|
Career Summary
2149 – Transferred to Vulcan Consulate on Earth
2151 – Assigned as observer on Enterprise NX-01 initially during starship's first mission; opted to remain on board as science officer under command of Captain Jonathan Archer
Profile: Report of Starfleet Diplomatic Relations Office
The Vulcans insisted that T'Pol oversee Enterprise's voyages and refused to supply starcharts unless this demand was met. This is not a position for which T'Pol volunteered. Her skill as a science officer is unquestioned, but working alongside primitive and irrational humans is an ongoing lesson in Vulcan patience. T'Pol and Archer often disagree, but are gradually learning mutual respect.
Biographical Overview
Since the Enterprise crew is new to being members of a larger galactic community, T'Pol finds herself often to be the liaison between the humans and other species.
During her first year aboard the human vessel, T'Pol defied her critics — humans and Vulcans alike — who thought she wouldn't last. She surprised the Enterprise crew on its maiden voyage when Captain Archer was injured and she took command of the ship by continuing the mission he set out to accomplish, rather than simply returning to Earth after the Klingon Klaang was captured by Suliban agents.
Her interactions with Enterprise crewmates were initially filled with disdain and mistrust, from both sides, but through the crucible of working together on various missions, these early rocky relations have improved substantially. Even other Vulcans are surprised that T'Pol can stomach working so closely with humans, since Vulcans find the smell of humans unpleasant. When speaking with a fellow Vulcan during the incident at the Temple of P'Jem, T'Pol said she was able to endure the experience with the aid of a nasal numbing agent.
T'Pol has demonstrated a strong ability to adapt, which is rare in Vulcans — perhaps it is something she's learned from humans. For example, when Captain Archer decided to take an away team to a newly discovered uninhabited Minshara-class planet against T'Pol's precautionary warnings, she ended up being the only crew member on the planet not experiencing hallucinations caused by indigenous pollen in the air. In danger of being assaulted or killed by the affected crew members, she was able to role-play in order to coax a peaceful resolution, something most Vulcans would never do.
Although Vulcan, T'Pol has shown that her allegiances are more aligned with logic and truth; she didn't turn a blind eye when the secret Vulcan surveillance station at P'Jem is revealed and, at Archer's behest, handed over her scanner to the Andorian commandos who seized the temple when their suspicions were proved correct — the Vulcans had indeed been engaging in deception with the Andorians. This incident would have deeper repercussions.
The mistrust humans hold for Vulcans was illustrated when it was discovered that T'Pol was receiving encrypted messages aboard Enterprise. When Commander Trip Tucker decided to secretly learn the contents of these messages, he discovered them to be of a personal nature, posing no threat to the safety of the ship. In fact, the messages pertained to T'Pol's impending arranged marriage to another Vulcan named Koss, a marriage that would have meant the end of her assignment on Enterprise. Tucker, feeling embarrassed by the intrusion of T'Pol's privacy, alerted her to his snooping. While she understood the need for security, she wasn't pleased. However, it did give her someone to discuss the matter with, and while Vulcan tradition dictated she go through with the marriage, she decided not to and remained on board Enterprise. This no doubt put a strain on her family relations and helped to brand her amongst her people as unorthodox, to say the least. This event also helped forge closer ties of trust between T'Pol and the humans aboard Enterprise. Although T'Pol's behavior might seem extremely conservative and cold to them, it is radical when compared to standard Vulcan behavior.
A later incident, in which T'Pol, Ensign Sato and Lt. Reed were stranded aboard an incapacitated Klingon ship sinking into a gas giant, also helped her to develop her relations with fellow officers, helping them to see her as an individual and not merely a representative of Vulcan. This would result in the crew, primarily Captain Archer, coming to her defense and fighting to keep her onboard when the Vulcan High Command decided to pin blame on T'Pol after the Andorians destroyed the Temple at P'Jem with its clandestine spying station.
Shortly after that news arrived and before a scheduled rendezvous with a Vulcan ship to take her off Enterprise, she and Archer were kidnapped by Coridan rebels, and during a rescue attempt by a combined Andorian/Human team, Vulcans tried their own brand of rescue, which threatened to become a bloodbath. When a rebel attempted to kill Sopek, a member of the Vulcan team, T'Pol selflessly put herself in harm's way to save him, resulting in an injury which nearly took her life. This act forced Sopek to take up her cause with the Vulcan High Council, allowing her to remain on Enterprise.
It should also be noted that while T'Pol is unique among Vulcans, she still holds fast to most Vulcan ideology and is the first to be skeptical of any unsubstantiated opinion or theory, such as time travel, which Vulcan science has deemed impossible. When faced with seemingly impossible events that time travel could explain, she stubbornly held out for proof before jumping to conclusions.
Another notable event during her first year aboard Enterprise came when the ship encountered an outcast group of Vulcans who embrace emotions more than most Vulcans, whose wholesale rejection of emotions dominates most of the species. Among these Vulcans was Tolaris, who was attracted to T'Pol and attempted to sway her to his group's way of thinking by means of the Vulcan mind-meld, an ancient and almost forgotten telepathic practice that Tolaris hoped would free T'Pol's emotions.
As a result of the mind meld, combined with T'Pol's abstaining from regular meditation at Tolaris' behest, she began to have dreams and flashbacks to earlier times, such as one time during her assignment at the Vulcan Consulate when she wandered out alone at night and visited a nightclub.
Ultimately, the experience was overwhelming and disturbing to T'Pol, yet Tolaris continued the invasive violation, leaving T'Pol in a weaker state, having opened a door that is difficult for her to close. She was able to emerge from the experience with no permanent damage, but it, combined with the proximity of so many humans, undoubtedly made life for her onboard more difficult.
Ever skeptical of humans' tendency to act impulsively without investigating all avenues of action, T'Pol has, nonetheless, demonstrated that when the situation calls for it, she can think and act outside of standard Vulcan protocols and methods, such as when Enterprise was taken over by strange, large-eared creatures in search of profit. When she deduced that they were enthralled by her feminine traits, she was able to gain the upper hand through more role-playing, something most Vulcans could never have done.
During her first year serving with humans, T'Pol was confronted with an awkward situation when one of her role models, the Vulcan Ambassador V'Lar, came aboard during a tense situation with the Mazarites, when it became clear that V'Lar had committed a criminal act on Mazar. T'Pol and V'Lar had encountered each other years earlier, and the meeting influenced T'Pol greatly over the years, causing the present situation to trouble T'Pol. She was relieved (by Vulcan standards, anyway) when V'Lar was cleared of suspicion and was actually on a covert mission for Vulcan.
In customary Vulcan fashion, T'Pol passed on the chance for some rest and relaxation when Enterprise visited Risa. Instead, she opted to stay onboard and take command while Archer and other crew members vacationed on the planet below.
Her time on Enterprise, in close contact with humans, is significant not only for the historic nature of the service, but as a hint of what the future holds: Collaboration and shared service between races is not only a feasible notion, but can yield results and accomplishments greater than if humans and Vulcans work alone.
| 
