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"She's lovely, Mr. Spock. Who is she?"
"She is T'Pring. My wife."
– Nyota Uhura and Spock, 2267 ("Amok Time")

T'Pring was a 23rd century female Vulcan.

Early life[]

T'Pring, age 7 (remastered)

T'Pring at age 7

T'Pring was born in 2230 to Sevet and T'Pril on Vulcan. She was bonded to Spock as a child. (TOS: "Amok Time"; SNW: "Charades")

Administrator specialist[]

In the 2250s, T'Pring was a member of the El-Keshtanktil and served as an administrator and treatment specialist at the Vulcan rehabilitation colony Ankeshtan K'til, helping inmates whose uncontrolled emotions led them to become criminals back on the way of logic. (SNW: "The Serene Squall")

Engaged to Spock[]

In 2259, Spock returned to Vulcan for a time where he and T'Pring became engaged to be married. At this point in time, she was acquainted with Captain Christopher Pike to a sufficient degree to address him by his first name. (SNW: "Strange New Worlds")

T'Pring as Spock

T'Pring in Spock's body in 2259

T'Pring visited Spock on Starbase 1, when she was also tasked with finding and returning a fugitive from Ankeshtan K'til who had fled there. She was looking forward to spend more time with him; Spock, however, once again gave preference to his duties as Starfleet officer, offending T'Pring. She agreed to a Vulcan soul sharing ritual to establish better understanding between them, which inadvertently resulted in her switching bodies with Spock. They had no choice but to pretend being the other one until they were able to return to their own bodies, but also used this opportunity to understand each other better. (SNW: "Spock Amok")

Later that year, she was forced to negotiate for Spock's life with the pirate Captain Angel, who seized control of the USS Enterprise seeking the release of their lover Sybok from Ankeshtan K'til. (SNW: "The Serene Squall")

T'Pring would later force the issue of the couple's engagement dinner. Spock would agree to it under pressure from her. During a mission that took place just before T'Pring and her family were to arrive for the engagement dinner; Spock was turned into a full human by aliens who operated under the belief that were repairing an error in removing his Vulcan side. Spock would not share these events with T'Pring. Spock struggled to please T'Pring's overly critical mother. Captain Pike offered support by cooking the meal himself while Spock's mother assisted him with preparations. In the end, Spock's alterations were reversed and T'Pring found out that Spock kept these events from her and she was offended to the extent that she suggested they take time apart

Later life[]

In 2267, when Spock began suffering from pon farr, he returned to Vulcan to mate with T'Pring.

T'Pring, however, preferred Stonn instead, and executed her right to claim kal-if-fee at the koon-ut-kal-if-fee ceremony (a Vulcan wedding). She picked James Kirk as her champion, and he accepted while being unaware that the fight was to be to the death.

T'Pring reasoned that if Spock won, he would reject her for having chosen another, and she would have Stonn. If Kirk won and killed Spock, he would not want her, and she would still have Stonn. However, should Spock still accept her, he would likely be gone for several extended periods of time following his career in Starfleet, thus allowing her to be with Stonn.

Spock complimented her on her "flawlessly logical" reasoning, yet found a way to express his true opinion of her: he "congratulated" Stonn on winning T'Pring, but cautioned him that "having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting." T'Pring for her part was "honored" at the compliment that Spock had thought her logic was flawless. (TOS: "Amok Time")

Anything but canon scenario[]

T'Pring and Spock (Holiday Party)

T'Pring breaks up with Spock

According to an anything but canon account, Spock once played a clip of T'Pring breaking up with him as a blooper in a blooper reel he compiled for a party on First Contact Day.

According to the clip, she told him that she was leaving him for Karmu, since she loved him rather than Spock. She then told him their marriage was off. Upon viewing this clip, the people attending the party were concerned about Spock, noticing that he was uncharacteristically crying, which was quite unusual for a man who supposedly suppresses his emotions. He then tells them that it's funny, because it's self-depricating. He goes on to tell them that he has many more similar clips, since she had left him for other men in that past on multiple occasions. The party goers decline to see anymore clips like that. (VST: "Holiday Party")

Appendices[]

Appearances[]

Background information[]

The adult T'Pring was played by Arlene Martel in Star Trek: The Original Series and Gia Sandhu in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: very Short Treks.

Although no reference work notes the name of the girl depicted as the young T'Pring, she was played by Mary Rice. [1] Rice's T'Pring was the first female Vulcan and Vulcan child seen in the Star Trek franchise.

Upon describing the girlhood photograph of T'Pring, the revised final draft script of "Amok Time" stated, "There is a sweetness about her features that promises a loveliness when grown." The same script described the adult T'Pring as "graceful, lithe, beautiful."

Apocrypha[]

T'Pring appears in a story line in Star Trek (DC volume 2) issues 66-68, in which it is revealed that she and Stonn have a daughter, T'Ariis (β). The characters recollect that T'Pring entered religious study six years after her marriage. She refused to return home to Stonn and T'Ariis, choosing instead to become a Matriarch at the Temple of Kolinahr.

In the novel The Vulcan Academy Murders, Spock confesses to Sarek that he was unable to feel more than the barest connection with T'Pring in his mind. He ascribed this "failure" to his mixed heritage, and regarded her photo in his quarters as a way of trying to find the connection again. Sarek, inwardly appalled, realizes that T'Pring had ejected Spock from her mind as much as possible, even before his arrival on Vulcan.

In the novel Spock's World, T'Pring plots revenge on Kirk and Spock. T'Pring is vengeful because after marrying Stonn, Stonn died trying to induce pon farr. T'Pring's plot to have Vulcan secede from the United Federation of Planets is foiled by the Enterprise crew. Similar events apparently occur in the novel The Lost Years. She is also shown extorting Spock for "the bride price" in D.C. Fontana's novel Vulcan's Glory, which takes place during the Christopher Pike era.

T'Pring also appears in the third issue of the Star Trek: Spock: Reflections comic series. Unlike earlier non-canon portrayals, the character is shown in a much more positive light; she has a friendly meeting with Spock soon after his return to Vulcan to begin his Kolinahr training, accurately predicting that he would not find peace, or any of his answers, on Vulcan, which he never would have left if what he sought was there (responding to Spock's statement that she barely knows him by saying that she always has, and always will), and that whatever he came back to the planet for, he should find it quickly, since space is where he truly belongs.

An alternate version of T'Pring from a world on which the Human race died out before First Contact occurred was featured in the novel Forgotten History – resulting in the Vulcan High Command never abandoning their more militaristic ways as Captain Jonathan Archer never discovered the lost Kir'Shara – when her ship accidentally switches places with the Enterprise during a survey of a dimension-shifting planet. During this time she briefly works with Spock – who was on a different ship when the transfer took place – even helping him deal with his latest pon farr as his body responds to her due to his engagement to his world's version of her, this T'Pring expressing greater sympathy and understanding of Spock. In return, Spock advises her on where she might find her world's version of Surak's lost writings, helping her world's Vulcans return to the vision that Surak had of their culture rather than what it has become in that world.

In flashbacks in the novel Sarek by A.C. Crispin, Amanda strongly disapproves of Sarek's choice to affiance Spock to T'Pring, remarking that, even for such a young child, she seems very cold and calculating.

In the short story "The Smallest Choices" from the anthology book Strange New Worlds 9, T'Pring travels to Veridian III in 2372 and meets Spock who arrived to pay his respects to Kirk. During her meeting with Spock, she questioned him about his motives regarding reunification and she returned a brooch that Spock's mother had given her before their aborted marriage. It's revealed that during her travel, T'Pring considers her choice to marry Stonn over Spock and she admits to herself that her decision was about being in control of the marriage, which she felt she could not have done if she were married to someone as famous as Spock. She questions what could have happened if she had married Spock and after leaving the planet, she sheds tears over her decision to marry Stonn instead of Spock.

Tpring alternate

T'Pring of the alternate reality

The alternate reality version of T'Pring appears in the Star Trek: Ongoing story arc After Darkness set after the events of Star Trek Into Darkness. Having survived the destruction of Vulcan, she greets Spock when he returned to New Vulcan to deal with the onset of pon farr, much to Nyota Uhura's surprise. Later, when he joined a group of rebel Vulcans called the Sasaud, she informed the crew of the USS Enterprise about his whereabouts.

The novel More Beautiful Than Death features another version of the alternate reality T'Pring. In this novel, she faked her death after the destruction of Vulcan and fled with a Katric ark containing the katra of Stonn, who was killed when rocks fell on him during the destruction. Having infiltrated Sarek's current mission under the alias "L'Nel", T'Pring attempts to use the fal-tor-pan to transfer Stonn's katra into Spock's body, replacing Spock's (in effect, murdering him), but Sarek, Uhura and Kirk are able to stop her before she can do so.

External link[]

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