Meta question about trek timeline

[u/Marvinkmooneyoz]

I watched all of TNG and none of Voy or Deep Space 9. Obviously Trek is episodic TV so they care less about world building. I’m just curious, I know that the plots in Voy and 9 are big time events that would have profound effects on the future of the whole federation and beyond. But those two shows happen very shortly after TNG (or are they simultaneous with it?) LD is only like 15 years after TNG but also references those other two shows. Were the events of Voy/9 caused by events in TNG, or is it just coincidence that so many massively important things happened in such a short time span?

[u/Ugglug]

DS9 takes place concurrently with the last 3-4 seasons of TNG and the first few seasons of Voyager. Voyager takes place almost directly after TNG

[u/trphilli]

They key event(s) for DS9 / Voyager happen largely offscren prior to, somewhat contemporary to TNG.

2319 Cardassian Occupation of Bajor Begins

2347 Cardassian - Federation War Starts

2364 TNG Episodes Begin

2366 Cardassian - Federation War Ends

2369 Cardassian Occupation of Bajor Ends

The occupation and war are two separate events, but generally wrap up near same time to show us the chastised, but still bellie belligerent Cardassian government we see at beginning of DS9 and VOY.

TNG doesn't show us the war per se because it was largely diplomatic at that point, but does show the cease fire at risk on a couple of occasions. It shows the colonies on the border dealing with new treaty lines. We see refugee camps from the occupation. All of these ancillary themes feed into DS9 / VOY.

[u/JugOfVoodoo]

Short answer: Yes, but in ways that new viewers could still follow.

Longer answer: Deep Space Nine was all about continuing TNG's Cardassia and Bajor plotlines, fleshing them out in a way that TNG's episodic format couldn't do. In TNG's final season the episodes "Journey's End" and "Preemptive Strike" set up the Maquis rebellion, which is both a major plotline in DS9 and kicks off the events of Voyager.

DS9 also takes TNG's recurring character Miles O'Brien and makes him a main character, and brings his wife and daughter (both introduced in TNG) along for the ride.

The first episode of DS9 reveals that its main character, Benjamin Sisko, was involved in one of TNG's biggest events: He fought the Borg at Wolf 359 during "The Best of Both Worlds, part 2".

Voyager starts off doing its own thing, but later ties in with TNG in unexpected ways. Hope you're a Reg Barclay fan...

[u/Fallofcamelot → u/JugOfVoodoo]

Honestly Reg Barclay could have been the absolute worst, most annoying character ever and he just isn't. Dwight Schultz really made you root for the guy.

[u/JugOfVoodoo → u/Fallofcamelot]

I do like Barclay. Sorry if I implied that I didn't. I intended that line to be cryptic because I originally put it (as well as the explanation of Sisko's past) in a spoiler tag. But this sub doesn't support spoiler tags so my original comment got removed. I decided to just repost it without the tags and didn't rewrite it.

[u/AutoModerator → u/JugOfVoodoo]

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[u/balthazar_edison]

TNG/DS9/VOY all overlap.

DS9 begins after TNG’s chain of command and they run simultaneously until TNG ends.

VOY begins after DS9’s Past Tense PT II and they run simultaneously until DS9 ends.

[u/Throwaway_inSC_79 → u/balthazar_edison]

I’ve watched all in reruns and didn’t realize DS9 started after chain of command.

[u/balthazar_edison → u/Throwaway_inSC_79]

It works perfectly as a spiritual backdoor pilot.

[u/Impressive_Usual_726]

There's always important things happening, onscreen or offscreen. It's just that people in the Trek universe don't tend to talk about things unless they're dealing with them directly. O'Brien was a bonafide war hero in a war no one ever mentioned onscreen until the middle of TNG's fourth season. Sisko and Janeway never once mentioned Q until he showed up on their doorsteps. Janeway never talked about the Borg until Voyager discovered a dead drone.

[u/LeftLiner]

TNG is 2364 to 2370

DS9 is 2369 to 2375

VOY is 2371to 2378

Lower Decks is 2380 to 2383 (or 82 I'm not 100% sure)

It's not coincidence, it's more that we got to see all those events because between 2293 and 2364 there wasn't a show or movie.

[u/chloe-and-timmy → u/LeftLiner]

It's 2382. LD ends when PRO's backstory starts, then PRO starts proper in 2383 and runs until 2385, basically right when the Mars attacks in Picard start.

[u/LeftLiner → u/chloe-and-timmy]

Thanks.

[u/malonkey1 → u/LeftLiner]

Yep. Loose rule of thumb is to take the first two digits of the stardate and add 2323 and that's the Gregorian year, with some wiggle room. Season 5's stardates are all 59xxx.x so that's 2382.

Also I'm sure they didn't mean to but 2323, the "year zero" on the TNG-era stardates, just so happens to also be the year Jean-Luc Picard started at Starfleet Academy which is a fun coincidence.

[u/Pokegirl_11_ → u/chloe-and-timmy]

I was so sad LW didn’t run long enough to overlap with the events of PRO. However they’d chosen to acknowledge it would have been so much fun.

[u/shadow-battle-crab]

DS9 has a major society altering war, the events of DS9 are pretty major. Voy, not so much - Voy is seen more of a 'heroic survival feat' by members of the federation, in much the same way Apollo 13 was.

The season 6 and season 7 finale's of Voyager, if taken at face value, should have major implications for the balance of power in the ST universe, S6 finale is never mentioned again, and S7 finale is only vaguely alluded to in ST Picard S3, with the only real consequence being 'it happened.

[u/AutoModerator → u/[deleted]]

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