Fifty Worst Dates

"Worst. Chronological System. Ever." - Comic Book Guy Probably. If he was ever consulted on it.

"Never ask a Trekkie the time, unless you can convert stardates and speak Klingon." - Nobody. I just made this up, too. But it's probably true.

STARDATE 319210.6 -- Pity the poor Star Trek fan. Pasty, out-of-shape, and roundly mocked by most everyone (except maybe the Furries, but that's a whole other story... It's kind of complicated. Here's a handy guide to the Official Geek Hierarchy (thanks for the link, Bonnie!) for the "big picture" of who gets to make fun of who in the land of Dork), the Trekkie gets no respect.

As if things weren't bad enough, he's got to try and explain Star Trek's crazy "Stardate" system of timekeeping. Generally, sci-fi and fantasy geeks like their little universes to be internally consistent. When Tolkien has Galadriel recite Elvish poetry in one of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, the hardcore "Ring"ers not only memorize it, they spell- and grammarcheck it as well.

The thing about the Stardate system is that it really doesn't make any sense. No doubt it was invented so that actual dates were not used, keeping the show set in the distant future without actually pinning down an actual time. The writers of the original Star Trek, and Gene Roddenberry (the creator of Star Trek) were no doubt just happy to have a show on prime-time TV, and pulling down a steady paycheck. Making sure that the Stardates Kirk rattled off made sense had to be pretty far down on The List Of Things To Worry About. Probably right down there with making sure all the Tribbles' fur was well-groomed in that one episode.

So how tortured is the explanation of Stardates? Behold the Stardate System Explained in all its 6-part glory (yes, I said six parts). And you think switching to metric is a bitch...