We’ve got ten more of these to go and I like to analyze. The safest bet for me is to do five today and five tomorrow to finally put this subseries to rest and get on with the final section of the guide. This one will have some of the important ones while the next one will be mostly for the really nosey as to how Star Trek used basic terms like “human” and “universe”. No sense hitting you with the super text wall.
Like I said, we have two of the important ones here and we’re starting with the Prime Directive, while ending on Stardates. These are some of the things the franchise are most known for and comparing them with the TNG writer’s guide should be interesting. I’m curious how they changed, and what this guide says that the sequel series’ writer’s guide said about it.
To fill out the homepage intro, I give you this:
At this point would you know if Riker was making any of that up?
GENERAL ORDER NUMBER ONE
The only Starfleet Order that concerns us in most stories. It is a wise but often troublesome rule which prohibits Starship interference with the normal development of alien life and alien societies. It can be disregarded when absolutely vital to the interests of the entire Earth Federation, but the Captain who does violate it had better be ready to present a sound defense of his actions.
This coincides with the later writer’s guide for Star Trek: The Next Generation:
THE PRIME DIRECTIVE PROHIBITS MEDDLING WITH OTHER WORLDS’ DESTINIES
Starfleet General Order Number One says that we do not have the right to interfere with the natural process of evolution on any planet. We do not have the right to interfere with the culture of the people who live on the planet. We do not have the right to interfere with the natural process of life.
There are only two possible exceptions to the Prime Directive: 1)When the safety of the starship is jeopardized. 2)When it is absolutely vital to the interests of the Federation.
Any Captain who finds it necessary to violate the Prime Directive had better be ready to present a sound defense of his actions.
Added to the TNG guide is the safety of the ship while clarifying the reasoning for the Prime Directive, not given that name in the original series guide. Nowadays we all know it by the name “Prime Directive”. The idea was an anti-colonization attitude being part of Starfleet’s rules. The problem, as SF Debris noted in a video worth watching (it’s the second video on the page, a follow-up to the Enterprise episode “Dear Doctor”), is that too often the writers will not understand and misuse the Directive to create a barrier between doing the right thing. It’s a sort of false drama used to create a moral quandary that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. There are times when interference is the right thing to do because of an outside element, not people doing damage to themselves…which probably leads to environmental debates and so forth.
The problem is when a writer uses the Prime Directive in an extreme manner and thinks they’re in the right or wants to force a solution that doesn’t involve changing society. You set up a scenario, you better be prepared to see it through unless you’re clever enough to find a proper workaround…and too many writers can’t. We can debate why they try to use it or build a story around it, but if you can’t do it, don’t. You’ll only ruin your own story. The rule itself is fine, but anything done to extremes does more harm than good. Anyway, back to the original guide and more terms.
ORBIT
The Enterprise usually takes up what we term “standard orbit” around a planet. Depending on a number of conditions or needs, this distance can be from one to seven thousand miles high. Our vessel was constructed in space and has never felt the solidity of the surface of a planet. In other words, it doesn’t land, it stays in orbit.
Well, it does crash land. Ask its Galaxy Class namesake in a century or show. There wouldn’t be a landing starship until Voyager. I’m not even sure the Constitution class is capable of landing with that design, though I haven’t read Mr. Scott’s Guide To The Enterprise in years. There are positives and negatives, but most of the negatives are in the story, as keeping them in orbit means the ship can only save them with a shuttlecraft or transporter. Plus starships tend to be really big and really heavy. I’m not sure how Voyager doesn’t sink into the ground on the rare occasion we see them land.
That said, I think people even in the 1960s were familiar with the concept of orbiting. We had ships orbit Earth before going to the Moon, which also required orbiting. The key bit of data here is that the ship has never been on a planet surface, and that it should never do so in any story written for the show because it would break an established rule…and cost more money to make happen on 1960s television. The transporter was a cost-saving method. Have the characters stand in a spot, cut, leave the shot, add a transportation effect in post. The shuttlecraft not being ready for the pilot turned out to be a gift in disguise.
CLOTHING AND RELATED GEAR
Except in exceptional circumstances necessary to a story, our crew is always dressed in “standard uniform” or “dress uniform.” Unless an important story point, let us provide “fatigues” and leisure wear as our budget permits.
This is an odd addition. There were few episodes that required much in the way of clothing changes for the regulars, and that was usually losing clothes, like a shirt or something. Kirk had that odd shirt with the logo sideways along the bottom but there was never a need for anything else except breaking out the spacesuit once or twice. Were they that worried about their clothing budget?
Never have members of the crew putting things into pockets; there are no pockets. When equipment is needed, it is attached to special belts (as in the case of the communicator and phaser).
We do not have space suits available or other forms of environmental suits for hostile planet surfaces. These may be obtained for special scripts but keep in mind that we generally restrict our missions to “Class M” planets (approximating Earth conditions)
Well apparently they finally got some space suits, but I’d have to check to see if that was in season two or three. The animated series got around this by inventing force field belts, so they just added an outline of the characters. I wonder why there are no pockets? Having a belt for ready access to the phaser and communicator is a good idea (though easy to lose the communicator as it wasn’t in a pouch or holster like some people keep their smartphones) but so are pockets. Was there no room in the budget for pants pockets?
Finally, the other big one.
STARDATE
We invented “Stardate” to avoid continually mentioning Star Trek’s century (actually, about two hundred years from now), and getting into arguments about whether this or that would have developed by then. Pick any combination of four numbers plus a percentage point, use it as your story’s stardate. For example, 1313.5 is twelve o’clock noon of one day and 1314.5 would be noon of the next day. Each percentage point is roughly equivalent to one-tenth of one day. The progression of stardates in your script should remain constant but don’t worry about whether or not there is a progression from other scripts. Stardates are a mathematical formula which varies depending on location in the galaxy, velocity of travel, and other factors, can vary widely from episode to episode.
So Stardates have always been BS but there is a method to their madness? When I discussed it from the TNG guide it was not in the terminology section but in the script formatting section. From my review because I don’t want to go digging around the guide right now and my comments wouldn’t change:
And here’s the section that might interest you. We already know that stardates are basically bullcrap. But what is the general layout of a stardate?
A stardate is a five-digit number followed by a decimal point and one or more digits. Example: “41254.7”. The first two digits of the stardate are always “41”. The 4 stands for the 24th century, the one indicates the first season.
So there is a method to the formation of a stardate then. Could things have changes since the original series?
The additional three leading digits (254, in the guide’s example) will progress unevenly during the course of the season from 000 to 999. The digit following the decimal point is generally regarded as a day counter.
Perhaps not. There’s no indication what the additional digits represent. There are three so month is out if they’re going past 012. It seems more like meta data. The “1” means season one, so the same example in season 2 is 42254.7. I have to assume that a stardate in the 23rd century should have been 31254.7, which is when the original series took place but that isn’t the case either. For example, the book & record I have put the stardate at 5444.9. To be more official, the episode list in the Memory Alpha wiki gives only four number stardates, not counting the decimal. For example the pilot episode, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, takes place over the stardates 1312.4-1313.8. Other episodes send that first number as high as the 5s, and doesn’t really follow chronologically between episodes. The animated series wasn’t any better, making further bounces along the timeline. This continued in TNG and I don’t have to check further to believe it kept going. In other words, stardates are still bullcrap.
Today’s me again. So while there’s some thought into how the date progresses there is no consistency through the franchise. That’s why any attempt to watch the shows in “stardate chronological order” is a total waste of time. This hasn’t stopped diehard fans from trying of course. Add in the novels, comics, and games, and you have a total mess of a timeline that makes The Legend Of Zelda look downright tame.
Tomorrow we end this section and get all of the terms out of the way. Yes, you can finally find out what a “human” is. Won’t that be exciting?
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