Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek is the eleventh entry in the Star Trek film series, the eighth to feature original series characters, and, discounting time travel, the earliest film chronologically. The film has been novelized by Alan Dean Foster; the novel has in turn been released as an audiobook narrated by Zachary Quinto.

Introduction (blurb)
One grew up in the cornfields of Iowa, fighting for his independence, for a way out of a life that promised only indifference, aimlessness, and obscurity

The other grew up on the jagged cliffs of the harsh Vulcan desert, fighting for acceptance, for a way to reconcile the logic he was taught with the emotions he felt.

In the far reaches of the galaxy, a machine of war bursts into existence in a place and time it was never meant to be. On a mission of retribution of the destruction of his planet, its half-mad captain seeks the death of every intelligent being, and the annihilation of every civilized world.

Kirk and Spock, two completely different and unyielding personalities, must find a way to lead the only crew, aboard the only ship, that can stop him.

I
A child is born on Vulcan to Amanda Grayson of Earth and Sarek of Vulcan. The child is named for one of the early builders of Vulcan society: Spock. In space, the Federation starship USS Kelvin is attacked by a gigantic ship of unknown design and origin which emerges from a gravitational anomaly. Ayel, a crew member of the unknown ship, conveys his captain's demand that Captain Robau of the Kelvin take a shuttlecraft over, alone, to meet his captain face-to-face. George Kirk, the Kelvin's first officer, speculates that Ayel is a Romulan. Robau prepares to leave the Kelvin, handing over command to Kirk.

II
Robau arrives on the bridge of the alien vessel, whose commander refuses to speak to him. Ayel shows him a projection of a vessel with a rotating torus near its stern, which Robau does not recognize. He then asks Robau for information about an elderly Vulcan named Ambassador Spock, whose image Robau also does not recognize. When Robau tells the Romulans that the present stardate is 2233.04, the ship's captain becomes enraged and kills Robau with a bladed staff. Kirk orders that everyone else evacuate the Kelvin, including his pregnant wife, Winona, who is giving birth. He sets the Kelvin's self-destruct sequence, then pilots the ship on a collision course with the alien vessel. Winona gives birth aboard a medivac shuttle as it leaves the Kelvin. Before the Kelvin explodes, George Kirk speaks to his wife from the doomed ship's bridge. They agree to name their son Jim.

III
At a learning center on Vulcan, three bullies taunt the eleven-year-old Spock about his human mother, and he attacks one who calls his father a traitor for marrying her. After Spock overhears a conflict between Sarek and Amanda about his behavior, Sarek encourages him to follow the path of logic, telling him that his decision to marry Amanda was logical. In Iowa, Jim Kirk's older brother George runs away from home, unable to cope any longer with their stepfather Frank. Jim follows in their father's Corvette, which Frank was having Jim wash prior to selling it. A highway patrolman on a floating bike chases Jim into an old quarry site, where Jim jumps out of the car just before it plummets into the quarry and explodes. On Vulcan, Spock, now a young man, is accepted into the Vulcan Science Academy. However, he has also applied to Starfleet, and chooses that path after a member of the Vulcan High Council refers to Spock's mother as his "disadvantage". Spock becomes the first Vulcan to decline admission to the Science Academy.

IV
In a bar in Storm Lake, Iowa, Cadet Uhura, a specialist in xenolinguistics, orders a drink. Jim Kirk, now a young man, hits on her and asks what her first name is, but she refuses to tell him. Another cadet tries to stop Kirk from bothering Uhura, leading to a fight between Kirk and three cadets. The fight is interrupted by Captain Christopher Pike, who orders all cadets to leave the bar. Pike speaks to Kirk about his dead father and encourages him to join Starfleet. The next morning, Kirk rides his electric bike to the shipyard where the USS Enterprise is under construction. When a passing worker admires the bike, Kirk gives it to him. He boards the shuttle taking Uhura and the other cadets to Starfleet Academy. A thirty-year-old doctor sits down next to Kirk; after reciting a long list of disasters that could befall them in flight, he introduces himself as Leonard McCoy.

V
Four years later at the Academy, Kirk is romancing Gaila, a female Orion cadet, in her quarters. He hides under the bed when Gaila's roommate, Uhura, enters, having picked up chatter in the language lab about a prison escape in Klingon space. Uhura hears Kirk's movements, and Kirk, not at all abashed, dresses and leaves the room. Kirk, McCoy and Uhura take part in a simulation in which Kirk is in command of a Starfleet vessel that receives a distress call from the USS Kobayashi Maru, a disabled vessel in the Klingon Neutral Zone. Five Klingon warbirds appear and fire on Kirk's ship. In the administration room overlooking the simulator, the computer consoles go dead for a moment, then come back on. The Klingon vessels stop firing and lower their shields. Kirk orders their destruction with one photon torpedo each, then prepares to rescue the stranded ship's crew. In the upper room, the administrators react with shock to Kirk beating the test; among them is Commander Spock, the simulation's programmer. On the mysterious Romulan vessel, the Narada, Nero, its captain, awaits the emergence of a distinctive ship from a vortex in space. As the ship appears, Nero says, "Welcome back--Spock."

VI
An assembly is called of all Academy cadets. Kirk assumes its purpose is to give him a commendation for beating the Kobayashi Maru test, but in fact it is a disciplinary hearing at which he is accused of cheating. His accuser is Spock, whom he is meeting for the first time. Spock announces that Kirk used a hidden subroutine to change the parameters of the test. Kirk argues that since the test was rigged to be unwinnable, he was justified in changing the conditions. Spock counters that the purpose of the test was to present the cadets with a "no-win scenario", and that Kirk defeated this purpose. The hearing is interrupted by a red alert due to a distress call received from Vulcan. The graduating cadets are ordered to a hangar to be given their assignments. Kirk and McCoy proceed to the hangar; McCoy is assigned to the Enterprise, but Kirk is grounded because he is on academic probation.

VII
Uhura angrily confronts Spock over her assignment to the USS Farragut rather than the Enterprise. Spock says he made the decision "to avoid the appearance of favoritism", but reassigns her to the Enterprise. McCoy injects Kirk with the vaccine for the Melvarian mud flea virus, which will induce the virus' symptoms in him for an hour, then exercises his right to bring him aboard the Enterprise as his patient. McCoy and Kirk are shuttled to Starbase 1, where they board the completed Enterprise for the first time. Spock is the ship's science officer; Pike is its captain. Because the assigned helmsman is ill, the post is filled by Hikaru Sulu. McCoy leaves Kirk in Sickbay, asking him to stay out of trouble.

VIII
Ensign Pavel Chekov briefs the crew on the Vulcan situation. A "lightning storm in space" was detected near Vulcan, after which a distress call was received from the Vulcan High Council. Vulcan is experiencing massive tectonic activity. In Sickbay, Kirk remembers that he has heard the words "lightning storm in space" before. He rushes to communications monitoring station twelve and asks Uhura about the transmission from the Klingons and whether the ship they mentioned was Romulan. On Vulcan, Amanda sees a column of energy drilling into the ground from a platform in the sky, itself connected by cables to the Narada, where Nero orders that Red Matter be injected into a core pod. Kirk bursts onto the Enterprise bridge and tells Pike that the Klingon attack and the Vulcan crisis may have been caused by the same Romulan ship that destroyed the Kelvin. Uhura, who speaks all three Romulan dialects, relieves the officer on communications. Enterprise is unable to contact any of the other five ships heading for Vulcan, and drops out of warp to refine communications, falling behind the other ships. Before Enterprise can get to Vulcan three of the ships are destroyed, and Enterprise finds the remaining two fighting a losing battle with Narada, while outsystem communications are blocked by interference from the plasma drill.

IX
Narada engages Enterprise in battle, but when Nero recognizes the newly arrived ship he orders that it not be destroyed yet. Nero hails Enterprise, declaring himself to be Ŏ'ŗên, whom humans may address as Nero. He tells Spock they do not know each other yet, then demands that Pike take a shuttle to Narada for negotiations. Pike agrees, but takes Kirk and Sulu, who has advanced combat training, with him. They are joined in the shuttlebay by Chief Engineer Olson, who will perform a space-jump with Kirk and Sulu from the shuttle to the drilling platform in order to disable it. Pike leaves Spock in command of the ship, and promotes Kirk to first officer to maintain the chain of command. Because Dr. Puri is dead, McCoy becomes Chief Medical Officer. As the shuttle arcs toward Narada, Olson, Kirk and Sulu make the drop. Sulu and Kirk deploy their chutes at almost the same time, but Olson delays in order to reach the drill first. He hits the platform too fast and falls over the edge, then is incinerated in the column of plasma below.

X
Kirk and Sulu land on the platform, where they fight and kill two Romulan guards, Sulu utilizing his fencing skills. Pike arrives aboard Narada. Kirk and Sulu use the guards' weapons to disable the drill, but it has already reached Vulcan's core. Narada launches the delivery pod containing the Red Matter, which plummets past Kirk and Sulu into the borehole and generates a singularity in the core which begins to consume Vulcan. Spock orders that Enterprise signal a planetwide evacuation, then leaves the bridge to beam down and rescue the Vulcan High Council, who will have entered a shelter impervious to transporter beams. Nero orders that Narada retract the plasma drill and depart for its next target.

XI
As the drill retracts, Sulu falls off the platform. Kirk jumps after him and catches up to him by decreasing his own air resistance. Sulu opens Kirk's chute, but its cords snap and the two men plunge toward Vulcan. Chekov succeeds in beaming them up from midair to the Enterprise. Spock beams down to the underground sanctuary where the Elders, including Sarek, have taken shelter along with Amanda and the katric ark which contains the soul of Surak. Spock informs them of the necessity of evacuation. As they prepare to beam up from outside the shelter, the ground crumbles away beneath Amanda and she falls to her death, out of reach of the transporter beam. As soon as the others are aboard, Enterprise warps away from Vulcan as it implodes into the black hole, killing its six billion people. Spock notes in his log that Pike is still a hostage aboard Narada, that Nero's ship is heading for Earth, and that no more than ten thousand Vulcans escaped their planet's destruction. In a turbolift, Uhura attempts to comfort Spock; they share a kiss, but Spock tells her that what he needs now is "for us all to continue performing admirably".

XII
On the bridge, Spock discusses Nero's possible motivation with the other officers. The Narada's technological advancement and its ability to generate black holes suggest to him the possibility that Nero is from the future. He insists, against Kirk's opposition, that they must rendezvous with the rest of the fleet rather than attempt to rescue Pike. Kirk suggests that they take action in an illogical, unexpected manner to counter Nero's knowledge of the future, but Spock replies that the whole purpose of Nero's time travel must have been to alter the past, and that he has already succeeded in doing so, creating an alternate reality in which their own destinies have been changed. Kirk tries to enlist McCoy to declare Spock emotionally compromised and thus unfit for command, but McCoy declines to do so. Spock orders Kirk transferred of the ship, and renders him unconscious with the Vulcan nerve pinch when he continues to resist. On the Narada, Pike refuses to give Nero the frequencies that warn Earth of hostile intrusion. Nero explains that he is avenging the destruction of Romulus and the deaths of his wife and unborn child -- confusing Pike, since Romulus has not been destroyed. A Romulan arthropod is inserted into Pike's mouth which will wrap itself around his spinal cord and force him to tell the truth.

XIII
Kirk arrives on the ice planet Delta Vega in a survival pod. Wandering across the barren landscape, he encounters a gorilla-like predator called a drakoulias, which is then eaten by a much larger squid-like creature, a hengrauggi. Kirk flees into a cave, but the hengrauggi squeezes in after him and is dragging him out when it is repelled by an elderly Vulcan wielding a torch. To Kirk's astonishment, the Vulcan recognizes him and identifies himself as Spock, from a time 129 years in the future. Spock mind-melds with Kirk to explain to him what has happened: In the future Spock was the Ambassador to Romulus, and attempted to use the Red Matter device to prevent that planet's destruction by a supernova. The radiation from the supernova accelerated, and Spock was too late to save Romulus. He succeeded in creating a black hole which neutralized the supernova, but Nero blamed him for his homeworld's destruction. Both the Narada and Spock's ship were pulled into the black hole and sent back through time, but the Narada emerged twenty-five years before Spock. Upon Spock's arrival in the past, Nero captured him and marooned him on Delta Vega to witness the destruction of his own planet. Nero believes that the safety of Romulus can be assured only by destroying all the worlds of the Federation before destroying the star that will someday become the supernova. Kirk and the elder Spock set out for the small Federation outpost on Delta Vega. Spock reveals that in the unaltered timeline George Kirk lived to see his son become captain of the Enterprise.

XIV
On the Enterprise, Spock acknowledges how difficult it must have been for McCoy to support him against his friend Kirk. McCoy opines that Spock was out of his mind to maroon Kirk; he is certain Kirk will triumph in the end. At the Delta Vega outpost, Spock and Kirk are met by Keenser, a diminutive alien Starfleet officer, who takes them to the only other occupant of the base: Montgomery Scott, an engineer assigned to Delta Vega as punishment for testing his theory of transwarp beaming on Admiral Archer's prize beagle, who failed to rematerialize. Spock supplies Scott with the correct field equation for transwarp beaming, which was discovered by Scott's future self. Spock then calculates the coordinates to transport Kirk and Scott from Delta Vega to the Enterprise within a four-meter margin of error. Scotty agrees to take part in the test of his future self's theory, although Keenser is sad to see him go. Spock warns Kirk that the younger Spock must not learn of his older self's role in these events, but urges him to take command of the Enterprise by making Spock show that he is "emotionally compromised". Kirk and Scotty beam away.

XV
Kirk and Scotty transport into Enterprise's aft engineering bay, but Scotty materializes inside a cooling tank. He is carried by the flow of water into a series of tubes leading to the main coolant distribution chamber, where the pressure would tear his body apart. When Kirk tries to use a control panel to save Scotty, Chekov is alerted on the bridge to the presence of intruders in engineering. Kirk succeeds in opening an access panel and letting Scotty out of the tube, but they are brought to the bridge by security guards. Spock demands to know how they beamed aboard. Refusing to answer, Kirk taunts Spock with his lack of emotional response to the destruction of Vulcan and his mother's death. Kirk succeeds in driving Spock into a rage so severe that he attacks Kirk and nearly kills him with the Vulcan death grip before Sarek intercedes to stop him. Shocked by his actions, Spock resigns command due to his being "emotionally compromised". Because Pike made Kirk first officer, Kirk is now in command. Kirk orders a course to intercept Narada, and tells the crew to prepare for combat. Uhura, Sulu and Chekov demand that Kirk explain how he and Scotty accomplished transwarp beaming. Kirk tells them about the older Spock and Nero's true motivations, emphasizing that they cannot tell Spock about his older self. Spock has sought solitude in the transporter room, but Sarek enters and comforts his son, finally admitting he married Amanda because he loved her.

Characters

 * Ayel • Richard Barnett • Nensi Chandra • • Gaila • Amanda Grayson • Michael Johnson • Alnschloss K'Bentayr • Keenser • George Samuel Kirk Sr. • George Samuel Kirk Jr. •  • Winona Kirk • James Komack • Gretchen Lei •  • McGrath • Nero • Petroski •  • Pitts • Richard Robau •  •  •  • Spock Prime •  •

Spock (society-builder) • John Lennon • Paul McCartney • • Vader • Counter • Burke (Cadet) • Blake (Cadet) • Fugeman • Gerace (Cadet) • Tiberius Kirk • Korax (Cadet) • Tel'Peh • Davis (Cadet) • Jaxa • T'nag (Cadet) • McKenna • Charles Dodgson • Alexander • Puri • Surak • Sherlock Holmes • Arthur C. Clarke • Mandana • Alfred Nobel • Albert Einstein • Ernest Rutherford • Niels Bohr • Max Planck • Stephen Hawking • Ashford • T'mer • Lal-kang • Skon • Solkar • Jonathan Archer

Starships and vehicles

 * Jellyfish • Gilliam • Moore • Narada • USS Kobayashi Maru • •  •  • USS Centaurus •  •  •  •   •  •  •  • USS Kelvin (NCC-0514) •  •  •  •  •  •  • USS Walcott

Starbases and space stations

 * Starbase 1

Regula 1 • Starbase 3

Planetary locations

 * Iowa • Riverside • Riverside Shipyard • Storm Lake • San Francisco • Starfleet Academy

Cairo • Washington, D.C. • Moscow • Beijing • Dar-es-Salaam • Des Moines • Chicago • St. Louis • Oxford University • Sorbonne • Kyoto • MIT • Star City Conservatory • Mariana Trench • Pacific Ocean

Planets and planetoids

 * Delta Vega • Earth • Vulcan

Stellar

 * Laurentian • Sol • Vulcan

Species and cultures

 * Human • Klingon • Orion • Romulan • Vulcan

States and organizations

 * Chicago Transit Authority • Federation • Starfleet • Starfleet Medical Operations

Other references

 * 2233 • 2258 • 2387 • alternate reality • Andorian shingles • animal • arthropod • beagle • black hole • d'k tahg • drakoulias • electric cycle • electrophoretic plastic • fencing • gorilla • hengrauggi • inertial dampener • Ivy League • katra • katric ark • Kentucky Derby • Kolinahr • logic • lungworms • Melvarian mud flea • nanocarbonweave • Oxford Linguistics Invitational • Phoenicians • polar bear • Pyrrhic victory • quantum cosmology • Red Matter • singularity • Slusho Mix • spinal cord • squid • Starfleet Code of Ethical Conduct • Starfleet Medical Regulations • voodoo • vrelnac • The Wizard of Oz • xenolinguistics

Ranks and titles

 * admiral • ambassador • captain • commander • commanding officer • chief medical officer • chief engineer • security • helmsman • communications officer • lieutenant commander • lieutenant • ensign • cadet • doctor • first officer • tactical officer • navigator

Cast
The cast of the movie includes actors who have previously done acting and/or voice work in non-canon Star Trek productions; Greg Ellis and Leonard Nimoy. The film also introduces Zachary Quinto in the role of Spock, who also narrates the audiobook adaptation of the film's novelization.

Related stories
For a more complete account of the film's 24th century "backstory", see.

For the earlier history of Surak's katra, see.

The following stories feature accounts of events on the prime timeline corresponding to events in the alternate reality of Star Trek (2009):

Final Frontier: The maiden voyage of the newly constructed USS Enterprise.

Crisis on Vulcan: Spock's decision to attend Starfleet Academy.

Academy: Collision Course: Kirk's enrollment in the Academy, and Kirk and Spock's first meeting.

"Starfleet Academy!": Kirk's departure for the Academy and his early days there.

Aftershock: Spock and McCoy's first meeting.

The Kobayashi Maru: Kirk's Kobayashi Maru test.

Vulcan's Glory: Spock and Scotty's first voyage on the Enterprise.

Enterprise: The First Adventure: The first voyage of the Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk.

Timeline
The main narrative of the story takes place in 2258, however it opens with several sequences set prior to this showing events in the lives of James T. Kirk and Spock (dates are given for events in the story, others are extrapolated from previously established dates in the Star Trek Chronology (marked C).:
 * 2230C - Spock is born.
 * 2233 (Stardate 2233.04) - Attack on the USS Kelvin and the birth of James T. Kirk.
 * 2241C - Eleven year-old Spock is bullied in school.
 * A young James Kirk steals his stepfather's car.
 * 2249C - Spock rejects an invitation to study at the Vulcan Science Academy.
 * 2255 - Captain Pike convinces Kirk to enroll in Starfleet Academy.
 * 2258 (Stardate 2258.42) - Nero attacks Vulcan leading to a series of events resulting in cadet Kirk being promoted to captain and taking command of the USS Enterprise.
 * 2387 - In the primary universe Nero and Spock are pulled into a black hole/wormhole created by Spock's attempts to stop the destructive effects of the Hobus supernova.