Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site watdcsu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watdcsu!herbie From: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong, Computing Services) Newsgroups: net.startrek Subject: Re: Re: new question (stardates) Message-ID: <578@watdcsu.UUCP> Date: Tue, 30-Oct-84 13:57:34 EST Article-I.D.: watdcsu.578 Posted: Tue Oct 30 13:57:34 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 30-Oct-84 23:45:39 EST References: <183@ttidcb.UUCP> <2999@mit-eddie.UUCP>, <781@sunybcs.UUCP> Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 31 For those that are interested, Andromeda, or M31, is about 2 million light years away. Some people have postulated that the warp factor is the effective speed if the Enterprise had been travelling in real space. It actually moves slower than the speed of light at all times in some other ``dimension''. As for stardates, Gene Rodenberry's explanation was that stardates were deliberately vague so as not to tie the series to a particular time using our year counting system. In the Startrek universe, this is not the case. A reasonable system for interpreting stardates would have account for the way stardates are used. One way of getting around the problem is to assume that the order of release of the shows was not the order of the events in the Startrek universe and only the order that they were released to the public. I seem to remember that for each show, stardates were always increasing through the one show. This implies a chronological order the corresponds to increasing stardate. There are a few shows that don't have this, but only two or three. Stardates can't only be dependent upon position of the Enterprise and time (relative to some standard, say Earth) because an unambiguous stardate could be worked out by knowing the positions of some reference stars and their motions. There should never be a ``stardate unknown'' entry in any log unless position and time are not the only factors upon which stardates depend. Herb... I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble.... UUCP: {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra|clyde}!watmath!watdcsu!herbie CSNET: herbie%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet ARPA: herbie%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa BITNET: herbie at watdcs,herbie at watdcsu