The "5" in 50211.22

[Garnoopy 0]

What does the "5" stand for in 50211.22? And when does it change? Does it change yearly or something? This may seem silly, but I have this strange desier to know.  :(

[Cmdr Laura Issia 0]

Good question... I haven't tried to use stardates since the turn of the millenium, myself -- ("xxxx's log, stardate zero-zero-one... Nah!")   Best guess -- I know some people who used to start all their dates with 4, as in Star Trek (because it was the 24th century), so maybe when the millenium rolled over, it went to 5?  If so, I think I'll adopt it... nice way to get around that nasty zero.  :(

[Atragon9 0]

Well, back in the ole 20th century, some of us would abbreviate/convert the year in the following way.  October 12, 1999 would become Stardate 9910.12 and what was assumed, and not typed, was the leading 4, i.e. 49910.12 (since the 4000's would be the 23rd century, yes?)  Okay, so it became 2000 in RL, so the same date a year later would be 0010.12 or 50010.12

 

So now, today would be 50211.22.

 

Having explained that, many people DON'T use this for Stardate conversion/creation.  However, this does explaing where the "5" comes from in some logs/briefings, such as mine.  Before anyone takes offense at my cavalier use of the 5000 series years and the twist of the current 12-month calendar into Stardates, I just want to say that I use it as a convenient device to show the forward movement of time in a way that might be reconizable to 20th/21st century gameplayers.

 

Atragon-9

STSF Forum Leader:laugh:

[HyperDrive 0]

In TNG the second number in the stardate was the season number, meaning all season 5 episodes were something like, 45020.4, or something like that. I believe that the first number indicates the century, the second the season (or year perhaps.) One can only assume that the other numbers are meant to be the day and time combined together, but this cannot be for certain. It seems that for almost every ST Television show, the stardates did not go along with each other. Even StarTrek.com states that the stardates are not calculated in any certain way.

 

http://www.lenious.com/stardate2.swf

 

Also, stardates only have one number after the decimal point. I.E. 50211.2 would be ST, but 50211.22 is something unheard of. (At least, from what I can tell. No TNG episode ever started out with Picard saying a Captain's log with more than one number after the decimal point.) However, I do understand why this happens here in the board. (because of the "yymm.dd = Stardate" thing.)

 

Since stardates are used all over the galaxy, by many different species, the numbers could mean almost anything. Especially since we do not know entirely who came up with the Stardate idea. Picard said a few times that stardates were just intergalactic means of time, so that everyone in the Galaxy could be on the same time as everyone else. (or something to that means.) Therefore, the numbers do not have to equal Earth times. They could mean phases of a sun somewhere in a distant sector that some star used to keep time, and decided that everyone could easily tell the time off of it. It could be anything, and we may never find out what it is.

 

Anyway, I have ranted on long enough.

[Guest STSF Lightning]

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