesting this was a penal deportation vessel, you've arrived at a totally illogical conclusion.
KIRK: Oh?
SPOCK: Your Earth was on the verge of a dark ages. Whole populations were being bombed out of existence. A group of criminals could have been dealt with far more efficiently than wasting one of their most advanced spaceships.
And what does Star Trek: First Contact say when the Enteprise arrives in Earth's past:
DATA: According to our astrometric readings we're in the mid twenty-first century. From the radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere I would estimate we have arrived approximately ten years after the Third World War.
RIKER: Makes sense. Most of the major cities have been destroyed. There are few governments left. Six hundred million dead. No resistance.
And:
PICARD: A missile complex? ...The date? Mister Data, I need to know the exact date.
DATA: April fourth, two thousand sixty-three.
PICARD: April fourth?
RIKER: The day before First Contact.
DATA: Precisely.
So with 600 million dead the third world war seems to have similar scale of fatalities to the Eugenics Wars were whole populations were bombed out of existence. And the third world war happens about 2053 according to the First Contact calendar era.
Later:
RIKER: It is one of the pivotal moments in human history, Doctor. You get to make first contact with an alien race, and after you do, everything begins to change
LAFORGE: Your theories on warp drive allow fleets of starships to be built and mankind to start exploring the Galaxy.
TROI: It unites humanity in a way no one ever thought possible when they realise they're not alone in the universe. Poverty, disease, war. They'll all be gone within the next fifty years.
So the last wars on Earth will be fought before 2113. Will any the wars which might happen bewteen 2053 FC and 2113 FC be big enough to be called a world war, with vast numbers of people killed? If that is the case, the First Contact would not be seen as the great event which led to the peace eon Earth.
Thus it seems extremely improbable that there could have been any world wars between about 2053 FC and 2113 FC. Therefore the Third World War in Star Trek: First Contact must be the last conflict in the list of Earth's world wars. And therefore the Third World War in Star Trek: First Contact must be indentical with the Eugenics wars, Earth's last co-called world war.
Therefore the Eugenics Wars from "Space Seed" happening at about SS 1996 must be the same as the Third World War in Star Trek: First Contact happenng about 2053 fC. Therefore the calendar era in the "Space Seed" calendar must be about 57 years after the calendar era used in the First Contact calendar.
The television series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1954-1958) was set at Fort Apache, Arizona, in the old west. Some sources claim that it was set in the 1880s. But one episode had the characters travel to Canada to study how the new organization, the Northwest Mounted Police, worked. And it is simple to look up that the Mounties were founded in 1873 and started operating in 1874. And Ulysses S. Grant was the president in two episodes, and it would be easy to look up that his administration was from March 4, 1869 to March 4, 1877.
So whatever date the creators of The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1954-1958) intended to set it in, they ended up setting it sometime during the the 1870s.
So if a fiction is set in the historic past or the real present, it is easy for fans who are interested in the background of the story to look up details in various external sources. But if a story is set in an unknown science fiction or fantasy setting, there are no external sources for the fans to look up details in. Therefore every statement by characters that casually mentions details about the background of the setting must be literally true and accurate in the fictional universe of the fiction. Otherwise the audience would be misled by the creators of the fiction.
Therefore, the Eugenics wars "really" happened in about the year 1996 SS and the Third World War "really" happened in about the year 2053 FC, and each was "really" Earth's last world war, and thus they "really" were the same conflict, and thus the "Space Seed" calendar "really" uses a calendar era about 57 years later than the calendar era of Star Trek: First Contact's calendar.
It dosn't matter whether the creators of Star Trek wanted to create a background with Earth using different calendar eras at differen times, because that is the background that they actually created, whatever their intentions were.
Added 04-30-2022
I see I am going to have to add some more evidence.
In the first episode of TNG, Riker meets Data.
RIKER: Then your rank of Lieutenant Commander is honorary?
DATA: No, sir. Starfleet class of '78. Honours in probability mechanics and exobiology.
RIKER: Your file says that you're an
DATA: Machine, Correct, sir. Does that trouble you?
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/101.htm
It is certainly logical to believe that the "Starfleet class of '78" graduated from Starfleet Academy and were commissioned in the year '78 of the calendar era used at the time. And the year '78 might be short for year 78, or year 178, or year 278, or year 1578, or year 2478, or year 13478, or any other number which ends with the last two digits "78".
And in the episode "Datalore" the Enterprise visited the planet where data had been found after a planetary disaster.
LAFORGE: This once was rich farmland. I'd say something like twenty to thirty years ago.
DATA: I was discovered twenty six years ago.
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/114.htm
So if Data managed to enter Starfleet Academy and graduate from it the instant he was discovered, "Datalore" could be as much as 26 years after the year '78 when Data graduated, and thus it could happen as late as year '04 of the next century. And if Data graduated in '78 X years after being discovered, the year of "Datalore" would be '78 plus 26 years minus X years.
Later on Data and Lore talk:
LORE: Promises he later proved to be true. Which made you and me possible, brother. Our beloved father. Will I soon have a uniform like that, brother?
DATA: If you get one the way I did, Lore, it will mean four years at the Academy, another three as ensign, ten or twelve on varied space duty in the lieutenant grades.
So if Data was promoted to lieutenant commander immediately before "Datalore", "Datalore" would be 13 to 15 years after year '78, and thus in about year '91 to '93. If Data entered Starfleet Academy immediately after being found and graduated 4 years later in '78, "Datalore" would be about year '00 in the next calendar century.
In the episode "The Neutral Zone" three dead humans are brought back to life.
PICARD: Welcome to the twenty fourth century.
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/126.htm
This indicates that the year is somewhere between 2300/2301 and 2399/2400 in either Picard's calendar or the calendar of the frozen persons, orboth if they are the same calendar.
RALPH: What year is this?
DATA: By your calendar two thousand three hundred sixty four.
Data is telling Ralph that the year is 2364 in the calendar which was used by Ralph. And by calling it Ralph's calendar, Data implies that Data's calendar is different from Ralph's. I don't remember Data breaking the forth wall by facing the camera when he said that, so it is an unjustified assumption to assume that Ralph's calendar used the Anno Domini calendar era.
So if the year was 2300 in Data's calendar and 2364 in Ralph's calendar, Ralph's calendar would use a calendar era 64 years earlier than the one Data's calendar used. And if the year was between 2391 and 2393 in Data's calendar Ralph's calendar would use a calendar era 27 to 29 years after the calendar era in Data's calendar.
Of course it is uncertain whether "The Neutral Zone" was during the 24th century of data's calendar, so the difference between the two calendar eras could be much greater.
CLARE: Excuse me, could someone please tell me what's going on here?
CRUSHER: About three hundred and seventy years ago, you died of a massive embolism.
So Clare died about year 1994, plus or minus a few years, in Ralph's calendar. It seems illogical to assume that Ralph's 1994 would have been the same as our aD 1994. Then and now the frozen dead are kept in vats of liquid nitrogen, not transparent freezing tubes. Then and now the cost of transporting bodies and a cpusule into orbit would have very expensive and so the service would have had to charge a lot of money, more than Clare's husband could afford. Then and now there is no way to generate artifical gravity, which both their capsule and the Botany Bay from 1996 in the "Space Seed" calendar had.
The frozen dead eventually returned to Earth. And in later seasons of TNG dates became more and b more conisstent with the use of Ralph's calendar and not Data's calendar.
My assumption is that the United Earth Government sometimes adopts a new official united Earth Calendar and calendar era to please a group lobbying for their favored calendar. And I assume that when the frozen dead returned to Earth they became celebrities in some sort of media, and the groups advocating for making Ralph's calendar the official United Earth calendar used that fame to succeed in their goal.
Anyway, I am quite certain that Data's calendar used in the first season of TOS was eventually replaced by Ralph's calendar which was used in most of the rest of the TOS era productions.
There is something interesting about Data's calendar used in the first season.
In "Angel ONe":
DATA: Angel One is a class M planet, sir, supporting carbon based flora and fauna, sparsely populated with intelligent life forms. It is similar in technological development to mid-twentieth century Earth.
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/115.htm
I guess that mid twentieth century Earth would have been about 1925 to 1975 in Data's calendar.
TASHA: Captain, we're receiving an audio signal from Angel One.
PICARD: Starfleet are adamant that we maintain excellent diplomatic relations with this planet. Mister Data, is there any other pertinent information before we reply?
But later episodes indicated a world needed to have faster than light travel to be contacted and for the prime directive to not apply. So possibly Earth already had warp drive in the mid 20th century in Data's calendar, which would thus use a different calendar era than *Anno Domini.
PICARD: How current is this information, Mister Data?
DATA: A Federation vessel last visited this planet sixty two years ago, Captain.
So if Angel One technology advanced at the same rate as Earth technology, it would now have the technological level of Earth sometime between about 1987 and 2037 in Data's calendar era. And would it have been reasonable in AD 1987 to assume that Earth would be able to invent the advanced disintegrater shown later in the episode by AD 1987 to 2037? I don't think so.
And in the episode "Haven" a strange spaceship is seen approaching the Haven system.
DATA: On the viewer, Captain. Unidentified vessel travelling sub-warp speed, bearing two three five point seven.
PICARD: Sub-warp? It's several hours away then? Let's take a look at it. Enlarge to maximum.
LAFORGE: Increasing magnification, sir.
PICARD: Mister Data, is that the trouble I believe it is?
DATA: If you mean a Tarellian vessel, sir, it is.
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/105.htm
Discussing the Tarellian vessel:
RIKER: If it were unable to reach warp speed, it would have taken all these years to get here.
So the Tarellians had warp capable vessels of a unique and identifiable design. That implies that the Tarellians were advanced enough to invent warp drive.
CRUSHER: The Tarellians had reached Earth's late twentieth century level of knowledge. That's all you need if you're a damned fool. A deadly, infectious virus which at that modest level of knowledge is not difficult to grow.
So a society advanced enough to have warp drive could still be at Earth's late 20th century level of technology. Which indicates that Crusher was using a calendar era with a year one much later than Anno Domini one.
Now go back to the second Star Trek pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
The first line is:
Captain's log, Star date 1312.4. The impossible has happened. From directly ahead, we're picking up a recorded distress signal, the call letters of a vessel which has been missing for over two centuries. Did another Earth ship once probe out of the galaxy as we intend to do? What happened to it out there? Is this some warning they've left behind?
http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/2.htm
Later, after beaming aboard the ship's recorder, Kirk addresses the crew:
KIRK: This is the Captain speaking. The object we encountered is a ship's disaster recorder, apparently ejected from the S.S. Valiant two hundred years ago.
Except that the transcript is wrong in this case and Kirk actually says that the recorder was ejected from the S.S. Valiant almost 200 years ago.
So Earth lost contact with the S.S. Valiant over 200 years earlier, and the ship later struck the energy barrier and ejected the recorder almost 200 years earlier. Some moment during the voyage of the S.S. Valiant would have beeen exactly 200 years earlier. And Earth apparently already had faster than light (FTL) interstellar travel over 200 years earlier.
And what is said about the poem "Nightingale woman"?
MITCHELL: My love has wings. Slender, feathered things with grace in upswept curve and tapered tip. The Nightingale Woman, written by Phineas Tarbolde on the Canopius planet back in 1996. It's funny you picked that one, Doctor.
DEHNER: Why?
MITCHELL: That's one of the most passionate love sonnets of the past couple of centuries. How do you feel, Doctor?
When characters are mentioning important data about a fictional setting, the writer must make them speak more accurately and precisely than real people usually speak, to give the audience accurate information about the fictional world. So it seems logical to deduce that "Where No Man Has Gone Before" happens 100 to 200 years after Tabolde wrote "Nightingale Woman" and thus sometime between 2096 and 2196 in that calendar.
Possibly scriptwriter Samuel Peebles intended to write a scene where Mitchell said he was alwyas right now that he was a god and Dehner replied that he said that 1996 was a couple of centuries ago when it was really over a thousand years earlier. But such a scene is not in the episode.
So viewers should assume that Mitchell was being precise and 1996 was probably more than 100 years and certainly less than 200 years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before", putting it in the period of 2096 to 2196.
That is consistent with "Space Seed" being 200 years after 1996 in the "Space Seed" calendar era. The two centuries could be 200 years plus or minus 25 years, or 200 years plus or minus 33.33 years, or 200 years plus or minus 50 years, or even 200 years plus or minus 99 years, depending on how loosing Kirk was speaking. Thus allowing for the maximum possible vagueness of Kirk, "Space Seed" could happen about 2096 to 2296, a span which includes 2096 to 2196.
"Wolf in the Fold" mentions events which happen in the year 2156. So assuming that all TOS episodes use the same calendar era, Tos would happen sometime during the period of 2156 to 2196 in that calendar era.
When I believed all TOS episode sused th eame calendar era, and when I thought it was the Anno Domini calendar era, I believed that TOS happened sometime during the period of AD 2156 to 2196.
But there is a flaw. In "Space Seed" Earth didn't develop FTL interstellar travel until about the year 2018 in the "Space Seed" calendar era - or possibly decades or centuries later than 2018.
MARLA: Captain, it's a sleeper ship.
KIRK: Suspended animation.
MARLA: I've seen old photographs of this. Necessary because of the time involved in space travel until about the year 2018. It took years just to travel from one planet to another.
http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/24.htm
But fortunately I read Poul Anderson's The High Crusade (1960), where Medieval Englsihmen capture and alie spaceship, travel to the stars, lose the directions to return to Earth, and found a culture which centuries or millennia later makes contact with Earth which has independently discovered FTL interstellar travel.
And I read James Blish's Earthman Come Home (1955) in which Earth discovered the "Spindizzy" machine for FTL travel around the year 2018 and began colonizing the stars, but the informaiton and the technology were supressed by the government, until the "spindizzy" was independently reinvented centuries later and a second period of interstellar FTL travel and colonization began.
So it was natural for me to decide that some group of Earth humans discovered a method of faster than light travel or acquired it from aliens or time travelers sometime in theperiod of 1896 to 1996. They used it to explore and colonize the stars and found an interstellar society. But they kept it secret from other Earth humans and eventually lost contact with Earth. Then, around the year 2018, or psosibly decades later, Earth independently discovered FTL insterstellar travel, and eventually the two groups of Earth humans were reunited sometimes before TOS.
So when I believed that all TOS dates used the same calendar era, the
Anno Domini calendar era, I deduced that Earth would have had to have invented or otherwise acquired means of FTL interstellar travel twice independently. And That seems like the most logical method to account for the dates given in TOS if they are all given in the same calendar era.
But once "The Neutral Zone" and later episodes showed the process of Earth abandoning Data's calendar era and adopting Ralph's calendar era, I realized that use of different calendar eras in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "Space Seed" could make some time in the period 1896 to 1996 i none calendar be sometime in or after 2018 in another calendar, and so it would be psosible for Earth to acquire FTL itnerstellar travel only once, instead of twice.
The discovery of FTL travel before or during 1896-1996 in what I call the Tarbolde-Mitchell or TM calendar era at the same time as 2018 or later in the "Space Seed" or SS calendar era indicates that year one SS should be at least 22 to 122 or more years before year one in the TM calndar era.
But there's more!
There is evidence of the use of different calendar eras even within the second pilot film ""Where No Man Has Gone Before". And when I realized that I felt very stupid for not noticing the use of different calendar eras until "The Neutral Zone" and later.
I do not know if the onscreen medical files of Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner should be considered to be canon. I borrowed a videotape from a library in the 1990s and was able to read the dates from it. A fan was able to read Gary Mitchell's age of 23 and mentioned it in an article in one of the Best of Trek books in the 1980s. I guess fast readers could read parts of the files while episode films were shown at Star Trek conventions.
According to the screen caps at Memory Alpha, Mitchell was born at Eldman, New____, on 1087.7 and his age was 23. If each digit in the date was a year, and if 23 was Mitchell's current age, the date would be between 1110.7 and 1111.7. Dehner was supposedly born at Delman, Newst____, on 1089.5 and was aged 21. If that was her current age, the date would have been between 1110.5 and 1111.5. So "Where No Man Has Gone Before" would be between 1110.7 and 1111.5 .
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Gary_Mitchell?file=Mitchell_profile_stats.jpg
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Elizabeth_Dehner?file=Dehner_profile_stats.jpg
Possibly their ages in their records are their past ages when they entered Starfleet or something. Since Mitchell and Dehner look younger than about 40, we could assume that "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is before about 1127.7 in the Delman-Edman or DE calendar era.
So "Where No Man Has Gone Before" should happen sometime between about 1110.7 DE and about 1127.7 DE, and also sometime between about 2096 TM and 2196 TM. Thus the DE calendar era should be somewhere between about 968.3 TM and 1085.3 TM.
To be continued.
Continued 04-30-2022.
The tombstone created by Mitchell for Kirk said:
JAMES R KIRK
c 1277.1 to 1313.7
So if the numbers were dates in years, Mitchell would think that Kirk was 36.6 years old in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". And this would suggest the use of a third calendar era in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Mitchell would have been 231 years old if the tombstone was using the DE calendar era.
So if 1313.7 Kirk Tombstone (or KT) is equal to 1110.07 to 1127.7 DE, year 1 KT should be about year 186 to 203 DE.
I note that the final number of Kirk's tombstone 1313.7, is very similar to the stardates in that episode. The previous stardate is 1313.3, and th next and final startate afte the tombstone is seen is stardate 1313.8, which should be sometime shortly after Mitchell made the tombstone considering that Kirk is making a log entry about the events.
So if Mitchell expected KIrk to die on stardate 1313.7, and 1277.1 was Kirk's date of birth, each stardate unit would be about 1 Earth year long.
I note that an unspecified time after 1313.3 KIrk ordered the enterprise to leave dElta Vega if they didn't hear from Kirk in 12 hours. So it is possible that 0.4 or 0.5 stardate units were less than 12 hours long.
But that would make Kirk only a few days old. Maybe C stood for when Kirk took command of the Enterprise or some other recent event. Or maybe a stardate system was used where one stardate equalled one year, until a new system was adobted very recently with much shorter stardates.
If Kirk was 33.6 years old at stardate 1313.7, the old stardate system would have been replaced by the new one about stardate 1310.1. If Kirk was 32.6 yeas old at stardate 1313.7, the old stardate system would have been replaced by the new one about stardate 1309.1. If Kirk was 31.6 yeas old at stardate 1313.7, the old stardate system would have been replaced by the new one about stardate 1308.1. And so on.
Or maybe the tombstone gives the year when Kirk was born and the stardate when Mitchell expected to kill him.
Could the dates of birth of Mitchell and Dehner in their records have been given in stardates? Yes, but that would involve a change in the stardate system during their lifetimes. If the system used during the events of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" had been used since their births, they would have been only a few hundred days old, since Dehner would have been 224.2 stardates old and Mitchell would have been 226 stardates old. If they were about 30 years old in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" the old stardae system might have had about 7 to 8 stardates per year until the new stardate system was started shortly before "Where No Man Has Gone Before" began.
So the single episode has evidence for the possible use of one, two, or three, calendar eras and the possible use of one, two, or three, stardate systems.
S2 is not over yet~> Picard pulled that data from his memory. That’s a real past from the original timeline.