'Star Trek: Discovery' Name Drops Spock For The First Time
Tonight’s episode of Star Trek: Discovery marks the first time that the Star Trek prequel series [...]
Sarek's Choice
What Sarek left out of what he told Michael was that the Vulcan Expeditionary Group was willing to accept her, or to accept her surrogate brother, but not both. Sarek was told that integration of humans into Vulcan culture needed to be slow and gradual and that having both of Sarek's human children, despite Spock being only half-human, join the group would be pushing it too far too fast.
Sarek was forced to choose between allowing Burnham, who was ready then, or Spock, who was still studying, to join the Vulcan Expeditionary Group. Sarek chose his own blood and delivered the bad news, carefully edited, to Burnham only for Spock to later chose to join Starfleet over joining the Vulcan Expeditionary Force.
prevnextSpock and Sarek
This new information shines an entirely new light on what fans have known about Spock's relationship with Sarek. Fans knew that Sarek broke off his relationship Spock after Spock decided to enroll in Starfleet Academy against his father's wishes. Up until now, the reason for this was believed to be entirely about Sarek being bitter that Spock did not follow in his father's footsteps the same way Sarek had followed in his father's footsteps.
However, we now know that Sarek denied Burnham, his other child, her dream of joining the Vulcan Expeditionary Group only for Spock, his own flesh and blood, to cast the opportunity aside, which means Spock's decision may have deepened the feelings of shame that Sarek revealed to Burnham in this episode of Discovery. In the end, just like Sarek's fixation on this memory was more about his own failings than that of his surrogate daughter, so too may his estrangement from Spock be more about Sarek's own regrets than the choices of his son.
New Star Trek: Discovery episodes become available to stream Sundays at 8:30 p.m ET on CBS All Access.
prev