Name: Vulcan!
Author: Kathleen Sky
Publication Date: 9/1978
Publisher: Bantam Books
Page Number: 175
Historian’s Note:
Sometime between The Counter-clock Incident and The Motion Picture
Cast of Characters: Captain James T. Kirk Commander
Spock Dr. Leonard H. McCoy
AKA “Bones” Lieutenant
Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”
Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Lieutenant Kyle Lieutenant Angela Mendoza Lieutenant Jeff Williams Dr. Ruth Rigel Nurse Christine Chapel Nurse Angela Dickinson Ensign Pavel Chekov Ensign Theodore Lowrey Ensign Donald Ackroyd Ensign Octavio Hernandez Ensign Alan Huff Ensign Bill Johnson Ensign Sikh Ensign Rosaly Ybarra Engineer Shigeda Engineering Technician Hans
Mueller Crewman Fitzgerald Crewman Jefferies Crewman Martin Dr. Katalya Tremain Ambassador Sarek Commodore David Stone Captain Selik Commander Maximinus Thrax Licinius Thrax
Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701,
Starbase 11, the Romulan Bird of Prey ChR Decius, USS Calypso unknown registry
number
Planets: Arachnae
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story starts out with an unusual premise: the Romulan Neutral Zone, which we first learned of in “Balance of Terror”, is moving. The book explains that when the treaty was being hammered out by diplomats they marked the territory of space that each power was to have and the Neutral Zone by using magnetic field strengths that no one expected to change for hundreds of years. (By which time with any luck the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire would have long solved their differences.) However some frequent ion storms have caused these magnetic fields to alter changing the once permeant boundary. In the immediate term that means that the planet Ararchnae is going to be now part of Romulan space. As to their knowledge there is no immediate concern as no intelligent life has been discovered. However there are some on the Federation Council who feel that there might be and we shouldn’t allow those poor souls to fall into Romulan hands They have sent over a famous biologist who McCoy says is “the best thing to happen to biology since Darwin” to help determine if there are any lifeforms worth protecting.
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| Spock and McCoy preparing for Tremain |
As soon as she beams aboard Tremain
reveals herself to be a major racist space Karen. She looks at Spock and refuses to participate
in a mission with him. After
intervention of Captain Kirk and Commodore Stone, who is Kirk’s CO from “Court Martial” and also Tremain’s boyfriend, she is forced to go along with the
mission. When she is not around Vulcans,
Tremain is actually a very pleasant and interesting person. McCoy even finds himself falling in love with
her in spite of her clear bigotry.
McCoy decides to research this under his duty to evaluate all incoming
personnel as Chief Medical Officer. He
discovers her husband served on the USS
Calypso, under the command of Captain Selik. Selik was a Vulcan who had served in
Starfleet for 40 years. His ship
encountered some parasitic lifeforms who started to “eat” their ship causing
everything to break down. With a rescue
ship to far away and the risk of such a ship also getting infected the Captain
decided to order the ship to self-destruct.
McCoy tires to present his findings to the Captain and First Officer, but it turns out his research was a little short. Spock had already found out about the husband, and unlike McCoy continued to research where he learned of Tremain’s parents also being on that ship. This makes McCoy feel like a fool and Kirk is not happy. Elsewhere the bigots of the Enterprise (I can’t believe I said that) all approach Tremain looking to make her their leader. She tells them that they are all stupid and takes the time to explain to each one why they are so. Tremain’s is a lot more charismatic than the traditional bigot. (I will talk more about that in my additional thoughts section.) In sickbay, Chapel gives Tremain a piece of her mind and in doing so does more to embarrass Spock than anything Tremain could do. It reminds me of the Mantis tries to defend Drax in Guardians 3.
In the final analysis Kirk and
McCoy agree that although Tremain’s attitude and bigotry would prevent her from
a regular posting on the Enterprise,
given her expertise and the time sensitivity of their mission she will suffice
long enough to get the mission done.
Kirk assigns both Spock and Tremain to joint command of the
mission. Tremain remains unhappy about
it.
The landing party heads down to the
planet and sets up camp as they get ready to observe the native Arachnians. However, in a short period of time their camp
is over run by a group of Arachnians.
Nearly everyone in the party is killed, two are severally wounded, and
only Spock and Tremain escape unscathed.
They request an emergency beam out but the Romulans have entered this
system and the Enterprise has its
shields up and cannot help them.
Kirk tires to reason with the Romulans but they are not listening. The reasons for the Romulans’ refusal are that given their past encounters they don’t trust Kirk, and internal Romulan politics. The Commander’s family is on the out due to his second in command and son refusing to marry a proconsul’s daughter. They have been given a mission with a high rate of failure: go against Captain Kirk. In the meantime Spock and Tremain try to help their fallen crewmates.
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| Romulans have had many injuries against the hands of Kirk |
The two injured landing party
members die, which sours Kirk on the Romulans and starts talking with them a
little less diplomatically. To make
matters worse Spock is injured by an Arachnian.
Spock is now dying of Archnian venom like his lost crewmates. In an act of desperation Spock forces a mind
meld with the Archnian. This turns out
to be a mistake because the Archnians are just animals just like many already
thought, and Spock’s mind meld with such a creature makes him think he is one
of them. Despite her bigotry, Tremain
decides to risk her own sanity to help Spock.
She puts her hand to his face and began the mind meld on herself. This kills two birds with one stone. Tremain is able to guide Spock back to sanity,
and we learn the truth of Tremain’s bias.
Although the loss of her husband and parents under a Vulcan’s command
was traumatic. However the true loss was
the Vulcan Captain himself. She was
already set to break up with her husband as their marriage was all but
officially over. She had found herself
falling in love with their commanding officer but she never told him. This led her never to want to be around
anyone who reminded her of him creating her bias of all Vulcans. After this mind meld therapy with Spock she
resolves to change her ways.
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| Mind melds can be helpful |
Kirk decides despite the Romulans
he will try to rescue them anyway. He
signals his intentions to the Romulans reminding them of the consequences if
they are attacked. The Romulans decide
to let them try and monitored to make sure that was all they would do. With his missing crewmembers returned Kirk
tells the Romulans the planet is theirs and leaves but not before shouting off
a few insults at their intelligence.
With Spock better he has a meeting with McCoy and Tremain to smooth
everything over. Tremain vows to resolve
her issues with Vulcans but as far as romance goes she is not sure if she will
be with Stone, McCoy, or anyone.
Additional thoughts: The story begins with an interesting concept. How would boundaries in space even work? A two dimensional map about space is even
worse than one about Earth. How far up
and around exist the boundary of the Neutral Zone between the United Federation
of Planets and the Romulan Star Empire? The
idea that the treaty would create some natural markers that might seem long
term but could later shift and change makes for a good story.
So onto a small topic: Dr. McCoy’s rank. In classic Star Trek McCoy was always a lieutenant commander. I noted in my first Animated Series review about “More Tribbles, More Trouble” McCoy’s rank insignia was that of a commander. I immediately wondered if McCoy had been promoted or if it was just an animation error. There plenty of animation errors so it wasn’t absurd to think that, heck even the live action series had visual errors. Mr. Spock wore the stripes of a full commander all through season 1, but he was also promoted to that rank off screen before the start of season 2. In this book Tremain’s rank is given as a full commander and it is stated that she has the same rank of both Spock and McCoy. So it looks like the country doctor got promoted.
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| Dr. McCoy, a full commander |
McCoy finds Tremain very attractive
and desirable, but he detests her attitude toward Spock and he knows so long as
it exists she is not someone he can have a future with. It’s a good show of solidarity between McCoy
and Spock. McCoy may like to tease Spock
about being a Vulcan but he shuts up about it after Tremain demonstrates her
intolerance. He is not going to give her
an inch so she can take a mile. I do
like how the author made Tremain a compelling character in spite of her
bigotry. It is very easy to get into the
mindset that all bigots are KKK members, it does us a disservice because we may
not feel the need to examine some of our own beliefs since bigots are just the
“bad” people. When McCoy is talking with
Tremain alone he and the reader find her to be such a fascinating and charismatic
person, until the subject of Vulcans comes up.
The whole thing reminds me of a biography I read about John F. Kennedy. While he was in the Senate,
Kennedy would befriend these Southern Senators who he would find that they
would have shared mutual interests; he would have interesting discussions with
them, and find them pleasant company.
Until the subject of African-Americans came up, and then Kennedy told
his aides they transformed into different people.
Tremain tells McCoy he was wrong about the death of her husband causing
her distain because the love was out of their marriage and the term was going
to expire. The very concept of a term
marriage is interesting. You don’t have
to worry about a nasty divorce. If it’s
not working out then you simply don’t renew.
I found the failed recruitment of
Tremain by the bigots of the Enterprise
an interesting read. Tremain puts every
one of them in their place from the Admiral’s baby to the
I-am-jealous-of-Chapel-Nurse. Is it just
me or does Engineer Shigeda belong in the Terran Empire of the mirror universe?
Now Starfleet is not exactly a
military organization but it’s structured like one. To me you would think a joint command is a
bad idea. I mean who is the person who
you hold accountable. It is like a ship
having two captains. Then on top of that you make the joint commanders two
people who hate each other. Personally I
thought Kirk would make Tremain the final word on the area of expertise and
Spock should be in charge of the overall mission. Clearly Kirk should think about it since the
joint command ended with everyone under them getting killed.
Now it was clear that the Romulan
Star Empire is based on the Roman Empire.
They have similar titles and their home worlds are Romulus and Remus.
This book takes that a bit farther by giving the Romulans all Romanized names. Where elsewhere in the franchise their names
sound similar to Vulcans, but here they are Maximinus and Licinius Thrax.
I mentioned earlier that McCoy
ceased his teasing of Spock the moment Tremain started her attack. It was interesting to have Spock’s internal
monologue compare the two. Despite her
intense bigotry or maybe because of it, Spock actually enjoys goading her more
than McCoy. Originally this book was a
draft for a potential episode now clearly the book format allows for a more in
depth story than a sixty-minutes-plus-commercials episode but I would have
loved to see Spock vs. Tremain live action.
One of the best parts of the book
to me was in the way the Romulans talk about Kirk to themselves. To them Kirk is horror who can’t be trusted
and will pull victories out of the thin air through treachery. The Commander even suspects the Proconsul may
have set this up on purpose to get rid of him King David style. Considering
what happened in both “The Deadly Years” and “The Enterprise Incident” I don’t
blame the Romulans for not trusting Kirk at all. One of the flaws I found it the book “The Price of the Phoenix” was the Romulans, especially our favorite lady commander,
where a little too nice and friendly given their history together.
Spock’s attempted mind meld with
the Arachnian and the consequence reminded me of the short story “The Hunting”
in the first New Voyages volume. I don’t
know if the author read that story but it was a nice consistency.
The most amazing part of this story
was its end. In a more traditional Star Trek story we would have learned
that Arachnians were true intelligent and just a different type of intelligence
like the Horta from “The Devil in the Dark.”
This would force Kirk to find a way to win freedom for the planet for
the Romulans at the last minute. But no,
they are just dumb animals and Kirk just lets them have the planet because it
was worthless. Too bad for everyone who
got red-shirted for a planet that was useless to the Federation.
Should it be canon: Yes, I think this a great story;
it is a self-contained adventure like any traditional Star Trek episode, so it
doesn’t step on the toes of any other established canon. I cannot see any reasonable objection.
Cover Art: The
cover has McCoy, Tremain, and Spock on the bottom of the cover. Tremain is to McCoy’s right (viewer’s left),
Spock is on the other side. Spock’s
image is larger than the other two.
Above them is a native Arachnian.
Final Grade: Final Grade 5 of 5
