TOS Spock (or Prime Spock) is an epic science officer in the TOS Enterprise crew in Star Trek Fleet Command. This time around, he’s been made an epic officer, in tribute to the great Leonard Nimoy.
And personally, and with all due respect to Zachary Quinto, it’s just amazing to have Spock look like Spock.
Captain’s Maneuver
Live Long – When defending, at the start of each turn, Spock restores the Shield Health to an amount equal to 100% of the health of the Officers on your ship. (Restores the Shield Health of all your ships if the ship is defending the station.)
As should surprise no one, TOS Spock’s captain’s maneuver is a defensive one. Much like his Kelvin Universe counterpart, he gives a bonus to your shields. It’s a smaller bonus (300% for TOS Spock with synergy vs. a maxed Kelvin Spock at 750%.)
Unlike his counterpart, this bonus only applies when defending. So this will be useless when attacking hostiles or mission bosses. But it will be extremely useful in PvP, when you can get players to attack your ship. It’ll be fun to try this out in Territory Capture, where you’re likely to get attacked. Don’t put him on a Sarcophagus though, as they have no shields (in much the same way that Klingons have no tear ducts.)
And you’ll get a big multiplier with TOS Spock in your base, where not only will he restore the shields of the ship he’s on – but he’ll restore the shield health of all the officers on your station.
Officer Ability
Prosper – When fighting players, as long as the ship has Morale, TOS Spock decreases the opponent’s Critical Hit Damage bonus by (50%, 75%, 100%, 125%, 150%.)
So again, this is a dependent ability, so you’ll have to have Morale activated for this to work. Luckly, the new TOS Kirk will also activate morale, but you can also use Kelvin Universe Kirk if you don’t have the New Kirk. (Not this Newkirk.)
And while this will be effective against any player opponent – it’s really going to be a great matchup against an opponent running Khan, and really take the bite out of his massive Critical Hit chances that get bigger and bigger in longer battles.
And in territory capture situations, you should have a better idea of who your opponent is running – so you should be able to match this up better.
TOS Spock Trivia
So I went over the career of the great Leonary Nimoy in my article on Epic Spock, so now I’m going to go into the origins of the character of Spock.
It helps to first of all realize that Gene Rodenberry’s background (as was common among most TV writers in the 60s) was in westerns, so the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock has his origins there. “I made [Spock] a half-caste, because I remember thinking a half-breed Indian would be a lot more interesting than a full-blooded Indian or white, because he’s going to be tugged in many different directions.”
Spock’s pointed ears, which have since come to be viewed with affection, were, at the time, more connected with the devil than anything else. And Rodenberry chose this intentionally.
Said Rodenberry, “I did purposely give him a slight look of the ‘devil’ because I thought that might be particularly provocative to women, particularly when his nature contrasted so greatly to this.”
In the original concept of the show, in 1964, he was to be “half-Martian” and with reddish features. His appearance was supposed to frighten and intimidate viewers.
He was the only character to carry over from the original pilot to the aired series. And this was despite calls from the studio to remove “the guy with the ears.”
While it was always Rodenberry’s plan to have Spock be a cold and unemotional character, Nimoy’s performance in the cage isn’t unemotional at all – but this was a choice of Nimoy’s, to better contrast against Jeffrey Hunter’s quieter performance as Pike.
Obviously, things changed with the… bigger performance of William Shatner as Kirk. And Spock started on his journey to becoming one of the most beloved and recognizable characters in all of American media.