Timeline of Star Trek

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The below is an abridged timeline of events established in the group of television shows and feature films set in the fictional Star Trek universe. More exhaustive timelines are available in both Star Trek reference works and in various fan websites.

Note: Many of these dates are rounded-off approximations, as the dialogue from which they are derived often includes qualifiers such as “over,” “more than,” or “less than.”

13.7 Billion Years Ago

In the aftermath of the Big Bang, the Q known as Quinn, hiding from the Q Continuum on the Federation starship USS Voyager (NCC-74656), transports the ship into the infant expanding universe, before being discovered by the Q with which the crew of the Enterprise-D (and viewers) were most acquainted. (This occurred in the second-season Voyager episode “Death Wish.”)

5 Billion (possibly earlier) - 3.5 Billion Years Ago

  • A humanoid civilization seeds the oceans of many planets, which gives rise to many races, including humans, Klingons, Vulcans, and Cardassians. (This was revealed in the sixth-season TNG episode "The Chase")
  • Q transports Captain Picard to an infant Earth, and shows him the first amino acids combining to form the first proteins. (This occurred in the TNG series finale All Good Things....)

2 Billion Years Ago

  • The civilization on Tagus II flourishes. (Q mentioned the ancient civilization to Picard in “QPid” (TNG).)

87 Million Years Ago

  • A civilization in the D'Arsay system launches a robotic interstellar archive of their culture. (The Enterprise-D crew come across the archive in the seventh-season TNG episode "Masks".)

600,000 Years Ago

  • The Tkon Empire, whose members number in the trillions, goes extinct when their sun goes supernova. (Data described the empire in the first season TNG episode ”The Last Outpost”.)
  • Sargon's people explore the galaxy and found colonies on other planets. (Sargon said this to Captain Kirk in the second-season TOS episode "Return to Tomorrow.")

500,000 Years Ago (possibly earlier)

  • The star Exo, parent to the planet Exo III, begins to fade. The Exosians react by immigrating underground, and as a result their culture becomes more mechanized, with androids becoming commonplace in society. When the Exosians began to fear the androids, they attempted to deactivate them, and in defense, the androids exterminated the Exosians. (Mr. Spock mentioned the date when the star began to fade in the first-season TOS episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?")
  • A cataclysm on Sargon's planet rips away its atmosphere, leaving the planet almost totally dead, with few survivors left in suspended animation deep below the surface. (Spock noted the date of the disaster in the second-season TOS episode "Return to Tomorrow".)
  • The inhabitants of Talos IV are almost completely destroyed in a war, and the planet becomes virtually uninhabitable. The survivors move underground but find the confines of subterranean life constricting, and they increasingly rely on telepathic illusions for entertainment.

200,000 Years Ago

  • The ancient Iconian civilization flourishes, becoming a strong influence on many other cultures, including the Dewan, the Iccobar, and the Dinasian. The Iconians were known by others as “Demons of Air and Darkness” for their ability to use their dimensional gateways for transportation, allowing them to cross interstellar distances and appear on other planets, a tactic they used to expand their empire. (Captain Donald Varley described the archaeological evidence from Denius III in the second-season episode “Contagion”.)

50,000 Years Ago

  • The silicon-based lifeform indigenous to Janus VI known as the Horta begin their most recent cycle of rebirth, which involves every member of that species dying, save for one who guards the eggs of the next generation, located beneath the surface of the planet. (Spock’s mind-meld with the Horta revealed this in the first-season TOS episode “The Devil in the Dark.”)
  • Lokai, of the planet Cheron, attempts to lead a revolution against that planet’s government for what his people perceived as racial injustice and oppression. After being convicted of treason, he fled the planet, and was pursued by Commissioner Bele. (Bele explained their backstory to Kirk’s crew in the third-season TOS episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.”)
  • The planet-killer, or Doomsday Machine, built as an ultimate weapon which could destroy both sides in an unknown conflict, begins its journey of destruction. It is finally destroyed in 2267 by the U.S.S. Constellation.

45,000 Years Ago

  • A group of extraterrestrials from the Delta Quadrant visited ancient humans in Earth’s Siberian Peninsula, who called them the “Sky Spirits.” The Sky Spirits gave these humans, whom they called the “Inheritors,” a genetic bonding to help them and their world survive. (The “Sky Spirit” related the story to Chakotay in the second-season Voyager episode “Tattoo.”)
  • A ceramic figurine called a naiskos is created on the planet Kurl. (Professor Galen gives the artifact to Captain Picard in the fifth-season TNG episode "The Chase".)

30,000 Years Ago

  • The Verathan civilization in the Gamma Quadrant reaches its height, spanning two dozen star systems. (Vash stated this in the first-season DS9 episode “Q-Less”.)

25,000 Years Ago

  • The Trill begin their symbiotic relationships as a joined species which pairs an intelligent vermiform creature with a humanoid host.
  • The first of 947 archeological expeditions begin to the ruins on planet Tagos III. (Picard referenced this date in the fourth-season TNG episode "Qpid".)

10,000 Years Ago (or more)

  • The machine-god Vaal is built on the planet Gamma Trianguli VI in order to provide food and climate control for the Triangulians. (Dr. McCoy noted that the Triangulians had no progress for “at least ten thousand years,” in the second-season TOS episode “The Apple,” suggesting that Vaal was created at least that long ago.)
  • The Fabrini sun goes nova, destroying the planets in that system. The Fabrina anticipated this event by creating a giant interstellar ark called Yonada out of a 200-mile-diameter asteroid in which to survive a 10,000 year voyage to a planet near Daran V. (Spock noted the date in the third-season TOS episode “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”)
  • The Q Continuum begin a new era of exploration, discovery, learning, and dialog from knowledge gleaned across the universe. (So noted in the second-season Voyager episode Death Wish.”)
  • The Ferengi capitalist society is established, with Grand Nagus Gint, the first Grand Nagus, codifying Ferengi law and business in the Rules of Acquisition. (Noted in the fourth-season DS9 episodes “Bar Association” and “Body Parts.”)
  • The first “Tear of the Prophets,” hourglass-shaped crystal-like objects, is discovered by the ancient Bajorans in the skies of Bajor, the first of ten to be discovered over the next 10,000 years, which inspire Bajoran theology. (Kai Opaka noted the date to Sisko in the DS9 pilot episode, “Emissary”)
  • The Kalandan outpost, an artificial planet, is deployed.

6,000 Years Ago

  • Landru, leader of the planet Beta III in star system C-111, creates a powerful computer featuring holograms in his likeness and all of his stored knowledge in order to care for his people after his death. (Spock noted the date in the first-season TOS episode “Return of the Archons.”)
  • Unidentified aliens take several humans from Earth to be raised on a distant planet. Their descendants are trained so that they can be returned to Earth to prevent humans from destroying themselves. (Gary Seven described this in the TOS second-season finale, “Assignment: Earth”.)
  • An ice age begins on Sigma Draconis VI, triggering a regression in its inhabitants back to a Stone Age level. (Spock described this in the TOS third-season premiere, "Spock's Brain".)

5,000 Years Ago

  • Earth is visited by a group of aliens with powerful psychokinetic abilities who were worshipped by ancient humans, and became the basis of ancient Greek mythology. (Apollo described this to Kirk’s crew in the second-season TOS episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?”)
  • The planet Sarpeidon experiences an ice age, into which Spock and McCoy are transported using a time travel device called an atavachron. (This was described in the penultimate TOS episode “All Our Yesterdays”.)

Pre-1st Century

4000-3000 B.C.E.

  • A powerful cloaking device is installed to shield the planet of Aldea. The device is run and maintained by a computer called the Custodian.

3834 B.C.E.

630 B.C.E.

  • The Bajoran prophet Trakor encounters the Orb of Change for the first time, from which his prophecies are derived. (The prophecies are later believed by Vedek Yarka to describe events in the third-season DS9 episode “Destiny.”)

232 B.C.E.

  • The star Sahndara goes nova. Few inhabitants of one of the planets in that system survive and travel to Earth, where one of them, Parmen, is influenced heavily by Plato. (Parmen noted this in the third-season TOS episode "Plato's Stepchildren".)

1st Century

  • The inhabitants of planet 892-IV develop a culture oddly similar in many respects to that of Earth’s ancient Rome. (Kirk stated the planet’s culture went back 2,000 years in the penultimate second-season TOS episode “Bread and Circuses”)

32 C.E.

3rd to 4th Century

  • Spock’s ancestors adopt a ceremonial ground that will remain in his family at least until he undergoes Pon Farr in 2367. (Spock describes the event as having occurred over 2,000 years prior in the second-season TOS premiere “Amok Time”)
  • A disease called the Vidiian Phage ravages the Vidiians of the Delta Quadrant (The Vidiians describe this in the first season Voyager episode “Phage.”)
  • The Vulcan Time of Awakening. In the midst of horrific wars on Vulcan, the philosopher Surak leads his people, teaching them to embrace logic and suppress all emotion. Those who do not embrace this philosophy leave Vulcan and found the Romulan Star Empire. (The seventh-season TNG episode “Gambit part II” established the Time of Awakening as 2,000 years prior.)
  • The ancient Debrune, an offshoot of the Romulans, established an outpost on Barradas III. Other planets settled by Romulans or other Romulan offshoots included Calder II, Yadalla Prime, and Draken IV. (This was described in “Gambit part II”.)
  • The Dominion is founded in the Gamma Quadrant by the shapeshifting race known as the Changelings. (Weyoun described the age of the Dominion as 2,000 years old in the fourth-season DS9 episode “To the Death.”)
  • The Resolution, a custom of ritual suicide, is adopted by the inhabitants of Kaelon as a way of ending life with dignity.

9th Century

  • Kahless the Unforgettable unites the Klingons by defeating the tyrant Molor and the Fek’lhri in battle, and provides his people with teachings based on a philosophy of honor. (The sixth-season TNG episode “Rightful Heir” said this event was 1,500 years prior.)
  • War breaks out on the planet Solais V, which lasts into the 24th century. (The second-season TNG episode “Loud as a Whisper” established this.)
  • A Metron is born that will one day encounter Captain Kirk. (The Metron gave his/her age to Kirk in the first-season TOS episode “Arena.”)

13th Century

  • Nearly all life on the planet Zetar is destroyed by an unspecified cataclysm, leaving only a hundred survivors in the form of noncorporeal energy patterns that search through space for corporeal bodies to inhabit. (The Zetarians describe this to Kirk in the third-season TOS episode “The Lights of Zetar”.)
  • The cloud city of Stratos is built by the people of the planet Ardana. However the leaders refuse to let the working class Ardanans live there, relegating them to the mines on the surface of the planet, where the harmful substances being mined have adverse effects on the miners' brains, causing irrationality. (The third-season TOS episode "The Cloudminders".)

14th Century

1367 C.E.

  • The inhabitants of Ventax II, who suffer from wars, pollution and overcrowding, enter into a pact with an allegedly supernatural being calling herself Ardra, who promises the Ventaxians a thousand years of peace and prosperity in return for their total worship after that period. (The Ventaxian leader Jared described this in the fourth-season TNG episode “Devil’s Due.”)
  • The Promelians and the Menthars fought a war near Orelious X, resulting in their mutual destruction, and the destruction of the planet, which is now an asteroid field. (The war was said to be a millennium prior to the third-season TNG episode “Booby Trap.”)

1368 C.E.

  • The planet Kataan in the Silarian sector is destroyed when its star goes nova. Prior to this, the Kataans launched a small interstellar probe containing a memory record of life on their planet, and a small flute belonging to an iron-weaver named Kamin who lived in a village called Ressik. (Data noted the date in the penultimate fifth-season TNG episode “The Inner Light”.)
  • A group of space travelers were stranded on a planet in the Gamma Quadrant they named Meridian, which existed on two intersecting dimensional planes. (This was described in the second-season DS9 episode “Meridian.”)

1371 C.E.

  • A group of noncorporeal explorers from another galaxy called the Nacene visit the Ocampa homeworld. After their technology inadvertently destroys the Ocampan ecology, rendering the planet completely dry, two of the Nacene, a female and a male, realizing the magnitude of their error, decide to stay behind to care for the Ocampa out of guilt, building an underground habitat for them, and a large spaceborne array to power the habitat, and on which to live. Because the habitat provided for the Ocampa’s every need, most of the Ocampa's powerful psionic abilities atrophied. (This was described in the Voyager pilot episode “Caretaker”. According to The Star Trek Chronology, the date is derived from the fact that Ocampans only live 8 or 9 years, which would indicate an Ocampan generation to be 2 years, and the Ocampan doctor’s statement that this was 500 generations ago.)

1372 C.E.

  • The Klingon Homeworld is invaded by the Hur’q, who pillage the planet. One of their prizes is the Sword of Kahless, the first bat’leth forged by the mythic Klingon leader. (The fourth-season DS9 episode “The Sword of Kahless” describes the event as a millennium prior.)
  • The Vulcan holiday Rumarie falls into disuse, presumably as Surak’s philosophy of logic spreads to the last Vulcans to embrace it. (Tuvok said that Rumarie had not been celebrated for a thousand years in the beginning of the second-season Voyager episode “Meld.”)

16th Century

1570 C.E.

  • The Skreeans of the Gamma Quadrant are enslaved by the T-Rogorans. (This was described as 800 years prior to the second-season DS9 episode “Sanctuary”.)
  • The ancient Bajorans use solar sail ships to explore their solar system, and at least one even reaches Cardassia. (This was described as 800 years prior to the third-season DS9 “Explorers”.)

17th Century

1647 C.E.

  • A man named Ronin is born in Glasgow, Scotland. He eventually is infused with a noncorporeal, anaphasic life-form, and survives through the centuries by keeping company with women whose biochemistry is compatible with his energy matrix, using a process that compromises the reasoning faculties of these women. The women he chooses are ancestors of Enterprise-D Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beverly Crusher. (Ronin told the story to Crusher in the seventh-season TNG episode “Sub Rosa”.)

1669 C.E.

  • Guinan’s father is born. (Guinan said her father was 700 years old in the teaser of the sixth-season TNG episode “Rascals,” which was set in 2369.)

18th Century

  • A group of interstellar anthropologists called the Preservers visit Earth and fearing the Native Americans to be in danger of extinction, transplant a small group of Lenape, Navajo and Mohicans to a distant planet near an asteroid belt, and provide a powerful obelisk-shaped deflector beam generator to protect them. The natives referred to these aliens as the Wise Ones. (This was described in the second-season TOS episode “The Paradise Syndrome.” The date, according to The Star Trek Chronology, is derived by the Native American culture seen in the episode.)
  • Eminiar VII and Vendikar, two planets in the Eminiar system, begin a war that lasts into the 23rd century, by which time it is fought via computer simulations, and citizens on each side reporting to death chambers to reflect casualties. (Anan 7 said the war had lasted for 500 years in the first-season TOS episode “A Taste of Armageddon.”)
  • People from the planet Peliar Zel migrate to that world’s two moons. (Peliar Zel governor Leka described the event as occurring five centuries prior in the fourth-season TNG episode “The Host.”)
  • Energy patterns containing the consciousnesses of hundreds of condemned criminals from the Ux-Mal star system are imprisoned on a moon of the planet Mab-Bu VI. (The convict that possessed Counsellor Troi gave the date in the fifth-season TNG episode “Power Play”.)
  • A small bistro/bar comes into the possession (or is built by) the ancestor of Sandrine, who will one day own the establishment, which will be known in the late 24th century as Chez Sandrine. (Tom Paris said Sandrine’s family owned the bar for 600 years in the first-season Voyager episode “The Cloud.”)

19th Century

1821 C.E.

  • Historically renown poet John Keats dies at the age of 30 in Rome. Unbeknownst to anyone, his death is caused by a noncorporeal alien called Onaya, who uses the neural energy his brain creates during creative periods to sustain her. (Historical accounts establish Keats’ death. Onaya’s involvement revealed in the fourth-season DS9 episode “The Muse.”)

1864 C.E.

  • Colonel Thaddius Riker, a American Civil War Union soldier known as “Old Iron Boots” and ancestor of future Starfleet Captain William Riker, commands the 102nd New York unit but is badly injured during General Sherman’s march to Atlanta. He is rescued by an unidentified samaritan later revealed to be Quinn, a member of the Q Continuum. (Historical accounts describe Sherman’s march. Quinn’s involvement with Riker is established in the second-season Voyager episode “Death Wish.”)

Late 1800s

  • A race of aliens called the Skagaarans abduct a group of humans from the American Southwest and take them to a planet deep inside the Delphic Expanse to use as a labor class. In the years that followed, the humans rose up against the Skagaarans and estanblished an Old West-like society.

1871 C.E.

1893 C.E.

  • A group of Devidians jouney to late 19th Century San Francisco from the 24th century to kill humans for their neural energy to sustain themselves, using the cholera epidemic of the time as a cover. Enterprise-D science officer Lieutenant Commander Data accidentally finds himself there as well, and meets future author Jack London as a young man working as a bellboy in a hotel. Data also discovers his crewmate, the long-lived El Aurian known as Guinan, visiting there as a San Francisco socialite. The two interact with Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain), who discovers that Data is from the future. Captain Picard and the rest of the senior staff follow Data, where they and Clemens help thwart the Devidians before they are all returned to the 24th century. (This was depicted in the TNG fifth-season finale and sixth-season premiere, "Time's Arrow Part I"and "Time's Arrow Part II")

20th century

21st century

  • 2002
    • The stellar series probe Nomad is launched, and becomes a deadly weapon after it merges with an alien space probe, Tan Ru.
  • 2009
    • The son of Captain John Christopher, Shaun Geoffrey, commands the first successful Earth-Saturn spaceprobe mission.
  • 2024
    • The Bell Riots led by Gabriel Bell, force the closure of the Sanctuary districts across the United States.
  • 2030
    • The phrase "let me help" replaces "I love you" as the most common phrase on Earth.
    • Zefram Cochrane is born on Earth.
  • 2032
    • First manned mission to Mars, the pilot is engulfed by a passing stellar phenomenon while the crew is still on the surface, contact is lost, he was presumed instantly killed, but in fact managed to survive for several days inside the craft.
  • 2053
  • 2063
  • 2067
    • Parasitic creatures infest Lavinius V.
  • 2075
    • Earth Starfleet Founded. Date is conjecture. The main purpose of the Earth Starfleet was "...to seek out new life forms and civilizations, and to boldly go where no man has gone before." (This quote is attributed to Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive on Earth.)

The Starfleet Charter, Article 14, Section 31, made allowances for certain rules to be bent during times of extraordinary threat. This clause was the seed for the rogue organization known as Section 31. In DS9: "Tacking Into the Wind", Julian Bashir said that Section 31 had managed to stay hidden for "over three hundred years". If this estimate is correct, then the Earth Starfleet must have been chartered before 2075. The Earth Starfleet was succeeded in 2161 by the new Starfleet of the United Federation of Planets, of which the Earth fleet formed a major part.

  • 2079
    • Earth begins to recover from its nuclear war.

22nd century

  • 2111
  • 2113
  • 2119
    • Zephram Cochrane who now is residing on Alpha Centauri sets off for parts unknown and disappeares. Some thought he was testing a new engine. After an exhaustive search, it is believed that Cochrane has died. He becomes one of the most famous missing people in history
  • 2151
    • April. A Klingon named Klaang crashed in a corn field on Earth, and is shot by a farmer named Moore, establishing First Contact with between humans and Klingons.
    • April 16. Enterprise (NX-01) is launched under the command of Captain Jonathan Archer.
  • 2151-2155
  • 2156-2160
    • A nuclear war is fought between the forces of Earth and Romulus, at the end of which the Romulans are defeated at the Battle of Cheron. The Romulan Neutral Zone is established.
  • 2161
  • 2165
    • Sarek, Federation diplomat and father of Spock, is born on Vulcan.
  • 2167
    • U.S.S. Archon is destroyed by the computer Landru when the ship visits Beta III.
  • 2168
    • An incident involving the accidental contamination of a culture on Sigma Iotia II prompts the Federation to adopt the Prime Directive in its manifesto.

23rd century

24th century

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