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Is there a quick-and-dirty conversion for turning the FASA stardates into something resembling canonical "reality?"
I mean, I know how their dating system is "supposed" to work, but I think we all know that the dates they end up with are often decades off by a certain point.
Or since I'm keeping my shiplists separate, should I not bother, and just keep the date conversion they use in the FASAverse?
Keep in mind on the Star Dates given in the game were 60 years off, I think it was 60.
But basically it boiled down to first digit was the century, next two the year, then month, point day. C/YYMM.DD
Making right now 0/0603.06. (March 6th, 2006)
Date of my birth -1/7112.14. (December 14th, 1971)
Federation Founding 1/6100.00 (2161, month and day unknown to me).
Ah, that's what I needed, how many years their dates were "off" and if it was always about the same... something like 60 years, huh? That'll help. If I decide to "correct" the shiplist.
Ok, hunted down my copy of the FASA Federation Ship Recognition Manual, to give you an example of the dates being off. The Enterprise Refit took place on Star Date 2/1704, translated April 2217. Canon wise the refit took place in 2271 (54 years off). Excelsior Star Date 2/2210 (October 2222) when in the movie it was 2287 (65 years off...). Hmm, my 60 years idea seem to be inconsistent...Ok one last try, death of the Reliant Star Date 2/2206 (June 2222). Figured as 2285 from DITL, so that's 63 years, again not 60...Grrr
Okay... from that, it looks as though the FASA-verse is hopelessly muddled compared to the canonverse.
That settles it. I'll use the FASAverse dates for the FASA books. Converting would be next to impossible with the dates all over the place like that.
Well, at least it makes life easier.
Why would it make it more difficult? Set up a number of years it's off, and then backtrack from that date.
If the books say that Kirk took over the Enterprise 60 years ago, and Pike took charge 10 years before that , there's your timelie. If something contradicts take the one that sounds more resonable to you.
Well, considering that I'm trying to make the shiplist ... er, I'm not sure what to call it ... "internally consistent within each 'universe's' list," that wouldn't work. The point is that I'm intentionally not making anything up on my own or closing any gaps. Not yet, anyway. It's best to have the lists consistent within themselves*, since they can't be consistent with each other, in any case.
*Given that I'm drawing up lists for "canon," Pocket Books, Bantam Books, FASA, LUG, Dec, Franz Joseph, Jackill, GURPS Prime Directive, SFB, SotSF, and various and sundry other 'universes,' you can see the impossibility of trying to combine them.
Latest canon on the date for Enterprise refit is 2273. The original series took place from 2265-2270 with two and a half years with Kirk as Chief of Starfleet Operations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix
Actually the 1701 was launched in 2245,Pike took command from April in 2251,Kirk took Command in 2264 & ended his frist 5 Yr mission in 2269 at which time 1701 started refit.ST:TMP took place in 2271.Quote:
Originally Posted by whoman69
Funny thing check FASA timeline for ST:TMP dates;It took place over several months(even the launch & interception.somethin like 3 months).
Problem is that FASA's Timeline does not match one to one with the Canon Trek timeline as laid out in the Encyclopedia, which came later.
Especially when Kirk returned, how long was excelsior in dock pre launch, time between films, etc.
It's not a simple case of take 2/2206 and make that 2222 June and then add 54 years. For all of the dates pre and post the series and films, that's fine, as it is all made up or backed up by historical sources, anyway.
But when you get to specific films, it's all messed up.
I use FASA as written, taken from all of their products, especially Federation book I think has the most clear timeline. I rewrote a lot of it.
Then I add in whatever Canon dates I want, cobbled from the Trek Encyclopedia.
In my own Trek Campaign, it is 2291, 2 uyears before the Khitomer accords and praxis moon in 2293. But the stardate I am using is: 2/2605.19
Which in Fasa is 2226 May 19th.
I once tried to do a listing of all ships launched when, laid down, etc and then realized, to hell with this, nobody got together when they wrote this crap in the first place, why break tradition, I'll do MY OWN, too.
And glad of it.
If you try to combine them all, you are in for a headache, or lots of choices, which no one will agree with, based on their preferred system.
There was an article in an old issue of Challenge magazine for just this purpose. It could convert from FASA to regular Trek Stardates, and gave reasonably close results for TOS era dates. I seem to remember they used 3 or four formulas, mostly based off the launch dates of the Enterprise. I'll see if I still have the issue.
Unfortuately, no two trek timelines match up perfectly. The FASA dates were based on the dates given in the Spaceflight book , written long before Chronology was written. Most pople use the dates in Chonology as "official".
You best best or converting dates from the FASA timeline is to get the date of a event that happens at about the same time and take the relative time between the dates and use that to fix the new date.
Do you need to do conversion for TOS era, TNG era or both?
I've been working with the formulas. I can do Tthe TNG formul easy enough, but am still working on narrowing down the 57-48 year offset for TNG. The TOS formuala is trcky becuase on the gaps in the TREK movies.
Keep in mind that not all dates will match up as FASA made a few things up for thier game (At the time FASA produced the RPG, Trek was a dead TV show and poorly recieved motion picture. No one figured that the show would return and contradict most of FASA's assumptions).