- This character is a member of Spock's family.
- For other uses, see Zar.
Zar was a Human/Vulcan/Sarpeid hybrid, who rose to become a powerful leader on Sarpeidon around 5,000 years ago.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Zar, the son of Spock and Zarabeth, was born on Sarpeidon in around 2762 BC. Despite only being one quarter Vulcan, Zar was distinctly Vulcanoid in appearance and had grey eyes. He also possessed increased mental and telepathic capabilities, including precognition.
As Zar's father was living in the 23rd century, he was solely brought up by his mother. Despite the savage conditions of living in Ice Age conditions, Zarabeth made sure that her son was well educated and often corrected his grammar. She also told Zar that his father was a loving and caring individual who would one day return from the future and take Zar with him.
As Zar grew older he learned to hunt the wild animals for food, going against the Vulcan dislike at eating meat. He discovered the ability within himself to project his emotions unto the animal, which would stop the animal and allow Zar to kill it. While hunting one day in around 2744 BC, Zar suddenly began experiencing intense feelings of dread and sickness which eventually caused him to pass out from the pain.
When he came to he experienced premonitions that something had happened to his mother, and immediately headed back to her. Upon arrival he found she had fallen into a crevasse and had died instantly. He wanted to honor her request that she be cremated, but had no firewood to perform the act. So he encased her body in ice to preserve her.
Over the next seven years, Zar continued to live alone on Sarpeidon and had little or no contact with other beings until around 2737 BC, when while hunting, Zar detected the presence of three people that had arrived in the area. He tracked the people for several days, projecting his fear unto them so that it might nullify them, not knowing that one of these people were a telepath. He was soon captured by the people and discovered that the telepath was his father, and he was accompanied by Captain James T. Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy. The three Starfleet officers had travelled via the Guardian of Forever, to bring Zar into the 23rd century, an offer which Zar gladly accepted. (TOS - The Yesterday Saga novel: Yesterday's Son)
Aboard the Enterprise[]
Despite his enthusiasm to meet his father, Zar experienced a difficult adjustment period onboard the Enterprise, due to Spock's distant attitude towards him; Spock particularly insisted that he be addressed by his name, as he considered being called "father" by a person he deemed a stranger to be inappropriate. Nonetheless, Spock attempted to train Zar in the Vulcan way, but Zar rebelled against being bound to Vulcan customs.
During this period, the Enterprise was called back to Gateway to fight off a Romulan attack led by Commander Tal, who believed the Starfleet presence to indicate a Federation military research base was on the planet. A shuttle landed with a cloaking field concealing the Romulan troops' presence, and the Romulans raised a force field around the Guardian before they began torturing researchers and security personnel to death in their effort to find this "military base". Zar volunteered to help his father bring down the force field, as his telepathic abilities allowed him to sense others even if he could not see them. The effort failed, leaving them trapped with Kirk on the surface, as the Enterprise had engaged Romulan forces in orbit. Rather than risk his being captured in another attempt to bring down the shield, Spock nerve-pinches Zar into unconsciousness, and he and Kirk are taken into custody by Tal and tortured for information.
When Zar came to, he sensed Kirk and Spock's danger, and realized his father's love for him, in incapacitating him rather than allowing him to be captured with them. With a security team from the Enterprise (having seen off the Romulans in orbit with help from Starfleet reinforcements), Zar located the Romulan camp and destroyed their shuttle and cloaking field with an overloaded phaser, allowing the security team to rescue Kirk and Spock. With the Romulans defeated, Zar decided to return to his proper world and timeframe, albeit in a more settled area than he had been living; despite Spock offering to take him home to Vulcan, evidence suggested that Zar still had a part to play in Sarpeidon's past history. After a brief family mind-meld, Zar bade his father and friends farewell, and returned to ancient Sarpeidon. (TOS - The Yesterday Saga novel: Yesterday's Son)
Return to Sarpeidon[]
After returning to his own time period, Zar became embroiled in the wars that engulfed the planet, as part of the army of Tekolin, the Sovren of the Lakreo Valley. He was wed to Tekolin's daughter Araen, who tragically died in childbirth nine months later, and the baby not long after; Zar blamed himself, believing he was genetically incapable of producing children despite Dr. McCoy's later statements to the contrary. Tekolin nonetheless named Zar his heir, and when he died a year and a half later, Zar became Sovren, and established his capital at New Araen, named for his wife. Once in leadership, the new Sovren and his people began to arm themselves with advanced steel weapons and chainmail armor. (Zar admitted to Kirk later that he had "cheated" and taken Spock's tricorder, equipped with solar batteries; in addition to using the information in its memory for modernizing weapons, he also used it to listen to music, which he admitted was one of the few things that kept him sane in his war-torn era.)
By 2717 BC, Zar was suffering from the hardness of war, with a pronounced limp in one leg and various other old, poorly-healed wounds that physically impaired him. He was also embroiled in wars with the Asyri, led by the bloodthirsty Rorgan Death-Hand, and with Danreg Ford, led by Heldeon. To strengthen New Araen and align Danreg against their former Asyri allies, Zar captured the Lady Wynn, High Priestess of the goddess Ashmara and daughter of Heldeon, with the intent to wed her (marriage-by-capture being part of Danrei tradition), which led to a formal alliance between New Araen and Danreg Ford.
Saving the future[]
It was around the time of Wynn's capture that now-Captain Spock, accompanied by Admiral Kirk and Dr. McCoy, returned to Sarpeidon from the 23rd century (circa 2285, some fifteen years after their first meeting) to enlist Zar's aid in healing the Guardian, which had begun acting increasingly erratic and causing massive temporal distortions in their present.
Despite being informed of the severity of the situation back in the 23rd century, Zar was concerned with leading his people. He was also aware - by his own precognition, by Spock's observations of the Guardian, and by Wynn's dire predictions (as she was also a telepath) - that he would likely die in the coming battles. After protests by Dr. McCoy and urging by his new wife, Zar relented and returned to the 23rd century with his father. In the midst of aiding the Guardian, Zar also underwent nerve regeneration treatment, developed by the Vulcan healer Sorel and the human doctor Daniel Corrigan nearly two decades earlier to restore his leg and regain his strength for the coming battle.
By dint of the status he had gained in society in his time period, Zar was treated as a visiting head of state during the weeks he spent onboard the Enterprise; after he mentioned the red turbolift doors on the bridge during his previous visit (the ship had undergone a stem-to-stern refit since that period), the Enterprise crew had the turbolift doors painted red during Zar's stay.
Hoping to prevent Zar's death, Spock went back through the Guardian, taking a lirpa and an ahn woon along with him, only to find Zar in single combat with Rorgan Death-Hand. Though Zar slew the murderous warlord, he was hit in the head from behind by an Asyri soldier, the bloody wound Spock had seen in the Guardian that led him to believe Zar slain; however, he managed to survive with a broken nose and several broken bones. With the Asyri defeated, the Lakreo Valley would enter a period of peace. (TOS - The Yesterday Saga novel: Time for Yesterday)