TREKCORE > TIMELINE > Original Series Season 3 (2268 - 2269)

The following events of the third year of the original Star Trek series (1968-1969 season), the third year of the Enterprise's five year mission.
 

	April 2268	Events of "Spectre of the Gun" The U.S.S. Enterprise encounters a probe warning the ship to stay away from the space of the Melkot; the telepathic warning is heard in the native language of each Enterprise crew member. The Enterprise is under orders to establish contact with the reclusive Melkotians at all costs, so Captain Kirk orders a course farther into Melkot space. Kirk leads a landing party to the Melkotian planet, but they find themselves trapped in a foggy environment. A Melkotian says they will be punished for disregarding the warning, and they find themselves in an incomplete simulation of Tombstone, Arizona, on October 26, 1881, the day of the gun fight at the OK Corral.
	April 2268	Events of "Elaan of Troyius" The U.S.S. Enterprise enters the disputed Tellun star system -- near the Klingon border -- on a top-secret diplomatic mission, and picks up Ambassador Petri of the outer planet, Troyius, and approaches the inner planet, Elas, to pick up Elaan, the Dohlman of Elas. The Troyian ambassador tells Captain Kirk that the Dohlman of Elas is to be the wife of the Troyian ruler to bring peace to the two warring planets, now that they have the capability to destroy one another. Ambassador Petri must teach the disagreeable Elaan to be civilized before they reach Troyius.
	May 2268	Events of "The Paradise Syndrome" Captain Kirk leads a landing party to an Earthlike planet that is on a collision course with an approaching asteroid, and finds an advanced alien obelisk near a settlement of a primitive Native American tribe. Kirk accidentally triggers a hidden door on the obelisk with his communicator and falls inside, and the Enterprise crew must leave without him in order to alter the approaching asteroid's course. Kirk emerges from the obelisk with amnesia, and the native tribe believes he is a god.
	May 2268  Stardate 4943.5	Events of "Savage Empire" In this short film written and produced by fans, the crew of the Starship Exeter undercover a rebel plot on the Andorian homeworld. (The adventures of the Starship Exeter are not part of official Trek - this entry is simply here to acknowledge its possible place in the timeline.)
	June 2268	Events of "The Enterprise Incident" Captain Kirk is showing increasing signs of stress. He orders the Enterprise through the Neutral Zone into Romulan space, where the ship is quickly surrounded by Romulans, now using Klingon ships. The Romulan ships are using a new cloaking device, which allows them to move without being detected by Federation technology.
	June 2268	Events of "And the Children Shall Lead" The U.S.S. Enterprise crew responds to a distress call from a science colony on Triacus, and finds Professor Starnes and the rest of his team dead, apparently from self-inflicted injuries, but their children are still healthy and happy. The children are taken aboard the Enterprise, where we learn that are secretly following the orders of an alien called the Gorgan.
	July 2268	Events of "Spock’s Brain" The U.S.S. Enterprise encounters an alien ship with ion propulsion and unique technology; a humanoid woman appears on the Bridge and incapacitates the entire crew of the Enterprise. When the crew awakens, they find Spock's body with his brain surgically removed. The Enterprise follows the ion trail to the Sigma Draconis star system, where Kirk learns that Spock's brain is being used to control a computer complex, and provide for the primitive people living on the planet.
	July 2268	Events of "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" The U.S.S. Enterprise is assigned to convey the Medusan ambassador to the Federation back to his home planet, whose formless inhabitants are so hideous that the sight of one can bring total madness to any human who sees one. Medusan Ambassador Kollos travels in a sealed metal container so that no humanoids will see him, and is accompanied by Dr. Miranda Jones, a human woman with telepathic abilities.
	August 2268	Events of "The Empath" The U.S.S. Enterprise arrives at the second planet in the Minarian star system, whose sun is entering the nova phase, to evacuate a research station studying the dying star. Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, and Dr. McCoy beam down to the reasearch station and find it empty, before they are transported to an underground facility by alien Vians who are studying a mute empathic woman.
	August 2268	Events of "The Tholian Web" The U.S.S. Enterprise is searching for the U.S.S. Defiant, which disappeared three weeks ago. The crew locates the missing starship in an area of space that is phasing between dimensions. Captain Kirk leads a landing party to the Defiant, and finds the crew dead, apparently killed by each other. The Defiant phases out of existence while Captain Kirk is still aboard, and members of the Enterprise crew become increasingly agitated from the dimensional interphase effects. As the Enterprise waits for Kirk and the Defiant to phase back into normal space, a Tholian ship arrives and Commander Loskene claims the Enterprise is in a territorial annex of the Tholian Assembly and orders the Enterprise to leave. Unknown to anyone at the time, the exchange of energy weapons between the Enterprise and the Tholians results in the Defiant being thrown out of normal space, through the interspace rift and ultimately into the Mirror Universe in December 2155. ("In a Mirror Darkly, Parts I and II")
	September 2268	Events of "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" The U.S.S. Enterprise encounters an asteroid 200 miles in diameter, propelled by atomic power, that is on a collision course with Daran Five, an inhabited planet with a large population. McCoy, Kirk and Spock transport inside the artificial asteroid ship, and enecounter whose inhabitants believe they are on the world of Yonada.
	September 2268	Events of "Day of the Dove" Captain Kirk leads a landing party to planet Beta Twelve-A, where a Federation colony has disappeared after signalling that it was under attack. A Klingon ship arrives, also responding to a distress signal, and is disabled by internal explosions. Kirk beams the surviving Klingon crew over to the Enterprise, but the Klingon commander, Kang, blames Kirk for attacking his ship. Unknown to the crew, an alien life force is also beamed aboard.
	October 2268	Events of "Plato’s Stepchildren" The U.S.S. Enterprise answers a distress call from an unknown planet that is rich in kironide deposits, a very rare and long-lasting source of great power. The residents of the planet escaped from their native star, Sahndara, millennia ago, before it went nova; they call themselves Platonians, after the ancient Earth philosopher Plato, whom they met on Earth before coming to this planet to create a Utopian society based on ancient Greek civilization.
	October 2268	Events of "Wink of an Eye" While exploring an outer quadrant of the Galaxy, the U.S.S. Enterprise answers a distress call from a city on the planet Scalos; Captain Kirk leads a landing party to the planet, but there are no visible inhabitants in the city, and one member of the landing party vanishes from sight after drinking some water on the planet. After beaming up to the ship, Captain Kirk's coffee is infected with Scalosian water, and he is shifted to the same level as the hyper-accelerated Scalosians, who have secretly boarded the ship, moving faster than humans can see.
	November 2268	Events of "That Which Survives" The U.S.S. Enterprise finds an unusual planet that has evolved an environment similar to Earth's in only a few thousand years. As Captain Kirk leads a landing party to the surface, the Enterprise is knocked 990.7 light years away, stranding the landing party alone on the planet. A projection of an alien woman appears on the Enterprise and kills two crewmen and sabotages the warp engines, and a projection of the same woman appears on the planet, attacking members of the landing party. The landing party destroys the computer controlling the projections, and learns that the planet is a Kalandan outpost, whose people all died from a disease produced when they created the planet.
	November 2268	Events of "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" The U.S.S. Enterprise is en route to decontaminate the planet Ariannus, when it encounters a stolen Starfleet shuttle piloted by an alien who is white on his right side and black on the left. The alien, named Lokai, is from Cheron, an uncharted planet in the southern-most part of the Galaxy. An alien ship with an invisibility sheath intercepts the Enterprise and Bele -- chief officer of the Commission on Political Traitors on the planet Cheron -- boards the ship, claiming that Lokai was convicted of treason and escaped.
	December 2268	Events of "Whom Gods Destroy" The U.S.S. Enterprise arrives at Elba Two, a planet with a poisonous atmosphere where the Federation maintains an asylum for the few remaining insane criminals in the Galaxy. Captain Kirk and Commander Spock beam down to the colony to deliver a new medicine to treat mental illness. They learn that the newest inmate is Garth of Izar, a former starship Fleet Captain, who has used Antosian shape-shifting techniques to take over the asylum.
	December 2268	Events of "The Mark of Gideon" The U.S.S. Enterprise arrives at the planet Gideon, which is under negotiations for Federation membership, but has not allowed any delegations from the Federation to visit or scan the shielded planet. Captain Kirk has been invited to be the first Federation representative to visit Gideon, but when he beams down, he finds himself alone inside an exact duplicate of the Enterprise, where he meets a woman named Odona.
	January 2269	Events of "The Lights of Zetar" The U.S.S. Enterprise is en route to Memory Alpha -- a planetoid set up as a central library containing the total cultural and scientific knowledge of all Federation members -- with specialist Lt. Mira Romaine aboard to supervise the transfer of new equipment from the Enterprise to Memory Alpha. Lt. Commander Scott falls in love with Lt. Romaine. The Enterprise encounters an energy storm moving at warp speed that enters the ship and causes Lt. Romaine to collapse.
	January 2269	Events of "The Cloudminders" A botanical plague is threatening all vegetation on Merak Two, and the U.S.S. Enterprise heads to another Federation member world, Ardana, the only known source of zenite, which can halt the plague. When Captain Kirk and Commander Spock beam down to the mine entrance to pick up the needed zenite, they are attacked by a group of disgruntled miners called Troglyte Disrupters. Administrators from Stratos -- a floating city sustained by antigravity high above the surface -- drive off the miners and offer Kirk and Spock their hospitality in the floating city while the needed zenite is found.
	February 2269	Events of "The Way to Eden" The U.S.S. Enterprise is in pursuit of the stolen space cruiser Aurora, which is heading towards Romulan space. The Aurora's engines overload in the pursuit, and the Enterprise beams aboard its passengers, a group of pilgrims seeking the mythical planet Eden, including the son of the Catullan ambassador.
	March 2269	Events of "Requiem for Methuselah" The U.S.S. Enterprise crew is infected with deadly Rigelian fever, and Captain Kirk leads a landing party to a small planet in the Omega system to find ryetalyn, the only known antidote to the fever. On the planet, they meet a man calling himself Mr. Flint, who lives in a castle shielded from orbital scans, containing an extensive collection of original artwork, including several unknown da Vinci paintings, and an original waltz by Johannes Brahms. Flint lives with a young woman named Rayna Kapek, but the Enterprise can find no records of either of them.
	March 2269	Events of "The Savage Curtain" The U.S.S. Enterprise is scanning planet Excalbia, which has a molten surface and toxic atmosphere, but there are unexplained life signs detected. As the Enterprise prepares to leave, Captain Kirk is contacted by a duplicate of Abraham Lincoln, who invites Kirk and Commander Spock to an area of Earth-like environment on the planet. There they meet Surak, the founder of Vulcan civilization.
	April 2269	Events of "All Our Yesterdays" Three and a half hours before the star Beta Niobe is calculated to go nova, the U.S.S. Enterprise scans Sarpeidon, the only Class-M planet in the system. The crew finds the planet deserted, though the planet did not have space flight capability. Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, and Dr. McCoy beam down to a library on the planet and meet the librarian, Mr. Atoz, and his android duplicates, who sent the world's population into the past before the nova, using a machine called the Atavachron. As Kirk is viewing records of a past era, he hears a woman scream and runs into a portal to investigate; he finds himself in an ancient city, where he is accused of witchcraft. Spock and McCoy run through the portal after the captain, but find themselves trapped in the Sarpeidon ice age.
	April 2269	Events of "Turnabout Intruder" The U.S.S. Enterprise responds to a distress call from a group of scientists exploring the ruins of a dead civilization on Camus Two; the leader of the expedition, Dr. Janice Lester, knew Captain Kirk when they were together for a year at Starfleet, but his world of starship captains doesn't admit women. When they are alone, Dr. Lester uses an alien machine on the planet to switch bodies with Kirk, and assumes his identity.  (Turnabout Intruder was the last new episode of Classic Star Trek broadcast.)