Adventures of a Canonista; also known as "I watched ST Nemesis so you don't have to."

[templemarker]

I'm about a third of the way into my post about Spock, and there is just so much information to compile. Hopefully I'll have it up tomorrow, but in the meantime, my "people are wrong on the INTERNETS" rage is sufficiently peaked to address something I'd planned to talk about after the backstory resources were done. Namely: authorial intent with

Comments

[clancy_s]

Well written throughout, your thoughts fit very well with what I remember of TOS although you know far more about it than I do.

Passing thought wrt Kirk being captain, Spock XO. Amongst all the other reasons Spock's too level headed and bright to want the job.

[adn_heming]

There's also the question of whether Spock is a command-track officer: yes, he can lead a ship, and with his intelligence and skill, he'd be a formidable captain. But I don't think he joined Starfleet to sit in a captain's chair.

[silviakundera]

Do you know if he says this explicitly in TOS? I remember that alternate!Spock in 'Mirror Mirror' actually says that he doesn't want to ever be captain.

[adn_heming]

Not a direct quote, but Kersenelda points out some canon indications that Spock wasn't after a career as Captain/Admiral. First, there's also the fact Spock picked the science track (hence the blue shirt) rather than the command track, and after the five year mission, became an instructor on board the Enterprise, rather than a captain on a exploration/military vessel. He later chose to leave Starfleet to become an ambassador.

To me, all those choices suggest he wasn't after command.

[templemarker]

Thanks for that link; there's some quirks about Starfleet that you just kind of have to know, ways people have forced it to make sense from the nonsense it actually is. The Bridge Officer's Test is one of those things.

As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, there has to be some other compelling reason to go into command track if you aren't guaranteed a ship command; indeed, it's most likely the average Academy graduate will never command a starship! It seems to be a false assumption that command track is all about starship command, or that starship command is only accessible through command track positions; clearly they are not exclusive.

[templemarker]

As kernezelda mentions, Wrath of Khan is the best indication of Spock's career path. I went into it a little more somewhere else in this thread, but in the larger Trek universe, Spock was science track at the Academy and likely took the Bridge Officer's Test to qualify as Pike's 2XO. But that, obviously, doesn't translate into a desire for his own captaincy commission.

[templemarker]

As far as I am aware, Spock never went in on the command track. This is the point where you have to be very explicit about the differences in TOS versus AOS canon. In the Prime universe, Spock is Second Officer on the Enterprise when he joins the ship in 2253; more notably, he is chief science office. Since one only has to successfully complete the Bridge Officer's Test to be eligible for a command role, it seems most likely that he was exclusively science track until Pike offered him the 2XO commission upon satisfactory completion of the BOT

[templemarker]

It may just be that I spend too much of my day thinking about it all! But I'm glad you found it interesting.