“First Vulcan to graduate at the head of her class”

[Extrocomp]

I was poking around on Google Books about, using the search terms "first Vulcan" "Spock", and the earliest reference I could find was from Memory Prime in 1989. Of course, Google Books doesn't index things like fanzines, and there are probably plenty of official publications not indexed, too. Then in the 1990s it seems to specifically show up in a lot of Diane Carey novels.

EDIT: From searching the Internet Archive, I see two references to Spock being the first Vulcan, both from stories about Harve Bennett's Starfleet Academy film: Cinefantastique, vol. 22, no. 5, and Gross and Altman's Captains' Logs. I think that would have been pitched around 1989, so maybe it was an idea that Bennett came up with for that that filtered out into fandom from there?

I think Diane Carey may be the one who came up with this myth. Dreadnought (May 1986) describes Spock as "the first Vulcan computer expert in Star Fleet". Final Frontier (January 1988) then goes one step further, calling him "the first of his kind in Starfleet".

 

[Christopher]

I think Diane Carey may be the one who came up with this myth. Dreadnought (May 1986) describes Spock as "the first Vulcan computer expert in Star Fleet". Final Frontier (January 1988) then goes one step further, calling him "the first of his kind in Starfleet".

Hmm, interesting. I would think it more likely that something would originate in fan lore and thereby get repeated in a novel. But I suppose it's possible, since I think the novels had a wider reach in fandom back then due to the lack of competition from new screen canon.

Final Frontier seemed to presume a lot of "firsts" close to the TOS era, like saying the Enterprise was the first spacecraft ever called a "starship" and that its ability to maintain continuous warp drive was a novelty.

Then again, Carey drew a lot on the Spaceflight Chronology for her history in FF. Is it possible the "first Vulcan" idea came from there? Anyone have a copy they can look through? (Argh, why have I never managed to get my own copy?)

 

[Yistaan]

Spock's family name (Xtmprszntwlfd, which made it into the "USS Enterprise Officer's Manual" prozine)

I never knew this! This isn't even in Memory Beta. It's like they just threw a bunch of letters without vowels together to get Spock's unpronounceable name mentioned in 'Journey to Babel'.

 

[Christopher]

I never knew this! This isn't even in Memory Beta. It's like they just threw a bunch of letters without vowels together to get Spock's unpronounceable name mentioned in 'Journey to Babel'.

And I never liked it for just that reason. It's too obviously gibberish, not a remotely plausible linguistic construct.

 

[Ronald Held]

Is it too late, to find out definitely? Perhaps whomever originated and deseminated it is no longer alive?
There were few conventions in the '70s,so could have it started in a widely distributed fanzine?

 

[Bryan Levy]

According to the Spaceflight Chronology, Starfleet Academy opened in 2091, but the first Human/ Alien crews were in 2081. In 2098, there was a student exchange program that was discontinued because of the Earth- Romulan war. Unfortunately, the timeline in there stops at the end of the 22nd Century, so there’s no entry of “Spock joins Starfleet”, let alone, “Spock is the first Vulcan to join Starfleet”. However, the Encyclopedia says he is the first Vulcan to join Starfleet. In the Okuda’s Chronology, it just says he enters the Academy in 2249, with no mention of him being first.

 

[Christopher]

However, the Encyclopedia says he is the first Vulcan to join Starfleet.

Hmm. Which edition? The first edition was 1994, which seems a bit early to have picked up on it if it was first proposed in 1988. I'm not sure how familiar the Okudas were with the novels, and I'd think Gene Roddenberry's and Richard Arnold's influence would've discouraged TNG creators from considering novel elements. (The Chronology and Encyclopedia both excluded TAS, as Roddenberry and Arnold would've preferred.) So to me, that suggests some earlier origin for the idea that influenced both Carey and the Okudas.

 

[Bryan Levy]

It’s the hardcover, but I think third printing, because the numbers at the front end at three. So, and early printing, but not first.

 

[David cgc]

I never knew this! This isn't even in Memory Beta. It's like they just threw a bunch of letters without vowels together to get Spock's unpronounceable name mentioned in 'Journey to Babel'.

I heard Fontana just mashed the typewriter when answering a fan letter.

Speaking of novels formerly having more weight in fandom, I think MB is having the same effect today. I'm still shocked every time I see “S’chn T’gai” in the wild.

 

[Yistaan]

I heard Fontana just mashed the typewriter when answering a fan letter.

Speaking of novels formerly having more weight in fandom, I think MB is having the same effect today. I'm still shocked every time I see “S’chn T’gai” in the wild.

A better question is why isn't Xtmprszntwlfd on Memory Beta if it actually appeared in a licensed work? You think someone would've added it by now.

On another note, the lack of coherence within the Trek "Expanded Universe" has long been a source of frustration to me. I can understand the works not fitting when a new show/movie comes in like Picard or Discovery, but I'd expect they should at least correspond with each other, and this is where Star Wars did infinitely better.

For example, I just couldn't get into the Romulan War novels because a big plot point is Mayweather leaving Enterprise NX-01, yet the Star Trek Legacy PC game, taking place during the Romulan War, outright clarifies Mayweather (of all people) is still on NX-01 (when an Admiral and Archer refer to him in conversation), completely clashing with the Romulan War novels.

 

[Christopher]

A better question is why isn't Xtmprszntwlfd on Memory Beta if it actually appeared in a licensed work? You think someone would've added it by now.

Did it? I only remember seeing it in the USS Enterprise Officer's Manual, which was a fan publication.

On another note, the lack of coherence within the Trek "Expanded Universe" has long been a source of frustration to me. I can understand the works not fitting when a new show/movie comes in like Picard or Discovery, but I'd expect they should at least correspond with each other, and this is where Star Wars did infinitely better.

I see that as a feature, not a bug. It was fun in the early days of tie-ins to see all the creatively different ways that various writers would fill in the gaps in the universe. It made it feel democratic, something that was up to the individual author and reader to interpret according to their own imagination, rather than something regulated by some central authority.

Star Trek is supposed to be about celebrating diversity, after all. So it's fitting that its tie-ins are open to a range of different creative visions and interpretations.

For example, I just couldn't get into the Romulan War novels because a big plot point is Mayweather leaving Enterprise NX-01, yet the Star Trek Legacy PC game, taking place during the Romulan War, outright clarifies Mayweather (of all people) is still on NX-01 (when an Admiral and Archer refer to him in conversation), completely clashing with the Romulan War novels.

Yeah, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is incompatible with the 1990s Spider-Man and X-Men animated series, but I enjoy them both. It's fiction! It doesn't all have to agree, since it's just imagined possibilities anyway, and there's room to imagine any number of different possibilities. So it's a good thing that fiction has the freedom to explore those different options. You don't have to pick a single "winner" and reject the others, because they're all equally unreal.

 

[Bryan Levy]

You don't have to pick a single "winner" and reject the others, because they're all equally unreal.

Besides, everybody just knows and agrees that the only real Star Trek is Gold Key Star Trek.

 

[Extrocomp]

For example, I just couldn't get into the Romulan War novels because a big plot point is Mayweather leaving Enterprise NX-01, yet the Star Trek Legacy PC game, taking place during the Romulan War, outright clarifies Mayweather (of all people) is still on NX-01 (when an Admiral and Archer refer to him in conversation), completely clashing with the Romulan War novels.

Many years ago, I used to have a similar hierarchy of personal canon where a story would be excluded from my personal canon if it was contradicted by a newer story or a story at a higher level in the hierarchy. It was needlessly complicated and also hypocritical because I didn't hold the TV series and movies to the same standard when they contradicted each other. It also made me very unhappy when I discovered that a story I really liked was contradicted by something else.

Now I consider a story to be part of my personal canon if it includes at least one canon character or at least one non-canon character who has met a canon character in another story. Contradictions no longer bother me since I just consider them to be alternate realities.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I never knew this! This isn't even in Memory Beta.

It was in Memory Beta, but was recently tossed out. (I think I had originally added it myself and was surprised to see it now gone.) It dates back to a letter or memo to DC Fontana and she had jangled out random letters on a keyboard, to tally with Amanda's comment that it was unpronounceable. The in-joke made it into the prozine, "USS Enterprise Officers' Manual".

A better question is why isn't Xtmprszntwlfd on Memory Beta if it actually appeared in a licensed work? You think someone would've added it by now.

Look at the "Talk" page. It was removed. The Officers' Manual was unlicensed, but a prozine, and for quite a while there were several entries on "Memory Beta" that included its info.

 

[Stevil2001]

I heard Fontana just mashed the typewriter when answering a fan letter.

Speaking of novels formerly having more weight in fandom, I think MB is having the same effect today. I'm still shocked every time I see “S’chn T’gai” in the wild.

Has "S'chn T'gai" turned up anywhere in particular? We used in Tears of Eridanus just because Ishmael is one of those books I read several times as a kid, and so it has been lodged in my head as the "real" name of Spock and Sarek ever since.

 

[Extrocomp]

Has "S'chn T'gai" turned up anywhere in particular? We used in Tears of Eridanus just because Ishmael is one of those books I read several times as a kid, and so it has been lodged in my head as the "real" name of Spock and Sarek ever since.

It was used in The Romulan War novels as Skon's family name and in Seasons of Light and Darkness as Spock's family name.

 

[Jinn]

It was also used in the Rise of the Federation novels.

 

[David cgc]

Has "S'chn T'gai" turned up anywhere in particular? We used in Tears of Eridanus just because Ishmael is one of those books I read several times as a kid, and so it has been lodged in my head as the "real" name of Spock and Sarek ever since.

I see it on Tumblr a lot, and not as, like "Did you know, Spock's family name is S'chn T'gai?" but as if people in general just know as a fact that his name is S'chn T'gai Spock, same as James T. Kirk or Hikaru Sulu. (I thought the tags in this comic would be an example, but it doesn't use "S'chn T'gai," but I'll still link it any chance I get, because it's hilarious.) If I had to guess, I'd say the name jumped in prominence with the new generation of fans after ST09 came out, and was spread through tagging systems on sites like Tumblr and AO3. It probably won out over "Xtmprszntwlfd" because that one is so obviously a joke and not just dumb luck.

 

[Stevil2001]

I see it on Tumblr a lot, and not as, like "Did you know, Spock's family name is S'chn T'gai?" but as if people in general just know as a fact that his name is S'chn T'gai Spock, same as James T. Kirk or Hikaru Sulu. (I thought the tags in this comic would be an example, but it doesn't use "S'chn T'gai," but I'll still link it any chance I get, because it's hilarious.) If I had to guess, I'd say the name jumped in prominence with the new generation of fans after ST09 came out, and was spread through tagging systems on sites like Tumblr and AO3. It probably won out over "Xtmprszntwlfd" because that one is so obviously a joke and not just dumb luck.

Interesting, thanks! How long I wonder until this generation of fans brings it into canon?

Also that comic is amazing.

 

[Christopher]

Also that comic is amazing.

Wait, are they portraying Sybok as the younger brother? It's the other way around.