@JessTheUnstill Canon: Stardate is affected by how far away a ship is from the central beacon along subspace. Subspace is faster than light, but still has twists which means a ship might warp somewhere and have to change their clocks to the local stardate. Meta: Writers were given a stardate for their scripts at the beginning of the season. Some scripts were out of order when airing them, usually due to episodes being filmed and aired later than expected, so they came up with a "wibbly wobbly" explanation when fans noticed that stardates weren't consistent.