10 Things You Didn't Know About How Star Trek Got Started

6. So Now He's Vulcan? What's That? It took most of the first season to establish ground rules about the Vulcan species, culture and home planet. Early on, Spock was called a "Vulcanian." In his first scene with Kirk, he admits that one of his ancestors married a human female, but doesn't mention that the two people in question were his parents. Gradually, we learned the most intriguing fact about Vulcans: They have strong emotions, but they attempt to suppress their feelings and achieve a state of pure logic. This dichotomy created endless dramatic possibilities, but with Spock, it was even better: He's half-human, so he's always at war with himself. Brilliant! The first season introduced us to a couple of unique Vulcan abilities: the mind meld, through which a Vulcan may share consciousness with another being, and the neck pinch, which can instantly incapacitate a person. It wasn't until the second season that a bizarre quirk of Vulcan biology was revealed: The males have to mate every seven years, or they'll die.