The Vulcan Mister Spock first appeared in the original 1965 Star Trek pilot, "The Cage", shown to studio executives.

Show creator Gene Roddenberry revealed in 1964 that he wanted an alien as part of the ship's crew, but knew that budget restraints would limit make-up choices.

An episode of Enterprise titled "E²" featured an elderly T'Pol in an alternative timeline who had embraced emotion and allowed her half-human son, Lorian, to do likewise.

Picard does, in fact, have tremendous difficulty controlling himself while experiencing Sarek's emotions during the meld, including the ambassador's suppressed loves and hidden regrets.

[23] A mind meld is a technique for sharing thoughts, experiences, memories, and knowledge with another individual, essentially a limited form of telepathy.

Spock even once successfully mind melded with a machine and was able to establish telepathic contact with the space probe V'ger, with silicon-based lifeform, the Horta, and, in another instance, with a humpback whale.

The quad-lobed brain structure of Ferengi make them unable to be telepathically read by other species, and with sufficient training and mental discipline, high-level Cardassian military personnel and/or agents of the Obsidian Order are able to resist mind melds used to extract information.

The ENT Season 4 trilogy of episodes ("The Forge", "Awakening", and "Kir'Shara") reveal some of the history of mind-melding and the journey of the katra of Surak to modern times.

Such was the case with Spock, who, near the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, implanted his katra into the mind of Dr. McCoy before sacrificing his life.

[25][26] Linguist Marc Okrand is credited for creating the Vulcan spoken language for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

The earliest reference to Vulcan names following a set pattern dates back to a May 3, 1966 memo from TOS producer Robert H. Justman to Gene Roddenberry (later reprinted in the book The Making of Star Trek) in which Justman recommended that all Vulcan names begin with "SP" and end with "K", and have exactly five letters.

[30] It is not established whether females have the same option, and T'Pring stated in "Amok Time" that a koon-ut-kal-if-fee challenge was the only way she could legally divorce Spock.

It is customary for Vulcan children to undertake an initiation ordeal known as the "Kahs-wan" (sometimes spelled Kaswahn), in which they are left to fend for themselves in the desert for a specific period of time.

In the TOS episode "The Savage Curtain", Surak explains to Kirk Vulcan's history of violence and the turn to peace that saved their civilization.

The neck pinch itself (referred to in scripts as "FSNP", or "Famous Spock Neck Pinch"[31]) was created by Leonard Nimoy, who objected to a scene in "The Enemy Within", in which a transporter malfunction had divided Kirk between his good and evil selves, that required Spock to render the "evil" Kirk unconscious and subduing him by hitting him over the head with the butt of a phaser.

Nimoy was convinced that such overt violence, in addition to being too similar to that found in many crime dramas of the time, was uncharacteristic of the strictly-logical Spock, and suggested the neck pinch as a less-emotional alternative.

[33] The Vulcan IDIC pendant was designed by Gene Roddenberry as a marketing premium to be sold through mail order to Star Trek fans.

As early as the end of the first season, fans of the show had begun writing the studio asking for copies of the scripts, film clip frames, etc., and these were soon sold through Roddenberry's mail order company, Lincoln Enterprises.

As reported by Inside Star Trek editor Ruth Berman, "ardent rock hound and amateur lapidary" Roddenberry came up with the Vulcan philosophy after he presented Leonard Nimoy with a unique hand-crafted piece of jewelry, a pendant of a polished yellow gold circle and a florentined white gold triangle with a stone of brilliant white fabulite—an artificial gem "developed by the laser industry and used in space mechanisms for its optical qualities", and thus well-suited as a gift for an actor in a science fiction show.

[36] Although its origins are rooted in marketing and sales, the IDIC became a theme writers and set designers have used in most of the Star Trek franchise.

In addition, Commander Tucker's statement in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Home" that Vulcan is "a little over" 16 light years from Earth supports this location, as 40 Eridani A is 16.39 light-years from our own Solar System.

[39] The planet's location is confirmed by a map shown in the Star Trek: Discovery episode "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad".

Vulcans once practiced a form of polytheism; this can be seen in gods of war, peace, and death depicted on the Stone of Gol relic in the TNG episode "Gambit".

The DVD commentary for "Amok Time" says that TOS writer D. C. Fontana named the Vulcan god of death "Shariel", a bust of whom is seen in Spock's quarters.

In the TOS episode "The Savage Curtain", the image of Surak speaks of a time when Vulcan war nearly destroyed them, before logic was embraced as a way of life.

In 1957, the launch of Sputnik I, Earth's first artificial satellite, was observed by a Vulcan vessel that subsequently crashed on the planet, marooning several crew members for a number of months in Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania; the humans were unaware of the alien nature of their guests.

[40] On April 5, 2063, Vulcans and humans made official first contact near the town of Bozeman, Montana, following the successful test of Earth scientist Zefram Cochrane's first warp-capable starship.

It was revealed to viewers that the High Command's illogical and often emotionally based actions were, in reality, the result of covert Romulan influence.

One moment you're as driven by your emotions as Klingons, and the next, you confound us by suddenly embracing logic"Soval also explained that Earth recovered from World War III far more quickly than Vulcan did from its equivalent.

Using his space mining vessel, Narada, Nero created a singularity in Vulcan's planetary core as part of his quest to avenge the destruction of Romulus that Spock failed to save.