I suppose it could go either way. That would be true if we see stardates as a universal system that applies anywhere and everywhere. If we instead imagine them to include encoded information about local space time, it makes sense that they might be inconsistent but always moving forward.

I am, of course, using “makes sense” extremely loosely here.

I guess when you’re traveling around faster than the speed of light, time and date stop meaning the same thing as they do back home, so it stands to reason that you couldn’t map stardates to any standard calendar.

At least, that’s my new headcanon.