20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
18. Elements Of Three Other Story Outlines Called “Star Trek II” Made It Into The Movie, Too
Months after Star Trek II/The God Thing, a young writer Roddenberry worked with named Jon Povill took a stab at STAR TREK II, writing a completely new treatment under the same title. Not much from this one makes it into the final film, but it does contain the first mention of a strange “cloud” thing, albeit here it has different properties than the V’ger cloud.
In January of 1976, Povill and Roddenberry finished a collaboration on yet another version of STAR TREK II. This story outline contains the first mention of a Black Hole, which would appear in every single proposal from then on and end up as a reference in Star Trek—The Motion Picture.
Povill and Roddenberry took one more stab at the idea a few months later. Here Spock tries to decipher thought emanations from an immensely powerful alien entity, but “the Entity's thought is too complex even for him.” Shades of his mindmeld with V’ger. Also introduced is the idea of humanity eventually evolving into a higher, non-corporeal life form.