Exact Conversions for Each Canonical and Lit-verse Given Klingon Date (with notes and corrections.)

Kenson-Bennett Klingon Calendar

TNG: "New Ground"

  • 43 Maktag/ Stardate 43205.
    • Converting this stardate to March 16, 2366, we can arrive at the Klingon date. Instead of 43 Maktag, this instead places us on 19 Nay'Poq 991. 
    • This date is given to us as Alexander's birthday. He was only conceived about 4 months earlier. Not knowing how long the pregnancy should have taken, this does seem like a short amount of time. However there are all kinds of irregularities with Alexander's age throughout his life.
    • One possibility is that 43 Maktag is the date of Alexander's conception, and this is the way Klingons record their birthdate. 43 Maktag 991 would convert to October 25, 2365. Without getting into personal details of the date Klingon women consider their pregnancies to begin on, this is close enough to Stardate 42901.3 (Alexander's conception stardate) for me as a convincing explanation.

VOY: "Prophecy"/ "Lineage"

  • Nay'Poq/ 7 weeks before Stardate 54452.6 
    • This stardate can be converted to June 15, 2377. Exactly seven weeks before would be April 27. This date would convert to 20 A'Kahless 1002. As this is supposed to be Miral's conception date, this is within the same margin of error from Nay'Poq as Alexander's proposed conception date, and again must be related to the personal details of the exact date Klingon women consider their pregnancies to have started.
    • The fact that this month was of interest to Klingons with regard to Miral and not the month in which she would be born lends evidence to the idea that Klingons mark their "birthdays" by the date of their conception, as theorized above.

DTI: Watching the Clock

  • 4 Xan'lahr 1008/ Stardate 59061.4/ Saturday Jan 23, 2382.
    • The Klingon year given in the book is one year off. According to the calendar system organized by Christopher L. Bennett, in order to align with the vast majority of the other Klingon years mentioned onscreen and in the literature, the Xan'lahr which occurs in 2382 should be part of the Year of Kahless 1007. Accounting for this error, 4 Xan'lahr 1007 begins on the morning of Jan 23rd. This chapter's time was given as 10:53 AM.
  • 15 Xan'lahr 1008/ Stardate 59087.2/ Monday Feb 1, 2382.
    • Again accounting for the erroneous year, this is correct. This Klingon day starts in early afternoon of that Earth day, and this chapter's time is given as 7:04 PM.

ENT: Kobayashi Maru

  • 781/ May 22, 2155
    • This is the correct Klingon year. Furthermore we can say that the exact Klingon date for this chapter was 21 Jo'vos.
  • 781/ July 14, 2155
    • Again this is the correct year and we can say that the exact Klingon date for this chapter was most likely 36 Soo'jen.

ENT: Beneath the Raptor's Wing

  • Late Soo'jen 782/ July 22, 2156
    • This vague date is correct, and we can specify the date even better to most likely 46 Soo'jen, which would qualify as "late."

TOS: Forged in Fire

  • Early Lo'Bral 799/ 2173
    • This can only give us a range of dates. "Early" under this "early, mid, late" scheme would be 1 Lo'Bral threw 16 Lo'Bral. This would give us a range of July 25 to August 7, 2173.
  • Early Soo'jen 921/ 2295
    • Another range of dates. "Early" here would give us somewhere between June 25 and July 8, 2295.
  • Early Merruthj 844/ 2218
    • And another range of dates possible. "Early" could be anywhere between October 18 and November 1, 2218.
  • Late Merruthj 844/ 2218
    • This possible range of dates ends up being anywhere between November 14 and 28, 2218.
  • Late Doqath 915/ Jan 1, 2290
    • Converting this to an exact Klingon date lets us pinpoint this to 34 Doqath 915, which is just inside the range of what could be called "late Doqath."
  • Late Doqath 915/ Jan 12, 2290
    • January 12 starts on 47 Doqath 915, about one-third of the way through the day. It ends on 48 Doqath 915, about halfway through the day. So this works out precisely.
  • Early Xan'lahr 915/ Jan 13, 2290
    • January 13 begins on 48 Doqath 915 around halfway through the day, but continues until around two-thirds of the way through 1 Xan'lahr 915. So the majority of that day does indeed take place in "early" Xan'lahr.
  • Mid Maktag 989/ 2363
    • This range of dates converts to October 3 to 16, 2363.

TOS: Forged in Fire/ TAS: More Tribbles, More Troubles

  • Early Xan'lahr 895/ 2269
    • This Klingon date converts to a range of January 12 to 25, 2270. This seems like a fully acceptable date for "More Troubles, More Tribbles." It doesn't line up to the 2269 year given in the text however. 
    • One possibility would be to abandon the given month for a slightly earlier time in the Klingon year, to allow the episode to be in very late 2269.
    • Or we can treat the given Earth year as wrong and accept the specific date assigned to the episode by the author.
    • Or as with the Xan'lahr dates in Watching the Clock, we could assume the Klingon year should say 894, and assume this should convert to January 2269. That does seem too early for this episode, however.
    • In my Five Year Mission timeline I've chosen to ignore this data point entirely, due to the contradictory dates.

TOS: Four Thousand Throats/  TOS: Errand of Mercy

  • 893/ 2267
    • Vanguard gives the date for "Errand of Mercy" as March 23, 2267. Converting this date to Klingon results in 36 Nay'Poq 892, close to the end of the year.
    • This story takes place shortly after "Errand of Mercy" so we can conclude that for it to be in the Year of Kahless 893, this must be some time after May 13, 2267, the first day of that Klingon year.

TOS: Four Thousand Throats/ DS9: Blood Oath

  • 996/ 2370
    • We don't have a stardate for "Blood Oath", but it is about two-thirds of the way through the season. Staying vague, this would convert to about one-third of the way through Year of Kahless 996.  So this fits.

TOS: Four Thousand Throats

  • 936/ 2310
    • We can find the overlapping range in these two years to give us a more specific portion of 2310 that this takes place in. Year of Kahless 936 starts on May 17, 2310. Since Klingon years are almost the same length as Earth years we know the rest of 2310 also takes place during that Klingon year. So this story must take place sometime after May 17 in 2310.

The Klingon Art of War

  • 998/ Stardate 49011.4
    • It is stated that the Empire invaded the Cardassian Union in this year, and the stardate is from "The Way of the Warrior."  While that exact stardate isn't accurate for the day of the invasion, it would convert to some time in late Doqath 997. 
      • This is towardsthe end of the Year of Kahless 997, and it could be easily assumed by the author that like the majority of 2372, this date took place in the Year of Kahless 998.  So the year given is in error.

          So out of the nineteen examples we've examined, all but three ended up being able to be correctly converted using this formula, and interestingly two of those were given by the person who crafted this calendar system to its previous most precise level. And those two were obviously in error. So I'm going to call this a successful and proven method for converting Klingon dates.

Klingon Defense Force Calendar System

          I assume this is a separate calendar system from the Kenson-Bennett calendar system. This one seems to be exclusively used in logs by officers in the Klingon Defense Force. As shown below, the usage of this calendar system in the novels has been very inconsistent in its exact dating, but it is clear that this system's calendar reckons a different start date for the Klingon year than the Kenson-Bennett calendar does. 

          This "XXXth day of the Year of Kahless XXX" dating system is derived from itscanonical use in the DS9 episode "Soldiers of the Empire." That episode had no stardate, and the Lit-verse related stories nearby it contain contradictory information pertaining to the exact dating of the episode. This, coupled with the fact that many of the usages of this system shown below contain inconsistencies not only between novels, but within the same novel's dating information, led me to try to come up with my own speculative start date for this calendar system, one which doesn't exactly match most of the data shown below, but which is a compromise among many contradictory data points. Therefore, this portion of my Klingon dating system examination should be treated as more conjectural than my examination of the Kenson-Bennett calendar.

          The start date I have assigned for the dating system used for logs by the Klingon Defense Force is 14 Lo'Bral. The various uses of the KDF system, and those data points' relation to this date are examined below. It is assumed throughout that this calendar system uses the same day and year lengths as the Kenson-Bennett system, only with a different start day for the year.

DS9: Soldiers of the Empire

  • 53rd day of YoK 999/ Late 2373
    • No stardate is given. The nearest surrounding episodes with stardates give the range of between 50712.5-50814.2. (September 18- October 25, 2373)
    • If we assign the 1st day of YoK 999 to 14 Lo'Bral in the Kenson-Bennett calendar, then the log given in this episode is on 18 Maktag 999.
      • This converts to October 5, 2373.
    • Two Lit-verse related stories are relevant to this dating, and are hard to reconcile with one another.
    • The short story "Loved I Not Honor More" in DS9: Prophecy and Change takes place during this episode, and seems to span a week long period staring the day the episode begins. Stardate 50780 (October 12) seems to take place the third day of the story. This would result in the story (featuring Worf and Martok on a mission on the Rotarran) ending on October 16. 
      • This would make the 53rd day of the YoK 999 turn out to be 26 Maktag, implying that the beginning of the year fell on 22 Lo'Bral.
      • This conflicts with the next story.
    • The Marvel Deep Space Nine comic "Day of Honor" takes place some period after "Soldiers of the Empire." It has no stardate, but is part of the Telepathy War miniseries. Despite taking place over many days, the stardate given for all the other issues in the miniseries is the same, 50796. This date converts to October 18, 2373.
      • This doesn't give much of a gap between the two stories, especially considering the need to spread the dating of this miniseries out. If the story is spread out both before and after the given stardate to accommodate the time depicted in the story, it's likely the flow of events overlaps with that shown by the dates of "Loved I Not Honor More." 
      • Furthermore, the Day of Honor dating system I have developed necessitates pushing this story all the way up to October 13, 2373, letting the multiple day span of the story end on the stardate given for all the issues. October 13 definitely overlaps with the events of "Loved I Not Honor More."  
      • All this would imply that the 53rd day of the YoK 999 should take place much earlier in October.  
    • My assigned date of October 5 for the 53rd day of YoK 999 fits well as a compromise for these conflicting facts, and would also allow for the stardate in "Loved I Not Honor More" to work, with a slight modification from 50780 to 50760. This converts to October 5, and would just barely align with the events of the novel.
      • This stardate fits into the available span of surrounding DS9 episodes as well.

TNG: Diplomatic Implausibility

  • Mid YoK 1001/ Approximate stardate 53000/ Early 2376
  • 192nd-203rd day of YoK 1001
    • These facts coincide well with the idea that the Klingon year has 432 days.
    • While the given stardate is an approximation, the exact date of Jan 1, 2376 would convert to 26 Doqath 1001 in the Kenson-Bennett calendar. This would lead to the conclusion that the KDF calendar begins in mid Soo'jen, according to this novel, as opposed to the mid-Lo'Bral date that was previously settled on. We will see below that these conclusions continue to conflict in this series of novels.
    • However if we assign the start date for this system's calendar as 14 Lo'Bral, then the dates in the novel convert to 14-25 Xan'lahr 1001. 
      • This converts to Jan 31- Feb 10, 2376.
      • This is still "early 2376", and close to stardate 53000, in the grand scheme of things.

IKS Gorkon: A Good Day to Die

  • Towards the end of YoK 1001/ Stardate 53400/ June 2376
    • This is very vague and thus doesn't conflict with anything.
    • Again the given date is an approximation, but converting June 1, 2376 to the Kenson-Bennett calendar, we would arrive at 14 Jo'vos 1002.
      • If we assign the start date for this system's calendar as 14 Lo'Bral, then the following 14 Jo'vos would indeed be "towards the end" of YoK 1001, the 337th day of the year.

IKS Gorkon: Honor Bound

  • End of YoK 1001/ Stardate 53800/ August 2376
    • Unfortunately, as an added complication, this stardate doesn't match the given calendar date. Stardate 53800 would take place in mid-October.
    • But again the Klingon date is very vague, so it doesn't conflict with anything.
    • Sticking with the August date as opposed to the stardate, and converting August 1, 2376 to the Kenson-Bennett calendar, we would arrive at approximately 38 Soo'jen 1002.
      • As before, if we assign the start date for this system's calendar as 14 Lo'Bral, the the following 38 Soo'jen would very much correspond to "the end" of YoK 1001, the 409th day of the year.

IKS Gorkon: Enemy Territory

  • Mid YoK 1001/ Early October 2376
    • This is where things begin to not be consistent within this series, as the previous book was already said to take place at the end of Year of Kahless 1001, and now we are back at the middle.
      • So I will have to totally disregard this reference.

Klingon Empire: A Burning House

  • 12th day of YoK 1002/ Early November 2376
    • Approximating this date as November 1, 2376, we could convert the date to 3 Merruthj 1002 in the Kenson-Bennett calendar. This would give us a start date for the KDF calendar in late Maktag. This conflicts both with the compromise start date I have settled on, and with the implications of the date given in Diplomatic Implausibility, which pointed towards a start date in mid-Soo'jen, two months earlier. 
      • So my "compromise" start date for the KDF calendar takes place midway between these two conflicting options.
    • Again, if the length of days and years remains constant between the two Klingon calendars, the gap stated to have taken place between Diplomatic Implausibility and this novel (the nine months between early February and early November) is only enough days for 5 Klingon months to pass. This doesn't correspond to our accepted system for lengths of days, months, and years.
      • Simply accepting this date, and using the compromise start date for the KDF which I have assumed, the novel would start on 25 Lo'Bral 1002. This converts, in the Kenson-Bennett calendar, to August 31, 2376. This is much earlier than "early November," so that doesn't work.
    • I theorize that the character giving this log during dialog in the novel was momentarily confused and gave the wrong date. Assuming the date was actually 12 Merruthj 1002, the character forgot to correctly convert to the KDF calendar, and simply called the day the 12th day of the year. 
      • In reality, according to my assigned start date for the year, this log (if it was given on 12 Merruthj 1002), should have been dated the 95th day of the Year of Kahless 1002.
      • This would convert to November 9, and remain consistent with the stated Earth month for the novel.

A Singular Destiny

  • 180th day of YoK 1007/ Early May 2381
    • This portion of the book may not necessarily take place during the main portion of the story. It could take place at some point before or after it.
    • Approximating this date as May 1, 2381, we can convert it to the Kenson-Bennett calendar, and arrive at a date of 24 A'Kahless 1006. One hundred and eighty days before this would give us a start date for the KDF calendar of 35 Merruthj the previous year. Note that all the other references noting a discrepancy between the start of the Kenson-Bennett year and the KDF year have the KDF year starting later, not earlier.
      • However if we change the year to the the 180th day of the Year of Kahless 1006, then the year would begin later, and still start on 35 Merruthj. Again, this is a totally new month for the start of the year which doesn't correspond to any earlier references for when the KDF year begins, or with my "compromise" date. I basically ignored this reference though, because, as noted, this portion of the book doesn't necessarily occur in May.
    • Going with my assigned start date for the KDF calendar of 14 Lo'Bral, we would arrive at the date of 1 Xan'lahr 1007. This date converts to January 20, 2382, quite a few months after the main body of the novel. If we assume the Klingon year was given incorrectly, and the date should have read 180th day of the Year of Kahless 1006, then the Earth date would end up being January 20, 2381, a few months before the novel. Either would work in context.

So as we've seen, when trying to determine how this calendar system works using data from the novels, we arrive at inconsistent and contradictory conclusions. However, creating a compromise between the two most useful references, we can arrive at a workable system. This start date of 14 Lo'Bral (109 days after the start of the Kenson-Bennett calendar) can explain, in some manner, each of the references as well as possible, and as shown elsewhere, will work well with my Day of Honor dating system.


Miscellaneous References

The Original Series: The Final Reflection

  • It is noted that twenty-two Earth years correspond to about 20 Klingon years.
    • This does not correspond to any of the other information about Klingon years mentioned above.
    • Like many details and Klingon culture in The Final Reflection, this must be disregarded as out of continuity with their later depiction.

 Conversational Klingon

  • Mention is made of a period of ten months. 
    • While this could imply that there are more than ten months in one Klingon year, one could assume that Klingons are sometimes conversationally more precise than is normal in English. This would be similar to how newborns are generally given ages in total months instead of years. "Fifteen months old" for example, doesn't imply there are more than fifteen months in a year.

Klingon For the Galactic Traveler

  • It is noted that converting Klingon time periods to Earth time periods is not a straightforward exercise. Specifically it is said that five Earth months are not the same as five Klingon "jar".

Power Klingon

  • The exact timing of a Klingon's Age of Ascension ceremony is given as the seventh month of their fifteenth year.
    • This shows that the Klingon year is at least seven months long, aligning with the Kenson-Bennett system.

Waypoint 2019: The First Year

  • Ezri visits Worf one Klingon year after Jadzia's death. Worf is an ambassador on Qo'noS so this is at least in 2376. Yet the stardate is given as 52516.7. This would be July 8, 2375. Even if we were to adjust the given stardate to 53516.7, the length of time between July 8, 2376 and sometime in late December 2374 (Jadzia's death in "Tears of the Prophets") is a far greater length of time than anything discussed above for the length of a Klingon year.
  • I toyed with the idea of this time period being the length of a Boreth year, as discussed in my examination of the Day of Honor. This would have to be equivalent to the length between Day of Honor: Her Klingon Soul and the Day of Honor Voyager episode. I just couldn't make the length work out, even given the slight flexibility in both stretches of time. This data point just has to be disregarded as incompatible with the Kenson-Bennett Klingon calendar system assumptions.