Wookieepedia:April Fools' Day 2013/Spock

Spock – full name generally considered unpronounceable to Humans – was a Human/Vulcan hybrid who served with Starfleet in the 23rd century. As an instructor at Starfleet Academy, he programmed the Kobayashi Maru scenario. From 2258, he was first officer under Christopher Pike and his successor, James T. Kirk, aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise.

In 2262, in what would become known as the V'ger incident, Spock helped open relations between the Milky Way galaxy and the New Republic. He became the first being from his galaxy to fully access the Force in their recorded history, but fell to the dark side in the process.

Early life
Spock was born to Sarek, a Vulcan, and Amanda Grayson, a Human, in 2230 in the city of Shi'Kahr on Vulcan.

As a young boy, Spock was often the target of abuse from his schoolmates because of his Human ancestry. On one particular occasion in which three of his classmates accused his father of being a traitor for marrying "that Human whore," Spock lost emotional control and was so angered that he violently beat up the lead tormentor, exhibiting such rage that, despite their advantage in size and numbers, the other two made no attempt to help their friend. Previously, he had counted that the incident was the thirty-fifth time those particular schoolmates had attempted to elicit an emotional response from him. When he then spoke to his disappointed father about his mother, asking him why he had married a Human, Sarek coldly remarked that his decision to marry her was the logical choice, given that he was an ambassador of Vulcan to Earth.

After completing the advanced training which he began during childhood in the Vulcan Learning Center, Spock applied to both the Vulcan Science Academy and Starfleet Academy. He was also considering completing his training in the kolinahr – the Vulcan ritual of purging all vestigial emotions – and asked his mother whether she would think less of him for discarding emotion in that way. His mother simply remarked that she would always be proud of him, no matter what choices he made. He later was admitted to the Vulcan Science Academy, but declined the offer after the board remarked that his admission to the Academy was especially commendable considering his "disadvantage" of being half-Human.

Starfleet career
Spock went on to attend Starfleet Academy, and would come to be known as one of its most distinguished graduates. By 2258, he had attained the rank of commander, and acted as an instructor at the Academy.

Spock was in charge of starship assignments for the cadets. He initially assigned Lieutenant Nyota Uhura to the U.S.S. Farragut, in spite of Uhura's stated desire to serve aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, the new flagship. Commander Spock had served as Cadet Uhura's instructor and judged her performance to be consistently exemplary but, to avoid giving the appearance of favoritism as a result of her being one of his star students as well as their romantic relationship, he assigned her to the Farragut instead. Uhura later confronted him about this choice, noting that she was more than qualified to serve aboard the Enterprise as confirmed by Spock on many occasions. After this conversation, she was assigned to the Enterprise by Spock.

Spock programmed the Kobayashi Maru scenario, the purposes of which were to allow cadets to experience fear in the face of death and, in confronting such fear, to enable them to develop skills necessary for command. When James T. Kirk was ultimately able to pass the test and defeat the scenario, Spock accused the cadet of inserting a subroutine into the program, changing the simulation to his favor, so he could win. At a hearing of the Academy board, Kirk asked for the right to confront Spock directly, and the two clashed over Kirk's actions.

USS Enterprise
The hearing was cut short by the receipt of a distress call from Vulcan, and Spock reported to the U.S.S. Enterprise as first officer under Captain Christopher Pike. En route to Vulcan, Spock once again clashed with Kirk, who had come aboard the Enterprise without authorization. Over Kirk's arguments that the distress call from Vulcan was the result of an attack by Romulans, Spock demanded that Kirk be removed from the bridge – but when Uhura vouched for the accuracy of a crucial element of Kirk's claims, Spock decided that Kirk was probably right, and as a result, Pike ordered the ship ready before dropping out of warp. Ultimately, arrival at Vulcan, which was under attack, proved that Kirk was correct, and contact was made with the Romulan vessel Narada, which was attacking the planet. When contact was established with the ship's captain, Nero, he appeared to know Spock, although Spock had never met the Romulan before. Pike, who was ordered to transport himself to the Narada, left Spock in charge as acting captain.

Following the disabling of the Narada drill platform and revealing Nero's plans, Spock beamed to the surface to at least rescue the Vulcan Council, including his father and mother. As the survivors were about to be beamed aboard the Enterprise, the disintegrating surface of the planet collapsed beneath Spock's mother before the transport could be completed and she died. She was one of almost six billion killed with the loss of the planet.

Struggling with the loss of his world and the death of his mother, Spock received comfort from Uhura. After deciding to take the Enterprise to the Laurentian system to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet, and engaging in a furious debate with Kirk which led to him employing the Vulcan nerve pinch on the acting first officer, Spock ordered Kirk to be thrown off the ship, jettisoning him in an escape pod near Delta Vega.

With the Enterprise now at warp, Spock was surprised when Kirk and Montgomery Scott were able to beam aboard the ship, and demanded to know how they had been able to transport during warp. Kirk, who had by now met with a version of Spock who had traveled back in time with Nero, had also been told that in order to save Earth, he himself had to take over command of the Enterprise. The older Spock had asked Kirk to sufficiently provoke the younger Spock, in order to show everyone that he was too emotionally compromised to be in command. Kirk made several unsuccessful attempts to insult and cajole Spock, until finally a jibe about whether Spock had loved his late mother made the Vulcan snap, attacking Kirk and coming extremely close to killing him. He was only stopped by his father and, quickly realizing what had happened, he stepped down from command. Returning to the transporter room, Spock was comforted by the words of his father, who admitted that he actually had married Amanda because he loved her.

After a brief cool-down period, Spock returned to duty, accepting Kirk's command, and endorsed Pavel Chekov's plan to hide the Enterprise in Titan's atmosphere. He then volunteered to beam to the Narada, noting that the similarities between Romulan and Vulcan language and culture would help him in determining the location of Captain Pike and determine a way to destroy the vessel. Kirk, now in command, agreed, and accompanied Spock aboard the Narada. In the Enterprise transporter room, Spock and Uhura kissed. When told by Uhura that she would be monitoring their comm frequencies, Spock thanked "Nyota", revealing the first name Kirk had attempted unsuccessfully to learn ever since first meeting her three years prior.

After a brief phaser fight with the Romulan crew aboard the Narada, Spock was able to locate the the elder Spock's ship and Captain Pike. On board the Jellyfish, the computer recognized him as Ambassador Spock; when Kirk made an obviously sarcastic show of "surprise" and the computer stated that the ship had been built 129 years in the future, Spock realized exactly who Kirk had encountered on Delta Vega.

Attacking the Narada from the inside, Spock escaped into Earth's orbit, and was able to destroy the drill platform as it dug into San Francisco Bay. Ultimately, the black hole, with assistance from the Enterprise weapons, consumed the Narada and Nero, who had refused humanitarian assistance. Spock, angered over the destruction of his world, took the non-logical path for once, telling Kirk that while it was logical to offer help, this time he didn't want to do it.

First officer of the Enterprise
Back on Earth, Spock finally met with his older counterpart, who explained to him that he had wanted to make sure that Spock and Kirk became friends and shared the kind of friendship he and the other Kirk from his timeline shared: something which would ultimately define them both and was a crucial aspect of their lives. Spock had planned to resign from Starfleet and help rebuild Vulcan society, but the elder counterpart urged him to remain with Starfleet and to also put aside logic once in a while and do what felt right. About to join the surviving Vulcans himself, the prime Spock chose not to offer his alternate self the traditional Vulcan salute, noting that it would have seemed self-serving; instead he wished him good luck. With Kirk now in command of the Enterprise, Spock offered his services as First Officer, which Kirk gladly accepted.

Hopping galaxies
Several years later, Spock was plagued by mental urgings from an intelligence of a previously unknown order. He convinced his captain to travel to pursue this calling despite the disquieting illogic, and the Enterprise ended up at the site of their prior victory. Spock believed the entity, whatever it was, must have traversed the black hole, and it would not have done so if it did not believe it could survive.

As Kirk and Spock debated the issue, a T-65 X-wing starfighter emerged from the anomaly, proving Spock's theory that it could be a means of travel. Spock was intrigued by the mystery as paradoxical reports began to pour in. The tiny ship was made of unknown materials and contained unknown technologies, yet the occupant registered on sensors as human and Uhura reported that his language seemed to be a derivative of English. Surprising Kirk, Spock was the first to insist the alien be brought aboard.

In sickbay, the visitor identified himself as Luke Skywalker, and claimed that a giant alien vessel called V'ger had come to his galaxy from the Milky Way through the wormhole which was now destroying ships and planets on a course directly for the galactic capital of Coruscant. Skywalker said he was something called a "Jedi Master," and had come seeking help from the intruder's home due to a vision he had received from something called "the Force," a mystical energy field that links all life.

The story seemed unbelievable, but McCoy confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that the visitor was human, and though the visitor had no way of knowing it, bioscanners and voice analyzers behind him were confirming that he believed he was telling the truth. Kirk and Spock agreed that the logical course of action was a mind meld, and the visitor was surprisingly open to the idea. Skywalker claimed that he sensed potential in Spock from the beginning, apparently referring to this Force of his, and told Spock to begin. However, when Spock began to touch Skywalker, the Jedi recoiled, not expecting a mind probe to involve physical contact, and attempted to use Force persuasion to get the Vulcan to back down.

However, it was too late, and Skywalker's Force touch only amplified the mind meld already in progress. This Jedi mind meld, the first of its kind, unlocked something in Spock. A storm of Force energy burst forth from the Vulcan, knocking out lights and throwing around objects for some time, until he was able to bring it under control. Each participant was left with a deep, if somewhat fragmentary, understanding of the other, and Spock was now in command of powers no being in the recorded history of the Milky Way had ever known.

Now believing Skywalker fully, the Enterprise senior staff allowed him access to historical and medical files. Spock and Skywalker theorized that the mental abilities of Vulcans, Betazoids, Human ESPers, and other telepaths and telekinetics were all manifestations of the Force. After Spock and Mr. Scott helped interface the ship's computer with a scanner Skywalker had carried in his cargo compartment, Dr. McCoy was able to create a subspace filter for the medical scanners that confirmed the presence of varying quantities of midi-chlorians in everyone he scanned.

Spock showed remarkable control of the Force from the very beginning, a fact he attributed to his Vulcan mind, but he expressed disbelief that even two Force users could protect a ship like the Enterprise from the turbulence of a wormhole. However, Skywalker reassured him, and Kirk made the decision to make the trip. Using R2-D2's scans of the wormhole from the first transit, Sulu created a map for the return trip, and navigation of the Enterprise was turned over to Skywalker. Skywalker and Spock worked in concert to hold the ship together against the turbulence of the voyage, and it emerged on the other side nearly unscathed.

On the other side, Spock immediately took astronomical scans that placed the Enterprise over three million light years from Earth, and also a half million years in the past. This deepened the paradox, as fossil records proved human life arose on Earth, and based on that timing this galaxy could not have seeded it. Kirk chose to go ahead with stopping V'ger anyway. Even if this was the past, V'ger couldn't have gone back in time without the wormhole the Enterprise created by destroying the Narada.

The Millennium Falcon landed on the Enterprise, and the two crews had a conference in which they planned how to stop the intruder. Skywalker noted that no ship had gotten within a kilometer of V'ger, but no species in his galaxy had teleportation technology like that of the Enterprise, and that may be one of the reasons the Force sent him there. Mr. Scott noted that while the Enterprise's computers and transporters may be more advanced, the Millennium Falcon has more advanced shields, weapons and propulsion&mdash;propulsion being the most important, as V'ger already digitized a hyperdrive and is too far ahead for the Enterprise to catch up.

Spock then pointed out that the replicators on the Enterprise will allow them to adapt the technology of the Falcon, if her captain allows Mr. Scott to do some internal scans. So the crews agreed on a trade. Kirk points out that two ships will have a better chance than one, so they also plan to put a transporter on the Falcon.

As the equipment was being replicated and installed on the Enterprise, Skywalker tried to determine what might have been missed in the mind meld and fill in the gaps. Spock argued that as a Vulcan, he is effectively immune to the dark side of the Force. Lacking a deeper understanding of the species, and lacking time to work with the Vulcan, Skywalker was forced to accept this for now.

However, Skywalker made a poor decision, as Spock's internal struggle as a human-Vulcan hybrid and his passion for logic were already pushing him down a dark path. In Kirk's ready room, he explained to Kirk that he believes it is a bad idea to provide advanced technology to the citizens of the New Republic, and persuaded him to double-cross the crew of the Millennium Falcon by sabotaging their transporter. Kirk was unable to argue with Spock's logic and agreed.

The only ones who landed on V'ger were Kirk, Spock, and Skywalker. On discovering that V'ger was an Earth space probe, Voyager II, Spock correctly posited that the alien machines who refurbished it had discerned its core objective as gathering knowledge. V'ger disarmed the landing party and informed them that it had grown beyond its objective, and it now wished to touch the Force. It was digitizing lifeforms to analyze them in an effort to learn how. V'ger gave the landing party the choice of allowing it to continue this process, or volunteer one of the Force-users to bond with V'ger as a conduit to the Force. Spock took a third option and blasted V'ger's brain with Force lightning. Escaping in the nick of time, Kirk was entirely sanguine with Spock's actions but Skywalker was terribly disappointed.

The two crews made their farewells, and Spock left his Master behind as he was not expected to be needed. Data from two trips through the wormhole, combined with the new shields, were thought to be enough to provide a safe, if bumpy, journey. In fact, Kirk was planning to recommend to Starfleet that future missions be planned to investigate the relationship between humankind in two galaxies. However, the trip back encountered unexpected turbulence. Spock had a Force vision of Uhura being killed by a tendril of energy, and with a cry of anguish he dipped into the dark side of the Force to shield her from the oncoming surge. It passed over her harmlessly and the Enterprise made it through, but everyone on the bridge stared in disbelief as Spock stared back with yellow eyes.

Personality and traits
Spock, as a Vulcan, was a highly controlled being, but as a half-human he struggled to master his emotions more heavily than many Vulcans. This struggle threatened to explode at times, as it did during the pursuit of the Narada, and during the second transit of the wormhole, leading to his ultimate fall to the dark side of the Force. His mastery of logic was superlative, as was his intellect, and he possessed significantly greater physical strength than a human. Upon discovering his Force ability, he showed rapid progress, more so than either Luke or Anakin Skywalker had upon first being introduced to the Force, however he had the advantage of absorbing knowledge directly from the brain of a Jedi Master.

Nyota Uhura
Although it was kept as a secret for the most part, Spock and Uhura had a romantic relationship that was established prior the start of their careers on board the Enterprise. Since Spock was an instructor at Starfleet Academy, he met Uhura while she was one of his students and, possibly later, the Academy aide for his Advanced Phonology class. However, it is still unknown under which circumstances a relationship was formed between them and if she still was one of his students at the time.

While on board the Enterprise, Spock and Uhura maintained a formal professional relationship and the true nature of their feelings for one another was displayed only on rare occasions where the apparent adopted formality of their interactions while at work was replaced by hints of familiarity, one example of which was when Uhura openly confronted him about her getting assigned to the U.S.S. Farragut even though she was qualified to serve aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, to which Spock replied that his decision was just "an attempt to avoid the appearance of favoritism". Another example was when a concerned Uhura called him by name and not by rank when he was about to beam himself to the Vulcan surface to rescue his parents and the Vulcan High Council, Uhura being the only person to whom, in the midst of a crisis, he actually paused to explain what he was about to do and his reasons.

However, the most explicit hint about them being connected beyond a professional partnership was when Uhura comforted Spock after Vulcan was destroyed by Nero and, in the privacy of the turbolift, he did take comfort from her. Later, their relationship was revealed to Kirk and Scott when they witnessed Spock and Uhura kissing in the transporter room, where Spock also called her by her first name "Nyota".

His relationship with Uhura ultimately caused his fall to the dark side of the Force, as he tapped into the Force to protect her from death while traveling back to the Milky Way through the wormhole.

James T. Kirk
Spock and Kirk had a complicated and troubled relationship from the start. As an instructor at Starfleet Academy and the creator of the Kobayashi Maru scenario, Spock did not appreciate that Kirk had altered the program so he could beat it. In fact, he openly accused him of having cheated and as a result, Kirk had to answer before an inquiry board at the Academy for his actions. Kirk was subsequently suspended and only with the help of Doctor Leonard McCoy was he able to come on board the Enterprise. Kirk and Spock continued to clash with one another over vastly different view points and philosophies they held. Kirk was self-assured, overconfident and had an unconventional way of approaching matters, while Spock was highly disciplined, always honoring regulations and adhering to a strict code of conduct. Spock's lack of tolerance for Kirk's ways resulted in Spock just throwing Kirk off the ship altogether, the first opportunity he got. When Kirk later provoked him by referencing his mother, Amanda Grayson, Spock lost all control and was more than eager to hurt Kirk.

Spock's attitude toward Kirk softened, however, after his encounter with an alternate version of himself who advised both of them to set aside their momentary irritations, revealing that in his timeline, the two had shared a great friendship. After they worked side by side to save Earth and beat the Narada, Spock became Kirk's first officer aboard the Enterprise.

Behind the scenes
Spock was introduced to Star Wars canon by Star Wars Episode VII: Star Trek, which merged the Star Wars universe with that of the Star Trek "Abramsverse." All information released thus far is in limited distribution, available only to the administrators of Memory Aurek, formerly known as Wookieepedia.

Appearances

 * Star Trek
 * Star Wars Episode VII: Star Trek